Working through the most hairy, worthwhile problems typically ends up with us taking three steps forward and two steps back.
This is almost always the case. Think back to worthy habits you’ve built – exercise, reading good books, eating well, better organization, prioritizing your work, among others. I bet they didn’t just stick the first time you tried.
No, you started with a few days at the gym. Then, something came up and you had to restart the habit again.
Three steps forward, two steps back.
The lessons for me from this pattern are two fold.
First, remind yourself of the progress you make when you feel demotivated after the two steps back. You are one step further than you were before and you know what it takes to take three steps forward again.
And, second, expect stops and starts as you deal with hairy problems and worthwhile habits. Let it not be too much of a big deal when either happens. Instead, keep optimizing for learning and plugging away.
Yesterday’s post was all about a simple question – “would it help?” – that can change our perspective in a tough situation. It is a beautiful checkpoint.
But, “would it help?” is a level 1 question. I’d still suggest starting with “would it help?” as it helps check negative reactions at the door.
Once we’re able to do that, a level 2 question is “what would help?” With this, the onus is on us to respond to the situation with something constructive. This is the sort of thing that is easy in theory, but incredibly hard to do when every one of our instincts is pushing us to do something rash.
But, we can, of course. We aren’t naturally wired to react to stimuli in any way. We cultivate habits based on what we’re exposed to. And, we can change those habits and those seemingly hard-wired reactions. This was a powerful lesson for me as I always thought of myself as emotional, impulsive and impatient. I could be all those things more often than not but I didn’t need to channel them every time I respond to a situation. They’re habits that needed to be replaced. And, one by one, they’ve made their way out.
Our habits are a by-product of the questions we ask.
It is on us to ask better questions.
HT: Rebecca Rapple – who wrote in yesterday with a note on “what would help?” that inspired this post.
“Would it help?” – 3 powerful words that cut through the noise.
The next time you find yourself:
feeling a surge of anger
getting irritated
reacting to something that isn’t going as per plan
thinking up a sarcastic response to get back at someone
harboring envy or jealousy
feeling worried
Ask yourself – would it help?
A calm and measured response aside, nothing really does help. Any other reaction is a waste of time, energy and emotion.
You know this. I know this. We also know it is hard to remember this in the heat of the moment.
So, instead of expecting us to respond better, let’s just make it a point to ask – “Would it help?”
Over time, we will respond better.
(I thought of this wonderful line recently as I thought of a post from December 2015 after watching “The Bridge of Spies.” If you’ve seen the movie, you’ve likely seen these words in action. And, if you haven’t, maybe it’s time to see the movie. :))
Smart: Having or showing a quick-witted intelligence. (adjective)
Thoughtful: Showing careful consideration or attention. (adjective)
Somebody I once knew and was influenced by used to rank and judge everyone they met by IQ – or intelligence quotient. As a consequence, I did too. The way I saw it, there was nothing more important than being smart. As long as that criteria was met, the rest would be figured out.
As I reflect on this phase, I realize how much this way of thought screams of a fixed mindset. When you focus on smarts, you assume intelligence is fixed. It is a world view that encourages judgment and opposes learning and growth.
The funny thing about world views is that it takes a really long time to completely get rid of them. I caught the remnants of this world view a few weeks ago when I reflected on something I did. I inadvertently asked myself – “Was that the smart thing to do?”
“No, but it was the thoughtful thing.”
And, it was. The outcome hadn’t worked out as I’d hoped. But, I’d given the process every bit of attention, consideration and engagement. When I attempted to think of myself as smart, I spent way too much time analyzing and fretting about outcomes.
I don’t now. Being smart matters little to me.
I’d pick thoughtful over smart any day of the week.
There’s an interesting, oft-repeated, story among technology geeks about the difficulty of getting forecasts about disruption right. In the mid 1980s, AT&T hired McKinsey & Co. to forecast cell phone adoption in the US by the year 2020. After racking up what must have been a multi million dollar bill, McKinsey said the answer would be 900,000 subscribers.
They were off by a factor of 120x.
Currently, the forecasts from leading energy analysts and think tanks on Electric vehicle adoption shows ~30% adoption in 2040. Clean energy guru Tony Seba believes things will work out different. He predicts that all new cars will be electric by 2030. In addition, all new cars will be, at minimum, semi autonomous by 2030. And, finally, all new energy will be solar by 2030.
It is very hard for us to predict the future because we are wired to think about improvements linearly.
But, technology growth is never linear and generally occurs due to a combination of technological innovations that combine to make new things possible. The current artificial intelligence wave was not made possible by deep learning algorithms alone. Instead, it took parallel computing (GPUs) and the ability to process big data that made deep learning algorithms effective.
Energy guru Tony Seba calls this “technology convergence.” Convergence happens when a group of technologies come together to make new things possible.This is why technology adoption follows “S curves” — they don’t occur linearly.
To illustrate this, this was 5th Avenue in New York City in 1900. There is one car in the photo.
In 1913, it was hard to spot the horse.
