Rishad Tobaccowala's Blog, page 3

Chances. Changes. Choices.

In many ways a life or a career is the aggregation and summation of choices made, chances given and taken, and changes navigated.

Chances.

Chance drives much of life, beginning at birth.

Who we are born to, and the country we are born in, drives so many of the contours of our life and what we can become.

Being born to loving parents who are financially secure in a developed or rapidly developing country is a stroke of great luck which we often do not appreciate since the opportunities are greater and obstacles far fewer than someone born to struggling parents in an impoverished or war-torn nation.

Chances then adorn all of life in the chance meeting, the people who take chances on us and the chances given.

But as importantly the chances taken whether it be moving to a new place, betting on a new job, and taking risks.

And if we are fortunate life also is about chances we give.

The helping hand, the forgiveness provided, the small investment, the life changing advice and the risky hire.

Changes.

Change is life.

Everything changes and nothing stays the same.

Economies bloom and burst. New leaders come and go. Health fluctuates. Relationships thrive and wither. Technology enables and disrupts. Great misfortune and loss are interwoven with unexpected windfalls and victories.

Navigating change is often both facing its reality and learning that how we adapt and respond to change and changing times determines its impact on our lives and the future more than the change itself.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote, “there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes is so”

Choices.

“The difficulty in life is the choice” George Moore.

The choices we make are often determined by chance and change but unlike chance and change tend to be more under our control.

Because chance and change constantly offer us the option or sometime force us to make choices.

And choosing is not easy particularly since the future is unknowable and only as time unfurls will it be clear which choice among many was the ideal.

While every choice impacts us the three biggest choices tend to be a) what we do for a living, b) who we decide to spend our lives with and c) where we decide to live.

Career. Home. Partner.

These are not necessarily one-time choices which since we can change careers, where we live and who are partners are, but these seem to be the most important ones and its probably the ones we should spend the most times mulling.

And we humans even if we make the right choices we wonder if we did.

The job not taken, the person not pursued, the place not moved to. We often think life might have been even better if we had made other choices often forgetting it might have been much worse.

A good exercise in self-reflection is to think about the biggest changes, chances and choices we have had to deal with or had to make and what we have learned from those.

Since as long as we live, we will have to deal with chances, changes and choices.

Exit.

Exits are as important as entrances.

We are told first impressions are important.

They are, but so are are endings.

Here is a perspective on three types of exits. 

Exiting Careers. Exit Economics. Exiting Existence.

1. Exiting Careers.

“Every career has a midnight hour. The smart people exit at five to twelve” Sanjay Khosla ( Executive Coach and Advisor. Former President of Kraft Developing Markets.)

Elegant exits particularly at senior levels are unfortunately too rare, leaving both the Individual and the Company diminished.

The individual loses since a career transition not handled well can stain a reputation and leave a residue of ill will towards an institution where many years of one’s life has been dedicated.

The company loses because instead of having advocates among an influential diaspora of senior talent one may end up with hecklers and detractors. Also, senior colleagues and direct reports of the departed employee can feel less loyal to the company.

It behooves both the individual and the firm to anticipate, plan and manage for the midnight hour whenever possible.

Done correctly it can provide significant advantages to both sides. The company can often retain access to the wisdom and knowledge and good will of the departing employee and the individual benefits from a positive departure, continued access to their friends and network and often Career 2.0 opportunities and support.

Every company should develop a plan to ensure that Exits are done right particularly given both aging demographics and the increasing flexibility that companies need to to connect and leverage a diaspora of talent without carrying heavy fixed costs.

2. Exit Economics.

Every year you should call your cable company and telecommunications provider and ask if they can give you a better deal. You do not need to threaten to leave but just ask politely. Chances are you will get a combination of higher speeds, removal of data caps, free channels, upgraded modems and cable boxes and other goodies usually at the same or lower cost.

You rarely have to use the three magic phrases:

a) “Considering cutting the cord”

b) “Read about a T-Mobile offer…”

c) “Why am I paying so much to rent this old equipment?”

Then call your financial institutions and you will enjoy eradication of some fees, lower rates of interest, higher multiples on loyalty rewards and other garnishments.

And for anybody you do business with if you need to find yourself not needing to find the right support or service person (automated and hidden contact numbers anyone?) just press the option that says you want to exit. And presto you have a Manager on the line!

Why do so many companies that wax poetic about customer lifetime value and the importance of retention rarely reach out to reward their most loyal customers?

Why do so many service businesses not surprise and reward their best clients with ideas, insights and imagination every six months but only do this when clients threaten an exit or in attracting new clients?

As more and more companies are trying to move from a transaction to membership model focusing on recurring revenue it will grow more important to focus on the happy bird in the hand than the one in the bush or the one wishing to fly away.

We should take a little time off from cross-selling, up-selling and treating each customer as a cow whose udder we squeeze to maximize a bottom line while whispering rote love and loyalty messages into their ears.

How about feeding them some hay instead once in a while?

Every six months (in some cases more often and in some cases less often but at least once a year) surprise your best customers with gifts, offers, insights and rewards without them asking.

This is the economics that prevent their exit rather than spending millions getting them to change their minds once they have determined to exit!

3. Exiting Existence.

Franz Kafka wrote “The meaning of life is that it stops”

And most of us can calculate the robust and healthy days left if we are lucky by subtracting our age from 80 (around which much begins to go wrong physically and sometimes also one may see a diminishment in mental faculties leading to a much more constrained life) and multiplying it by 365 days.

