Seth Godin's Blog, page 15

The trap of early feedback

We skew our thinking based on the first feedback we get. That’s the moment of maximum fragility, and so our radar is on high alert.

But the math doesn’t hold up, and this high alert can destroy our most important work.

All salt is the same. If you add a cup of salt to your soup recipe, it’s going to ruin it. Continuing to add salt in this quantity to soup is always going to ruin it in the same way, because all salt is alike.

But all people are not alike.

If you’ve created something that will delight and astound 10% of the marketplace, there’s a 90% chance that the first person who encounters your work will dislike it. He might even hate it. In fact, if you do the math, you’ll see that there’s more than a 70% chance that the first THREE people will hate it. And if you give up then, you’ve just walked away from serving the people you set out to serve.

[Consider how much more resilient you might be if the first three people loved it. You might then persist in the face of 100 critics after that, simply because the early reviews were so positive. The order of feedback doesn’t change the ratio, but it certainly feels that way.]

Listening to the right people is a gift, a chance to learn about how to do better. Listening to the wrong people, particularly the early critics, is a trap. If you’re not careful, it can become a place to hide.

            

Workshop updates

Today’s the very best day to sign up for the Business of Food Workshop. It’s being run by the extraordinary entrepreneur and UC Berkeley professor Will Rosenzweig. You can see all the details here, and the first lesson (of ten) begins tomorrow, February 12th.

Participants include the CEO of a regional supermarket chain, leaders from Panera Bread, Nestle, Syngenta and Purple Carrot and most of all, entrepreneurs and ruckus makers from organizations you’ve never heard from (but will). We’ve assembled hundreds of people from around the world who care enough about the food infrastructure to do something about it. (If you visit the site today, click on the green leaf for a bonus).

Even though the lessons haven’t begun yet, we’re seeing engagement levels that are extraordinary, with students embracing the peer-to-peer nature of the Akimbo workshops.

ALSO! I’m thrilled to announce that we’re opening a new session of the Podcast Fellowship at the end of February. You can see details and sign up for more info as of today.

You should have a podcast, and the Fellowship helps you make that real.

            

Hard work

Consider two loading docks at small companies.

At the first, a tractor-trailer filled with heavy boxes shows up. The sole worker on the dock is tasked with unloading the trailer, asap.

He puts on his gloves and begins hauling the boxes, one at a time. He’s manhandling them off the truck and straining to stack them to the side. Eight hours later, he has a strained back, blisters and an empty truck. A day’s work, hard earned.

At the second dock, the sole worker looks at the truck and then heads next door, to the larger company and their foreman, a woman he met on the bus to work last week. “Can I borrow your hand truck and ramp for an hour?” It took guts to ask, he might have been rejected, but his calm manner and ability to connect worked.

An hour later, the truck is empty.

Who worked harder today?

For most of us, hard work is measured in insight, emotional effort, and connection. It’s been a long time since the economy fairly rewarded people based on brawn alone.

And now, consider the third company, where the person at the dock planned ahead and had everything ready as soon as the truck was scheduled to arrive…

Or consider the keyboard workers, one of whom does a repetitive task all day long, and the other who did the labor to find a plug-in or macro that would do it in a few minutes…

            

CNP

As Close as Necessary to Perfect

The thing is, with limitless focus and energy, just about everything can be improved.

That’s not the question.

The question is: Is this thing you’re working on as close to perfect as it needs to be? As close to perfect as your customer demands? As close to perfect as the budget can allow?

It’s not settling to walk away from something that’s CNP. It’s simply a smart allocation of your resources.

[Please don’t forget the opposite: BGE. Which stands for Barely Good Enough. The thing is, BGE rarely is.]

            

Productive choices (which?)

When you’re doing scary creative work, or work that requires emotional labor, it’s natural to want to walk away a bit. To distract yourself. To go shave a yak, mindlessly eat or bother someone in the next cube.

This is the main activity online, actually. People avoiding the real work.

One useful practice is to have forced choices that break up the work but that are also productive. Not fun, that would be a mistake, but productive.

Example: For the next hour, we either need to be developing a brand new strategy for your widget rollout or re-filing forty 1099s. One or the other, switch when you want to. If it gets too scary on the brand side, let’s do some mindless filing.

Or perhaps it’s answering HelpScout requests. Or auditing a specific set of financials.

The key is that it be something both important and unfun.

It’s a no-win situation. Unless you want to think of it as a no-lose situation.

It turns every distraction (in either direction) into a contribution.

            

What if you pretended, just for a little while…

What if you acted as if?

What if you pretended that you were glad to see me, happy to deliver this service, eager for it to be well received?

What if you acted as though you were more charismatic than you feel–more confident, more competent?

What if you demonstrated optimism about what’s about to happen next, even if you’re not sure?

It takes effort, more than most of us can expend day in and day out.

But what if you invested that effort, just for a little while?

It’s entirely possible that acting as if would actually create the very outcome you’re hoping for.

            

Digital peer pressure

“You’re using it wrong.”

That’s how culture develops, of course. That’s why no one uses ALL CAPS IN THEIR EMAIL ANY MORE.

Culture develops online at the speed of light. Every interaction tool comes with peers to interact with, and quickly, those tools establish the norms of interaction.

As a result, there are a ton of rules and more arriving every day. Culture forms around us, then changes and then forms again.

Often, the peer pressure pushes people to fit in, to go along, to become a bystander.

But the digital peer pressure that pushes us to use social media a certain way can also have more positive effects. It can challenge us to understand the details in that Do lecture or to edit a Wikipedia article to make it better. Digital peer pressure can push us to level up.

