The Controlled Rebel

In my (admittedly limited) experience in consulting I have learned that organizations actually want people that don't settle for the status quo. They may not know it, but they do. They want someone who can seek and destroy things that don't make sense. Not someone who wreaks carnage upon anything and anyone in their path, but a silent and deadly killer of bureaucracy, band aid solutions, and misguided holdover decisions. They want someone who doesn't settle for the status quo because frankly not settling is a lot of work. Both in the discovery of what doesn't make sense and in the crafting of solutions to impact meaningful change. Most people in organizations are just too busy to engage in one let alone both of these activities.

Don't get me wrong, organizations don't want someone to come in and totally rock the boat. They don't want an abrasive personality demanding radical change. They don't want someone to scream "bullshit" when the sacred cows are defended or when the inevitable "this is how we have always done it" arises. What they do want is someone to call "bullshit" in a professional and perhaps even a disguised manner so the organization doesn't have to address the reality that the status quo isn't working. The controlled rebel who can skillfully navigate this delicate balancing act is in demand.....even if most organizations don't know it.

Musings, Cliches, Golden Nuggets From My First Consulting Engagement

I have officially closed out my first consulting engagement and although it ended sooner that I would have liked it was an amazingly rewarding learning experience that I am incredibly grateful for. My post Air Force life has been blast that has brought an incredible amount of change, enjoyment, and stress in short period of time. New hometown, new careers for the wife and I, new house, new & old friends, and a new baby girl! To add to the plethora of change in my life, I have settled into the consulting career field which essentially means that I am changing jobs within a job every few months to a year. Amidst the chaos, I really wanted to carve out some time to capture thoughts and lessons learned from my first consulting engagement at Nike. My learnings range from fairly tactical and borderline anecdotal to strategic and transcendent but I wanted them recorded nonetheless. Here they are:

- The Importance of Visually Expressing Ideas: One thing that I took away from working within Nike was the power of visually expressing ideas. The world moves fast and it is only moving faster by the day. People within successful organizations have a lot on their plate, their time is limited, and their attention spans are understandably short. Couple that with a corporate culture like that of a Nike and you have very little time to express, sell, and execute complex ideas. It was no wonder that given that context, everything....and I mean everything was done via slide decks. PowerPoint or bust. There were no long word document proposals. 

At first I found it a bit odd, especially having come from the Government contracting world where stacks of files literally consumed real estate within every organization. But over time I found it to be an incredibly liberating culture to operate within. No formal formats. Just the visual medium necessary to express an idea. What was great was that these presentations were consistently reused and/or distributed to new people to proliferate buy in as well. There wasn't any proposal or commitment document that was shelved or lost, just presentations that marked points of agreement in time amongst relevant stakeholders. An oddly relaxed yet effectively self organizing methodology that delivered results. At the end of the day shared understanding equals shared goals and objectives, so moving forward I will definitely utilize presentations as my medium of choice. 

- The Power of Facilitating Workshops/Meetings with Clearly Defined Objectives: The project I worked on had an incredibly complex network of internal and external stakeholders that needed to be aligned on where the project was headed. At times it felt like we were doing an incredible amount of work without actually accomplishing much from an enterprise perspective. It felt like swimming in place. Then all of a sudden we would have a week or two where as a project team we really moved the dial on achieving our goals. Our progress looked like a set of continuing (extremely steep) peaks and (longer) valleys. As I neared the end of my engagement I began to piece together a pattern surrounding the causes of those steep peaks of productivity. The common denominator was that we held multi day workshops with extremely defined objectives for each session, day, and workshop.

We started each workshop with a vision of what needed to be accomplished at the highest level. Ex. develop a communications strategy. Then we would break the days into sub goals to support the overarching objective. Ex. Day 1: Align on Current State of Project, Day 2: Identify Risks, Day 3: Design the Strategy, Day 4: Create the Plan. From those subcategories you could design exercises and discussions for each hour. It was a lot of work but that pattern paid extremely large dividends for a few reasons.

