Open letter to Amazon

Dear Amazon,

Since I bought the marvelous Amazon Kindle, I can't stop buying Kindle books. I certainly buy more ebooks than I can possibly read (even though I am a hell of an avid reader, but I digress...). Here is the deal:

STOP SENDING ME E-MAILS ABOUT BOOKS THAT I WANT IF THEY DON'T EXIST IN KINDLE FORMAT.

I don't buy paper books anymore, haven't your smart CRM system noticed? It is damn smart to know which books I like (thus the good suggestions I receive in my e-mail), but it is not smart enough to know I only want ebooks?

I really don't want to opt out from your e-mail suggestions system, but I am starting to get annoyed by this.

Fix it, please.

Why China copies and India invents

I was on bed and I had to get out of it to write this. I was reading the first paragraphs of White Tiger, specifically this part:

Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs.

And it hit me. I understood everything (as much as you can understand everything while on your bed). One of those eureka moments came to me and it was clear as water why China is a copycat machine, while India has the IT sector of the world in its hands. I might be very wrong because I haven't visited BOTH countries, but I am also an entrepreneur and I am not afraid to fail tonight. I am cocky enough to think I will succeed.

The thing about China and India are essentially about organizational culture. Well, culture, not "organizational", but if you would think both States as "organizations", then it would be organizational culture. 

In China, the government restricts information, tells you how many children you can have, tell you what is right and what is wrong. It holds the truth in its hands, people have to comply. This approach has its merits: efficiency. The well-oiled Chinese machine outproduces the whole world. It is a factory. But only a factory, as in the Apple's products labels "Designed by Apple in California." while somewhere hidden it says "Assembled in China." California has the brains, China is just a glorified tinkerer. Also no question about who gets the biggest share of the money: always the brain.

In India, on the other hand, it is a land of very few blacks and whites: everything is grey. It depends. And it depends a lot. Like Brazil, the government in India is not the most trusted entity: you have to make a living yourself, because suddenly your slum might be erased from the map because of a new government program. No job? Use your imagination and generate some sort of money. Old taboos, such as "girls should not work", are easily forgotten for the sake of practical survival. To hell with the rules, says the Indians, we will do our own stuff. And here they are, the biggest entrepreneurial nation in the planet, where almost anything is up for negotiation. Yes, there are draw backs when everyone is doing their own thing: chaos, organizations (enterprises or government) have more leverage over the disorganized society of the individual. But it teaches you a hell lot of initiative. It teaches you, like a shark, to never stop swimming. It gives you faith in yourself - because if you don't trust yourself, no one else will.

So if China wants a bit more entrepreneurship, it will have to let the danger of freedom enter its doors, because that is the only way innovation can come in too. And if India want some order, might be interesting looking to... hm, not China, please. Maybe Norway?

Again the phrase "culture eats strategy for breakfast" makes a lot of sense. I am fascinated by organizational culture and its influence. Maybe that is what I need to do. Maybe that is my leverage to change the world. Culture change & management. 

Oh, men, just having my trip to India next week is already putting me in a very different mood than the stiff and anti-entrepreneurial organizational culture in Norway.

Good things come to those who act.

[No revision. That is the way I am. Leave me be.]

Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

Since I got my Kindle, Amazon instant ebook delivered has pushed me to buy (and read) more books. Way of the Peaceful Warrior was recommended to me by a friend (thanks, Phil!) and I devoured it in just 3 days, so much I enjoyed it (and so little it allowed me to sleep if I just would let it go).

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”

Way of the Peaceful Warrior has a novel format, but is in reality a self-biography of the author Dan Millman (and it is not hidden or anything, the main character is Dan Millman). Basically the novel tells the story when Dan was in the university and randomly met an old man which he called Socrates. Socrates is a very special and intriguing man and Dan starts being mentored by him in the way of the peaceful warrior.

The above paragraph is a dry description of the book and might make you think of “uff, yet another self-help book, give me a break, Sergio”. But the book is much more than that, it shows a whole philosophy of living every moment as unique moments, the secret of unreasonable happiness (happiness without reason), about life, the universe and everything. And it does in a pretty compelling way.

If you read Castañeda, you might recognize Socrates clearly as a Nagual, but surprisingly much more accessible than the enigmatic “ask the wind” or whatever shamanistic BS Castañeda’s Nagual would throw on the poor student. The book depicts Dan’s journey on the way of the peaceful warrior, but not to the peaceful warrior (that actually makes sense, believe me). While searching for happiness outside and never finding, then suddenly realizing what true happiness is and how useless is to struggle to find it. In the end, Way of the Peaceful Warrior is a book that teaches people how to live a fulfilling and joyful life, without the common tricks of “it is easy to do be happy” and “5 clear steps to happiness”. It is not easy and it is not a destination, it is a path. There is no "achieving" a peaceful warrior. It is forever the way that makes the warrior (and vice-versa). The book is enlightening, inspiring, emotional and, indeed, may change lives. But only if you go through the way yourself. If not, than it is just like any other good book.