If you are 60 you have less than 7500 days. If you are 40 you have 15,000 days.

So, when someone asks you to do things without some form of fair compensation (it does not have to be money but could be learning, experience or the joy of helping) or does not respect your time, do remember you are the one paying for their dis-respect and their cheap valuation of your life!

Once you incorporate the reality of your and everybody else’s finiteness into your thinking, you are much less likely to take crap from those who dole it out and much more likely to appreciate those who are kind and respectful.

And notice the wonder of everyday life around you.

As the Philosophers and Songwriters remind us:

It is essential to know what is important before it is too late.

The Garden Inside.

Art by Uta Barth

The World Is Too Much With Us.

The opening lines of “The World is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Today we are buffeted by a tsunami of external drama which keeps us unmoored.

This in addition to an algorithmically optimized drip drip drug flow of attention hungry engagement orifices seek to bend us to look here, look there, feel this and feel that.

The outside world is often too much with us.

But it is in internal changes where the meaning lies.

Looking is not the same as seeing.

A few years ago an exhibit at The Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago featured the work of a Los Angles artist named Uta Barth.

Ms Barth leverages photography in a novel way to get you to both see what you may not have seen but as importantly to make you forget what you are looking at but be aware of the resultant feeling.

Her work which can be simple as conveying the feeling of light on a curtain or a shadow on a kitchen wall is inspired by a line from Robert Irwin which goes…“Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees”.

We often look but do we see?

The Garden Inside

Have always enjoyed parks and gardens and am lucky to live by the lakefront in Chicago which is adorned with parks. These are great spaces to reflect, refresh and repair, particularly in these drama filled times.

One of the parks in Chicago—Lurie Garden in Millenium Park— has been designed by Pier Oudolf who is considered among the greatest Landscape Designers in the World (he also landscape designed the High Line in New York). His books are filled with breathtaking foliage that integrate and blend into nature likes works of art.

But there is one garden that may stand above them all

In the Charlevoix region of Quebec there lies a private garden which covers more than 20 acres and is called Les Quatre Vents ( The Four Winds). It is considered amongst the finest private gardens in the world ( it is opened a few times a year to the public).

The garden was created by one person, Francis Cabot, as his life work that blends creativity and passion and it is simply the most breathtaking places one can imagine.

Francis Cabot believed that Gardens are like art and have the power to change you. And unlike other art, which may affect you differently over time, because you have changed over time, a garden is itself always changing. Francis designed his Garden to lift the soul of people who walked through it.

He wanted you to come out different after the experience.

Cabot has sculpted, designed and tended a variety of different types of structures and styles —a total of 24 different experiences—including a Japanese garden, a French Pigeonnier – pigeonnier is French for both pigeon coop and pigeonhole – and integrated water ways and a variety of bridges all using natural materials from place of origin. The Japanese tea house was built by Japanese artists using wood from Japan that was aged for years.

Here is a peek at Les Quatre Vents…

There is an amazing book called “The Greater Perfection” filled with pictures and Francis Cabot explaining his life’s work, which I would recommend to everyone if it were affordable and easily available.

Doctors would prescribe it would for the soul.

However, there is a wonderful movie on Francis Cabot called “The Gardener” which is available for free on Amazon if you are a prime member. Take a look at this two minute trailer and it alone should lift you and calm you down.

One prescription for the pressures and challenges we face is to take a walk in a garden.

Regardless, it is key to remind ourselves of Francis Cabot’s belief that every individual is creative and we have a garden within ourselves that we need to tend to so that we can bloom…

4 Keys to Leading Today.

Companies with a disproportionate share of talent passionately aligned against a common goal usually are the ones that grows faster, create great economic value and attract and retain customers and clients for the long run.

This alchemy of wealth, value and alignment is often created by the wizardry of leaders.

Leadership has never been as important today in a world in midst of great transformation.

In the end great leadership come down these four components:

Leaders acknowledge, face and communicate reality.

People admire and respect people and not titles since titles are bestowed while leadership is earned.

The five characteristics of great leaders are capability, integrity, empathy, vulnerability and inspiration.

Great leaders scale their talents by creating a fabric of great culture.

1. Reality.

A key to leadership is to solve challenges and address problems. This requires confronting issues versus looking away or hoping some form of magical thinking will make them go away.

One cannot hope to get people to follow us if they suspect we are not addressing real issues and challenges however difficult they may be.

Great leaders ensure they never set themselves for self-defeat.

They do this by constantly taking temperature of the marketplace, anticipating opposing points of view and paying close attention to underdogs and outliers who might change the rules of the game.

They focus on future competitive advantage and not yesterday’s game.

2. Respectful Admiration.

Without the hearts and minds of one’s team one is not a leader but a ruler.

Rulers leverage fear, project power and exploit insecurity.

Employees genuflect, fall in line, salute and pander to the hollow and bloated boss, while they silently seethe, plot insurrection or practice defection.

All rulers fall and increasingly they are failing and falling faster as they flail and rail with great cacophony.

But facts are stubborn things.

Reality has a habit of breaking in.

Gravity does not care if you tweet that it is fake.

It kills those who step off cliffs and tall buildings.

Leaders on the other hand are respected and admired both for their operating and strategic skills but they earn the most important currency of the time that allows them to buy time and alignment in changing times.

The currency of trust.