My belief is that we will see the adoption of electric vehicles and solar accelerate in the next decade. Autonomous vehicles will follow closely. It is an exciting time as it will actually enable us to make significant progress to our climate change goals as a global community.
It is a decade that will be similar to prior periods of technology upheaval. For the longest time, the big oil cartel and coal powers will all seem to dominate.
There’s a lot to be gained by comparing our processes versus those of others.
For instance, how does someone you consider successful approach their life? What do they do well? What could you learn from how they approach life?
The main danger here is that we might only be viewing some processes in isolation. Someone’s approach to work, for example, may not translate to healthy personal relationships. But, still, if we keep an open mind, there’s plenty we can learn from folks who’re different from us. Some of these lessons will translate to us living our lives better. Many, on the other hand, will just involve us getting to know ourselves much better. For example, once you realize the process behind how someone built their wealth, you may decide that it’s not for you.
Comparing results without understanding processes, as a result, is a guaranteed source of unhappiness. It is akin to surfing your Facebook feed and finding yourself envious of the exotic vacations your friends are enjoying. Results never tell us the full story. They don’t tell us what went in what worked. And, they almost always leave out vital strokes of luck that accompany every accomplishment.
A large proportion of human unhappiness comes from people comparing their kitchens with everyone else’s Instagrammed meals. It is an unfair and useless comparison.
And, most importantly, at least from the point of view of this blog, we learn nothing from it.
I met someone recently who had strong opinions on a few topics. We were part of a group where two folks worked on digital ads and where the other was a start-up founder who had just received some seed funding. It turns out he (and it generally is a he) hated ads and believed there should be no advertising on the planet. He also believed that getting funding early was the wrong thing to do. So, he launched into multiple tirades during the conversation. This also happened to be the first time we were all meeting each other – so, let’s just say it was an interesting conversation.
I have a simple principle when it comes to the strength of opinions – the stronger your opinions, the more it is your responsibility to be curious.
People who combine strong opinions with high levels of curiosity lead with questions and take the time to understand the other person’s point of view. They, then, debate and discuss with the objective of learning something. People who have strong opinions and no curiosity just launch into their point of view. There’s no listening or learning – it is only about “teaching” and moralizing.
It isn’t just that curiosity is the difference between being interesting or annoying when you have strong opinions. It is that, without curiosity, you lose all the learning in the conversation. So, all the attempts to teach and moralize are a waste of energy. Learning only happens everyone around the table are willing to be vulnerable, listen and learn themselves.
And, that can only happen if you lead with curiosity.
Would the iPhone have been as successful if Apple shipped it without that presentation from Steve Jobs?
Given how exceptional the device turned out to be, it just might have. But, that presentation sure helped. A lot. In fact, years of doing those phenomenal presentations meant the iPhone was already set up for success.
There are many of us who separate doing the work and presenting the work. And, I’ve heard many talk about how they feel they’re good at doing the work but not as good as presenting it. I’m definitely one of them. I’ve moaned about it in the past. And, even if I moan about it less, I often slip on giving enough thought to the presentation and narrative.
But, as in the case of the iPhone, presenting that piece of genius in a way that befit it was an important part of doing the work. It is hard to separate the effect of the making and the sharing. Sure, it would be impossible to present something that isn’t built. But, once it is built, the presentation is a key part.
The presentation isn’t always a presentation of course. It is about building and sharing a story that resonates with the folks who’d like to buy it. We also call this marketing.
Companies that succeed do a phenomenal job marrying great R&D (research and development) and marketing. We need to do so in our work as well.
Do the work first. But, don’t forget to take a step back afterward and share a story that resonates. Give your work the story it deserves.
In every part of your life, you get to pull two levers today.
In your business, you can choose to juice up revenue or take a hit to improve customer value.
At work, you can choose to put in extra effort that’ll help your next promotion or raise or invest time into learning a skill that matters.
At home, you can choose to spend more time answering email to fight the fire of the day or engage with your family.
On the dinner table, you’ll can choose to eat that pastry or get an extra serving of broccoli.
On the exercise mat… well, you’ll first need to choose to go to the gym or to open the exercise mat over everything that’ll help in the short term.
The answer is not to ignore the short term. We need all that stuff – revenues, promotions, raises, fire fighting, etc. But, to what end?
Nearly every indicator and incentive we see is short term focused because the short term is easy to measure. Those levers are the brightly colored ones in front of us.
The best way to fight this is to unabashedly optimize for the long term. When in doubt, pick customer value, long term learning, engagement with the people that matter and more time on the exercise mat. And, oh, you won’t go wrong with picking the broccoli more often than not.
Err on optimizing for the long run. The short run becomes the long run before you know it.
“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
This quote from Martin Luther King Jr., makes a profound point – we get to decide how much our work and life matters. We know this deep in our hearts but, often, choose to bury it amidst the busy-ness of day-to-day living.
But, whenever we stop and decide to do a small thing with extraordinary care, it matters.
And, when we decide to demonstrate extraordinary care in what we say and do consistently, we make a difference.
A Learning a Day 