I had been acting lethargic; Socrates suddenly grabbed me and shook me. “Wake up! If you knew for certain that you had a terminal illness—if you had little time left to live—you would waste precious little of it. Well, I’m telling you, Dan—you do have a terminal illness: It’s called birth. You don’t have more than a few years left. No one does. So be happy now, without reason—or you never will be at all.”

Then, once you read it, I hope you can answer these questions:

-          Where are you?

-          What time is it?

What is a great place to work?

SOURCE: thegreatworkplaceonline.com 

My team management book – what do you think?

During a the new year’s eve collective delusion, I decided it would be fun to write a short ebook to help people to manage teams better. The idea come from the amount of people that came to me to get advice on how to run a team like I ran mine when I was AIESEC Norway’s President.

I set a deadline to finish the book by end May (geez…) and that before my birthday (21^st of January) I would have the basic structure in place. And this post is exactly about this last bit, the structure. I will post it here and I would appreciate if you could feedback or give some insights that could help me to improve it. Ah, and if you have ideas for the name of the book, please let me know also.

What I want the book to be:

-          - It’s a funny and easy to read book only about managing/leading a team

-          - If the readers put the tools/advices in the book in practice, it will help them to manage better their teams

-          - Examples to illustrate

What I don’t want the book to be:

-          - Full of theory or impractical

-          - Talk about other aspects of my leadership experience (Organization management/development, change management, strategy, recruitment, finance…)

-          - Personal leadership (I am unsure about this in fact, since there is a component that impacts quite a lot on the management of the team – so I think I will have to touch it a bit)

Structure:

-          Introduction

o   This is not about theory, it’s based on nothing else than my experience and observations.

o   Read and do it. If you don’t want to try anything or don’t have enough discipline to do it, this book will be useless.

o   Adapt and feel what is right for your leadership style as well as your team needs. There are no 100% formulas for team management, because in the end it is about people

-          Building and starting a new team

o   Build the team or it will build itself

o   What is the foundation of building a team?

§  Team purpose (team mission / vision -> what is success for this team?)

§  Individual roles and responsibilities

§  How we work (How we deal with each other in the team, outside the team and with work/challenges, team values, ground rules, expectations)

§  How we make the team work (team operating processes)

§  When dealing with humans, don’t forget the social stuff

§  Role modeling

o   When a newcomer joins a team that already exists

o   After it is built, it needs more building (Every day is team building day, even if you don’t realize it)

-          Team purpose

o   What is it?

o   How to do it? (both fluffy and hard core)

o   How to use it?

§  Visible

§  Take decisions / get directions

§  Assess current situation

§  Celebrate or change and tweak it

-          Individual roles and responsibilities

o   Breaking down the purpose into the individual (both responsibility and goals)

o   Adapt the job to the people, not the other way around

o   Don’t allow “support” roles to sprawl

o   Don’t allow silos, but don’t allow “everyone is responsible” also

o   Change roles as purpose evolves

-          How we work

o   Team values (building and using)

o   Expectations and Ground rules (building and using)

-          Team operational processes

o   Prioritizing what to do and what not to do (planning and stuff)

o   Decision making (who and when)

o   Team learning

o   Team Meetings

§  What to use it for? When not to use it?

§  How often

§  Calling

§  Preparing

§  Conducting

§  After the meeting and follow up

§  Tools for idea generation

§  Tools for decision making

o   Individual meetings

§  What to use it for? When not to use it?

·         Team member oriented

·         Professional oriented

·         Maximizing strengths and minimizing weaknesses

·         They really want your honest assessment

·         Don’t give all the answers, but don’t play riddles in the dark

§  How often

§  (ask, don’t assume)

§  Tools

-         Team members’ relationships

o   GTKEO (constantly)

o   Building trust in the team

o   Feedback

o   Social agenda

 -         The team is a reflex of the leader

o   As a leader, everything is your fault (seriously) -> consistency role model

o   Feel it and speak up (ask, don’t assume), even if you are unsure, test and listen

o   Doggie style: reinforce good behavior, call out bad behavior

o   Give honest feedback and ask for it (and then listen carefully!)

o   “I was wrong” and “I don’t know” are source of power, not weakness

o   Incentivizing mistakes, but not sloppiness

o   Solution oriented approach

 -         The easy team management checklist

Rework - book review

Rework is a smart book with an uncommon business logic, very little jargon and a lot of personal experience from the founders of 37 Signals. They challenge everything, from the need of being big (they don’t want to be) to doing more than the competition to win market (they preach their products do LESS, so the niche market who wants simpler stuff will choose them).

The book is well written, smart and interesting, but, sincerely, doesn’t quite pack a punch. Lots of good advices and personal sharing is nice, but in the end, it seems it lacks “substance”. Maybe the book is too superficial, I am not quite sure. Probably I am just comparing it with my favorite last books (which were very in depth and useful for me to take action, while this one is interesting, but I don’t see it as so useful).

Or maybe it is just that I am naturally more aligned with a “strange” way of working, like the belief that meetings should only involve the people necessary and should be as short as possible. 

My final comment: for the buzz it received, I was expecting more.