3. Five Characteristic of Leaders.

a) Capability: To be a leader you have to be capable in your field of work or craft. You have to know your shit. You have to keep improving your skill. Doctors will not listen doctors who are not great at medicine. A creative will not respect someone whose body of work they do not admire.

b) Integrity: Can one be trusted? Are we transparent about the ingredients of our decision making. Does one look for opposing evidence and use real facts ?

c) Empathy: Leaders can see from other points of view and they understand that employees are people and work is but a sliver of their being. They understand and they listen. They care. They do this both for employees and for customers.

d) Vulnerability: Great leaders acknowledge mistakes. They know they do not have all the answers. This means they are open to criticism and correction and they surround themselves with skill sets that offset and balance their areas of weakness.

e) Inspiration: How do leaders face and acknowledge reality and hard truth but still get people to unite, align and take the challenges head on? They do so by recognizing that people choose with their hearts and not their minds. They inspire through a combination of personal example and storytelling.

4. Culture.

It has been said that “culture eats strategy” and often when companies decay (Boeing) or resurrect ( Microsoft) or have distinctly different outcomes in the same industry ( Delta vs most other airlines) a key determinant is the culture. What it is like, how it is improving or how it is getting worse.

The culture of an organization is revealed in how people behave when no one is looking or monitoring their behavior.

Culture is about the relationships, mindsets and goals of people and not a place, a program or an operating manual. It is something leaders set, correct and support, but culture is how leaders treat people and how people feel about themselves, their company and their colleagues.

Companies with great cultures tend to have employees who feel most of the following about their jobs and companies:

Fair/ Good Compensation: If people are not paid adequately or fairly it really hard to have a good culture.

Recognition: Great cultures recognize contributors and leaders do not step into their teams video stealing credit.

Autonomy: People are trusted to deliver with limited monitoring and can access resources to do so.

Purpose: They believe in the purpose and values of the company and see the role of their company beyond that of just profit but doing good for society or community.

Growth: The company is growing, has a plan for growth or even if static, the individual is growing and teams are growing by being given opportunities to learn and build new skills. The focus is on multiplying versus dividing.

Connectedness: People feel connected to each other and to their leadership. They feel free to speak up and share and even joke.

While some leaders today may disappoint there are many many amazing leaders across all aspects of business, education and government who we can all learn from by paying as much attention to those who lift us up versus those who bring us down.

Think like an Immigrant.

On March 19, during a closing keynote of the Adtech Economic Forum at the Times Center in New York, I was asked to summarize and build on the thoughts of all of the other speakers from the Angel Investing, Venture Capital, Private Equity, Corporate Strategics and Hedge Fund businesses who invest in Advertising and Marketing Technologies.

Every speaker mentioned the dramatic changes taking place in the marketing and investing eco-system driven by marketplace, financial, political and technological disruptions and the challenges and opportunities of operating in such an environment.

It seems to be a revolutionary time and many existing business models and past assumptions are at risk and the speed of change seems to be accelerating.

Summarizing their thinking, I suggested that in order to thrive we all learn to…

Think like an Immigrant.

World class leaders and companies rarely get defeated.

They decide to defeat themselves by a) not taking emerging competitors with new models seriously, b) paying scant attention to underdogs with fewer resource and different approaches, and/or c) by refusing to align with the forces of the future.

We can all learn from immigrants.

a) Immigrants often think like outsiders.

Individuals and companies that thrive over the long run view their business from external perspectives and not just internal perspectives.

They understand the viewpoints of future competitors, changing consumer and customer needs and they realize the biggest threats and opportunities come from outside their categories ( eg. Tesla and Uber came from outside the traditional Auto Industry, Google and Meta changed the content industry more than any newspaper, magazine or television conglomerate).

But many leaders and businesses benchmark against existing competitors, go to the same conferences, and stay in the lane of well trodden paths of thinking.

Maybe its time to think like an outsider.

b) Immigrants often think like underdogs.

Underdogs use technology, drive, and ingenuity to find ways to leverage what they have or what others have to change the rules of the game.

They do not view the moat surrounding the castle as a something to navigate but a source of material to flood the castle with by changing the rules of the game!

Even Meta was surprised that what they thought was a moat which was their social graph was used against them. TikTok practiced asymmetric warfare by eschewing the social graph and replacing it with an interest graph. Its algorithm and learning loops allowed individuals to be exposed to a spectrum of great content without having to bring any friends or create any content!

c) Immigrants think with an emphasis on the future

Short or mid term sacrifices and pain is endured to build a future for themselves and families just like great companies think beyond the quarter and the year but in long time periods.

These firms and leaders focus on compound improvement, constant iteration and experimentation and an enduring long term vision whether it be Amazon or Microsoft or Netflix or recently Delta who by taking the long view became the most valuable and biggest airline.

We are all immigrants in a way.

While 27 percent of the United States population is first or second generation immigrant are we not all immigrants in a way that we are all immigrating to a new land called the future?

Margaret Mead wrote “After all, we are all immigrants to the future; none of us is a native in that land.”

And Mohsin Hamid wrote “We are all migrants through time”

Think like an Immigrant.

Rob Beeler and Tom Triscari who co-founded the Adtech Forum had so much interest and resonance from their audience about the “Think like an Immigrant” idea that they have designed and produced men and women’s t-shirts in a range of colors and sizes which are available here. ( I have no economic interest in the sale of the t-shirts)

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As one grows more seasoned one dislikes complexity, confusion and constipation.

Time is of essence. Speed is key. Simplicity reduces the need to dither, dally and delay.

So here is one chart to explain all the key changes that have occurred and will occur in marketing.

