Archive - May, 2008
The Importance of Saying “No”
One of the great challenges in life is learning to say "no." I don’t mean when you’re 16 months old. That part of learning to say "no" comes easy to all of us. The "no" I mean comes much later. The "no" I’m talking about is the one where you’re choosing not to deviate from the path you’ve chosen.
One of the great challenges in the life of an organization is simply staying on course. So often that is about saying no to little deviations. Big deviations are easy to see. Most of us see them coming and can easily say no. It’s the little ones that are so tricky. Oddly, it’s the little ones that get us from the elegant simplicity of In-n-Out’s menu to the crazy complexity of McDonald’s. After all, what harm could offering an Asian salad made of orange-glazed chicken, snow peas, red peppers, mandarin oranges have on the effectiveness of the company?
I loved this response to the challenge of saying no by 37signal’s Jason Fried. "We say no to a lot of ideas — including most of our own ideas. But it’s
important to remember that no can be temporary. No now may be yes
later. Or it may be no forever. The trick is to figure out which camp a
certain no falls into and then respond appropriately."
How would you evaluate your own ability to say no?
Competing for the Future
Picked up a book from the stack over the weekend and could tell in the first few pages why I had ordered it. Competing for the Future, by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad has been out a few years, (published in 1994), but seems to really stand up 12 years later. I kept tripping across quotes from it in other works.
Here’s the paragraph that caught my eye:
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: ‘There are always two parties, the party of the past and the party of the future; the establishment and the movement.’ A substantial truth lurks in this observation. The future belongs not to those who possess a crystal ball, but to those willing to challenge the biases and prejudices of the ‘the establishment.’ The future belongs more to the unorthodox than it does the prognosticators, more to the movement than to the starry-eyed (p. xi).
This should be good. I’ll keep you posted.
Leaving Microsoft
Some stories are very tough to read, hard to pick up. Others are a real page-turners, hard to put down. Yesterday I finished, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children, the story of John Wood and his dream. So inspiring, it is the story of how he left a great job with Microsoft to found Room to Read.
Looking for a book that lifts the spirit? You can pick up your copy right right here.
Can You Be Paid to Quit?
How much would someone have to pay you to quit your job? I guess it’s a question of whether you’re doing what you really dream of doing. After all…if you’re finally doing what you dream of doing, you WOULD have to paid to quit. Right? I think this would be a good thing to spend some time thinking about. If you could be paid to quit what you’re doing, you’re probably doing the wrong thing.
Another great post today over on the Mavericks at Work blog about Zappos, the web-based shoe company that actually offers new employees $1,000 to quit. Their thinking? If you take the money, "you don’t have the kind of commitment they’re looking for." Ohhhhhhh. That is a huge concept!
Back to you…and me. Are you in a job that you could be paid to quit? Am I? Great question, don’t you think? If we are in a job that we could be paid to quit, then it follows that we’re spending our one and only life on the wrong project. I guess the follow up questions are, "What is the project that you couldn’t be paid to quit?" And then, "Why aren’t you doing that?" (Before you get all worked up at me, this also applies to me!) I think I just stumbled onto a really important insight! What do you think?
More on The Back of the Napkin
Couple months back I posted on a new book, The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures. Been working my way through it. Great stuff. I’m going to be using the ideas in an upcoming e-book.
Want an example of the thinking in the book? Check out this FoxBusiness video. Author Dan Roam talking about the idea and showing the concept on a whiteboard.
Want to pick up your copy? You can order RIGHT HERE.
Changing the System
I thought this one said it all:
Hugh MacLead is an acquired taste. His blog, gapingvoid, is a strange and fascinating collection of "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" and occasional musings. Sometimes crude. Often puzzling. And every once in a while there is a brilliant take on the obvious.
Do More On Less
Struggling to get things done on your most important projects? Maybe getting to the end of the month and realizing that you haven’t moved an inch down the field on the one thing that will make the greatest difference? Take a few minutes and listen to this great interview with Michael Kanazawa (author of BIG Ideas to BIG Results: Remake and Recharge Your Company, Fast). Really worth a listen. All about focus and alignment, on making tough choices, saying no more often, killing projects that ought to be killed.
Looks like a fantastic book. I’ve ordered mine. You want to pick one up and read along you can do that right here.
By the way, I haven’t linked to Lisa Haneberg’s blog, Management Craft in a while but is has been the source of several podcasts that have alerted me to some really good insights. I highly recommend it.
