What is this life?

Leisure, by W. H. Davies

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

7 Reasons for lack of self-knowledge

1. Fear of Failure
2. Clinging to one's comfort zone
3. Arrogance
4. Defensiveness
5. Impatience
6. Rigid mindset
7. Lack of perspective

From Pablo Cardona and Helen Wilkinson's book "Growing as a Leader".

Have a great weekend.

Beware of Experts

Experts get it wrong.

The price we pay in trusting experts to take the important decisions for us is huge.

We don't like uncertainty.  Experts give us a sense of certainty.
I don't know what to do with my savings.  I go to a financial "expert".  He tells me what to do.  I hand it over to him.  He loses it all in the property crash.

I feel sick and I go to the doctor.  He takes my temperature, looks in my throat, tells me to say "ahh" and then he sits down and writes out a prescription.  I feel good to "know" that the expert doctor "knows" what is causing my symptoms.

He doesn't.  I have learnt to trust the white coats, the diplomas on the walls.  He has learnt to pretend.  He means well, but a system as complex as the human body cannot be diagnosed with temperature and a look in the throat.  Sometimes he is right.  Often he just prescribed some generic drug that seemed to work for the last case that looked like my symptoms.

Be aware of False Certainty.  
We love the feeling of certainty that experts give. It is a false sense of certainty.

I am not saying "don't go to doctors".  I am not saying "don't get financial advice".

I am saying go to the doctor but take his opinion as another input into your own decision making about treatment.  Ask questions.  Ask "what are you seeing?  what are you thinking?  what other things might cause that?  what other options are you considering?"


Experts are more hero-worshiping than others. 
Global warming, Financial investments: the “expert” has a vested interest in supporting the status-quo.  Experts' power comes from the status quo, the accepted viewpoint.  Experts are less likely to question global warming science, year 2000, property bubbles, inflation estimates than those who are not experts.  Their egos are tied up in their status in the existing status quo.  They fear that changing.

Accept uncertainty as life.  Ask better questions.  Allow yourself permission to not agree.

Easy and Certain

Seth Godin's blog post today is Easy and Certain.

The lottery is easy.  It is not certain, but it is easy.

Many choose an MBA because it feels certain.  It is not easy, but it feels certain.  Once you've got the diploma on the wall...  success is inevitable...

There is a spanish word "chollo".  "Un chollo" is a something valuable that you achieve for little cost.  

The danger of searching for the Chollo
There is a story about Toyota.  Back in the 1980s they implemented an employee suggestion scheme.  It was left to each country to decide how to motivate employees to provide improvement ideas.

Toyota USA rewarded outcomes
In the US, the senior management debated and discussed.  They decided they would offer employees 2% of the total value of the suggestion once implemented.  Wow.  This could be big bucks!  2% of a suggestion that cuts $1M in cost from the production line?  Take home $20,000.  Nice.

The employees liked this idea and spent hours thinking about big changes, big suggestions.  On average Toyota USA received 2 suggestions per employee, and about 10% were implemented.  I don't know what the total value of these changes were.

Toyota Japan rewarded process
In Japan, the senior management debated and discussed.  They decided they would offer employees a straight up-front payment of $50 for every suggestion.

Employees liked this concept.  They didn't spend too much time thinking, but identified lots of little, incremental, simple changes that steadily improved performance in the factories.  On average Toyota Japan received 50 suggestions per employee, and about 60% were implemented.

18 months later the performance at Japanese factories had increased so dramatically that they took all the changes and began to implement them around the world, and in the USA.

What happened?  The Japanese employees were looking for simple little suggestions that made life 1% easier.  The Americans were looking for the chollos: the big value suggestions.

Incremental improvement always wins in the long run.

Excellent Pottery design
A story from Derek Siver goes that a ceramics teacher told half the class that they would be graded on the total weight of pottery they created during the term; the other half of the class was told they would be graded on one piece of pottery.  The weight students produced pot after pot after pot; experiments, prototypes, random ideas, and some magnificent pieces.  The quality students spend a lot of time talking about concepts, thinking through ideas, developing a plan...  and waited til near the end to actually get their hands on some clay.  All of the best pots came from the weight-graded half of the class.