Clearly the challenges and opportunities facing companies are complex. Here is framework, the ABCDE of Re-invented Marketing, that attempts to simplify without dumbing down the key issues that we all have to face.

The Five Shifts: Audience, Brand, Content, Data and Enterprise.

Audience: Who we are marketing too, how we reach them, and their mindset has shifted greatly over the past decade.

a) From Consumers to People with God Like Power: The biggest mistake companies make is they view things through the lens of their Brands and see us as Consumers.

Very few people define themselves by the brand they consume.

Even an incredible company like Procter and Gamble with dozens of billion-dollar brands cannot understand people if they looked only through the lens of their Brands (they are too sophisticated to do that) because at the core all their Brands are about dirt removal. Dirt removal from your teeth, clothes, dishes, butt, kids butt etc. Do you define yourself by dirt removal?

Or consider brands that fixate on wanting to have “relationship” with you. Very few people want to have a relationship with a brand. They want their headache to go away rather than enter a relationship with Tylenol.

It is key to think about people and not consumers.

b) From passive to interactive: A decade and a half ago we thought of people we marketed to as an audience since they were primarily passive receivers. Today they create, share, and interact and some of them are so impactful that we call them Influencers and Creators and there is an entire ecosystem of Influencer and Marketing.

In many cases they begin a “campaign” and marketers respond to what has been created!

AI is now introducing a new interface to supplement and sometimes replace search and streams which are the two current interfaces. Conversations. Not just chat but constant back and forth.

c) From Segmentation to Re-aggregation: As media becomes almost completely digital, we need to understand that people come to digital media one at a time. There is no mass media that we segment by finding channels or magazines with high proportion of the people we are marketing too. The power of Google, Facebook and increasingly connected television is the ability of self-service tools to buy and scale individual interactions one at a time. We no longer are going from a cow of a mass audience to a steak of a segmented audience. Rather we are re-aggregating single pieces of mince into a hamburger.

d)From Reaching People to Reaching People’s “Chiefs of Stuff”: As marketers begin to use persona’s to better understand people and utilize agentic ai to connect with the people they should realize that the people they wish to sell and persuade to will also have agents to find, filter and negotiate on their behalf. These “Chief’s of Stuff’ will be instructed and will seek but they may not feel so how will that change marketing?

Brands: Brands continue to be important but the way they are built is changing greatly. Today, Experiences, Purpose, Employee Joy and Trust matter the most in building Brands. These changes explain the long-term secular decline of advertising and communication but the renaissance and rise of marketing.

a) From Communication to Experiences: Jeff Bezos of Amazon said some companies spend 30 percent of resources on building a better product or experience and 70 percent telling people about it. Others spend 70 percent of their effort on product and service and 30 percent on telling people about it. Jeff said Amazon was the latter company.

In an era of empowered people connected to each other the focus should be on the experience. The brand is the experience and experiences are the brand. We will be moving from omni-media to experience stacks where businesses combine physical, digital and immersive experiences to connect and resonate with people.

b) From Great Words to Purposeful Behavior: Purpose matters more than ever especially in today’s time of social, financial and health challenges. Purpose is not some words left to wander on a lonely corporate website but the way a company or brand behaves.

c) Employees as Brand Advocates and Key to Purpose and Experience: If a company does not invest and treat its employees well it will be very challenged on both the experience front (angry, tired, and worried employees do not deliver great products or experiences) but also any purpose statement rings hollow if you cannot look after your own people.

We will soon understand that even more important than net promoter scores of customers are the net joy scores of employees.

d) Trust: A brand is a trust mark and in today’s low trust age, brand’s will distinguish themselves through trust. In an AI age where no video, photo or fact can be trusted a great and trusted brand will be a good house keeping seal.

Content: Content has always been a key to marketing. The four big differences are that there is much more of it, it is far faster, there are many new ways of making it and we need to get to the point quickly with answers.

a) Think Poetry and not just Plumbing: Today in a world of granular targeting and algorithmic trading we can get the right interaction to the right person at the right time. But what are we paying as much attention to the interaction as getting it there? We must think of the poetry and not just the plumbing. AI will finally allow the messaging and interactions to be personalized at scale.

b) Think response not just creation: Many campaigns are started by people. Memes or perspectives of about your brand can ricochet all over the world and we need to ensure that in today’s world of weaponized platforms you have a world class risk intelligence partner and a rapid action team to identify and manage detractors and other instigators. As importantly influencers often have far larger audiences and are more trusted than many media companies. What we call mainstream media is actually niche and what we call niche is mainstream. AI is the slingshot that will turbo-charge this shift to the the Podcasters, Substackers, and Tiktokers, further reducing the benefits of scale.

c) People choose with their hearts and use numbers to justify what they do: Content that moves people is content that moves product.

d) The Answer Economy vs the Information Economy: One of the reasons search engine marketing worked was because increasingly search did not. Too many websites and much content marketing is where we look for answers but we get links or click bait headlines or diarrhea filled pages of junk we have to wade through. That era might be ending in the Answer Age which AI is bring about.

