Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from Decisive by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
In 1954, Sam Walton, the owner of a variety store in Bentonville, Arkansas, learnt that a Ben Franklin store was trying out a new kind of centralized check-out system at one end of the store. So, he took a 12 hour (!) bus ride to check it out.
Contrary to the old idea of checking out at every department (hence the name “departmental store”), this ensured efficiency, less employee theft, and more centralized control. Sam Walton immediately adopted the approach. Years later, as Wal-Mart CEO, Walton would spend hours at competitor stores studying their processes and copying their product ranges. He claimed to have visited more K-mart stores than anyone else.
Sam Walton realized that decision making can be lonely. So, he found clever solutions by asking himself – “Who else is struggling with a similar problem and what can I learn from them?”
You know what the main thing is. The main thing is what you really need to think about and work on – chipping away on this problem is important to your long term well being. It’s not urgent.. but it is very important.
You also have a “resistance list” – a long list of other things that the resistance has conjured up to ensure you feel less guilty about not focusing on the main thing.
Throw the resistance list away.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Let’s focus on keeping the main thing the main thing this weekend.
It’s funny how some things stick. I had an acquaintance who sent me a text when I was sick. He said that falling ill was the universe’s way of saying – “Dude, take a break.”
I am not in touch with this acquaintance any more but I do remember this text every time I fall sick.
I thought of it today.. and I’ve done just that – taken a break. It’s a nice way to think about illness.
Imagine a whirlpool moving up a street. Everything it sees, it swallows. Replace the street with learning and imagine the whirlpool with a person and you have accurately described Larry Page/Bill Gates/Jeff Bezos.
I’m halfway through “In the Plex” and have found studying Google’s progress awe-inspiring. It is amazing how often they’ve taken a look at the status quo, torn it apart, started from scratch, and built something much better. While they are impressive as an organization, I’m amazed at the consistency between the founders of these new age firms that are changing the world.
Out of the 4 biggest technology companies (Facebook is probably getting close really quick) – Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple – a maverick product visionary aside, the founders have all been driven learning machines. To use the term again, it is awe-inspiring to see how they work.
These guys seem to be in a constant loop of – read, observe, synthesize, form an opinion, experiment, review and go back to the drawing board. Depending on the strength of these opinions, the “experiment” can be worth a few billion dollars. We often set a lot of stock on a person’s inherent smartness but, in the long term, it’s a person’s willingness to learn, fail, and reinvent himself/herself that really makes a difference. And, these books have given me an understanding of just how well they’ve mastered that process.
Perhaps it is no wonder that the folks who’ve arguably made the biggest impact in the information age are those who are not only constantly in the lookout for new information to create, prove or disprove a long standing belief/opinion but are also adept at understanding how to make use of the vast magnitude of information that surrounds us.
Driven learning machine will soon be the minimum requirement. We better get on board.
One of the more valuable lessons from Clay Christensen’s great book “How will you measure your life?” was – don’t let life happen to you.
I’ve mentioned a couple of times here that I spent most of 2012 commuting about 3 hours every morning to work. This isn’t best practice by any standard. But, it happened. Now, as I became a regular on the morning train, I got chatting to another regular one morning. He said he’d been doing it for 6 years. When I asked him why he didn’t just move over, I recall he said something about giving this arrangement a try at first and then just letting it continue.
I think this is a great example of letting life happen. Our day-to-day existence can become habitual and, very slowly, the inertia to change things around gets lower and lower.
My best solution to not let this happen is to set up periodic reviews or “tripwires.” For example, if you’re starting on a 6 month trial of a new commute, set up a review in 6 months to see if you want to change things. Do so again in 6 months. In our friend’s case, maybe the results of the review might have agreed with his course of action. Maybe not. But, the idea here is that the first step is to be aware that there is a decision to be made. Even by sticking to what seems a normal course of action, we make decisions against other courses.
Keep doing reviews of your life. And, if you want to take it one step further, consider a 1 week reading week that Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and the like have adopted to just read, review, and set goals for the year.
Sometimes, the hardest part of making a good decision is knowing that a decision is to be made.
After giving you a preview of this interview 2 weeks back, we have the real thing.
John Ondrasik is very inspiring – he is an Applied Science and Math major from Berkeley while also being a successful singer and songwriter. He sings under the moniker “Five for Fighting.” I reached out to John as I love his music. After 7 months since I first emailed his wonderful agent, Steve, we finally spoke. John’s video wasn’t working but I didn’t want to risk missing him for another 7 months. What followed was a wonderful 25 minutes. I hope you enjoy it as much as the team did.
My favorite bits –
“I think I was always into my music and was passionate about music, but I was also pragmatic enough to realize that there might not be a career at the end of the tunnel. In school I was very focused on the math and the sciences. The deal with my parents was that they would continue to support my music as long as I had a back-up plan. That was going to college and getting a degree where I could get a real job one day.”
“I am one of those 20 year overnight success stories where I worked 20,000 hours before I made a penny doing this.”
“As a young songwriter (and I tell this to other songwriters all the time) the key is to write a lot of songs, and I was. I was writing hundreds of songs a year. Not many good ones, but “Superman” was just one of those songs.”