Or am I wrong? Anybody out there that used Rework to fundamentally change the way you/your business work?

4 ways to make people believe you

Credibility takes a life-time to build and a moment to lose - it is hard to believe the auditing skills of an Enron auditor. Credibility is also domain specific - you might trust your mom in several areas, but if she is not a surgeon, you probably wouldn’t trust her to perform a brain surgery on you (you probably wouldn’t trust your mom on dressing advice also). But, besides those extreme examples, there are ways to make your communication more credible. How to make people believe you?

1- The Sinatra test

“If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere else”, goes the song from Sinatra (thus the “Sinatra test”).  What this means if that if you can do something (like succeed in New York), this means that we can believe you will do well anywhere else. If you are an engineer hired by Google, probably you would be also by other tech companies. If your blender can blend an iPad, probably it can blend any food you manage to put in it. If you catered in the White House, probably you qualify for catering anywhere. So if you have examples that might look like a Sinatra test, use it.

I know most catering companies never did or will cater in the White House, but think on your turf: did you cater on the local town hall or for a local star rich entrepreneur ? So probably you can do great anywhere in the city.

2 - Add details, even when they are irrelevant

University of Michigan researchers ran a simulated trial where 2 groups of jurors were asked to assess the fitness of a mother to keep her 7 year-old son in her care. Each group heard the same carefully balanced arguments for and against the mother. One group however was given some vivid detail for the supporting arguments. As an example, one favorable argument was that the mother ensured her son washed and brushed his teeth before bed-time. In the vivid detail version they added "He uses a Star Wars toothbrush that looks like Darth Vader". The additional details were purposely irrelevant to the argument.

The impact? 6 out of 10 of the jurors hearing the vivid version of the favorable arguments judged the mother to be suitable, while only  4 out of 10 of the jurors who heard the vivid version of the unfavorable arguments judged the mother to be suitable. The irrelevant vivid details had a big impact! The explanation is that what you can picture vividly in your mind will look like closer to the truth.

3 - Give out the testing credentials

NBA rookies have a lot of young horny girls around them. If you are a young NBA rookie, it’s quite easy to get carried away and screw every single lady that compliments your size. To try to avoid rookies to get AIDS and get rustled by ladies who want to get pregnant and get their money every rookie attend an “intro to the league” seminar. There, the league could tell the NBA rookies that they should protect themselves because of AIDS and pregnancy, but that wouldn’t work (the common sense is also obvious, they probably would know this already – but knowing doesn’t lead to action). So instead they planted some very “dressed to kill” ladies at the conference hotel bar without the rookies knowing they were planted by the league. They made plans to meet with the ladies after the conference and so on. The next morning, all the ladies entered the conference room and announced: we all have AIDS. Boom, the rookies got it, they were this close to having sex with someone that had AIDS, they should better protect themselves. By allowing people to test something themselves, it makes it much more credible.

Another example is the “will it blend?” videos. You can see the blender doing its work and blending iPhones, iPads and whatever people put in there. This is already very credible because you can see it, but it is completely credible because you can test yourself. Get the freaking blender and put stuff there and see if it blends or not. The same way you can test other blenders and see if they are up for the test or not. It is very credible to test it yourself.

An old use of test credentials? Enter a clothes store, get what you want and try it on, look on the mirror, check for yourself if it is good or not. What would you believe more, your own judgment after you put the pants on in front of the mirror or that pushy sales clerk that, before you even try, is already saying that will look amazing on you?

4 - Make statistics accessible

Lots of people go for the “I will show you the data” approach to gain credibility. It doesn’t work so straightforward because, well, we are human beings. But statistics are great if used correctly: that being, making the statistics tangible to people.

If I tell you US and Russia have 28,000 nuclear warheads, well, it looks like a huge number, but how huge? We cannot picture it because it’s too big (and remember the example above of the Darth Vader toothbrush: if you can’t picture, it is less credible). The nonprofit Beyond War would arrange "house parties" in which a group of friends and neighbors would assemble to hear about the dangers of nuclear weapons. The organizer from Beyond War always brought a steel bucket and BBs (those small metal balls used as ammunition in air guns). He would drop one in - it would make a distinct sound - and say it was the power of the bomb at Hiroshima. He then described the devastation of this bomb. Then he'd drop 10 BBs into the bucket: This is the fire power of one U.S. or Soviet nuclear submarine. Then he had attendees close their eyes: He poured 5,000 BBs into the bucket saying it was today's arsenal of nuclear weapons. The point here is that in any statistic it doesn’t matter the exact number (who cares if it is 5, 10 or 50 thousand? It is too big number to picture), but the relationship used to make this number concrete to the audience.

Stephen Covey has a great example that emphasizes teamwork in his writings. He once tried to give the dry statistics: Only 37% of employees had a clear idea of their mission, only one in five was enthused etc. He got more impact when he mapped this onto a soccer team: "If a soccer team had this same statistics as those, only 4 out of 11 would know where their goal was ... etc."

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This and much more appears on Made to Stick, an outstanding book about building messages that stick to people’s brains.