Data: Data is key to future of marketing. It is like electricity. It illuminates. Without strong data a company cannot compete. It is necessary. But it is not sufficient. Because just like few companies differentiate themselves by how they use electricity, very few companies will find a competitive edge in data. It will be a key ingredient and not the be all or end all of strategy. And very few companies will be able to live on their own data. The four areas to focus on data are quality, real time, meaning and connectedness

a) Quality versus Quantity: If 90 percent on data has been created in the last two years most companies “data lakes” are filled with muck/mud/ slime and lots of dead fish.

b) Real Time Access and not just Ownership: First party relationships with people who buy from you are key. Using only platforms as the roadways to reach them will lead to high tolls or blockades. But first party data alone is not enough and how to access and partner with other firms both to build a better understanding and bridge to people but also to design better and more comprehensive products and solutions.

c) Meaning versus Math: Data is not information, knowledge, or wisdom. Algorithms are bias embedded in code. How do you integrate, interpolate, interrogate data, and involved diverse mindsets, interconnect to larger trends and add imagination to make meaning from math?

d) Connectedness: A case can be made that the reason Apple has fallen behind in AI is because it was so fixated on privacy that it knee-capped itself while giving rise to Meta’s AI capabilities which came about because of a loss of Apple signals. Apple by roping people out roped itself in. Without connection to a broader eco-system data is nothing. Connected data allows one to better know the people one is serving but also is also key to connecting them seamlessly through experiences will be. Connection is critical.

Enterprise: If a company is to deliver experiences in a world of people with God like power, while steering itself with a purpose and looking after its stakeholders particularly its employees but also making sure it delivers tangible results today, it will have to sculpt itself into a new form by building new muscles. The future does not fit in the containers of the past.

a) The Paranoid Die. The Schizophrenic Thrive: Andy Grove the late CEO of Intel said only the paranoid survive. In today’s age where we need to connect and work together this leads to polarized and insular thinking which explains why Intel has become a shell of itself and is a shadow in the world of Taiwan Semi-Conductor, Nvidia, AMD and ARM.

Rather than Paranoia the right mindset is Schizophrenia. Companies should run two models. One focused on delivering today and the other on building a new tomorrow where some of the best talents are given all the assets of the companies and none of the liabilities and asked to do whatever it takes to move into the future including eating and harming today’s cash cows.

b) Culture is the result of what fear free, diverse people do when no one is watching: To navigate change companies need fear free cultures of diverse people and mindsets led by leaders who continuously learn, incentivize and train for change and worship no sacred cows.

c) Trust is speed: If a company wants to be high velocity it must be one built on trust. A company where intent is clear, decision making transparent and leaders are accountable is one where speed, innovation happens and “cover your ass deck writing” and meetings to prepare for meetings are minimized.

d) Rethinking: It is not just marketing that will change but marketers will need to also change. AI for instance will not only make marketing more effective and efficient but it will create both existential risk and opportunity. If the NY Times had used digital just to make their printing presses run more efficiently and their truck routes more effective they would not be as successful as they are. They realized that the new world meant no need for printing presses or trucks or page one meetings or a daily newspaper. Smart marketers realize that making their current marketing approaches more efficient and effective is the least important of the real challenges and opportunities of the new era. It is time to upgrade one’s operating system and shift mindsets and rethink the organization, category, competitive sets and much more.

How to See Better.

Photographer Unknown

The best photographers become so not because of their equipment, or the exotic locations they are sent to, or the incredible opportunities to photograph celebrities or events they are offered, but because they have perfected the art of seeing.

This art of seeing can be honed via practice and in The Photographer's Eye by John Szarkowski he identifies five keys to see like a photographer which are: 1) The Thing Itself, 2) The Detail, 3) The Frame, 4) Time and 5) Vantage Point.

Each one of these five are also great tools to use to improve thinking for personal and business decisions.

Bubble David Smith

The Thing Itself.

One of the keys to proper thinking is to see the situation for what it is.

To face reality. To collect the facts. To not have FOFO ( the fear of finding out).

If we traffic in magical thinking, look away from the problem and assume away what is real it is hard to think straight.

Street Tommy Jiang

The Detail.

Every challenge and opportunity lies in the details. One or two key variables that the enterprise turns on. Forgetting that interest rates could go up and that you can not lend or lease in the long term while borrowing in the short term led to Silicon Valley Bank’s and WeWork’s implosion.

Similarly in the sea of data lies the pattern which reveals the meaning.

In hindsight the key details and critical data are obvious. But to reveal what drives the machine and makes the clock tick we need to analyze and scenario plan.

The shifting of parameters often reveals the key variables we take for granted or need to be aware of.

Ask what key details or critical data that drive assumptions. And then think about when they change what new new risks or opportunities are created?

In His Likeness David Callinan

The Frame.

Framing a problem is a key to solving it.

If one does not start with the right question the solution might never have a chance of being correct.

Similarly framing a situation or an offer is key to how someone looks at it.

Everything is in context with everything else and this ability to frame is an essential tool to the best problem solvers and sales people.

The Walk through Life Howard Walker

Time.

Placing things in perspective from a past, present and future lens allow one to stress test one’s thoughts.

Scavenging the past reveals treasures for the future but stay frozen in the past and there will be not future to treasure. So it is critical to both move forward from yesterday to today as well as backward from tomorrow to today.

In addition, it reminds us that timing is key to understand when to launch a product or service.

Too soon or too late is a problem as is too slow or too fast.

A decision that can be reversed should be made fast versus one that cannot should be marinated in time.

Dump Mayk Wendt

Vantage Point.

In a famous Japanese movie Rashomon truth depends on where one stands. The same crime when viewed from four vantage points lead to different conclusions as to what actually happened..

Being able to think from the perspective of a buyer if one is a seller, from a disrupter if one is a legacy company or having the empathy to understand other peoples perspective are key to clear thinking.

