The typical online job site lists millions of jobs. And just about every one of them is a cry for expertise.
From the title to the requirements, companies hire for expertise.
Logic helps us understand that only one out of ten people are in the top 10% when it comes to expertise. And that means that most companies are settling for good enough. If the organization needs people with expertise in the top decile, they’re going to have to pay far more and work far harder to find and retain that sort of skill.
So most companies don’t try. They create jobs that can be done pretty well by people with a typical amount of expertise.
That means that the actual differentiator in just about every job is attitude. From plumbers to carpenters to radiologists to pharmacists, someone with extraordinary soft skills (honesty, commitment, compassion, resilience, enrollment in the journey, empathy, willingness to be coached… the real skills that we actually care about) is going to outperform.
If this is so obviously true, then why don’t organizations hire for attitude and train for expertise?
March 26, 2022
If the original Nike swoosh, on a sheet of paper in a filing cabinet somewhere, disappeared, what would happen to the value of Nike? Or to the way you feel about your sneakers?
If the negative of a famous photo is burned in a fire, or a painting is stolen from a museum, what happens to the symbol it’s related to?
As soon as an object becomes a symbol, the object itself becomes separate from that story. In fact, freeing the symbol from the object gives it more power, and allows it to spread and become ever more relevant.
My town is trying to decide whether or not it should spend millions of dollars preserving a defunct carbon-steel water tower. But whether they preserve it or not, the symbol of the tower remains, and the stories we tell ourselves about place and time remain as well.
Spending the money on education, climate remediation and equity will all make the symbol more powerful than steel restoration ever could.
If you want to turn your object into a more powerful symbol, it might pay to get rid of the object.
March 25, 2022
The origin of the editor’s mark “TK” is murky. It’s what you write when there’s a fact or addition you’re waiting on. Instead of stopping everything, simply type “TK” and you know you can come back and fix it later.
The modern purpose of TK is that there are few words in English that contain these two letters juxtaposed in this way, so it’s super easy to use Word to search your manuscript. (Except for ‘latkes’ and ‘pocketknife.’) But I think it predates search.
The magic of TK is more interesting. The existence of TK means we don’t have to stop and wait for everything to be perfect before we proceed.
If the flooring for the kitchen hasn’t arrived yet, TK and then move on to wallpaper the dining room.
Our lives are filled with TK moments. It’ll come. No need to stop and wait for it.
March 24, 2022
When Betty Crocker (not her real name) first started selling cake mixes, all you had to do was add water. They failed.
But when they changed the recipe and required users to add oil and an egg, sales went up.
Because people like to feel as though they’re cooking. It made the mix an activity that felt like home making.
If you order a high-end table saw (and you should, so you don’t get injured) you might discover that there are a fair number of nuts and bolts to install. For the premium that’s charged, there’s no reason for this–except that assembling the last bit yourself feels worthy.
And you’ve probably guessed the punchline, so I won’t tell it to you. When you assemble it yourself…
March 23, 2022
It’s frustrating for anyone who leads.
If everyone who says that they’re a contributor/member/supporter/fan/long-term customer showed up, huge things would happen.
So we spend a lot of time hustling to get the lurkers to take action. Post again! Create more incentives! Dumb it down! Most of all, focus on creating urgency.
This isn’t how progress actually happens.
The 95% who lurk will almost always lurk. That’s okay.
The place to focus is on the 5%. Because when their persistent, consistent and generous action begins to add up, change happens. And that brings the lurkers along. It might even activate them. They’ll catch up when they need to.
There’s nothing wrong with lurkers. Lurkers are potential action-takers.
For now, though, our focus, our energy and our gratitude is for the people who are already showing up.
March 22, 2022
Is cheaper better?
Is profit the only thing to be maximized?
For its first decade, Federal Express embraced customer service as a marketing tool. They were competing with the postal service, but more than that, they were trying hard to create a habit that turned 25 cent deliveries into $20 deliveries, particularly among businesses.
They answered the phone on the first ring.
They hired people who cared about the customer experience and gave them tools to keep their promises.
They sacrificed short-term profits in order to build a brand promise that people could trust.
Some organizations end up ingraining this ethos deeply into what they do, and stick with it for the long haul. They have a hospitality mindset. Service isn’t simply the tool to make profits–it’s a key part of why you’re here in the first place.
In the last decade, Fedex (simply to pick a familiar example, they’re by no means unique) decided to take a different path.
They don’t answer the phone easily. When they do, they box their low-paid workers in with scripts and policies that leave little room for human engagement. They remove less profitable dropboxes, and shorten the hours they do pickups. When a package goes awry, they do little to repair the broken trust it creates. I’m sure a McKinsey consultant ran the numbers on all of these changes.
All of these steps add up to slightly more profit in the short run. And, perhaps, over time, people who really care (the difficult customers?) switch to another provider. But the real cost here is to their people, their mission and the culture they seek to build.
Hospitality is a choice, not simply a tactic.
It’s possible to build an organization that does work you’re proud of, surrounded by people who feel the same way. People who care, solving problems and creating connection.
March 21, 2022
Do you remember all the elements you didn’t used to notice?
It might be the way you see typography now, or the tuning of an orchestra. Or the alignment in the mouldings of a house you’re inspecting or the way an engine sounds… (or whether you put a ‘u’ in moulding)
Expertise is about learning new ways to notice.
Often, once we learn to see, we assume we’ve always known. And that allows us to believe that the things we can’t see, we’ll never be able to see.
But it doesn’t work that way unless we get complacent.
There’s always something just below the surface, the elements that most people simply don’t notice. But we can if we choose.
March 20, 2022
Lock-in persists. That’s why it’s so valued by monopolists, tyrants and cults.
The ability to speak up always creates inefficiency. It’s easier to just shut up and drive. Or be driven.
But the ability to speak up is a self-cleaning algorithm. Our freedom to move on, to criticize and to suggest creates the conditions for the system to improve.
It’s tempting to sign up for the one with lock-in. It often comes with bonuses, inducements and the promises of efficiency and dominance.
But it’s not resilient. When the world changes, and it always does, open systems are far less brittle than their shiny counterparts.
March 19, 2022
Whenever there’s a speculative bubble going on (or a cultural one, for that matter) life inside the bubble seems rational and normal.
And so artists at Miami:Basel are talking about minting NFTs. Not because they understand them (they don’t) or because they provide actual utility (they don’t) but because that’s what life is like inside of this particular speculative bubble.
And people outside the bubble are supposed to feel left behind, because that’s part of the fuel of life inside the bubble.
When a corporate culture begins to get insular, or a community starts acting like a cult, the same thing happens.
Culture is “the way we do things around here.” The very nature of a bubble is that there’s an inside and an outside, an expanding reality-distortion field that assures people inside the bubble that they’re doing things that are rational and normal.
If you’re confident that the bubble is here for the long-term, perhaps we shouldn’t hesitate to play along.
But when the bubble bursts (and speculative bubbles always do), be prepared for reality to disagree with your assertions.
“Art does not lie down on the bed that is made for it; it runs away as soon as one says its name; it loves to be incognito. Its best moments are when it forgets what it is called.” –Jean Dubuffet
March 18, 2022
If today was a holiday in your honor, what would it be about?
If we had to examine everything about you, your work, your impact, your reputation–what would be the positive caricature we would draw? What sorts of slogans, banners and greetings would we use to celebrate you and your work?
It’s never accurate to boil down an organization or a person’s work to a simple sentence or two, but we do it anyway.
What’s yours?
March 17, 2022
