Seth Godin's Blog, page 80

Greatest hits are exhausting

If all you consume is the most-read list, if all you listen to are the hits, if all you eat is the most popular item on the menu—you're missing out.

The web has pushed us to read what everyone else is reading, the hit of the day. But popular isn't the same as important. Popular isn't the same as profound. Popular isn't even the same as useful.

To make something popular, the creator leaves out the hard parts and amps up the crowd-pleasing riffs. To make something popular, the creator knows that she's dumbing things down in exchange for attention.

The songs you love the most, the soundtrack of your life--almost none of them were #1 on the Billboard charts. And the same goes for the books that changed the way you see the world or the lessons that have transformed your life.

Popularity doesn't mean 'best'. It merely means popular.

            

Thinking clearly about quality

There are at least three ways we use the word 'quality' at work:

Quality as defined by Deming and Crosby: Meeting spec.

If you can reliably, and without drama, deliver precisely what you have promised, this is quality. This is what happens when a car, regardless of price, has doors that don't squeak. Or when a website doesn't go down. Or when your dry cleaning is ready on the day it's promised, and your clothes are clean.

When six sigma professionals talk about quality, this is what they mean. Meeting spec.

Quality as defined by Ralph Lauren or Tiffany: The quality of deluxeness.

This is when the clarity of the diamond or the nap of the leather or the speed of the jet is something that most others can't match. This is not just, "you get what you pay for," but also, "you paid a lot."

And finally, there's the quality of right effort, of "I did my best," of the sweat and vulnerability that happens when a human has given it her all.

That TV show or that software that you love: what do you love about it? What about the calculus you put into shopping for a car or a school for your kids? 

A $100 million-dollar movie might have more spectacular special effects or be more carefully edited, but it might not have the quality that you find in an indie film.

When you're doing your work, when you're creating an offering, there's no more important question to answer than, "what sort of quality are we seeking here?"

            

There is no right answer

But there are plenty of wrong ones.

In arithmetic, there's a right answer. And everything else is wrong.

But in the work we do, there are, in fact, plenty of creative, useful, generous answers, answers good enough to embrace and celebrate. In the creative world, there can't be a 'right' answer, because that implies that the answer is correct and exclusive. 

But the wrong answers are clear as well. They are selfish, lack rigor, are short-term when long-term is needed. They're lazy, too expensive, defective or have significant side effects...

By all means, avoid the wrong answers. But don't hold out waiting for the correct one.

            

Do we have a choice?

"Do what I say" vs.
    "Use your best judgment."

"I'm in charge because I have authority" vs.
    "Take responsibility if you care."

"It's simple and easy but ineffective" vs.
    "It's difficult and a bit complex, but you can handle it and it's more likely to work."

"It's the same as last time" vs.
    "This might not work."

"Because I said so" vs.
    "Show your work."

"Here's the kid's menu" vs.
    "Learn to cook."

"Comply" vs.
    "Question."

"Consume" vs.
    "Produce."

"You haven't been picked" vs.
    "It's always your turn."

"You have no choice" vs.
    "It's always up to you, if you care enough."

            

Choosing your spot

It's difficult to find the leverage to make a difference. At your job, there are probably people with more experience than you, more domain knowledge than you, even more skills than you. The same is true about your competition.

But there's one place where you can make your mark: Your attitude.

You can bring more generosity of spirit, more enthusiasm, more kindness, more resilience, more positive energy, more bravery and more magic to the room than anyone else, at least right now. Because you choose to.

That can be what you stand for.

These aren't soft skills. They're real.

            

An overlooked secret to effectiveness (and happiness)

Knowing where 'enough' is.

More might be better for awhile, but sooner or later, it can't always be better. Diminishing returns are the law, not an exception.

If we look to advertisers, marketers, bosses, doctors, partners and suppliers to tell us when we've reached 'enough', we're almost certainly going to get it wrong.

It's okay to stop when you're happy. 

Is more always better? Sometimes, only better is better...

[Chip asked a friend, a professional, how does he know when to stop making things better. His answer, "when my budget runs out," is a sad commentary on how some of us think about 'enough'. It might let you off the hook, but as a professional, isn't the hook where you want to be?]

            

In search of familiarity

Ask someone what they do, and they'll probably talk about where they work. "I work in insurance," or even, "I work for Aetna."

Of course, most of the 47,000 people who work for Aetna don't do anything that's specifically insurance-y. They do security for Building 7, or they answer the phone for someone, or they work in the graphic design department.

Most people have been trained to come to work in search of familiarity and competence. To work with familiar people, doing familiar tasks, getting familiar feedback from a familiar boss. Competence is rewarded, coloring inside the lines is something we were taught in kindergarten.

People will do a bad (a truly noxious) job for a long time because it feels familiar. Legions of people will stick with a dying industry because it feels familiar.

The reason Kodak failed, it turns out, has nothing to do with grand corporate strategy (the people at the top saw it coming), and nothing to do with technology (the scientists and engineers got the early patents in digital cameras). Kodak failed because it was a chemical company and a bureaucracy, filled with people eager to do what they did yesterday.

Change is the unfamiliar.

Change creates incompetence.

In the face of change, the critical questions that leaders must start with are, "Why did people come to work here today? What did they sign up for?"

That's why it's so difficult to change the school system. Not because teachers and administrators don't care (they do!). It's because changing the school system isn't what they signed up for.

The solution is as simple as it is difficult: If you want to build an organization that thrives in change (and on change), hire and train people to do the paradoxical: To discover that the unfamiliar is the comfortable familiar they seek. Skiers like going downhill when it's cold, scuba divers like getting wet. That's their comfortable familiar. Perhaps you and your team can view change the same way.

            

Predicting or inventing...

The most common way to deal with the future is to try to predict it. To be in the right place at the right time with the right skills or investments.

A far more successful and reliable approach is to invent the future. Not all of it, just a little part. But enough to make a difference.

            

Microcopy in the age of the glance

People rarely read to the end. And they almost never spend as much time reading your words as you spend writing them.

Which makes it ironic that the little phrases we use (in designing a simple form, or when we answer the phone) matter so much.

Being gentle, kind or human goes a long way.

Coming across as confident, clear and correct matters as well.

Microcopy is word choice. It's a glimpse of a smile or a slip of impatience.

When you start putting™ trademark symbols in random spots, using extra exclamation points or (this is the biggest one) adopting a false commanding tone and being a jerk in your writing, then you lose us.

We know that you feel like using words like ONLY, NEVER, PERMANENT and NOTICE, but we'd rather hear from someone we like instead.

            

“What about endogeneity?”

Ask this question often.

Several times a day, at least.

Endogeneity is a fancy term for confusing cause and effect. For not being clear about causation and correlation.

It's one reason why smart people make so many mistakes. We think A leads to B, so more A gets more B. While A and B may have been related in the past, though, it's not at all clear that improving A is going to do anything about B.

There is, for example, an extraordinarily high correlation between per capita cheese consumption and the risk of being strangled by your bedsheets while you sleep:

That doesn't mean that eating less cheese is going to help you not die in bed.