flashback friday: a book review of “Social Gravity”

I haven’t been posting much lately because I’m hard at work on a special project and trying to get ready for speaking at two conferences in April. All good stuff, but it hasn’t left much time for this blog. I’ll be back soon. 

 Today’s flashback was originally posted on October 22, 2012. Joe and Jason are good souls and do great work. Check ’em out.

Networking for the sake of networking comes off as crassly self-serving. It tends to feel vapid and hollow and more than a little creepy. Building relationships because it’s fun, useful, and mutually beneficial is a whole ‘nother story.

Business equals people equals business. Can’t get around it. Business gets done through, for, and by people. Period. We can deny it and struggle and wonder OR we can recognize and embrace it. Want to be better at business; want to get more done? Get better with people. Build stronger relationships.

That’s where Social Gravity by Joe Gerstandt (@joegerstandt) and Jason Lauritsen (@jasonlauritsen) comes in. Ultimately, Social Gravity is less about networks and more about “authentic, mutually beneficial relationships.” As the authors say in the introduction: “What you know helps you play the game, and who you know helps you change the game.”

We all know that who you know matters, but most of us spend our time resenting it rather than doing something about it. Section 1” …It’s Not What You Know…” focuses on reminding us of the importance of relationships, the difference they make in getting things done, the need for high quality relationships, and the distinction between using social media as a tool to enhance relationships vs confusing likes and follows with actual relationships. Relationships have power and how we harness and use that power makes a tremendous difference.

Us humans generally get in our own way by either overcomplicating things or trying to get long-term success through shortcuts. Section 2 “Discover the Laws of Social Gravity” delves in to the areas that most networking advice seems to miss completely. The authors expand on taking the long-term approach to building relationships, being open to connecting with others, being our real and authentic selves, and contributing our time and effort in meaningful ways. These are all important, obvious, common sense ways to meet great people and build mutually beneficial relationships. They are also generally ignored and dismissed by those in the throes of networking frenzy who prefer the whitebread, fast food, business-card-trading shortcuts. It’s shifting from style to substance, from activity to results, from superficial to meaningful, from networking to relationship building. And that’s a powerful shift.

Throughout the book, Joe and Jason share real life examples of how relationships have affected their lives. Most striking are the small things that lead to huge differences. From Joe finding a key person within his company by connecting with someone from outside the company to Jason’s connections not helping him move to (my favorite) Jason’s hairstylist meeting and eventually marrying Joe after two unrelated groups of friends met up one Saturday night. Relationships, big and small, change lives.

As I look back on my life, many of my most important relationships seem to have started almost by chance. Many of the most important events were due to my relationships with others. Great opportunities came from key people vouching for me or putting me in touch those who could help. Sometimes it was intentional, but often it wasn’t. For me, Social Gravity is a reminder and blueprint for helping me be more deliberate and effective in connecting with others. To do what I already know how to do, but do it more consistently and intentionally and do it better.

Relationships matter.

 

 

that’s why they pay you

You know the drill. Someone complains about how tough their job is or how much they dislike their work and the immediate response is: Duh! Of course it’s not fun. That’s why they pay you. They know you wouldn’t show up otherwise. We snicker and think: Yeah. Get back to work, slacker. You’re not paid to have fun. Suck it up and cash your check on payday.

What a load of bassackwards crap! (to use the technical term)

On the surface it sounds right and it’s kind of humorous and I’ve certainly bought into it before. Dig deeper and we see it’s a kneejerk response that gets everything backwards and wrong.

It is true that if we didn’t pay people they wouldn’t show up. But it’s not because we’re compensating them for the opportunity to inflict misery on them. It’s because of opportunity costs. People need to feed, clothe, shelter, and take care of themselves and their families and they have only so many hours in a day to do it. Waaaayyy back when, they did all this themselves through hunting, gathering, and whatnot. Today people provide specialized skills in exchange for money to trade with others for the goods and services they need. Even if they absolutely loved, loved, loved their jobs we’d still have to pay them. Otherwise, they’d have to: 1) learn to hunt and gather; 2) starve; or 3) find someone else who will pay them for their skills.