Linchpins are Sticky

If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you know I loved 2 books recently: Linchpin and Made to Stick. But even though they deal with different stuff, they have a common overall theme: being remarkable. Linchpin is about being remarkable and Made to Stick is about making ideas remarkable. Both deal with being remarkable in different ways, but a common trait of both is the “unexpected” as worth remembering. Break people’s guessing machine and the situation/story/person sticks to their minds.

I talked to hundreds of people in call centers, 99,9% of them were terrible, making me just to kill myself: the idiot waiting music, the robotic voice, the script that doesn’t fit with my question… last month I called the corporate travel booker of American Express, I was having some troubles to login, since it was my first time using it. The person that got my call was not only sounding genuinely human, she helped to solve my problem AND translated a document from Norwegian to English so I could understand better myself. An remarkable linchpin I will never forget – it broke my guessing machine by being human and by taking the extra mile of translating a small reference guide so I could learn.

Making ideas stick follow the same principle, one of the ways to make ideas stick is the unexpected. So there is no surprise when Made to Stick is full of linchpin stories, like :

A flight attendant that cracked jokes on the obligatory safety announcements, something like “If I could have your attention for a few moments, we sure would love to point out these safety features. If you haven’t been in an automobile since 1965, the proper way to fasten your seat belt is to slide the flat end into the buckle. To unfasten, lift it up on the buckle to release it. And as the song goes, there might be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only six ways to leave this aircraft: 2 forward exit doors, 2 over-the-wing removable windows, and 2 aft exit doors. The locations of each exit is clearly marked with signs over-head, as well as red and white disco lights along the floor of the aisle. Made ya look!”

Or an army cook that runs a mess hall in Iraq that, with the same supplies as any other US army kitchen, made military people drive hundreds of kilometers (even through zones considered dangerous) to eat his food. Suddenly the person responsible for the deserts starts saying that her cakes are “sexy” (how unexpected is “sexy” and “army food” in the same phrase?) If you talk to the cook who manages the whole stuff, he doesn’t say his role is to cook, no, he is in charge of the morale.

Key take-away: if you break people’s guessing machines, break the pattern, do something unexpected, they will remember you and/or your idea. The only thing you have to take care is to make unexpected for the sake of being unexpected. People will remember you if you are presenting a business idea and suddenly you take off your clothes, but while that does help you get remembered, people will remember the wrong stuff (that crazy guy who took off his clothes), not the business idea. So the unexpectedness has to be connected to the point you are trying to convey.

Simple messages that stick: use schemas people already know

One of the ways to ensure a message sticks and is comprehended is to explain it with knowledge people already know (schemas). For example: most people don’t know what is an açaí. I can describe it in 2 ways:

1) The fruit, a small, round, black-purple drupe about 1 inch (25 mm) in circumference, is produced in branched panicles of 500 to 900 fruits. The açaí fruit has a single large seed about 0.25–0.40 inches (7–10 mm) in diameter. The exocarp of the ripe fruits is a deep purple color, or green, depending on the kind of açaí and its maturity. The mesocarp is pulpy and thin, with a consistent thickness of 1 mm or less. It surrounds the voluminous and hard endocarp, which contains a seed with a diminutive embryo and abundant endosperm. The seed makes up about 80% of the fruit.

Or

2) Açaí is a fruit that looks like a darker purple grapes and its taste and consistency is more like a berry.

The first description is exactly what the Curse of Knowledge does to people: when you are a specialist in the subject, you want to be accurate. Accurate, yes, understood, no. Isn’t it a too high price to pay?

Using schemas, on the other hand, is not accurate, like the 2^nd description, but it is easier to understand. Schemas are what people already know (you know what is “fruit”, “purple grapes” and “berry”, so it is easier to picture.

Have you ever tried to follow a recipe that said something “stir until you get a good consistency”. What the hell is a good consistency? Tell me how many minutes to stir this! Or simply use a schema I already know “stir until the consistency feels like hot mashed potato”.

A famous example of schemas are the high level concept Hollywood pitches: a one phrase that explains the movie. For example, Speed’s high level pitch was “Die Hard on a bus”. Bingo, you get the picture of what the movie will be about, which actors to chose, which director to pick - it is easy to understand because I already know Die Hard, this allows me to make the right decisions.

Another example of schemas are analogies that can be extrapolated. At Disney, for example, they call their employees “cast members”. If they are cast members, not employees, there is a range of assumptions you can make:

- Cast members don’t interview for a job, they audition for a role
- It's not an uniform, it's a costume
- Walking around in the park is being “on stage”
- People visiting Disney are guests, not customers

Just with a simple analogy, Disney make sure that no employee is smoking dressed in a Pluto costume or is just being random at the park, because you wouldn’t be random on stage during a play or you wouldn’t go smoking in your theater costume clothes.

If you want to make messages understood, make it simple: use schemas and analogies that people are comfortable with.

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This and much more appears on Made to Stick, an outstanding book about building messages that stick to people’s brains.

