Now go.
Get started.
Move faster than you feel you should. Faster than you thought you could.
Not because you’ll get there quicker, not even because you’ll get there.
Because it’s the running, the doing, the moving forward, with others, with people like us, that is the real reward.
This is what it means to be human.
The world has changed since the last time you did this.
Before you get going again, take another look.
Knowing what you do now about the resources you have to deliver what you really want; what the people you serve really want and what the people you work with really want, which version of better are you aiming for this time?
Once you’ve accepted what is, it’s time to take stock of the resources you have available to you.
Obviously, the physical resources – cash; credit; working capital; stock; work in progress, the available working hours of your team.
Also the intangibles – your Promise of Value, your ‘way we do things round here’; your know-how and expertise; the willingness/ability of your team, clients and suppliers to support you through changes.
Less obviously perhaps, its time to take stock of what matters. Because that will almost certainly have changed, for you, your clients and your team. And that may open up whole new futures, and close some you thought you had available.
Possible futures are resources too. It’s worth taking stock of them before you decide which ones to explore.
Over the weekend, as well as reading, I listened to wise words from Scott Perry, of Creative on Purpose:
“Acceptance of what is opens the door to what is possible.”
It’s difficult to avoid grieving over what you’ve lost, which includes the future you thought you were going to have.
It is lost. There is nothing we can do about that.
But other futures are open to you. Different futures. Better futures. Because you can make them so. At least, you can do your best to make them so.
The first step in a process of recovery is to accept what is, now.
Yesterday, I read “Simply Better. winning and keeping customers by delivering what matters most.” by Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan.
Here are a couple of interesting quotes from the book:
“The basics” are those things that a customer expects to get from anyone in the category, and which in practice they don’t always get from everyone, or maybe not even anyone in the category.
The encouraging message of this book is that you can systematically grow your customer base by systematically delivering on the basics for your category. Doing “what it says on the tin” may not be glamorous, but it is a winning strategy. And to be successful at it, you need to know exactly what you’re promising, and build your business around delivering on that promise.
The even more encouraging message of this book is that once you’ve got that sorted, you can safely expand “the basics” and change the game for your category.
Discipline makes Daring possible.
When, towards the end of last year, I decided to publish a book, I had an idea in my mind, a mental picture if you like, of what it would be like.
I envisaged something like a Ladybird book. A small format, portrait, made up of double-page spreads, with text on the left hand page, and an accompanying photograph on the facing page. Simple, easy to read, slightly nostalgic (for people of a certain age), and perhaps slightly tongue-in-cheek.
I knew I couldn’t put this together myself, so I asked Rob Key at Studio Change to help.
Rob had a different mental model. Still small, still two-page spreads, still text plus illustration, but completely different.
He showed me what my book would look like according to his model and I was blown away.
The thing about models, is that they are all approximations, they are all wrong.
But some models are much more useful than others. And you’re unlikely to come up with all of them yourself. So you need to share your models, be open to new ones and be willing to improve your own.
Model interactions is how we learn to do better.
Why do I need process if I have good people?
Because making good people reinvent the wheel over and over again is a shocking waste of talent.
Talent that could be used to invent better wheels, or more interesting uses for them.
Last night I discovered Johann Hari and his work on depression, anxiety and addiction.
His findings are fascinating, and chime very much with my beliefs on what motivates people, and how you help them to be happier and more productive.
Humans have fundamental physical needs – food, clothing, shelter, sex.
We also have fundamental psychological needs – autonomy, mastery, agency, purpose and above all connection with other people. We need to be seen and valued.
I’d be interested to know what the current situation is doing for those needs right now. I suspect that some of the psychological needs are being better met for some people, while for others some of the physical needs are under threat.
If Covid-19 is an opportunity for a reset. It’s going to be worth thinking about what comes back after the reset button is released again.
How can we ensure that more people have more of their fundamental needs met intentionally and consistently, without killing ourselves or the planet in the process?
It’s a big question. But we can start small, with where we belong – with our own families, friends and businesses.
Here are the TED talks:
https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_this_could_be_why_you_re_depressed_or_anxious
https://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong
I now by preference use the self-checkout at my local Co-op, out of consideration to the person behind the counter.
But it also feels much better to use the self-checkout when I know the next person in the queue is two metres away – I feel somehow less pressured, less rushed.
Will this change of feeling last beyond the crisis? Who knows? On my part I doubt it.
But I may not have the choice.
There may not even be a supermarket.
We really are living in interesting times.
If, like me, your business-to-business offering feels a discretionary spend at the best of times, you’re probably thinking “Where will I fit in after this is all over?”
The answer? Wherever, whenever and however the people you serve are going to need what you can do for them.
The only way to find out where this will be is to step outside the bubble of your own concerns and put yourself in their shoes.
Not their shoes now, but their shoes down the line, when the urgent crisis is over, the extent of the damage better known, the time when the people you serve will be asking themselves the question “Where will I fit in after this is all over?”
For the right people, what you offer will never be a discretionary spend.
And we only find the right people with deep and deliberate empathy.