First and foremost, is the undeniable fact that we are social creatures. People love to come together. People really love to come together to create. When you have a complex set of stakeholders separated by function, geography, interests, etc. it becomes very easy for people to be confused, disengaged, or even become a detractor from the mission at hand. When you bring people together participate in a workshop you establish a shared understanding and more importantly you co-create a solution. It becomes a lot more difficult to pull back or sabotage a solution that you helped to created. Additionally, these workshops serve as points in time that can be signed off on by leadership. Outbriefs out of these sessions became the proposal to the powers that be. I saw time and again the fears of leadership being eased merely by the fact that they knew the right brainpower was in the room and that the due diligence behind the thinking had been performed. The workshops were the vehicle for that thinking. Lastly, highly functional teams produce great work. Nothing brings a team together like a structured workshop that allows for all concerns and perspectives to be heard without derailing the goals at hand. These workshops helped to craft a tight knit team as opposed to a group of people that happen to work on a project together.

- Bring In Other People, Meet for Coffee, Ask for Expertise: Organizations don't possess knowledge. People do. In the consulting field you are brought in for one reason....there is a problem and work to be done to solve that problem. Given that maxim, it follows that as a consultant you will constantly be thrown into situations wrought with ambiguity and complexity. Not a very comfortable feeling, especially when you first land at a new gig (as I am experiencing with client #2). What I have found to work better than anything else to get oriented in these situations is to ask someone in the organization to grab coffee. Everyone loves to help someone else. Everyone loves to be the expert. So make those around you the expert, build relationships, and reap the rewards. 

- Align with the Client on the Purpose of Meetings In Advance to Better Facilitate, Provide Consultation, Capture Key Decisions & Actions, Properly Structure Visual Frameworks: This is way more tactical in focus as compared to some of the other insights I have listed but it is important nonetheless. I have noticed that in order to provide the best support possible I need to be clearly aligned with the project sponsor on the details of a meeting prior to it occurring. This sounds really intuitive, but I am not just talking about knowing the purpose of a meeting and having an agenda. I am talking about deeper discussions that can be tedious if you have a lot of meetings but also can make so much better use of your time in the long run. Below are some example questions:

1. What are you trying to get out of this meeting?

2. Who is in the meeting and from what angle will they be coming at this meeting from (challenging, aligned, clueless, etc)?

3. Beyond the agenda, how do you see this meeting playing out?

4. How do you see me supporting? Is there a need for any facilitation? 

From those questions, I can generally brainstorm ways to support the goals of the sponsor and make recommendations for facilitation based on things that have worked in the past. If you don't do this in advance it is a struggle just to capture action items and decisions let alone have the head space to design visual brainstorming frameworks on the fly. As intuitive as this learning may seem, the challenge is consistently doing it!

- Find Mentors in Every Organization: As a consultant you don't need a mentor in the career/professional sense within the organization you supporting but that doesn't mean you don't need to seek out mentors at all. There is always someone smarter than you, more experienced than you, and downright more capable than you especially when viewed through various contextual lenses. So treat that reality as the value proposition behind seeking out mentors in everyone organization that you are a part of. Continue to be a life long learner!

- Think Strategically and Work Your Way Down to Execution: This little nugget was definitely not learned on the job in the consulting field. It was learned through a combination of education and practical experience in my military career. However, the importance of systemic thinking was reaffirmed while working on my last project. Especially in consulting, it is so easy to get stovepiped into the mind space of the task at hand. However, starting to tackle a problem at that level leads to decisions and solutions that are made in a vacuum. I have blogged recently about the power of context and the systemic challenges we often face while working through complicated problems. Those concepts dovetail nicely with the point I am making here. To effectively solve problems you need to gather a broader context of the world you are operating within. From that foundation you can begin to develop strategies that decrescendo down into more tactical level actions. By consistently pulling myself up to a high level of thinking at the front end of scoping a problem I find that I am crafting more thoughtful, inclusive, and systemic solutions.

- Beg, Borrow, & Steal....Brilliance is Borrowed: I admit that I (fittingly) stole this gem from an audiobook that I listened to recently called "Borrowing Brilliance."  Basically the premise of the book is that there are no truly original ideas. Brilliant ideas are a collection pre-existing ideas that are either expanded upon, utilized in another context, or both. It seems oddly cynical but when you walk through the logic it makes sense. I have written on the similar topic of pattern recognition in the past.