Decision making paralysis - how it happens and how to avoid

In 1954 an economist called L. J. Savage described a principle of human decision making that he called the “sure-thing principle”. He illustrated the sure-thing principle as follows: a businessman is looking to buy a piece of land. There is an election coming soon and he believes that its outcome could be relevant to the attractiveness of the purchase. So to clarify what he is going to do, he thinks through both scenarios: if Republican wins, I will buy the land. If the Democrats win, he also decides to buy the land. Seeing that in both scenarios he would benefit from the purchase, he goes there and buy the land anyway before the elections. Sounds pretty much obvious and few would actually fuss around with that logic – but two psychologists did fuss with it, and what they discovered is that people can take rather irrational decisions when there is uncertainty or too much complexity.

Amos Tversky and Eldar Shafir published a paper proving that the “sure-thing principle” was not always so sure thing. They uncovered situations where the mere existence of uncertainty made people take decisions in a different way – even though the uncertainty was irrelevant to the outcome, like in the businessman land purchase.

Imagine the following situation: you have been studying hard as hell to pass a final exam, which you just completed (a few weeks before the Christmas holidays). You have been studying for weeks for this damn exam, and it is finally over! You have to wait for 2 days to get the exam results back. Meanwhile, you see the opportunity to buy a vacation package to Hawaii at a real bargain price. Here are your three options: a) you can buy it today, b) you can pass it today) or c) you can pay 5 dollars to lock the price for 2 days, which would allow you yo make your decision after you got the grade. What would you do?

You may want to check the result of the exam before (as most of the participants in the research did). Then the 2 psychologists removed the exam uncertainty for other 2 groups of participants: one group was told they passed the exam, the other group was told they failed the exam. The ones told they passed, 57% chose to buy the trip (it is a nice celebration) and the ones who failed, 54% chose to go to the trip (it’s good to recuperate from all the stress). The key take-away: both who passed and failed wanted to go to Hawaii.

Now the twist: the ones, like you, that didn’t know how they did in the exam, 67% of them chose to pay 5 dollars to lock the price and wait for 2 days. Wait a minute, if you pass you go to Hawaii, if you don’t pass you go to Hawaii, but if you don’t know… you wait and see (!?) That’s really not like the “sure-thing principle” should work, eh? It is exactly like if the businessman would have waited to see the results of the election, even though he wanted to buy the land if any of the candidates would win.

This shows that uncertainty, even when irrelevant, can paralyze us in a way to not make a decision.

Another proved decision making paralysis when you have too much choice. In another research, a group of students were faced with 2 choices: a) attend a lecture by an author you admire and who is visiting your university just this afternoon, or b) go to the library to study.

Studying looks like a bad idea, compared to the author, so only 21% of the people actually chose to go to the library. But, would the results differ if you would add a third choice: c) watch a foreign movie that you have been wanting to see? Guess what, with the 3 choices, than 40% of the students decide to… go the library (that’s double the first amount). So, giving the students 2 good alternatives to studying, bizarrely, makes it less likely that they would chose either. So much for rational human beings.

How to avoid decision making paralysis in business (besides, of course, to have less options and no uncertainty)?

Prioritization. I know that is abstract and in theory is easy: you get what is critical and prioritize it over what is nice. But quoting Yogi Berra: “in theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not”. And that is where the business strategy has to be an sticky message, striped to its CORE and that enables employees to act upon it. Read “With more freedom to take own decisions, the ground level will follow orders better (?)” on strategy messages that enable employees to act.

But one example about messages that enable people to act: Ryanair, I don’t know anything about their messages, but I imagine that they want simply to be the lowest cost airline ever or something. So imagine they made a survey with their customers that revealed that customers would like a free snack in each flight. Then the top executives look at the survey and they have a decision to make: should we listen to our customers and put the free snack or not? It is quite easy to get lost in the “customer is always right” and bla bla bla, but in the end, will giving a free snack make Ryanair be the lowest cost airline ever? No. So the decision is simple: ignore the customer, no free snack.

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Decision making paralysis also appears on Made to Stick , an outstanding book about building messages that stick to people’s brains.

With more freedom to take own decisions, the ground level will follow orders better (?)

It may sound countersense, but let’s talk about one of the most hierarchical organizations ever: the US military.

The military is (thankfully) not the kind of organization where you want individuals using a lot of their common sense to decide what to do next. Freedom + guns = dangerous. That’s why every order can eventually be traced back to the President of the US. But, on the other hand, a common military saying is “no plan survives the contact with the enemy”, which is quite obvious for anyone who planned anything: things go wrong, unexpected stuff happens, key resources become unavailable. Also you cannot stop an ongoing battle to call your general if the plan doesn’t work – “Eagle 1, here is Loser 6, you said to use the tanks to destroy point A, but, hey, the tanks are destroyed, what do we do? Over.” That wouldn’t work. The military needs to empower the people on the ground to take decisions - and it needs to be the right decisions. So how does the military mix empowerment of the ground level and rigid hierarchy of cascading orders?

