Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck? Quotes

“Sheepwalking I define “sheepwalking” as the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a brain-dead job and enough fear to keep them in line. You’ve probably encountered someone who is sheepwalking. The TSA “screener” who forces a mom to drink from a bottle of breast milk because any other action is not in the manual. A “customer service” rep who will happily reread a company policy six or seven times but never stop to actually consider what the policy means. A marketing executive who buys millions of dollars’ worth of TV time even though she knows it’s not working—she does it because her boss told her to. It’s ironic but not surprising that in our age of increased reliance on new ideas, rapid change, and innovation, sheepwalking is actually on the rise. That’s because we can no longer rely on machines to do the brain-dead stuff. We’ve mechanized what we could mechanize. What’s left is to cost-reduce the manual labor that must be done by a human. So we write manuals and race to the bottom in our search for the cheapest possible labor. And it’s not surprising that when we go to hire that labor, we search for people who have already been trained to be sheepish. Training a student to be sheepish is a lot easier than the alternative. Teaching to the test, ensuring compliant behavior, and using fear as a motivator are the easiest and fastest ways to get a kid through school. So why does it surprise us that we graduate so many sheep? And graduate school? Since the stakes are higher (opportunity cost, tuition, and the job market), students fall back on what they’ve been taught. To be sheep. Well-educated, of course, but compliant nonetheless. And many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (“I might get fired!”) The fault doesn’t lie with the employee, at least not at first. And of course, the pain is often shouldered by both the employee and the customer. Is it less efficient to pursue the alternative? What happens when you build an organization like W. L. Gore and Associates (makers of Gore-Tex) or the Acumen Fund? At first, it seems crazy. There’s too much overhead, there are too many cats to herd, there is too little predictability, and there is way too much noise. Then, over and over, we see something happen. When you hire amazing people and give them freedom, they do amazing stuff. And the sheepwalkers and their bosses just watch and shake their heads, certain that this is just an exception, and that it is way too risky for their industry or their customer base. I was at a Google conference last month, and I spent some time in a room filled with (pretty newly minted) Google sales reps. I talked to a few of them for a while about the state of the industry. And it broke my heart to discover that they were sheepwalking. Just like the receptionist at a company I visited a week later. She acknowledged that the front office is very slow, and that she just sits there, reading romance novels and waiting. And she’s been doing it for two years. Just like the MBA student I met yesterday who is taking a job at a major packaged-goods company…because they offered her a great salary and promised her a well-known brand. She’s going to stay “for just ten years, then have a baby and leave and start my own gig.…” She’ll get really good at running coupons in the Sunday paper, but not particularly good at solving new problems. What a waste. Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themselves in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it.”
― Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?: And Other Provocations, 2006-2012

“I spend 95% of my time persuading people to take action and just 5% of the time on the recipes.”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“the best time to start was last year. The second best time to start is right now.”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“I don’t remember writing most of these posts.”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“Want to watch a movie? Netflix is a better librarian, with a better library, than any library in the country. The Netflix librarian knows about every movie, knows what you’ve seen and what you’re likely to want to see. If the goal is to connect viewers with movies, Netflix wins.”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“while luck may be more appealing than effort, you don’t get to choose luck. Effort, on the other hand, is totally available, all the time.”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“Bullet points are not the point.”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“Bloggers around the world are discovering that it’s cheaper and faster and more effective to build their own media channels than it is to waste time arguing with the old ones.”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“The analysis, based on past events, certainly seems sound. But following your instincts is the only way you’re going to do something unsound.”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“The challenge is to ask a two-part question: What next? What now? Asking is the hard part.”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“The number of people you need to ask for permission keeps going down: 1. Go, make something happen. 2. Do work you’re proud of. 3. Treat people with respect. 4. Make big promises and keep them. 5. Ship it out the door. When in doubt, see #1.”
― Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?: And Other Provocations, 2006-2012

“work.”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“Universities no longer spend as much time bragging about the size of their libraries. The”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“stupid, and”
― Seth Godin, Untitled Collection eBook

“One reason to buy a watch (or a book) is because you want to possess it, show it off, give it to your grandchildren. Holding a book is a luxury, one for which you pay a premium.”
― Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?: And Other Provocations, 2006-2012

“(Less than 3% of newly published authors make enough in royalties and advances to be happy to live on.)”
― Seth Godin, Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?: And Other Provocations, 2006-2012