We don’t pay people to endure us, we pay people because they bring knowledge and skills that we can repackage and sell through the products they create or the services they provide. In effect, the company becomes the middle man between the employee and the consumer and hopefully adds some value along the way by combining the talents of the employees to produce more/better/faster than they could do on their own.

If it were true that we pay people because we knew they wouldn’t do the job otherwise then the most miserable jobs in the worst working conditions should (by this logic) earn the most money. So, people become fieldhands and work in slaughterhouses for the money??? Um, no. Conversely, how often have you heard of someone getting a cut in pay because they are too passionate about their work?

The idea that pay and misery are directly correlated makes no sense yet we cling to it. How many employees think that their mere presence is enough to justify a paycheck? How many managers think that their employees would be happier and more productive if they could only pay them more? How often do we justify subjecting employees to unnecessarily rigid work conditions, nanny policies, or toddler-tantrum leaders with a dismissive, “Well, they get paid…” At best, it’s a lousy excuse for pathetic, apathetic, lazy leadership and really bad business decisions.

And employee engagement is down? People are dreaming of working elsewhere? We’re afraid of what they might say about us on social media? Huh, weird. Probably just coincidence. I once heard someone say, “People don’t leave because it’s difficult. They leave because it’s not worth dealing with anymore.” Seems pretty true from my experience and observation.

People aren’t compensated for occupying desks, their difficulties, or as a license to abuse them. People are paid for the value they provide through the problems they solve and the results they create. That’s not revolutionary, just too often forgotten by both employees and the company.

So why do people keep showing up for work? Hopefully, they’re getting appropriately compensated for working on the problems and results they enjoy, find fulfilling, and inspire them to do their best. Ultimately, leaders need their employees more than employees need their leaders. Over time leadership gets the employees they deserve.

What thinks you?

 

book review: Be A Free Range Human

psst. Hey you. Want to know a secret?free range human

Don’t tell anyone, but the world has changed in the past few years. Massively. Technology has made us all interconnected, made location irrelevant, and costs almost nothing.

This thing called the Internet connects us all email, social media, Skype, and online commerce. Computers, tablets, and smart phones hook us to it 24/7. Work is more about processing information than making widgets so we can live anywhere and work everywhere. It’s amazing!

What’s that? You knew that already? Everyone knows that? Really, then why do we still organize our work and structure businesses as though carbon paper is the latest innovation? Why do we keep the way we do work stuck in the forgotten past? What if much of what we’ve been told about career and business success is now irrelevant (or even wrong)?

If we really got how much the world has changed, we’d realize the dream of just a few years ago is now a distinct possibility: Freedom! No office, no schedule. Working from bookstores, coffee shops, and tropical beaches. Your office – your entire business – packed into a laptop bag; all you need is an outlet and a Wifi connection. Live anywhere, work everywhere. That’s the dream, right?

Timothy Ferriss popularized the idea with his book The 4-Hour Workweek and Marianne Cantwell now gives us a practical how-to guide with Be a Free Range Human: Escape the 9 to 5, Create a Life You Love and Still Pay the Bills.

Let me say this up front: even if you’re not looking to drop out of the corporate world, there’s still quite a bit of great information here. Many of the skills that let you be an independent consultant, contractor, or solopreneur translate well to any career. Even if you are not wanting to leave your current role, Marianne underscores how much work has changed so quickly, and how career-savvy employees can take advantages of those changes.

When we consider how different the world is, we realize we can do business differently. Networking and relationships replace advertising, credibility replaces business cards and letterhead, and an internet connection replaces expensive office space. Location has become irrelevant for many jobs and businesses. Results count for more than prestige and purchased impressiveness. Why spend money on the trappings of a “business” when you can simply bypass all that and provide value?

The author shares what she has learned both in her own transition and in coaching and helping other make the leap to the free range life. Refreshingly, it’s not a call to quit today and figure it out tomorrow. Rather, she advocates a much lower risk approach of doing small experiments and starting off with as little expense and overhead as possible. She advocates playing and experimenting and testing, starting small and finding what will scale to a larger business and what you’ll actually enjoy doing. The book has plenty of examples and case studies, exercises to help you think it all through, and links to additional information.

