Item #25: How To Be Great

In my industry, there are many people in pursuit of being ‘great’, being ‘rich’, and/ or being ‘famous’. I’m pretty sure it’s not just a factor of my industry; I think it’s a factor of the generation. The ‘15 minutes of fame’; ‘everyone can be a celebrity’ culture and grand wealth of the last decade or so has permeated thinking. I won’t get into my essential conflict around that fact here; if you want my perspective on that, see an earlier post: Item #16: The Tortoise or The Hare.

What I will comment on here is the folly in the thinking that surrounds the desire to be ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ and the consequent errors of the approaches many of the searchers take.

Stated simply, the fundamental problem is that ‘being great’, ‘being rich’, and/ or ‘being famous’ are NOT states that can be pursued. These are NOT goals. We pretend that they are - telling ourselves to visualize our fame or our riches or our greatness – and lulling ourselves into some false belief that the ‘great’, ‘rich’ and ‘famous’ fairies will then come rest on our shoulders, alongside a beautiful dragonfly, flap their magical wings and voila bring everything we ever wanted into our lives.

‘Being great’, ‘being rich’, and/ or ‘being famous’ are not states that can be pursued. They are not goals. They are outcomes. They come as the result of something else.

It is only when something else happens that ‘great’, ‘rich’, and/or ‘famous’ becomes the outcome. Zuckerberg invents the brilliant Facebook and hence he is rich. Meryl Streep wins acting award after acting award and hence is famous. Nelson Mandela stands up for something that matters critically to him and hence he is great.

Zuckerberg wasn’t in search of ‘rich’, he was in search of an innovative technology that would be useful to many of his friends. Streep wasn’t in search of ‘famous’, she was pouring her skill and her heart into something she loved to do. Mandela wasn’t in search of ‘great’; he was in search of taking a personal stand and making an issue known.

Conditions For Being Great

There are however, some conditions that I believe form the basis for the opportunity of being ‘great’, ‘rich’, and/or ‘famous’, not in some orderly way, but I believe in some way, and here they are:

Exceptional Talent: People who achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ have some exceptional talent, however small, however specific – in fact, often small and often very specific. They find that little piece of specificity about their own unique talent and they mine that to it’s fullest, like a dog with a bone.

Exceptional Enjoyment: People who achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ experience exceptional enjoyment through every step of the process. They don’t worry about the outcomes of ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ because they love what they are doing on a day-to-day basis. And frankly, because they love it so much, they end up being even more damn good at it, and amplifying the ‘exceptionally talented’ bucket above.

Hard Work: People who achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ don’t wait for the fairies or the dragonfly to come rest on their shoulder. They work, work, work, hard, not necessarily at the exclusion of a balanced life, but they give 200% to everything they do. The talent is not enough on its own; these people know it’s up to them to make that talent live.

Consistent Commitment: People who achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ commit, stay focused, and keep their head down. They know what they are doing, why they are doing it, they know how it feels inside their own bones and that’s all that matters. Commitment means knowing your own personal path and vision and believing in it. Alone. Yes, I said ‘Alone’.

Altruistic Position: This one might seem surprising where the others may not have. I actually believe that the people who will achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ are more often than not the ones who never had it in mind. In many ways, I believe that ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ is much like happiness – the more you pursue it, the more it eludes you. I believe the best chance to be ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ is to build the conditions above and to do it for yourself and the people you love. Then, with that altruistic intention, ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ might just come land on your shoulder.

Luck: There’s an element of luck in everything. I’m a believer. But I believe luck often comes along just when we need it. We don’t have to pursue the ‘right person at the right time’, or that 'coincidental' opportunity. When your life needs a little luck, it will find you.

Good Karma: Had to say it. Be nice to people. Have a positive, honest, respectful intention behind the things you do. Want to make a meaningful difference in the world, not just your world, but in the world. When I think about it, the people who achieve ‘great’, ‘rich’ and/ or ‘famous’ live this way, don’t they? Maybe a clue.

