Almost every month there is one or the other Yellow Pages book lands up in front of my door. They all look the same from outside. I don’t know how they look inside because I have never opened one. There was only one time, my son brought one of the books inside to use it as a door stopper. Other than that, I have not found any use for it.
Two days ago, I found another Yellow Pages from a new company. This time, they went one step further. A day later someone from that company called from another city and wanted to check whether I received the Yellow Pages book and if the condition was OK.
I had a hard time not trying to laugh out loud.
You can’t handle irrelevance by hard work, unfortunately.
In places where Internet adoption is high, the days of Yellow Pages are over. They are irrelevant. Force-fitting something irrelevant won’t work however hard you try. The only thing that can happen is that you will postpone the eventual death (by a bit) but in the process you will annoy (or amuse) a ton of people.
There is a place for persistence and this is NOT it.
You handle irrelevance by innovation and re-invention, not hard work.
A common pastime for employees is to find faults with what ideas and initiatives of their Bosses. This mini saga takes a look at this from another angle.
Boss
Charan was an expert in criticizing the ideas of his Boss. He was very proud of his ability to detect flaws in every initiative. One day, everything changed. When his Boss was promoted again, he shared that the turning point for him was when he stopped criticizing and started “doing.”
Note:
1. A mini saga is a story told in exactly 50 words. Not 49 or 51 but exactly 50.
At the edges, things are a bit scary. You don’t know what is there outside the edge. At the center things are comfortable. You are safe.
If you want to stay where you are, you can stay at the center and be safe.
If you want to embark on new journeys, the edges are where you should be.
Let us see what will take you to an edge?
A small percentage of people will proactively go towards an edge and explore. They are wired to be at the edges. So let us leave them aside.
Majority of people have to experience a trigger that will take them to an edge. The trigger can be an event ( example: being fired or laid off from work) or on the other end, it can be a simple conversation. As you are reading this, observe what is going on in your mind. When I spoke about it in one of my previous talks, people confessed that while I was talking on the topic, they were already feeling uncomfortable about the whole thing. Please don’t resist anything. Edges are uncomfortable and that is the way it should be.
While they are uncomfortable, they need not be bad. If you are open, amazing things can happen.
I have had many conversations that have pushed me to an edge and today I am thankful for those conversations. Again, these conversations were not confrontational or unpleasant. Sometimes, at the time of the conversation, I didn’t even realize that I was being pushed to an edge. Actually, let me take a quick example and you will see this in action.
A few years ago, Dan Roam ( Author of “Back of the Napkin”) and I were attending a conference organized by 800-CEO-READ. The conference was great and at that time, the book “Back of the Napkin” was not even published yet. Dan was humble but talking to him even for a few minutes would show that he was a super smart person. We were engaged in a conversation and Dan shared about his new book and it was about drawings. I hate(d) drawings and I told him that there was no way I could learn drawing even if someone put a gun to my head. Dan smiled and said that everyone could learn to draw and it was easy. I was skeptical and in the next few minutes Dan showed me that he was not joking. Dan was kind enough to give me a galley copy of his book which I was able to devour on my plane journey back.
That was it – a ten minute conversation and that changed my life completely. My view on visual thinking was transformed in those ten minutes. Today I might have illustrated close to one hundred blog posts on this blog. I continue to learn and experiment and I am thankful to Dan for that “edge” conversation. I am thankful to GOD for making me be “open” for new possibilities.
Here are some examples of blog posts where I have illustrated:
I am sure you have your own stories about being pushed to an edge.
The question is not about the past. What you need to think about is how are you structuring your life in the next few months so that you are engaged in more conversations that will push you to the edge?
I mean “action” that will lift them to a whole new level in life and in business.
This is a question that has haunted me for a while. I meet so many smart people during my travels and speaking engagements. when I hear what these people are involved with and think about what they “could be” actually involved with, it is not difficult to see the “gap.” They could be doing much more but it seemed like they have resigned to be just “good.”
When I get close to some of them, I openly discuss this and honestly, it is not news to them. They know that they are not living up to their full potential. They are aware of that. Some of them say that “soon” they will make a change.
I kept thinking about this “gap” and wondering about the reasons for just doing “good work” when they could be doing “great work.” Why limit the contributions to making a difference to a dozen people when they could make a difference to a thousand people?
The reasons for this seemed like:
They were waiting for the right opportunity
They had obligations that they had to fulfill before they take on big challenges
They had personal or family reasons beyond work
They were simply happy with what they were doing
They were not aware of their true potential
They had become comfortable with their present situation and didn’t like change
and so on..
Valid reasons but I was not satisfied with any one or combination of them. They were true for a specific case but I could not find a more generic reason for inaction.