Incremental improvement always wins in the long run.

Could you set up an online business that earns you €50 per month?  Could you import a product and find stores to stock it that gave you €50 a month?  Could you write an eBook on "how to develop a career in your industry" and sell 10 a month at €5 per download?

In your life are you looking to add 1% per month or are you looking for the chollo?  Warning: chollos almost never come...  even to win the lottery you have to do some work: buy the ticket, check the ticket, file your claim...

Spend as much time describing the problem as you do outlining the solution.

I was thinking about why presentations fail today.  Why do so many great ideas fail at the presentation stage?  Business plan presentations, entrepreneur pitches, Sales presentations?  Why do they fail?

There are many reasons: failure to prepare (deliberate practice), failure to clarify what you want from the audience, failure to make the material relevant to the audience, failure to engage the audience, failure to structure your content for the audience, failure to close with a request to act.

These are obvious.

However, there is a simple flaw that I see in even the most prepared and clear presentations: a rush to describe the solution.

This is a difficult thing to overcome.  I see my version of the world clearly, and it is hard to imagine that another can't see the problem in the same clear way that I see it.  They don't.  They have their own challenges and ideas and dreams.

Spend as much time describing the problem as you do outlining the solution.

I fail here.  I assume quickly that the audience sees the world that I see...  and I rush into describing the better world that could exist.  I jump quickly to describing the solution.  But I see the audience frustrated.

Why?

I haven't helped them see the world as I see it.  I haven't helped them see what I am seeing.  I rushed into describing my dream before the audience understands where I am coming from.

Neil Rackham in SPIN Selling tells us that in big ticket sales (more than €100 or $100), your job is not to sell the person in front of you on the benefits of your solution...  your job is to train the person in front of you to explain (sell) your solution to other people in the company.  The most important aspect here is to help her explain the problem to her peers, bosses, advisors, board.

Spend as much time describing the problem as you do outlining the solution.

Business Strategy: How to do Business Models

Alex Osterwalder has a highly visual and engaging way to  think about business models.  The presentation below explains his simple and pragmatic way to map, analyze, design and question your business model.

The 9 elements of a Business Model

• Customer Segments
• Customer Relationships
• Value Propositions
• Channels
• Revenue Streams
• Key Resources
• Key Activities
• Key Partners
• Cost Structure

The introduction to the model is available as a free pdf from Amazon: Are you an entrepreneurial spirit?

Resources and free downloads at BusinessModelGeneration.com

Self Sabotage

We know what to do to achieve what we want.

We could make a list of the steps.  We could do each of the steps.

But we don't.

Some people do.  But most don't.  I include myself.

Why don't we do what we know we need to do to achieve the things that we feel we want?

Why do we self sabotage?

It is because we don't feel we deserve to achieve.

A great resource
Peter Shallard is the "shrink for entrepreneurs".  He has a great blog.  He has a free eBook that identifies and gives practical steps to overcome the 10 obstacles that hold us back from succeeding.

Book Review: Double Double by Cameron Herold

I met Cameron Herold at an Entrepreneurs’ Organisation meeting in Vancouver, Canada two years ago. He gave a keynote session to the group. He was passionate… and he left me with practical tools that I took home and implemented. It is rare to find this combination. Cameron delivers. He clearly has a passion to see other entrepreneurs succeed, and a determination to develop and deliver practical tools that make a difference.

Cameron has written a new book which shares his experiences in building his own businesses, and in being a coach to dozens of companies and hundreds of high growth entrepreneurs all around the world.

He has a free flowing writing style, easy to read and packed full of practical examples. This is a book written from experience. These are tools that have been developed through hard interaction with the real world of business.

You can download a pdf of the first chapter at Cameron's website for the book.

I read the book about 3 weeks ago. Some of the highlights for me are the examples and practical tips that Cameron shares on:

• Surviving the Entrepreneurial Rollercoaster (the four stages of entrepreneurial emotion)
• Know where you are going: The Painted Picture
• Reverse Engineer your Goals
• Recruit and lead great People
• Create a winning Culture
• Get PR for your business at no cost
• Get personally productive
• Make your work-life balance
• Attract an Advisory Board

You can get a sense of Cameron's passion and style in his TED talk (video on the blog here).