The author clearly takes to heart the idea of standing out and being true to self as a competitive advantage. Not a new message, but well delivered. She reminds us that being all things to all people is a tried and tested formula for grey mediocrity. Standing apart creates people who don’t understand us and don’t like us AND creates excitement and loyalty for those who do appreciate it. It’s not being average at everything for everyone, it’s being great at a few things for a specific audience. The “beige army” (as she calls them) strongly wants you to join them in mediocrity. They hate to see anyone stand out, be different, or succeed uniquely (remember Puttnam’s Law?). They want you to fit in and be average and do things the way they think everybody does things.  They will bully and push and complain and criticize, but aligning yourself with them only ensures conformity, not success. She highlights how there’s little point in reducing your strengths to appease them – they weren’t going to buy from you anyway. Far better to cultivate a small group of diehard customers that love you than pandering to a large group of potential customers that don’t hate you.

Without giving it all away, here are some topics to look forward to:

  • A great section on networking that works. She never refers to her approach as networking because it’s not done as an add-on or a separate activity, rather it’s done authentically as a natural course of the day. How to grow your business without advertising.
  • Creating status and credibility without the overhead of unnecessary business trappings such as nice offices, business cards, brochures, etc.
  • The four (plus one) free range business types.
  • How to test your idea in a week to see if it will work.
  • Why you don’t need a business plan.
  • Why it’s a business-killing idea to try to make everyone your customer. The paradox is you will actually reach more customers by concentrating on fewer customers.
  • The do’s and don’t’s of getting press.
  • Communicating like a human, not a business drone.

A few quick gems from the author:

  • If you can’t see the woods for the trees, the answer isn’t to add more trees.
  • … don’t use the fact that you’re not world class in two hours as an excuse not to keep going.
  • For every person who laughs at you when you are at your brightest, someone else loves you for exactly the same reason.
  • The middle of the road is the most dangerous place to be (that’s where you get run over by fast-moving traffic).
  • Be the person who does it differently; be the example you’re looking for.

That should have you covered. Again, whether you’re looking to set up shop from the world’s beaches or just want to bolster your career, there is a lot of great information offered up. Practical, straightforward, easy to read. Good stuff and worth a read.

Live anywhere, work anywhere. What thinks you?

 

 

 

 

In the spirit of transparency: a while back, the publisher asked me if I’d like them to send me their catalog to see if there were any books I’d like to read and review. [YES! Now, please!] This was one of the books that caught my eye so they kindly shipped me a copy.

 

 

friday kick to the head

A big ol’ caution this morning. Do NOT watch these two videos if you’re really comfortable going with the crowd, hanging out at the corner of Average Avenue and Mediocrity Drive. There are some tough choices represented here and tough choices carry consequences. And, often, beautiful rewards.

First up, Joe Gerstandt reminding us we are either Plagiarism or Revolution and encouraging us to Pick That Fight:

(a second caution: do not let Joe’s youtube channel keep playing unless you’re really, really wanting that kick in the head)

 

Next, by way of Kris Dunn, the HR Capitali$t, who shared this beauty from Ray Lewis about getting pissed off for greatness:

What thinks you?

above the line HR

There are two basic approaches to Human Resources: above the line and below the line. The line has nothing to do with ethics, transparency, or straightforwardness. The line is simply the no man’s land between the two philosophies. The line represents: Things Are Ok.

If we talk about health and wellness, some consider a lack of disease to be healthy. Others insist that health and wellness is something more than not being sick: it’s vitality, energy, radiant well-being. The line between the two represents being ok. The first approach fixes things if they drop below the line – illness or injury – the second sees the line of being ok as a starting point and strives to move far beyond the line to increase wellness.

HR can be viewed the same way. One approach exists to prevent things from breaking (don’t get sued!) and fix them when they do. It’s a reactive approach that assumes that as long as the company is compliant with laws and regulations – as long as it doesn’t get “sick” – HR has done its job well.