Last month, when I was reviewing my notes from a few meetings over the years, the reason became clear.
It was not ONE reason but there was a complex system at play contributing to the inaction. Let me explain it the best way I can.
Here is the quick summary:
Most smart people want to make a BIG difference. But they don’t think they are ready to take that plunge to live their dream. They don’t want to raise the stakes (by quitting their job, investing in something, joining a movement) yet until they are ready. They keep discovering that something else needs to happen before they raise the stakes. The more they wait, the higher their current obligations making it more complicated to raise the stakes. So on one end, they keep discovering that there is so much more to know “before they are ready” to take the plunge and on the other end, the stakes are low for them to take any action to make a change.
Let us look at this in a bit more detail
Whatever someone pursues (an idea) the step before taking action is to build the “capacity to take action.” Smart people know that they need to build that capacity first before they take action.
When they start building their “capacity” they make up a “threshold of capacity” required before they can take any serious action. After that they start building that capacity ( capacity for example may be some skills such as marketing or sales or they might think they need “X” dollars and “Y” strong connections) and being smart they quickly realize the gap between “their current capacity” and the “threshold of capacity” required to take action.
They make take several actions to build that capacity. Their efforts may include attending a course like an MBA. They act in their own way but always to build capacity so that ONE day they are READY to take that necessary action (the Plunge.)
Over this time, they realize that the threshold capacity is higher than what they originally envisaged. The gap is probably bigger than their original estimate. They need to work hard to get to that threshold capacity.
Over the next few years, they aggressively work on increasing their personal capacity and as they learn more about themselves and also about the world around them, they realize that to guarantee their success, they need to increase their threshold of capacity” to an even higher level. The gap between their “personal capacity” and the “capacity threshold” further increases.
The quest to “get ready” continues.
While their capacity expansion continues, they have ensured that they are “safe” – meaning the stakes were “low” for them to take any action. There is really nothing they would have “lost” (at least in the short-term) by NOT taking any action. They were doing well in their current jobs or in whatever they are doing. They were “above average” from the society standards and they needed a really good reason or two to do anything different. The stakes were low to make a significant change.
But they do want to change. Yes, as soon as their personal capacity matches the “capacity threshold” that they have identified to take the plunge.
Unfortunately their own “smartness” contributes to the continuous expansion of the “capacity threshold” before they take the next plunge.
REQUEST: If you know of someone super smart in your life that is on the fence, please send them a link to this article. Or, if you know many smart people, simply share the article via one of the social networks. Just increasing the awareness helps people to get out of their “stuck” state.
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You may also be interested in other mini-research outcomes:
Here are the outcomes of the previous mini-research initiatives:
If you are having an off day, there is no need to broadcast it by sharing something mediocre.
The temptation to share is super-high because the barrier to entry in social media is super low. You think, you write and you hit publish and you are off to the races. When you are in a pinch, you may feel like sharing something mediocre and justify to yourself that “just this one time it’s OK” to do that.
Honestly, if you have “already made it” you might still be able to get away with it.
But if you are a rising star, that “just one time” might hurt you badly.
Why?
Simply because:
1. Someone might just stumble on to your site and read just that one piece and decide never to come back again.
2. Someone who is just building a relationship with you and your work might decide it is not worth spending any more time
3. Someone might spread this message (with their comments) and instead of helping, it might hurt
4. Someone might alter their perception of “who you are” and “how much attention to pay” on your future work.
I can go on but in the social world, there is nothing like “just this ONE time” – you are always on the stage.
It is OK to have an off day. All of us have that. It is NOT OK to broadcast it to the world.
They say extraordinary is simple – all it takes is that “extra” to be added. However, in real life, it takes a few years to add that “extra.” It makes sense because if it were any easier, everybody would do it and it would no longer have that “extra.”
Here are few TED talks that has that depicts what the “extra” will look like:
1. Extraordinary Dance
Kenichi Ebina moves his body in a breathtaking fashion.
2. Extraordinary Visuals
Hans Rosling takes data visuals to a whole new level.
3. Extraordinary Rejuvenation
What is your idea of rejuvenation?
Take a holiday for a day.
How about a weekend?
How about a week?
Well, How about one year every seven years?
Watch how Stefan Sagameister explains his idea of rejuvenation by taking a year off every seven years. And, what that year of time off contributes to the richness of the other seven years.
4. Extraordinary Technology
There is an information overload and Pranav Mistry explains his invention – wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.
5. Extraordinary Curiosity
James Cameron has written and directed some of the largest blockbuster movies of the last 20 years, including The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Titanic, and Avatar.
Watch him explain how his “curiosity” led him to where he is today.