So next time when making a decision or evaluating a situation 1) look hard at the situation or thing itself to make sure the facts are understood, 2) parse the detail and the data, 3) frame the question or the solution, 4) interrogate it with time scenarios and 5) view it from different vantage points.

6 Ways to be Better.

Competition is not necessarily about besting other people but to get better every day and to get closer to what we believe are our ideals.

Our success is not housed in other people’s minds (what they think of us) but in their hearts (what they feel about us) and in our mind (what we think of ourselves).

Here are 6 ways to better.

1. Accept the 3Ls of loss, love and learning.

In many ways Life is about Loss, Love and Learning (the 3 L’s)

Loss is central to the human experience in three ways. The first is we often lose in our attempts to succeed. We lose pitches, Clients, jobs, and opportunities. Many times, we win. Some people win little, and others win a lot. But we all lose. But these losses are not the big ones. The second bigger losses are the losses we will face of loved ones and friends either because relationships end, or death comes, and our final loss is that of our lives.

How we live amidst this loss defines a large part of life.

The joy we make is because time is precious, and this moment of victory may not last forever. Given that loss is part of human existence it pays to be kind and to think about how to help those dealing with loss. Do not ask for whom the bell tolls since it tolls for all of us.

A big part of what makes life worth living despite the guarantee of loss is the hope of love and joy of learning. Love of people, of work, of art, of culture. Love may not compute but computers do not love. There is a great deal of progress made over generations on who one can love, the ability to do things one loves and because of modern technology to be exposed to new worlds, horizons, and things to love.

And learning is particularly joyous. Learning in its first form is building knowledge. With great knowledge and practice we build skills and craftsmanship. Learning to see things from other perspectives gives us understanding. Sometimes if we are lucky, we can graduate from knowledge, skills and understanding to wisdom.

2. Be Open.

Today, like never, there is a pull towards being closed.

Our online media diets tend to be polarized as streams of algorithmic feeds optimized to engage, addict and make us feel good about ourselves may leave us believing that the stink of some of our more flatulent thoughts have the aroma of Chanel No.5

Today many want to build walls, exit multi-state treaties and organizations, demonize the other, look away from reality, facts, and truth.

Nationalism rises despite all the big challenges and opportunities are global in nature.

Covid-19 was global. Climate Change is global. China’s impact is global.

Whenever a company or leader or country falls, the history books all agree it is because they were closed to new ideas, new competitors, new people and new ways of doing things.

Be Open. To other ideas. To other perspectives. To other people. To other cultures.

3. Mind the gap.

Alain de Botton’s book “An Emotional Education”, notes that while many people teach skills and expertise very few people focus on how to live an emotional life. He decried much US self-help books that believe in the achieving perfection and having it all.

Today in the Instagram age so many of us try to be pixel perfect. But life is not pixel perfect.

In fact, most of life is “minding the gap”. The gap between who we are and what we want to be. The gap in communication between any two people. The gap between what we say/project externally and what we believe/live with internally.

The most contented people tend to be those who have narrowed this gap or being aware of it find ways to accept that life is incomplete, imperfect, often incomprehensible.

They are authentic, trustworthy, happy within themselves not needing constant external validation and have strong relationships and connections with people. They are vulnerable, empathetic, and constantly growing (often making mistakes as they do).

There are others who project power, fame, and wealth but you begin to see that often many have the warmth of a toilet seat and a vision that does not stretch beyond their elbows. All the external validation they have or seek does not fill the chasm of emptiness that echoes with hollowness and this truth burns and eats their inside even as they smile and blow kisses on the outside.

So, what to do?

George Saunders the Author said “Err in the direction of kindness”

Today in the world we have much rage.

So, best be kind.

Kind to others and to yourself.

This is one way in helping mind the gap.

4. Compound Improvement.

The single most powerful concept in Finance is that of compounding.

Compounding interest and compounding returns can over time create wealth or lead one to bankruptcy depending on whether you owe or own capital.

If you start with 12,000 dollars and add 1,000 dollars a month every month for 30 years and it grows at 10 percent, you have just under 2.5 million dollars. The key is you set aside a small sum every month for a long time.

In a world of change we all may want to consider another way compounding can help us grow in changing times and drive mental, emotional, and even financial wealth which is compounding improvement.

If a company can only change, grow and transform if its people change, grow and transform, we should each invest in upgrading our own mental and emotional operating systems.

There is so much we cannot control in a world driven by global, demographic, social and technological change but instead of being buffeted about helplessly in a sea of chaos maybe we can try to control and build our ourselves to be better.

Three ways on how you might start this very minute begin to embrace Compounding Improvement

a) Discipline equals Freedom: This is the title of a book by Jocko Willink, a Navy Seal. Basically, if you want to get a grip on the world get a grip on yourself.

b) Invest an hour every day in learning: The world is changing so fast that many of our skills and expertise and mindsets need continuous upgrading. While many of us set aside time to exercise so as to maintain our physical operating system we need to also feed and exercise our minds. The power of this habit is that at the end of a year you will have spent 365 hours learning new things by just doing one hour a day. You will gain compound returns to thought!

c) Deliberate Practice: The late Professor Anders Ericcson w wrote a book called “Peak” which is the best study of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice involves three components 1) immediate feedback, 2) clear goals and 3) focus on technique. According to his research, the lack of deliberate practice explained why so many people reach only basic proficiency at something, whether it be a sport, pastime, or profession, without ever attaining elite status.