The military uses something called Commander’s Intent. It is a crisp, no nonsense and plain talk statement that describes the desired outcome (goal!) of any order/plan. The commander’s intent appears on every page of any briefing. The idea behind the Commander’s Intent is that the plan is a way of accomplishing something, it is not a means in itself. So if the plans go wrong (and they go very often) the people executing the orders can take decisions based on what is the purpose of the operation and change it.

An example of a Commander’s Intent could be: “my intent is to have Third Battalion on Hill 4305, to have the hill cleared of enemy, with only ineffective remnants remaining, so we can protect the flank of Third Brigade as they pass through the lines.” With this, it is quite easy to take decisions: “I am the only one left standing in Third Battalion, should I retreat or try to disable the enemy artillery in Hill 4305? I should disable the artillery, because I need to protect the flank of the Third Brigade.”

The same thing could/should be done in business, NGO and government. If the people on the ground, closer to the factory machines and clients, are empowered to take the right strategic decisions by themselves, then a company’s top level will have much more success in implementing its strategy.

But, to enable people to take decisions on the ground level, they need first to understand very clearly the Commander’s (or CEO’s) Intent. That’s where most organizations fall short. You seen it all: bulky mission statements full of buzz words (“maximize profits while delivering sustainable solutions to stakeholders”), abstract strategies that lack “concreteness” to the people executing the intent (“reach world class customer service”) and all the blab la bla that leaves people guessing or, worse, taking the wrong decisions.

But how to deliver clear messages that empowers the ground level to act correctly? One I talked before, being concrete to avoid the Curse of Knowledge, the others, well, you can read Made to Stick or wait for my good will to keep blogging about this awesome book. 

The Curse of Knowledge

A research was made where there would be 2 kind of roles: the tappers and the listeners. The tappers job was to tap on the table a common melody of a very known song (like happy birthday). The listeners would have to listen (duh) and name correctly which song was the tapper tapping. How many times do you think the listener guessed the right song? Don’t jump to the next paragraph, really think how many times would someone guess correctly if you tapped “happy birthday” on the table.

Over the course of the experiment, 120 songs were tapped out. Listeners guessed only 2.5 percent of the songs: 3 out of 120. But here's what made the result worthy: before the listeners guessed the name of the song, they asked the tappers to predict the odds that the listeners would guess correctly. They predicted that the odds were 50 percent.
The tappers got their message across 1 time in 40, but they thought they were getting their message across 1 time in 2. Why?

The answer is the Curse of Knowledge. When we know the name of the song, it’s very hard to act as you don’t know it and put yourself in the shoes of the listeners. When you are tapping, it’s almost impossible to not listen the song in your head. It becomes obvious which song it is, because you already know. Try it out, tap “happy birthday” on the table and listen to it, you hear the song while tapping.

The same thing happens in a miming game, how many times were you impressed by how people didn’t get your outstanding Mao Tse-Tung mime? It’s easy because you already know the answer. AIESEC people are the champions of the Curse of Knowledge, when they say to someone that they were MCVP OGX, they don’t realize that this is completely impossible to understand if you were not in the organization. Jargon is the Curse of Knowledge’s best friend.

The result of the Curse of Knowledge is people talking in abstractions, instead of concretely. A CEO suffering from the Curse of Knowledge talks about “increasing shareholder value” or “world class customer service”. The CEO is listening to the song in his head, “world class customer service” does ring a clear bell in his mind – unfortunately, to the people in customer service, that is too abstract, too high level for anyone to ACT upon it.

How to beat the Curse of Knowledge? Easy: being concrete. Use plain talk. If you want your employees to be better at customer service, what do you think would help most: a passionate talk by the CEO about “achieving world class customer service” or a story about a customer service person who gift wrapped a product, even though it was bought in a competitor’s store? Or a shop attendant who ironed a shirt for a client so he could go to a business meeting?

These were all stories (which in general are concrete by nature), but to be concrete you don’t necessarily need stories. Take when I was President of AIESEC Norway (my all time favorite phrase starter): we had a goal/vision/wish/whatever in our team that we wanted “one exchange happening every day” (I removed the “raised, matched or realized” from the phrase, because only AIESEC people would have a clear picture of what it is – the Curse of Knowledge). It is very concrete stuff, one exchange, every day, that is what we consider success. People can act accordingly to get to that. On the opposite “increase our performance” is too vague and abstract.

We had another one of those, it was “don’t finish our year on minus [in the budget]”, which helped us to cut costs wildly and to push to bring more money in every time there was a chance we would finish our term bellow zero. On the other hand, “to have sustainable financial results” doesn’t have the same impact.

--
The Curse of Knowledge appears on Made to Stick, an outstanding book about building messages that stick to people’s brains.

Made to Stick: why some ideas survive and others die

"Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are” is an sticky idea, it survived a long time and it exists in several languages. The book Made to Stick knows why – and it teaches you how to do the same. Made to Stick is for people who need to communicate (which should be all of us who don’t live in a cave while wearing a bathing suit made of bear skin). It is the best book I ever read about communication (I graduated in communication, I had to read my fair share of McLuhan and Walter Benjamin).