In the consulting world this is definitely a reality. There are so many frameworks and methodologies out there that have been used. Merely applying previously utilized frameworks to new scenarios can yield huge benefits.

Beyond using templates and frameworks you can beg, borrow, and steal from peers. This ties in a bit to my point above on asking for expertise, but the reality is that no problem or challenge is solved in a vacuum. The more brainpower you can garner from other people the better. Sometimes brilliance can merely be aggregating the brainpower and works of others to solve a specific problem. Although there is nothing inherently "brilliant" about gathering the brilliance of others it will be viewed as such when a solution is delivered and progress is made.

- Develop PM Solutions to the Minimum Fidelity Necessary to Execute: Project Management tools and principles are a means to an end. They are not an end in and of themselves. In most organizations project management makes people's heads explode. Nike was definitely no different. Given their corporate culture, I always had to find the very fine line between introducing process,structure, and rigor to the project while minimizing additional work for the team, respecting the corporate culture, and allowing innovative thinking to thrive. It was a challenge but it reinforced within me the understanding that as a consultant you are an enabler. You make others better. If your tools and practices aren't contributing to that maxim then you either aren't using the right tools or they are just too robust given the scenario. PMP certification holders everywhere are furious.....

- Character Always Has, Does, and Always Will Matter:  A project is only as good as the person/team behind it. Period. I have been lucky enough to be a part of some amazing teams in my life whether it be family, sports, business, or military service. Every time I am a part of a team with sound character and capable individuals I am always amazed at the results. It is like a lesson that it re-learned every time you are privileged to experience it. Be character and build character teams.

Academy Business Leaders

A great friend of mine has started a website called AcademyBusinessLeaders.org. He describes the site as,"an online database of business leaders who graduated from The U.S. Air Force Academy, The U.S. Coast Guard Academy, The U.S. Military Academy, and The U.S. Naval Academy."

The venture is rather new but he has started by featuring service academy business leaders in summary posts or more intimate interview style posts. I think it is a cool concept that could prove very valuable to the service academy graduate network assuming it continues to grow.

I feel lucky to have been featured this month in an interview style post that is focused on my non profit leadership work and my transition from active duty into the corporate world. I have included the post below but do yourself a favor and check out AcademyBusinessLeaders.org.

1. Describe the non-profit you started and how it impacts the community. 

I started a non-profit called Checking For Charity while I was serving in the Air Force in New Jersey. Checking For Charity is a non-profit that is dedicated to changing the world through competitive hockey events. A little ambitious? Yes. But we believe that change in this world starts by creating a small movement of passionate people with a common goal. Our Goal is to Assist! Our unique hockey centric approach is designed to raise as much money and awareness as possible for charity while putting on the most professional and competitive hockey tournaments. 

Each team that enters a Checking For Charity tournament picks a charity that is near and dear to their heart. All the proceeds from the tournament entry fees, corporate sponsorships, personal donations, merchandise, raffles, etc are put into the greater Checking For Charity pot. Each team/charity that is represented is guaranteed a percentage of that pot just for participating in the tournament. Each team/charity has the opportunity to increase their percentage depending on where they place within tournament play. Our unique format incentivizes everyone involved to raise as much money as possible as well as putting in the most competitive team possible. Our non-profit impacts the community in a few different ways. First and foremost, it empowers hockey participants to contribute to worthy causes through the game they love. Players can contribute to something larger than themselves through a fun and positive outlet. Secondly, we help the community by serving as a catalyst and a multiplier. We allow individuals, teams, volunteers, and corporate sponsors to have a much greater positive impact on the causes they value than they would individually or by donating to an individual cause. We also allow the participants to choose the causes they wish to support. Often time’s people are naturally funneled into donating time and money into the same few well established and recognizable charities. Nothing against well established and recognizable charities, as they undoubtedly serve great causes, but our charity allows the participants to contribute to local and/or more specialized causes. There are many people out there who are looking for the kind of vehicle that provides real choice and control while capitalizing on the multiplier effect the tournaments provides. Lastly, our charity impacts the community by promoting culture change amongst our citizens. Our charity proves that you do not have to be an extremist to be a positive contributor to this world. You do not have to dedicate your life to a certain cause to make a difference. We show through our model that you can be a model citizen while playing hockey, drinking beers, and barbecuing with your friends. You can be a contributor through the power of choice, the choice to participate in a movement like the Checking For Charity movement. For more information please visitwww.checkingforcharity.com. 