5. Improvise like Jazz.

We are living in a jazz age and not a classical one.

In classical music —particularly orchestral music—there is a conductor that musicians follow, sheet music one sticks too and a hushed auditorium one sits in.

Jazz on the other hand is a mix of classical, swing, blues and much more but at its heart it’s about improvisation. It is about playing off each other. There is no conductor. Rare is there a hushed auditorium but more likely a noisy club or the anguish of a lonely saxophone in a subway station.

Today we are living in a diverse, global, and connected world where we have to work together, we have to fuse our different cultures and beliefs and constantly adapt and improvise

6. Read Poetry.

I have nearly 100 Poetry books at home each of which I have read significant parts over the past decades.

Why?

Here are how some Poets have explained the importance of poetry.

Perhaps you have been banged about by recent events. It can help to say words, walking helps. Poems help.

The meaning of poetry is to give courage.

Poems restore to us what is deepest in ourselves. It consoles us.

Greatest poetry is written at the borders of what can be said. It makes a strong effort at expressing the unsayable.

Poems are perfect words in perfect order.

They help us see and feel as these lines which I have extracted from different poems by James Wright’s book “The Branch will not Break” which all describe dusk in a Midwest prairie farm. Each line is filled with a new way of seeing and whenever I am driving in the evenings outside of Chicago, I sense things differently because of these lines. The sensing and seeing also helps in writing, photography and in paying attention…

Noticing matters.

Silos creep away toward the West

The cow bells follow one another into the distances of the afternoon

The sun floats down, a small golden lemon dissolves in the water

The moon suddenly stands up in the darkness

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field. The dark wheat listens.

And poems remind us of the passing of time…

Time is an echo of an axe within a wood

The sunlight in the garden hardens and grows cold, we cannot cage the minute within its net of Gold

But one day I know it will be otherwise…

The Great Separation/Reaggregation of Work.

In the distant past, if one wanted to listen to music one had to go to where the musicians and the musical instruments were. The music, the musician, the musical instruments and the listeners were in the same place at the same time.

With recorded music the first separation occurred with music being able to be listened to where the phonograph was located and could be listened to at any time as long one had the disc. This was usually in the home since the equipment was heavy.

As time moved on the listening device got smaller and more mobile, first with radio and then the breakthrough technology of the Sony Walkman.

The final separation occurred when the device and the music were separated as well as every song was separated from the song next to it on an album

The individual song or piece of music was a digital file in a cloud but we now re-aggregate these songs into playlists based on our preference, mood, genre and many other ways.

Today music is streamed and listened to via a playlist either curated by us or by an algorithm.

This also is true for most media with linear television increasingly be replaced by streaming on demand television, the magazine being replaced by articles discovered via search and streams, and much knowledge and content made free and re-aggregated by the Chat GPT’s and Gemini’s of the world.

This process of music and other media separating from physical space, from device and from the content next to it is also well underway in the world of work.

We are moving to a world where a majority of work in white collar industries will be separated from physical space, and from “jobs”.

Companies will separate the components of a “job” into tasks and then allocate these tasks to a portfolio of resources that can get these tasks completed.

Some tasks will be allocated to full time employees, some to fractionalized employees, some to free-lancers, some to other companies and some to AI. These resources will be distributed everywhere in the world.

This has been happening for many decades but until recently for most industries has been a minority of the way work was allocated.

But now with a) nearly a third of work being done remotely, b) demographic change of declining populations and aging populations placing pressure on access to talent, c) two thirds of Gen-Z wanting to work for themselves, d) the continued rise and access of marketplaces (AWS, Shopify, Deel, Etsy, Uber) that allows access to buyers, producers and sellers and e) the rise of side hustles and gigs, a majority of work will be separated from full time jobs by the end of the decade.

And of course the great separation of tasks from jobs and for people working full time for an employer will turbocharged by AI which is driving the greatest efficiency and effectiveness drive that the world has ever seen. Just look at Meta’s growing revenue and rapidly declining head count as an early indication of what is underway.

This new world will allow companies to be deeply agile, manage costs, access expertise on demand, become global at launch and in most industries scale coverage and delivery with limited need for full time employees. Companies that fixate on expensive real estate, five days a week in the office, limit talent pools to certain geographies and insist on a zone of control over talent will be left in the dust by the new companies just like a swarm of drones and other technologies leaves the large lumbering aircraft carrier less and less relevant.

These trends will create many billion dollar revenue companies with fewer than 100 full time employees and will create significant opportunities but also many challenges to individuals, companies and societies.

Looking ahead we can expect:

a) Most companies having far fewer full time employees.

b) There will be more opportunities to work be far more companies and employment as more new businesses are created to serve the new needs and new industries AI and other technologies will make possible.

c) However much of this employment will be people being paid to do tasks, projects and gigs versus a full time job.

Many companies with full time employees will replace a large portion of jobs with tasks by leveraging platforms and systems to allocate their talent to wherever in the world they may be. Bosses will be augmented by ongoing mentors and shorter term project leaders.

This movement will create great challenges when it comes to societies where healthcare has been tied to full time jobs and also for the variation in income when most peoples costs are fixed and not variable.

It will also however create great opportunities for people to work in ways that fit their life and skills and allow them to diversify income streams versus being dependent on one job and a firm especially now the social contract between employee and firm is diminishing and mostly gone.

Everybody needs to think of themselves as a company of one by honing expertise, continuous learning, building a reputation and being a great collaborator and connector.