For the authors, the brothers Chip and Dan Heath, an idea is like Velcro: which is basically a lot of small hooks that connects to small rings. The more “hooks” and idea has, the more sticky it will be to the “rings” on our brains. And that is the best part of Made to Stick, it’s not about HOW to say (like with firm tone of voice, posture, use maximum 3 phrases in a Powerpoint, look people in the eye, bla bla bla). No, instead it helps us to DESIGN a great sticky message (WHAT to say).

The whole book is made to explain how to make an idea stick. They use a “system” called SUCCESs. Corny as it may sound, the SUCCESs thing is awesome and stands for Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Stories. Again, they don’t look like much, but the explanation is really outstanding - mostly because they use their own principles to write the book, which means it is filled with juice examples, crisp and plain talk statements without corporate jargon, incredible stories and so on.

Made to Stick is somewhat like the Unleashing the Idea Virus book from Seth Godin, but useful in the day to day life for people that doesn’t need to know anything about communication or marketing. If the Idea Virus is about viral marketing, Made to Stick is about viral communication (even though they never use this term). An example of viral communication/sticky ideas are the urban legends, like the one that a guy wakes up in a bathtub filled with ice and without a kidney (see how sticky this idea is, you already know).

The book explains why the best teachers are the best, how companies can succeed by talking strategy, how the army uses the commander’s intent to overcome the problem that “no plan survives the contact with the enemy”, how sayings are so sticky even across languages, how to make people care, how to generate interest…

“Tell me which books you read and I will tell you how sticky your communication is”.

Linchpins see the world as they truly are

In terms of perception, there are 2 extremes of people: the ones who see the world as they truly are and the ones that are so attached to their world view, their reality, that they can’t see anything beyond that, so they fail to adapt to the needed changes around them. A linchpin need to have enough discernment to check reality (don’t confuse with “negativists” that think everything is impossible). Linchpins are indispensable, and discernment is indispensible. How so?

When I was in AIESEC Norway, in my first year, when I was VP Talent Management, no one in our term had enough discernment to understand the situation of the local business units and their volunteer workers. The result was that our super smart strategies were never really prepared to face the cruel reality of the real world. In theory they were great and they would be great in practice if we were dealing with a well oiled and functional organization. We were not. The result was pretty obvious: it failed over and over again, until we were almost bankrupt.

On my 2^nd year in AIESEC Norway, this time as president, I was fortunate enough to get a team that had a much better perception of how things really were. In the beginning we struggled again, but when we finally accepted reality, we made the most awesome changes in our own behavior. The result was also obvious: operational growth, getting out of the bankruptcy and building cash reserves, positive balance at the end of the year.

The music industry doesn’t have a linchpin strong enough to understand their business model is going down, so they try to protect their worldview by suing and saying that download is a crime. They are attached to their reality. How come any of the big music shots didn’t invent iTunes (today the biggest music retailer) or Spotify? They had everything: the resources, the industry knowledge, etc. But they were too attached to their reality and didn’t have any discernment to realize the business model was dead.

There are loads of examples of organizations that clearly need linchpins with discernment: Blockbuster didn’t move on to the online rental, now they are filing for bankruptcy; Nokia was the biggest mobile company, it saw the smart phones coming (even developed a touch screen mobile 3 years before the iPhone), but they were too attached to their current cash cow and didn’t see the world evolving, now they are lagging behind and the CEO was thrown out the window. GM lost its edge by losing touch of the reality in the market.

Another example that happened with me: a company was pitching to me an e-learning course. "Quite useful" was my first thought, since I had a deep interest for the subject. After trying it, I couldn't stand the e-learning course for 2 full minutes. I could not skip to the parts I was interested. Only when the narrator would stop speaking, I could pass to the next screen. So if you were not interested in that part or simply wanted to check something else, no, no, you had to wait. I told this feedback (in a very polite way) to the vendor. The answer was more or less that they didn't see it as a problem, but would adapt to customer needs. I asked another colleague, she had the same problem with the not skipping and could not finish the course. He clearly was too much attachment to his own reality (to his own product) and that made it impossible for him to understand customer needs. I predict this will not go well.

Reality is perception, it’s always biased by our own world view, that’s why it is so hard to have discernment, to be a linchpin. That’s also why so many innovations come from people without experience in that industry (like Spotify, Voddler, Hulu, Google ads, Skype…). But failing to see reality means failure in the real world.

Linchpin – indispensable reading

Linchpin – Are You Indispensable? has book format, but in fact is a gift, a piece of art. It has been a long time that a book didn’t spark me so much. I started reading it around 10pm and I couldn’t sleep, even when I forced myself to bed at 1am. The thoughts, the ideas, the possibilities (within myself!) that the book unlocked is just comparable to a good kick out the nest that a mother eagle might give to its baby eagles.

Linchpin is a manifesto of greatness – not to get more money, not to get rewarded, not for any selfish other reason, but just because we can be amazing artists and give gifts that change the world into a better place.

A linchpin is an artist that gives away the gift of her art. But we are not talking about painters (not only at least – a painter can also be a factory worker, following the rules and the regulations, the exact opposite of linchpin).