2. How have your experiences in the Air Force helped you succeed in the business world?

I recently wrote a blog post about this very question (http://badskiblog.blogspot.com/). Although it was more targeted towards my current position than succeeding in the business world in general the same themes hold true here.

Systemic Challenges: One thing that I learned in the military is how to operate in challenging and ambiguous environments. Throughout my career and most notably while serving in Iraq, I encountered challenges that did not have a textbook answer. There was not a clear cut best solution...or a solution at all for that matter. There were too many unknowns, too many interests, too many interconnected subsets, and too little time to easily solve problems. In the military you are forced to confront challenges that are spread and interwoven throughout a complex system. I see the same type of systemic challenges represented in the business world. Military veterans should not discount the soft skills they have developed that help them navigate and overcome these types of challenges. 

Execution: I am, admittedly, probably more of an idea guy by nature than a down and dirty details engineer type. I am energized by strategic thinking and collaborative brainstorming. However, I crafted my ability to get things done in the military and that is something I will always be grateful for. Now I am in essence getting paid for my ability to get things done as well as my ability to help other people get things done as a consultant in the business world. It is a challenge and I am constantly learning but it is exciting and fulfilling as well. A military force that can rapidly work its way through the planning/decision cycle to execute will have a competitive advantage over its enemies over time. My sense is that companies benefit from a similar (albeit less combative) approach in the business world. Going from idea to execution faster than your competitors is a critical competitive advantage over time. I feel that my military career helped me to realize the importance of executing over all else and that mindset alone is a differentiator amongst many corporate peers. Think Patton – “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

Leading Change: As an officer in the Air Force I have sat through a few leadership presentations in my day. In fact, my undergrad experience at the Air Force Academy was almost entirely centered on character based leadership training. In hindsight, a great number of those sessions drifted into discussions about leading change. The military isn't all about following orders as many like to think. And although as whole the military machine may be categorized as a bludgeoning bureaucracy of sorts, in smaller pockets the most successful units/organizations are all about leading and implementing change. The business world is no different. It is the organization or individual that can consistently lead change that will consistently win. My military experience helped me, in theory and practice, to lead teams through change initiatives.

3. Do you have mentors, and if so, how have they helped you develop as a leader?

I have had relatively few “formal” mentors in my AF career and my post AF career. I have found that the formal mentors probably served the least value towards developing me as a leader. I think the best lesson I have learned with regard to mentorship is that you can learn from everyone and if you approach even the most challenging personal and professional relationships with that frame of mind you will always be developing as a leader.

Additionally, I have learned the value in seeking out mentors before you “need” them as a mentor. Relationships are always a two way street and mentorship is no exception. Focus on creating a valuable relationship and interesting exchange with someone versus seeking out someone for the specified value you can extract from them to benefit your current needs. Ironically, this can feel a bit uncomfortable at times because you are taking action without a focused end state in mind. But the end state should really just be consistent learning and growth.

A lot of people associate mentorship with one person being senior or providing more value to the relationship than the other. Those mentors are valuable but do not discount the value peer mentors can provide. As a whole I would say that I have learned more from professional peers, teammates, friends, and family than senior professional mentors. Hopefully a few of those peers have learned from me as well.

4. What advice would you give other service academy graduates looking to transition to the private sector?

Strategically: Know yourself. Learn what you want out of your life. Not from a career perspective or a personal perspective but from a holistic perspective of the way you want your life to play out. The days of work life balance are gone. The name of the game is work life integration and happiness is the ultimate goal. Make every decision from separation to new career selection with your life goals in mind and continue to learn and grow as you pursue those life goals. Most importantly, never look back and enjoy it.