“I think it’s almost harder sometimes to write that second song that is not just a copy of your hit, but a song that takes the next step. “100 Years” took almost a year to get right.”
“As much as you can talk about talent and inspiration and all that stuff, I’m a true believer in work ethic. If I’m not writing or playing, nothing’s happening.”
“Inspiration can come from painful places. Most of the good songs come from painful places, introspection, and integrity.”
”It certainly is a process, and it’s a very frustrating process because, at the end of the day, what sounds very simple is very hard to create.”
”You have to have an ego, but you also have to realize that it’s not all about you. You have to remember what got you there.”
“Even with technology, it costs $50,000-$200,000 to make a record when you hire mixers and engineers and musicians. Then you have to promote your record and it’s not free to hire a band, it’s not free to go on a TV show for people to hear you.
(With piracy,) I’m concerned that it’s becoming so hard to make a living at music unless you’re a superstar that music will become more of a hobby and the true singer/songwriters that can become part of the culture will be factored out just because there’s no income stream and there’s no career. I am concerned about it. I think it’s a big problem.”
“I write my best lyrics when I’m not staring at the page. I’ll put my headphones on and go for a two hour hike, and I’ll write lyrics. I find that staying active, staying healthy, and working out trigger those endorphins which stimulate the creativity too.”
“Even at my cynical old age, I do love the idea of starting from nothing and creating something. It doesn’t have to be just a song. It can be a poem, a book, a business, entrepreneurship. I love that spirit of starting with a blank slate and then ending up with something. It doesn’t even have to be great because I truly believe that the joy is in the journey.”
A friend and I were having lunch the other day at a restaurant. We were being attended to by a very courteous person who was easily twice my age. He called me “sir” twice.
This tugged at my heartstrings.
“What’s his story?”- I wondered. I always ask myself that when I see people who are my parent’s age working hard in hospitality. The hours are long, the work is hard, the customers can often be rude and thankless – what led them there?
When I ask myself that question, I realize that, 95% of the time, the answer is simply that they were just born in tough circumstances. Ours is a society largely constructed by people of privilege to ensure their progeny remain privileged. Yes, things have gotten better..but, for the most part, where you begin plays a huge role in determining where you end up – especially in poorer countries.
Moments like this always make me take stock. They remind me how lucky I am to have had the kind of privilege I’ve had. They remind me that it is very important to be kind, empathetic, and to give others a chance. They also remind me that I have absolutely no right whatsoever to complain. Sure, we all have our challenges but that doesn’t give us the right to be self centered. All this privilege comes with a responsibility to be humble and to work hard to make this world a better place.
All this reflection came from that simple question – “What’s his story?” – it is one I should ask more often.
Here’s this week’s 200 word idea from Decisive by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
At a time when concert safety wasn’t guaranteed, Van Halen did a 100 big concerts a year. Since their equipment required complex set up and high attention to detail, they needed a simple way to ensure their own safety. So, buried deep within their contract in clause 126 was a request that a plate of M&Ms be kept in the dressing room. However, the plate shouldn’t contain any brown M&Ms.
Thus, when Van Halen found a brown M&M in their dressing room, they cancelled the concert. They knew their event manager hadn’t really read through their contract and could be liable to make bigger mistakes.
Similarly, Ray Rothrock, a venture capitalist, checks if an entrepreneur has had more than 5 secretaries in the past 5 years – his brown M&M test. And, venture capitalist Hunter Walk sees a red flag if senior executive hires can’t bring over their employees from other companies.
Let’s look at setting up our “brown M&Ms” or triggers for decisions e.g. if we haven’t seen a movie with our spouse in 30 days, it’s probably a sign we aren’t investing enough in our relationship.
I came across this idea in an article about procrastination by Heidi Halvorson recently and liked it. One of her ideas to fight procrastination was – “Make like Spock and ignore your feelings. They’re getting in your way.”
If you haven’t watched Star Trek, Captain Spock is a person who only acts based on logic. His planet and race consider emotions to be a weakness.
I think this is a powerful idea. We all have our ups, downs, disappointments, joys, and frustration. But, we also have a responsibility to be the best we can be and keep our commitments to our family, friends, colleagues, and the world. And, we can’t keep our commitments based on our moods and feelings. We keep our commitments no matter what. At least, that’s the whole point.
I struggle with this one a lot. Six years of writing this blog has changed the way I look at situations and has greatly increased the amount of happiness I experience. But, every once a while, there comes a situation that challenges this resolve. And, I think this idea is a great reminder that it’s okay, important even, to turn on our internal Captain Spock. Ignore the feelings – be great, love, laugh, learn, and live.
There’s a reason all of these are verbs. As we live our moments, so we live our lives..
Lot to do and not enough time? Here are 3 ideas that might help –
Put on your headphones and block out noise. Some music that makes you feel productive doesn’t work.
Try shifting to a different environment. Test a different room, a different part of the office or even working from home.
Put on a recurring 5 min timer. We get a lot done when we’re constantly reminded of time slipping by. This is especially useful on tasks where we need to “just get it done.”
Finally, keep this list nearby for the next time you’re getting frustrated at your productivity.
A Learning a Day 