Some corners of the internet are getting coarser, crueler and dumber. But others, where the social ratchet turns in the other direction, keep getting better.

The simple rule for these communities is:

If you can make things better, do so. 

Independence brings freedom, but also responsibility.

Because good ideas spread faster than ever, there’s an imperative to listen and learn and then to level up. Because we can see further, there’s a responsibility to do something useful on behalf of those we are now aware of. And because we have more leverage than ever before, there’s the obligation to make big promises and then deliver on them.

It’s easy to see peer pressure as a bad thing, something that only delinquents are subject to. If we let it, though, we can use it to push us forward, to make things better.

 

The altMBA is built on the idea of positive digital peer pressure. By surrounding you with people intent on leveling up, we normalize the idea that it’s possible to create better outcomes.

Here’s a brand new short film that shares what we’re up to… Our early application deadline for the upcoming session is tomorrow.

            

Are you being manipulated?

Pundits, politicians, hustlers, unethical marketers, hucksters and grifters seek to manipulate people every day.

Manipulation is pushing for a change that benefits the manipulator, not us. It’s often based on misinformation. Mostly, the test for manipulation is: “if you knew what they know, would you be happy to do what they’re asking?”

It might be something as simple as tricking you into clicking, or as expensive as signing away your house. It might be the daily news cycle or the relentless push to make people feel inadequate or unsafe.

Some simple questions worth asking:

1. How does this announcement/offer/news/pressure make you feel?

2. Is there something about this news that touches a hot button issue or fear? Is the story being told designed to trigger you?

3. Are you surrounded by people who are also engaged with this news? Is it becoming a mob?

4. Is the presenter of the news using external pressure to push you into acting in ways that contradict your self-interest or self-esteem?

5. How would you feel if you discovered that the story you just heard wasn’t actually true?

By the time you’ve asked all five questions, it might be easier to resist what felt irresistible.

            

The business of food

Everybody eats. Every day.

I’m thrilled to announce a new workshop, one that could change the way you work (and have an impact on the rest of us).

There are few products or services with as universal a demand, or where the side effects are so profound. Too often, there’s insufficient access to food, harmful health impacts, inefficient supply chains, and a reliance on petrochemicals–these are problems and these are opportunities as well.

This year, humans will spend more than seven trillion dollars on food. That food will do more than simply keep us alive, it will make us feel alive, change our culture and impact the planet.

The good news is that there’s more leverage than ever before. More power to more people. More chances to make a difference and to make a living doing it.

This is your chance to understand the ecosystem and to actually do something about it.

We’re inviting you to check out our new workshop. The Business of Food is based on one of the most popular courses at the top-ranked Haas business school at UC Berkeley. And it’s taught by the bestselling author, entrepreneur and ruckus maker Will Rosenzweig.

He’s joined by colleagues from the food industry (including Danny Meyer and Alice Waters), as well as a cohort from his Berkeley course.

Here’s a conversation I had with Will a few weeks ago:

This new seminar sits alongside the others that we’re now calling The Akimbo Workshops. More than 50,000 people have been through one of our online courses and seminars, and now we’re inviting experts to lead some new workshops we’re putting together.

The Business of Food Workshop is, like all of our workshops, a chance for you to develop your own point of view, to try out ideas surrounded by people on a similar journey. Our discussion boards are active 24 hours a day, with the typical participant posting more than 100 essays or projects over time.

Will is focused on the big picture, but he has the experience and passion to help you turn that into practical steps you can take as you seek to build something that matters.

Signups begin today, and the first session starts soon. Will’s work is game-changing and we’d like you to be a part of it.

The Business of Food might be a good fit if:

You’re considering an entrepreneurial venture
You work in food policy
You care about the ecosystems around us
You already work in a food-adjacent industry
You’re actively considering making a leap and want to understand the systems thinking that can change our culture and our health for the better.

You can find all the details here. If you click on the green leaf that we hid for blog readers, you’ll save some money on tuition–but the discount decreases every day.

I’m eager to have you check this out–change is happening, and we need your contribution.

            

When you’re over your head

As you gain a reputation for doing projects that work, it’s not unusual for the stakes to go up. For projects to look and feel bigger, with more inputs, more decisions, more pitfalls.

It can be thrilling, but you can also begin to flounder.

Here are two analogies that might help you decode what’s actually going on…

It’s entirely possible that the water is quite deep. The thing is, if you’re used to swimming in water that’s six feet deep, then sixty feet of depth is actually no different. It’s not more dangerous or difficult, it simply feels that way. Giving a speech to 20,000 people isn’t twenty times more difficult than giving one to a thousand.

It’s worth reminding yourself, regularly, that the work hasn’t changed, merely your narrative about the stakes involved.

On the other hand, if you’re used to surfing 6 foot swells and you find yourself on an island in the Indonesian archipelago—where the swells are 25 feet—this is a good moment to sit on the beach for awhile.

Surfing bigger waves is not the same as surfing small waves but with more effort. It’s an entirely different interaction, and it’s not all in your head.

Take a lesson. Take five lessons. Give yourself the room to learn. Don’t jump from 6 to 25 in one day. And don’t assume that just because you’ve figured out how to survive at 25 that you’re ready for 50. Big waves are usually right next to big reefs.

Begin with the question: Is this a deep water problem or a big wave problem?

The internet is filled with deep water moments, and we can get our narrative straight and learn to thrive even when we think the water is too deep.

And our careers often offer us big wave moments. When you see one, don’t walk away right away, but get yourself a coach.