There are 600+ presentations on the TED website. Each one of them is a gem. Enjoy!
PS: Thanks to Kiruba Shankar for pointing me to Stefan Sagameister’s video.
Take a table with one leg. It is not very stable. You can push it a bit and topple it over. Now put another leg and the table becomes a bit more stable. Add two more legs and make all the four legs stronger and now you have a reasonably stable table. It’s hard to shake it and topple it.
Now think about your dream and the reason not to pursue it. If there is one reason, you can shake it off easily. Add more reasons (no money, no experience, no connections etc.) and then you have a stronger reason to NOT pursue your vision. Without our knowledge day in and day out, we keep adding more reasons to NOT pursue our vision and soon unconsciously we start believing that our dream and our life are different – the cards you have been handed just not make it easy to pursue your dream. It’s just fate.
So, what could you do?
Two things:
First, systematically remove the legs (reasons) for NOT pursuing your dreams. The more legs (reasons) you remove, easier it is to break the resistance (topple the table) to pursue the dream.
Second, use the same principle in the opposite fashion. Start finding legs (reasons) for pursuing your passion. The more legs (reasons) you find, the stronger the conviction (table) to pursue the dream. To start the journey, simply start finding a second reason to do anything important.
During my last trip to India I spoke at two events. In one of the events, someone complained that a bestselling author was not wiling to give thirty minutes of her time to discuss a particular issue. His point was that it was just thirty minutes – nothing much.
We had a healthy debate about why it was “just thirty minutes” for him but a series of “just thirty minutes” for the bestselling author. He is not the only person who would have requested “just thirty minutes” from this author and if she accepted all such requests she wouldn’t have time to get anything done on her end.
Honestly, I told him that if he had made a case as to why spending thirty minutes with him is an “opportunity” for the bestselling author there was a good chance that he would have got more than thirty minutes. And, if he can’t be an “opportunity” for her right now, he will be an “opportunity cost” for her.
Opportunities are taken and opportunity costs are shunned typically.
Two other people have written about “just thirty minutes” in a different context. Here they are:
How long do you think it will take for 22 people to introduce themselves?
How about just over 2 days?
This was (almost) what happened at the CEREBRATE2010 event late last month (detailed write-up on Cerebrate blog here)
CEREBRATE is the brain child of Kiruba Shankar and it follows an Unconference format. I was so glad to participate in the 3rd edition. This edition was sponsored by MARG.
The Rules of Cerebrate
The rules of the conference are simple (read: the birth of Cerebrate by Kiruba Shankar)
Every participant (achiever) will be from an unique field. No two people will be from the same profession.
The event will always be a residential program, preferably at a venue that is away from cities.
There will be no audience. The only people who will be in the event are the achievers. There won’t be ‘talks’ but conversations.
Participants are highly encouraged to leave their laptops, blackberrys behind. There won’t be newspapers or TV either. The focus is highly on people interaction.
The event was one of the best I have attended in the last twelve months. I am already missing the participants and it’s not even been ten days.
What made CEREBRATE2010 successful?
Here are a few that I can think of:
1. Choice of People: This was an invite-only event and the participants were handpicked not just for their achievements but also for their mood and willingess to contribute richly.
2. Diversity: No two participants were from the same field. There was only one mountaineer (Sandhosh) and there was only one musician (Vasu) and there was only one designer (Ramesh) and there was only one historian (S.Muthiah) and so on.
3. Egalitarian Approach: From the get go, the approach was egalitarian and within minutes the participants felt “very” comfortable being in the group. There was no time needed for “warm ups” and “small talks”
4. No-holds barred Conversations: Every participant shared with an open mind and an open heart. Each one had their trials and triumphs and they laid them bare. The richness of the conversations shot up by 100 times as compared to a typical corridor conversation in a conference.
5. Choice of Venue: The event took place in MARG Tapovan, one of the new properties by MARG and the place was simply breathtaking. When we were not engaged in heart-to-heart conversations, we were busy swimming (actually playing water-touch-rugby in a swimming pool), playing table tennis or playing cricket. The hosts (MARG) treated the participants with love and caring that is typically uncommon.
6. Listening: Every participant was “totally” listening when others were talking. The focus was on people and the conversations and not on what was on their Blackberrys.
7. Openness: Last but not the least, participants were open and believed in the outcome of the event even though many of them were participating in an Unconference for the first time in their lives.
What will come out of CEREBRATE?
Apart from lifetime friendships with the 21 other participants, one of the highlights was to create a book called CEREBRATEtweet ( in the THINKaha format). It is a completely crowdsourced book with ideas and insights from the 22 participants. Stay tuned.
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