Tactically: Learn the value of networking and how to effectively network. This ties in directly with our discussion of mentors. The private sector is comprised of companies, companies are comprised of people, people interact by establishing relationships. Relationships were the only thing that worked for me in my transition. I focused on creating and building relationships and that eventually landed me in a career path that was a great fit for me. As service academy graduates, we are a bit spoiled in the sense that you essentially know everyone at your institution. If you don’t know them personally you know someone who does. Transitioning to the corporate world you should be attempting to create that reality for yourself again. You need to create a network where even if you don’t know someone, you know someone who does. If you are not utilizing LinkedIn as a tool to facilitate this kind of network building you are behind the curve. 

5. What is one of the biggest obstacles you have had to overcome while transitioning from Active Duty to the business world?

At the risk of sounding like a whiner, I would have to say that one of the biggest obstacles I had to overcome was other people’s ignorance and stereotypes. I moved back to Portland, Oregon which is not an area with a large military contingent. There were a lot of misperceptions about what a military guy had to offer. But that is the nature of the world I guess. We all have our preconceived notions and biases based on our experiences so when it comes to transitioning it is best to recognize that you will encounter the same things from other people. What makes that obstacle even more challenging is the humble nature of veterans. We come from a world where you don’t talk about yourself, and when you do it is uncomfortable. When you are trying to convince someone, who most likely has strong judgments on what you are all about, that you can add value to their organization it does not pay to be humble and uncomfortable when talking about yourself. Learning that lesson was a long and hard journey for me. What really helped was focusing on establishing relationships where I could speak with candor. When you focus on building relationships versus honing your ability to sell yourself the stereotypes are broken down naturally over time. That person then becomes your bridge to an opportunity, to another relationship, or they become a full blown advocate for what you are all about. Worst case scenario you have established a new positive relationship. You really can’t lose.

6. What piece of advice would you give to a young person thinking about starting their own non-profit?

I would give three pieces of advice for someone thinking about starting their own non-profit. Firstly, I would say that non-profit is not a dirty word. I never thought I would start a non-profit but my life journey led me to a place where I almost fell into creating my own non-profit. Non-profits have their own unique challenges and nuances but as a whole to be successful you must approach starting a non-profit as you would approach any other business endeavor. Don’t run away from the opportunity just because there aren’t opportunities for monetary spoils!

Which leads to my next piece of advice; your reward is knowledge. The reason I decided to start my own non-profit was to gather real world business leadership experience while I was still in the military. I had to navigate the challenging startup process and mobilize a motivated team to bring our concept to fruition. The rest of the world may not see the non monetary value that you will undoubtedly receive but who cares. If you are truly striving towards achieving your life goals then personal development is an enabler that must serve as a foundation for your efforts. My experience in less than four years of non-profit leadership will undoubtedly pay dividends for the rest of my life, not mention the fact it is extremely gratifying and fun.

Lastly, I would say that you cannot be your 501c3. Rhyming aside, I think a lot of people feel that they need to be consumed by a higher calling to get involved in a non-profit. They almost feel like if they aren’t dedicating a massive amount of time and effort to the cause they are faking it or something. I think nothing could be further from the truth. I was Active Duty when I started my charity and I work full time as a management consultant now. I don’t have the bandwidth to dedicate countless hours to my non-profit and still maintain an enjoyable family life. There is nothing wrong with that! I went into my non-profit journey with systems creation in mind. I wanted to create a system that was great, not an organization that “pumped my own tires” or showcased how great I (thought I) was to the world. I created a system that would raise money for charity with minimal effort. If we signed up four hockey teams to play in a tournament without any bells or whistles we would raise money. I then set to getting great people involved to take that system from one that makes money with minimal effort to a system that is something special. Our last tournament had 25 teams in 3 divisions, a beef and beer event hosted by hall of fame NHL’ers, a puck shoot to give away a car, and many other exciting features. All those extra features were more money and awareness for charity, a better tournament experience for participants, and they were all powered by great people and a calculated business system. If your non-profit is centered around you then you are in it for the wrong reasons and you won’t last. You will burn out! Create a system and mobilize a highly motivated and character group of people around the vision and you will be amazed where the endeavor takes you. 