Item #24: To Connect or Disconnect. That is the Question.

The New York Times published two articles this past week, both related to the issue of technological connectivity. Gary Shteyngart wrote ‘Only Disconnect’ and Laurie Winer wrote ‘Born to Check’, both published on July 9, 2010.

In Gary’s article, he speaks of existential distress at acquiring his ‘iTelephone’, noting how he used to absorb the environment like an artist, and how the device had molded him into a robotic state manipulated by the strings of the wireless world. He celebrates when the network makes connection impossible so that he and his friends can make meaningful contact over the primal event of a meal and some fine scotch in the setting of stars, and trees and chirping birds. I can identify with Gary’s experience.

Laurie discusses the current times of connectivity, from an evolutionary, intellectual perspective, concluding (with the supportive influence of a media and technology writer) that technology brings change, and we accommodate; actually, that in fact, we benefit.

I’m seeing this ‘Connectivity’ issue pop-up more frequently. Is ‘Constant Connectivity’ going to invade our lives and turn us into an army of reactive robots? Or will we reach a boiling point, revolt and shun connectivity?

I suspect neither. I suspect ‘Connectivity’ will challenge us and we will respond. Just like so many other shifts in our human history.

Remember ‘Work-from-Home’?

For just a moment, let’s remember back to the mid-1990s. The ‘work-from-home’ phenomenon was emerging. Workers would negotiate approval to ‘work-from-home’, in some capacity, be it one day a week or full-time. Connectivity via networking and mobile technology devices made this possible: laptops, intranets, cell phones, email, conference calling.

I recall the co-occurring ‘work-from-home’ angst too: fear that it would bring with it a state of ‘always on’. It came true. With this technology came greater demands on time; we had 6:00 am conference calls because suddenly we could link nationally or internationally, so we did. But what also came with this technology was greater flexibility.

Now, I’ll generalize and say that the ‘work-from-home’ phenomenon is all but dead – at least in the formal sense. Now, we all* ‘work-from-home’: sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes late at night, sometimes midday too. But we also attend our kid’s ‘step-up to grade 1’ graduation, we also enjoy working sessions in a park or on a restaurant patio, and we review materials late at night from the comfort of our homes rather than the walls of our work. We figured it out, and now mobile working is a part of every day, for most people*. We are always on, yes, but we can also control when we are off to a degree we couldn’t pre-1995-ish.

The Future -- with Connectivity.

As technology continues to infiltrate our lives, we will become increasingly accessible; the demands of connection, people and work, will become more prolific. But we’ll adapt, just like we’ve always done.

- ‘Work time’ and ‘personal time’ will evolve so we will each personally and hence collectively redefine those concepts.

- We’ll work differently. Perhaps the walls of ‘the office’ will fall. I suspect this is likely. Workspaces will become more ad-hoc, more spontaneous, more pop-up. The pub, the coffee shop, the park. Already I see restaurants building conference style rooms for private groups – to facilitate working lunches/ dinners/ etc… Perhaps ‘the home’ will step in to fill some of this need. The back deck, the rec room, the front porch. I suspect this is also likely.

- We’ll communicate differently. Perhaps we’ll come to have more value for text, email and other non-voice forms of communication because they provide some personal distance and facilitate some moderated level of connection. Personal face-time kinds of communication will be for the more intimate, more connected, more relationship-driven tasks like creative ideation, client presentations, group team building. We’ll be more intentional about our use of face-time.

- ‘Connected’ spaces and ‘Dis-Connected’ spaces will cease to exist in any physical form, so we’ll create them ourselves.

- We’ll carve out personal ‘spaces’. My child’s spring concert = turn of the mobile device. My husband is talking to me about something very important to him = turn off the mobile device. The sky is just the right shade of red = capture that with a camera, or just with the camera of the eye. And those personal spaces will take different forms for each of us.

- We’ll carve out work ‘spaces’ too. We’ll wake up an extra hour early to use our most productive time to set goals for the day or make progress on a creative project. Lunch may become a working time; where many will continue to head out for the midday snack, others may hunker down for an hour or so of uninterrupted work.