The above the line approach sees this as the starting point. Yes, you should keep it legal and prevent leaders and employees from doing terminally stupid things – but that’s the bare minimum expectation. Above the line HR does more than prevents illness, it sees the opportunity to help the company excel much like a trainer helps athletes improve. A trainer doesn’t just keep the athlete from being sick, they push to create maximum wellness and physical performance. The trainer can’t do it for the athlete, but brings knowledge, process, and discipline to the athlete’s efforts. AND maximizing physical performance also means super disciplined nutrition, preventative care, and top notch medical attention – all of which prevent illness and injury. The above the line approach naturally addresses below the line concerns because it can’t improve performance unless it prevents and mitigates health setbacks.

Above the line HR is the same way. To help the company (athlete) get the most performance, it has to be really sharp and proactive about making decisions and taking actions and providing the training, tools, and processes that minimize the need for below the line approaches. For example, few, if any, “illegal” interview questions provide any information that leads to identifying high performance employees, so why ask them? Performance is performance whether it’s male, female, white, black, yellow, blue, or green, in a wheelchair, left handed, believes in nine gods or none at all, etc., etc., etc. Kneejerk management decisions that often get companies in trouble are avoided, prevented, or mitigated not just to prevent trouble but because stupid decisions get in the way of people being at their best and hurt the engagement and commitment of the most talented employees (the ones you want to keep around). The athlete may go against the trainer’s advice, but does so balancing the potential consequences rather than out of ignorance or narrow perspective. Likewise, HR can’t make business decisions for leaders but can do everything in its power to ensure leaders are making informed and (hopefully) better decisions.

Who has a bigger impact on your personal vitality – the doctor you see only when sick or the physical trainer and nutritionist you consult with regularly? If HR is not “at the table” (sorry, I hate that expression), chances are it’s because they are viewed as the doctor that only gets visited after the fact to cure illness and injury. Staying below the line ensures minimum influence and impact.

Two approaches. One keeps the company from not getting sick, the other pushes for maximum health and performance. One prevents bad, the other strives to create the most good possible. They are similar in wanting to protect the company’s health but very different in philosophy, approach, and outcomes.

Above the line, below the line. What thinks you?

inconceivable

pedalsHow many things completely inconceivable just 10 years ago, very expensive or difficult even five years back, are ho-hum (yawn) commonplace today?

I bought a new set of pedals for my mountain bike from the UK. A great set of pedals – a brand that’s hard to find in the US – at a competitive price, $10 shipping, eight business days later and they’re waiting for me in the mail.

A quick photo from my phone and I’ve shared my excitement with friends. An hour or two later and I’m interacting and discussing the pedals with people across timezones, countries, and continents. And I’m doing it essentially for free.

Count the inconceivable impossibilities in the two previous paragraphs. Not only is it hard to grasp all the advances that had to come together to make all of that possible, but it’s even more startling how quickly such an impossibilities became just another Thursday night.

 

Pedals? Who cares? What about work?

This kind of cross-continent coordination, collaboration, and communication is mundane in our private lives, but how much has work kept up?

  • How many policies do we have that are so out of date they might as well be written on papyrus scrolls?
  • How much energy is spent blocking technology and ensuring work gets done in a certain way vs embracing how work might be different?
  • If your job were invented today, would it look the way it does now? How different would your office/workspace be? What technology would you use if you could select it (what technology do you use to get things done in your personal life that you can’t use at work)? Who would you communicate with that you don’t now?
  • How different would recruiting, hiring, and onboarding employees be if we started from scratch today? How would HR workflow be different?
  • What policies would immediately be nuked and what would they be replaced with (if at all) if we were told reinvent the business?
  • How much of an advantage does the lack of legacy give a new business over an established one right now in terms of creating more efficient work?

What are the inconceivable things at work that are completely possible right now? What are we not doing because it was impossible five years ago, but would be cheap and easy to do today?

What thinks you?

 

linearity is a lie

Us humans so want certainty and security in an uncertain and insecure world that we’ve created this myth – a lie – of the importance of living a linear life. Life in a straight line, always stepping forward, never getting sidetracked, each movement building on the past – it sounds so great.