Have a great day.  Here is a link to the book Double Double at Amazon.

The 5 Cardinal Sins of Presentations

Jerry Weissman, in Presenting to Win, says that there are 5 Cardinal Sins in Presentations:

1. No clear point - the audience leaves wondering what it was all about. "What was the point?"
2. No audience benefit - the audience doesn't see how they can benefit. "So what?"
3. No clear flow - the sequence of ideas is so confusing that it leaves the audience behind. "How did he get there?"
4. Too detailed - so many facts are presented that the main point is hidden. "What is that all about?"
5. Too long - the audience loses focus and gets bored. "What's on at the cinema tonight?"

...but...  there is something worse than these 5 cardinal sins...

Painful

Something so painful that we should all work to put an end to this cruelty.

Agonizing

Something so agonizing for audiences that some decide to give up on the corporate life rather than have to face another day of meetings with this type of presentation.

Medieval torture

Something so unfailingly bad that medieval torture techniques are too light to punish the inflictors.

It is the Data Dump presentation.

The Data Dump presentation

The data dump is an excessive, meaningless, shapeless outpouring of data without purpose or plan, with not one single moment's thought from the presenter about the existence of a listener, a human being with a life, needs, goals, dreams...  

Never do a Data Dump again

Watch this video.  "The most important thing a speaker can do".  Clarify your Communication Objective.

How to clarify your communication objective:
In my classes on communication at IESE I start by making every student define their objective prior to starting to prepare any communication. This might sound too basic to be important, but I can guarantee that more failure in communication occurs because the requester really has not clarified what they want and thought about whether it is realistic to expect.

The Most Important 8 Words in Speaking:
Finish this sentence: "When I have finished speaking the listener will _________________"

The sentence must be completed with an active verb. "meet on thursday", "phone me immediately", "vote for me", "visit my web site" are all active. "understand more about the situation" is not active. Most communication fails at this step - lack of clarity of the realistic, do-able, specific next action that will move you closer to your overall objective.

When you write this sentence, it will force you to think about the audience.  What do they need to know, feel and believe in order to take this action?  This immediately puts you in their point of view and clarifies what is important.

Please.  No more Data Dump Presentations.

How to tell if you have a good idea

Greg Digneo of Cloud Marketing Lab wrote a beautifully simple explanation over at Triiibes of how to test an idea before you spend any money building.  Even "small" ideas like hosting a webinar or writing a short/free ebook to give away on your blog can be tested even before putting time into creating it.

Here's what Greg does:

1. Use Unbounce to create a simple landing page. You are trying to get the idea tested as quickly as possible, not creating a landing page work of art.  Basic templates work fine.  (no affiliation with unbounce, just like their product).  You get 30 days for free which is more than enough time to test your idea.
2. Marketing to consumers? Buy Facebook ads.  They generally cost less than $1.00 per click. Marketing to a specific business function?   Use Linkedin ads.  They generally cost around $3.00 per click.
3. Test and tweak the ads and the landing page for about a week. Include weekends. You'd be surprised at how much activity happens on a Saturday and Sunday.
4. If there is enough interest in that week, then implement the idea.  If not, then you've wasted a few bucks (learnt a lesson) and not ploughed a lot of time into something that no one wants.

Test an idea.  Surely you have one?  Try it.  Nothing to lose.  Maybe a big gain.
Have a great weekend - and do some cheap tests of your ideas before you spend any time writing business plan, developing code, doing UI design.  Please.  Only Kevin Costner can do "Build it and They will Come".

Thanks to Greg for sharing these simple steps.

The 6 Moments of Power. Do you use them?

Professor Robert Cialdini in his book “Influence: The Science of Persuasion” outlines six principles of ethical persuasion: reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency.