For companies and leaders it will require significant rethinking of everything from what how one leads today to organizational design and even the strategy of the firm.

Consulting companies like McKinsey and BCG and the Entertainment Industry operate in this way to a large degree. Consultants build particular expertise and are reaggregated with other consultants to execute assignments for Clients. Artists, writers, directors, caterers, gaffers, all work from gig to gig ( movie, show, event).

This new world of work is well underway but many are struggling with what the future will hold.

But the future is here and we will have to adapt to it because it will not adapt to us.

The decline of full time jobs and the rise of careers built around reaggregating tasks is what we should all prepare for.

Its time to rethink work both as talent and as leaders.

Last week two leaders of Fortune 500 companies having just finished Rethinking Work reached out to me via LinkedIn saying they had ordered hundreds of copies for their teams noting not just the clear-eyed data filled analysis and insights, but particularly the frameworks and approaches that allow each individual and company to build their own blue print . The book is not a screed but a customized operating manual to help individuals, teams and companies thrive in ways that fit their realities. Look below to see the components of the book and download the first section to see if it is for you and your firm at Rethinkingwork.io

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Old School Cool.

Earlier this month I recorded a conversation with Jack Klues whom I directly reported to for over 15 years and the podcast titled “Collaborative Leadership in the Age of Churn” resonated far and wide. Many appreciated in the very simple and human lessons he conveys about the importance of talent, humility, integrity, trust, and sensitivity to the different perspectives/ backgrounds as keys to winning and excellence.

I then re-listened to a podcast from the other person I reported to for many years, Maurice Levy in his episode Levy on the Level and found some of the same themes and beliefs from a person with a very different background than Jack but aligned like him in a quest for excellence with a deep reservoir of humanity.

Then I listened to other folks who are amazingly successful leaders who I worked alongside from Renetta McCann (It is about growth) to Michael Conrad ( Creativity and 7+) to even the most recent guest Jack Myers speaking about the Tao of Leadership and found that again and again they re-iterate their belief in values and qualities that are clearly evergreen but sometimes today feel “old school”.

Today amidst significant transformation driven by technology, politics, globalization and social shifts it may behoove us to focus on things that do not change.

They may go out of fashion but like a second heart they beat within us whether we wish to listen to them or not.

They endure.

Like something crafted and sculpted with care over time.

An underlying design and approach that keeps on working.

In fact these values and behaviors maybe critical to help us navigate and lead change since the leaders I have named have successfully transformed and disrupted models and driven great economic value creation using these principles.

The best leaders and companies seem to be adept at adapting the latest tools and techniques to ensure their firms are state of the art but also fuse these with the old traditions, values and beliefs to craft unique formulas that combine roots and wings to both soar and remain grounded.

Here are half a dozen characteristics we may want to think about as we face and navigate the world we live in. They endure and can help us endure.

1. Integrity: Integrity is when we say, what we believe and what we do are aligned. Among the best compliments one can get is that one is a person of their word. Children do not listen to what their parents say but watch what they do both in public and private. Integrity is a diamond that cuts through BS and like the Pink Floyd song suggests it shines on and on. It is an internal balance and harmony with external change.

2. Trust: Trust is speed because it removes friction and accelerates decision making and risk taking. If we trust our leader, our colleagues, our partners, and our investors it allows us to innovate, take risks, move fast, speak our mind, accept feedback and continuously improve. Outside of a few cases you should give trust to those you work with till they prove you wrong rather than get them to earn trust. Trust is often earned by showing the data one is using, be clear about one’s intent and goals and being transparent about the decision making process.

3. Patience:While Keynes reminded us that in the long run we will be dead hopefully many of us will be able to have a long run. In fact as Seth Green reminded us we will have 50 year careers and thinking long term and in the long run means we align with the weapon and power of time. Jeff Bezos of Amazon used longer time frames to invest and build and was not focussed on quarterly or annual earnings.

4. Diversity: Humans prevailed because of diversity. Portfolios that endure are diverse portfolios. Regardless of who we are and which country or race or mindset or perspectives we believe, in most cases there are multiples more of people not like us then those like us. Hanging out with our own type gives birth to still born ideas. It is the reason many societies do not allow people to marry cousins. To be agile in mind and flexible in construction one must be able to adjust, adapt and incorporate difference and the different. Those who lose end up not being defeated but self defeating themselves by not being open to the often opposing ideas and perspectives of people around them.

5. Principles: The point of principles is that they may cost us. Sometimes our job. Often money. Staying true to principles will cost a lot except we will keep something critical called “reputation”. Let us not build a personal brand. Stand for something. Build a reputation. It is like our shadow. It will follow us wherever we go. Long after the heat of the moment, the coolness of time will remember what we did when we were in the crucible of pressure.

6. Respectful Humility: Recently, a friend , Joseph Jaffe in a conversation with me mentioned something he had learned. First comes confidence. Then comes humility. While not true for everybody, the majority of people with great expertise and achievements are highly approachable and do not take themselves too seriously. They know they are so good that they do not have to say so. So they focus on other people and try to understand other perspectives. They look for the outliers and those who need help to achieve their potential. Respectful humility.

These traits may or may not make us successful in the world of business but will help us be better humans.

And in the long run being able to say we did the right thing and being known for integrity, trust, staying true to principles, respect and humility might be the biggest payoff of all.

Rishad Tobaccowala recently published Rethinking Work . to help prepare individuals, leaders and companies to thrive amidst the seismic changes under way.