The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams

by Seth Godin

This is the song of significance. This is what motivates people to do the work that can’t be automated, mechanized, or outsourced. And this is the song that humans yearn to sing together.

Significance is inconvenient.

No grades, no check marks, no badges. I’m not in charge of you, and I’m not manipulating you. I’m simply establishing the conditions for you to get to where you said you wanted to go.

Wonder is the open-ended version of curiosity, without seeking an explanation to solve the problem.

Create two documents with your team before your next project: The pre-mortem and The rave

It’s not random, it’s not universal. It’s significant right here, in this territory. For a reason.

As soon as an industrial system can monitor your day, it will. Relentlessly.

Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. kathrin jansen

Management runs a race to the bottom; leadership offers a chance to run for the top.

It’s possible for a significant organization to sell food, build software, teach pottery making, or sew clothes. It’s not about what we make, it’s about how we choose to make it.

Perhaps the better question is: How do I create the conditions for other people to do work that matters?

Humans are not a resource. We are not a tool. Humans are the point.

But significance isn’t about optimizing the mechanics. It’s about choosing to make a difference.

It’s almost impossible to invest too much time and energy in your frontline workers. They are your marketing team and your R&D experts. Giving them freedom, authority, and flexibility creates exactly what your customers want from you, and the loyalty of those customers pays for the commitment to your employees many times over.

Just because something is easy to measure doesn’t mean it’s accurate. Or that it matters. Part of the challenge of leading a significant organization is getting clear about the right proxies.

Vulnerability in conversation is the power of speaking about what you see and believe, even when you’re afraid. This is the opposite of weakness.

All of us are smarter than any of us.

In any field where skills are valuable and switching jobs is possible, the employees you need the most have options. That’s why creating a culture of fear and compliance is a dead end.

Leaders are planting the seeds for generations of impact to come, regardless of whether those people work for your organization or another one.

The surprising thing is that this is surprising.

We’ve reached a point where we’re shifting from How do I get my employees to do what I want? to How do I create the conditions where the team can make the impact it desires?

Our job as leaders (as opposed to industrial managers) thus becomes clear. Instead of threats and scarcity, and instead of compliance and control, we have the opportunity to help people become significant. We can establish a foundation of safety and then build a culture of affiliation and status, where forward motion is a benefit in itself—even more than the pay that’s on offer.

Money doesn’t motivate us enough to create the magic a team needs. That sort of work comes from intrinsic, not extrinsic forces.

The significant leader knows this, and works to make the journey not only possible, but attractive enough for people to eagerly embrace.

The leader doesn’t have to be able to do every element of the project; they simply need to figure out how to assemble a team that does.

A beginning, filled with possibility. A middle, with challenges and insights. And an ending, bittersweet, with thoughts of what we did and who we did it with, along with ideas on how to do it better next time.

“We can call it a miracle. But a miracle always has a sense of it just happened. It didn’t just happen. Right? It was something that was deliberate.”

He created the conditions for people who care to do work that they’re proud of.

A significant organization needs employees who are enrolled in the journey and willing to do this sort of work.

To not only state the commitments, but to honor them when it’s difficult to do so. Especially then.

Otherwise, it wont be a commitment, would it?

74. The Significance Commitments

Worth revisitingg

Tension is not the same as stress

Get to vs. have to

If we keep measuring the wrong things, we’ll keep getting the things we don’t want.

Stress is the unhappy feeling of wanting two things at the same time. To stay and to go. To speak up and to shrink back. To get this done and to get that done. When we’re stressed, our brains undermine our well-being and we’re unlikely to find flow, joy, or significance.

Tension is the process of finding an answer to a riddle or the question that opens up a possibility.

But tension always accompanies change, and change is the hallmark of significance.

finding the path is largely the work of finding non-paths until the path is evident.

If you’re not doing things that don’t work, you’re not trying hard enough.

And the hive’s decision, while unanimous, might not have been perfect. But perfect isn’t the goal. The goal is to find a good hive in the time that’s available.

Criticize the Work, Not the Worker

I jump to criticizing the worker

It takes patience and wisdom to separate the project in front of us from the person who created it,

If this bus isn’t going where you want to go, today is a great time to get off.

The opportunity of significant work is to set out because we can, not because we’re ordered to. To enroll in the journey and to eagerly take responsibility for what happens next.

When we do the work when the boss isn’t looking, we’re adhering to standards. But if our behavior changes when we’re under surveillance, that’s simply because we’ve been harassed into tolerating the performance of obedience.

Following your passion is a luxury. Following your values is a necessity. Passion is a fickle magnet: it pulls you toward your current interests. Values are a steady compass: they point you toward a future purpose. Passion brings immediate joy. Values provide lasting meaning. Adam Grant

let’s call them vocational skills—have

Hard skills / technical

What actually separates thriving organizations from struggling ones are the difficult-to-measure attitudes, processes, and perceptions of the people who do the work.

Once people understand, they can join the journey or not. They can enroll or walk away.