We created the lie and we’re suckers for believing it. Buy into the lie and we’ve undermined our own success and fulfillment. Believing in the Myth of Straight Lines leaves us asking why our life isn’t that way; it leaves us unhappy and wondering what we’re doing wrong. The reality is simply LIFE IS NOT LINEAR. It rarely moves in straight lines. It leaps forward, sideways, backwards. It zigs, it zags. Sometimes it does nothing at all. Dumb luck, random events, accidents, disease, decisions that made sense at the time, poor choices, and timing conspire to ensure life is not straightedge precise.

Life is sloppymessy. Zig Ziglar once advised us to: Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and capitalize on what comes. It appears that those who play big and make a difference understand this and can work with it. They have the end destination in mind but are flexible about how to get there and even willing to accept a different destination if a better one reveals itself along the way.

Consider the possibility that when we buy into the lie of linearity and are unwilling to deviate from the straight line, we are generally unable to accept setbacks and failure as a part of the process. Unable to risk creativity or innovation or simply trying something different. Perhaps even unable to recognize how strong, how unique, and resourceful we actually are. We might miss how much we’ve actually done, the difference we’ve made, and the success we’ve had.

What thinks you?

 

sorry LinkedIn, I’m just not that special

There is a quirk to human nature where we want to fit in with everyone else and simultaneously stand out. We want to be just like everyone only more special so we find all sorts of ways of being better and validating our uniqueness.

As much of a rare and special purple unicorn snowflake I like to think I am, I know there are many others like me. Mathematically, if I’m in the top 1% in any category, there are roughly 70 million others on this planet who are at least as good. Heck, there are 3 million in the US alone.

Social media has done a great job of leveraging this psychological need: You have a new follower! (Can you believe it – someone likes me?!) Someone retweeted one of your tweets! (Holy cow, I must be special – they really like me and they think I’m a supergenius). Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy that someone else thinks that my thoughts might be useful – please keep following, retweeting, etc. – I’m just not convinced that it’s always an exclamation point kind of moment.

I, like many others, recently received notice from LinkedIn that my profile was in the top 10% of those visited. My thoughts rapidly went from Huh, that’s kind of cool to Are they sure? Really? to Man, they’re screwed if I’m top 10%.

Why are they screwed?

I don’t have that many connections. Not really, not at all. I’m pretty sure any mediocre sales person, recruiter, or social butterfly has more connections than me.

I’m not looking for a job so it’s not as if I’m doing anything to attract people to my profile.

No recruiters are calling me so it’s not like people are seeking me out.

Uhhhh, so if I have such little activity, why am I in the top 10%? AND if I’m top 10% where do all those poor folks who are trying to use LinkedIn to find work rate?

AND if I’m hitting the top 10% what meaning could this measure possibly have? What outcomes are happening as a result of my extraordinary accomplishment?

AND if I’m so unspecially special, where is LinkedIn making its money and who isn’t getting a return on their investment?

Oh wait!

Hang on, top 10% of 200 million users is 20 million. Yep, not that special.

What thinks you?

 

 

time to talk

I am a big believer in leadership development classes, workshops, and seminars. I’ve witnessed (and experienced) so many of those “light bulb moments” where there is suddenly a huge shift in thinking that changes a leader’s approach, and results.

BUT. I wonder how much of it is the content of the class and how much of it is something else. Good content is important, yet the magic happens in the spaces between the tools and concepts. The class provides crucial time to think, reflect, and discuss. It gives time away from phones, email, customers, and employees and becomes a catalyst for dialog and insight that doesn’t happen on its own.

The class gets people together and gives them space and time to talk. The information, theories, tools, and approaches gives context and content for reflection, dialog, and sharing. The conversation lets people know that they are not alone in their challenges, and leading is sometimes difficult and lonely and sometimes a bit scary for everyone, and there are solutions.

It’s amazing what happens when leaders drop the charade of invulnerable infallibility and get human. Suddenly, there’s so much to teach and so much to learn. Building trust, exploring ideas, sharing and learning from each other’s joy and heartache doesn’t happen quickly. It takes time before the conversation gets deep enough and rich enough to matter.

Time that no one thinks they have – until they take it.

What thinks you?