The future will look different with the impacts and influences of technology and its facilitated connectivity. But it will force us not to divide work and personal so much, which is a good thing, because our work is a huge part of our person.

* Note: I do realize I am commenting more accurately about the experience of the white collar North American professional worker.

Item #23: Ries and Trout Just Played Out

Those of you in marketing are likely familiar with the many writings of Ries and Trout: Marketing Warfare, The 21 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Positioning, Focus. If you aren’t, go read them. They’re brilliant.

40 years after they wrote them, we just witnessed their principles play out perfectly in the automotive space. Trout and Ries believe that:

- Marketing is war, with the battle being waged in the minds of consumers;
- That good positioning requires focus (ideally to stand for one thing);
- Consumers map brands perceptually on spaces in their minds;
- Once that focused space in the territory of the consumer’s mind is owned, is it very difficult to shake it i.e.: perceptions persist.

Let’s look at what has happened in the world of automotive over the last few months:

- The Quality space in the minds of consumers belonged to Toyota. First and foremost, this was the most tightly connected brand to the perceptual space in the minds of consumers with regards to automotive quality in North America. But, there’s been a shake-up. Toyota with its recall has been tossed off the perceptual Quality podium.
- That space on the Quality podium, hence, became vacant in the minds of consumers, leaving an opportunity for someone to claim (or re-claim) it. The one who was most poised to take that position (after Toyota) was the one with the latent, pre-existing potential associations to Quality. And that was Ford. We still remember, “At Ford, Quality is Job 1.” The perceptual credentials were there. No other competitive car company had that latent clear association ready to be mined. General Motors, no. Subaru, no (Adventure). Mazda, no (fun). Honda, no (performance). Only Ford had strong quality associations in the perceptual set of the minds of consumers.

Cut to this headline and short excerpt:

Ford climbs to top in quality while Toyota plunges in annual study
TONY VAN ALPHEN 
BUSINESS REPORTER
Jun 18, 2010

Surging Ford has moved into top spot in quality among non-luxury automakers while Toyota plunged after years of stellar performances, according to a key industry study.

The annual J.D. Power and Associates study of initial quality showed Thursday that Ford’s emphasis in recent years on building better autos is paying off again after it posted the least amount of defects per model for the first time in 24 years.
Ford, whose fortunes have jumped in the last year, improved to fifth from eighth spot overall behind four luxury auto makers but Toyota tumbled from seventh to 21th place,

“The blue oval is becoming synonymous with high quality,” said Bennie Fowler, Ford’s vice-president responsible for quality and new model launches.

The study, which automakers and consumers watch closely, measures the responses of 82,000 U.S. motorists in a 128-question survey on the quality of their new vehicles after 90 days of ownership between February and May.

So, as far as I conclude, the greatly admired Ries and Trout just played out. This is consumer perception at work. This is the battle in the mind of the consumer. And in this case, Ford won it; Ford conquered the territory.

Just in case: I hope there aren’t any lingering skeptics out there who might really believe that rational, factual, or functional quality changed for Ford that fast (from Toyota recall to now) in the minds of that many consumers to have rational experience effect this outcome. No way.

Item #22: The Ant

He was big and black and climbing in a directly upward path on a brightly painted white fence. Behind him was the stone floor and ahead of him were the knots in the wood, the top of the painted fence, and the foliage of the overhanging trees.

The ant is a worker, known for his persistent ethic, and his strength.

He could have stayed below, travelled the flat path of the stone floor, muddled about looking for scraps of something. But down there he would risk being trampled and likely only ever find the same as any other insect might find. The dangers on the ground are much greater and the potential fruits of the search more ordinary. Instead he chooses the upward climb, because up high above it all is where he might find the extraordinary, a little something out of reach to the other insects who choose the flat easy travels on the ground.

Who knows what is so interesting about the climb, or what he might find at the top of the fence, or inside the leaves and branches of the trees above. No idea. But I like his style. That little big ant.