Linchpins are doing their art everywhere and they are indispensable. It’s art when you call the customer service and that person treats you like a human being, it’s art when you don’t listen to the lizard brain and put that new idea in practice at work, it’s art when someone solves problems that no one even identified, it’s art when a designer shows us how amazing it can be to have something that is more than a phone. Linchpins are the people who are leaders, not managers, not employees, not factory workers – and, first of all, they lead themselves, so they can lead the world to great things. The best part is that anyone can become a linchpin. Some people might not want, but certainly can.

That’s my gift to you. I hope it sparks your curiosity enough for you to buy it, borrow it in the local library (or from me!), download it in iTunes or even – coff coff – go for an illegal way of getting it. Just don’t let the factory crush what you can be. Unleash your potential and become a linchpin – you will be happier as a side effect.

IDEO: 3 ideas about the future of books

Nihilists always announce the death of stuff when new stuff shows up. The radio was announced dead after the TV, but it just changes. Same thing about books, we won't get rid of them (thanks god!), but they will for sure evolve. How will the book evolve? Check out the amazing 3 ideas from IDEO's video:


The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.


I liked specially the last one, where we can turn books into interactive fiction. Imagine the appeal a Harry-Potter-like book would have in millions of children if you also would include game elements in it? Imagine the potential of interactive books can have in education (if of course our educational system evolves at all).

Communication technique: never fight people if you want them to do something to you

I am reading this famous book How to Win Friends & Influence People (which is a somewhat terrible title, let's face it). I am still on the first 3-4 chapters, but what I can say is that it really makes a lot of sense, it's a very light reading and is very useful. Each chapter talks about one principle to be great in the art of influencing people and so on. The book refers itself as the bible of good human relationship and I think I kind of agree.

One of the chapters talks about the principle of never criticizing (or something like that). Which is to never fight anyone about anything, because it won't change the person opinion about it. When you fight, people fight back and justify themselves, even if you get them to understand if they are wrong, you won't get anything from them. We are all surrounded by lots of proofs:

- no dictator ever changed his mind when people were fighting his regime, instead, he fought back harder
- People never gave any single coin to a thief, but lots of people donate much more money to charity or give away money to beggers
- I couldn't change the mind of the local committee presidents on the financial situation by fighting their lack of responsibility

Fighting just doesn't work. But how not fighting will help them?

This week I came across a very interesting example of when people do not fight, how they win the fight anyway:

We all know how piracy is a problem for the entertainment industry and they keep fighting (with no success) with their lawyers, copy protections and so on. So there's this little game company that produced an independent game that was just released called Zeno Clash. Of course in a couple of days it was already available for illegal download at any torrent site. What the producers did? They did not fight, instead, they posted this kind of comment on the illegal file:

"I am one of the developers of Zeno Clash. I would appreciate you read this if you are about to download this file.

Zeno Clash is an independently funded game by a very small and sacrificed group of people. The only way in which we can continue making games like this (or a sequel) is to have good sales.

I am aware that at this moment there is still no demo of the game, but we are working on one which will be available soon.

We cannot do anything to stop piracy of the game (and honestly don't intend to do so) but if you are downloading because you wish to try before you buy, I would ask that you purchase the game (and support the independent game development scene) if you enjoy it. We plan on updating Zeno Clash with DLC and continuing support for the game long after it's release.

Thanks for taking the time to read this... hopefully it will make a difference.

Carlos Bordeu ACE Team"

The answer from the people downloading the game? You can see some here:

"Wow, okay Carlos, I'll buy it off of steam. Thanks for being straight up."

"Hi Carlos Your forthrightness is appreciated, and I can 100% guarantee you I have no intention of playing through this game without PAYING for it. I can only hope everyone else on the torrent will do the same!"

"Will buy If I like. If I dont like it I won't play through it! Most likely buying before I even download it XD"

"Wow this game is amazing, and very cheap, I've bought it and dont regret it. Guys buy this if you like it after trying it because even though the easier way might be downloading, think about the people that invested time and effort in making this great release for us and buy their game, so that they may keep on doing so... otherwise we'll never get anotehr great game like this one from these developers again. Once again, brilliant game well worth the money. (I mean come on, if you have the money to buy a computer that can run this, an internet connection that can download this, and can pay the electricity bill even after u left your PC on long enough to download this: I doubt $20 will be much to ask for will it???)"

"Hi, I bought this game after playing it for an hour(I always need a demo of some sort before I purchase), and I don't regret it at all, I look forward to your future games.

The graphics are simply magnificent."

"good to see you actually appealing to the people instead of putting drm on it. i dont play pc games any more but i do play console games and always d/l the game first if it doesnt have a demo. if i like it i'll buy it. most games that i d/l are crap so they dont get used for more than an hour."

"I was looking for a demo and couldn't find one, but after looking on steam the game is only $20 USD, which is a steal I spent more on beer last night, even if I only get a few hours of game play out of it, it's still worth the money."

"I too was looking for a demo before buying but I realized it's only 20$ on steam or direct2drive so I just bought it. It's cheap and have good reviews, so why not? Can't wait to try it."

Not fighting wins!