1. Reciprocation - People tend to return a favor. Thus, the pervasiveness of free samples in marketing. In his conferences, Cialdini often uses the example of Ethiopia providing thousands of dollars in humanitarian aid to Mexico just after the 1985 earthquake, despite Ethiopia suffering from a crippling famine and civil war at the time. Ethiopia had been reciprocating for the diplomatic support Mexico provided when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1937.
2. Commitment and Consistency - If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment. Even if the original incentive or motivation is removed after they have already agreed, they will continue to honor the agreement. For example, in car sales, suddenly raising the price at the last moment works because the buyer has already decided to buy. See cognitive dissonance.
3. Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing. For example, in one experiment, one or more confederates would look up into the sky; bystanders would then look up into the sky to see what they were seeing. At one point this experiment aborted, as so many people were looking up that they stopped traffic. See conformity, and the Asch conformity experiments.
4. Authority - People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform objectionable acts. Cialdini cites incidents, such as the Milgram experiments in the early 1960s and the My Lai massacre.
5. Liking - People are easily persuaded by other people that they like. Cialdini cites the marketing of Tupperware in what might now be called viral marketing. People were more likely to buy if they liked the person selling it to them. Some of the many biases favoring more attractive people are discussed. See physical attractiveness stereotype.
6. Scarcity - Perceived scarcity will generate demand. For example, saying offers are available for a "limited time only" encourages sales.

Are you using your Power?
If your idea is scarce or has a limited window to act - do you tell your listener?  Do you help others out before asking for their help?  Do you look for hobbies or interests in common to establish a bond of liking before making your requests?  Is is good to use these moments of power?  Is it lazy to waste these moments as they naturally come up in your life?  What do you think?

2 nights of great football
Manchester United vs FC Barcelona...  My two favourite teams in the footballing world are through to the final of the Champions League...  it will be tough to decide where my heart lies ;-)

How to stop good ideas from being shot down

Jeffrey Pfeffer says that there are 4 ways that good ideas get shot down:

1. Confusion - "yes, but how does that address US foreign policy and the social responsibility charter and the challenges of globalisation...  and the new tax situation?"
2. Fear mongering - "uff... this will be like X back in 2008 when it all went wrong"
3. Death by delays - task forces, committees: "let's set up a task force to assess the merits of this idea"
4. Ridicule - personal attack on your credibility 

How to get your idea through:

• Don’t avoid the lions - make sure the critics are in the room, on the cc - gunfire draws attention. If nobody disagrees with you, you are either too much of a dictator, or your idea is too bland.  You don't stand for anything if you don't cause a negative reaction in some people.  Apple has its haters, they don't try to please everyone.  
• Keep it simple - don’t let yourself be pulled into minute implementation details that cloud the big picture. It is your job to keep the conversations focused on the important criteria.  
• Treat people with respect - even when you are angry and defensive. You look more statesmanlike vs the bullies. Trust that the motives of the critic might have reason.  Develop an ability to not directly react to confrontation.
• Understand "ego" - people will never want to accept that they are wrong.  Don't put them in a position where they have to accept that they were wrong.  The best line of argument is "2 years ago you took the best decision based on the available information; but, something has changed.  I ask you to revisit the decision with this newly available information".
• Watch all the audience - include all the people in the room, not just critics and supporters.  It may be through one-on-one meetings, phone calls, distribution of reading materials.
• Preparation - don’t wing it.  The words you are comfortable with, may not be the words that help the listener see what they need to see.  What do they need to know, feel and believe?  Too many people fail because they speak what they think is important, not what the audience believes is important.  Comfortable is not effective.  

How do you promote your ideas in your family, work, school, charity?  Do you risk having your best ideas shot down because you just "put them out there"?

On perspective. It may be good, it may be bad...

A peasant farmer lives on the outskirts of a village with his family.

He comes into the village one day and is visibly disturbed. He speaks to the wise man of the village: “My horse has run away with the wild horses. I have lost my horse. This is terrible.”

The wise man says “It may be good, it may be bad.”

The next day the peasant farmer returns to the center of the village. This time he looks happy. He speaks again “My horse has returned and has brought two extra wild horses back with him. This is wonderful.”

The wise man says “It may be good, it may be bad.”

The next day the peasant farmer returns. He is clearly shaken. “My son was riding one of the wild horses. He has fallen and has broken his leg. This is awful.”

The wise man says “It may be good, it may be bad.”

The next day the peasant farmer is back. He is calm. “The army came looking for recruits for the war. They came to my house. They wanted my son. They saw that his leg was broken and they were not able to take him away to war. I am so lucky.”

The wise man says “It may be good, it may be bad.”