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to contributing to academybusinessleaders.org. It is a cool concept and I hope it blossoms into a central hub for likeminded service academy business leaders. Please feel free to connect with me via LinkedIn atwww.linkedin.com/in/mattbader27.

About Checking For Charity President Matt Bader


Matt is a 2006 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy where he majored in Business Management and was a four year letter winner and two year captain on the men's Div I ice hockey team. Matt served as a contracting officer in the United States Air Force with stints in New Jersey, Boston, and Iraq before separating as a Captain in September, 2011. Matt currently resides in Portland, OR and works as a management consultant for the Gunter Group. He currently works at Nike World Headquarters as a project manager in the Sustainable Business and Innovation division on a project that is seeking to revolutionize the Nike manufacturing base and the quality of life for it's contract labor force. Matt still actively serves as the President of the nonprofit he founded called Checking For Charity. He is focused on building the success the organization has achieved on the east coast while expanding operations to the west coast in 2012.

Sustainability & The Military: Parallels Between Two Worlds

Since my departure from the Air Force I have had to try and explain to family, friends, and acquaintances what exactly it is that I am doing now. When I explain that I took a role within a start up Portland-based consulting firm called The Gunter Group people can generally follow along. However, when I get into the details of the client and division I work in I often lose people. 

I was lucky enough to have Nike as my first client in the consulting arena. It is a company that I have an immense amount of respect for not only due to the fact they are a leader in the athletic apparel arena, but because that have been a shining star company that continually innovates over time. Of course there is a coolness factor that is associated with Nike, it's products, and it's marketing and at the risk of sounding cliche' that attitude transcends throughout the World Headquarters campus. But it is the innovation piece that I am more closely aligned with in my current role and that is the part of my Nike experience that I find most engaging. It has been a great experience and I really have enjoyed my time at Nike so far.

Not only was I lucky to get Nike as a client but I was also lucky to get on within a unique division of Nike. I work in the Sustainable Business & Innovation (SB&I) division of Nike which in in its simplest form is a bit like a 'green incubator' for Nike. SB&I seeks to innovate and integrate enterprise level sustainability solutions into the Nike business model while mobilizing key external stakeholders to make industry change.

The first question I usually get is, "what do you consult?" The answer is pretty straightforward in that I provide project management support within SB&I. In short, I help to get things done. Execution.

The second question I almost always get is, "what the hell do you know about sustainability?" To be quite honest, when I started I doubt I knew much more than the average college educated Gen Y-er does about sustainability. I had a basic understanding of the concepts surrounding sustainability that were mostly garnered through osmosis in a variety life experiences. That understanding wasn't very deep and it came accompanied with limited context. 

However, having been a part of the division for the better part of four months I may have sold myself short a bit regarding what I knew about sustainability. Although I wasn't formally educated in sustainability concepts and I most certainly had never served in a role within that context before, I came from a background that shares a surprisingly large number of parallels with the sustainability world.....the military. What do sustainability and the military environments have in common?

Systemic Challenges - One thing that I learned in the military is how to operate in challenging and ambiguous environments. Throughout my career and most notably while serving in Iraq, I encountered challenges that did not have a textbook answer. There was not a clear cut best solution...or a solution at all for that matter. There were too many unknowns, too many interests, too many interconnected subsets, and too little time to easily solve problems. In the military you are forced to confront challenges that are spread and interwoven throughout a complex system. In my relatively short stint in the sustainability realm I see the same type of systemic challenges represented. 

Execution - I have discussed on BadskiBlog before that execution is everything. I am, admittedly, probably more of an idea guy by nature. I am energized by strategic thinking and collaborative brainstorming. However, I crafted my ability to get things done in the military and that is something I will always be grateful for. Now I am, in essence, getting paid for my ability to get things done and to serve as a catalyst to help other people get things done. It is a challenge and I am constantly learning but it is exciting and fulfilling as well. A military force that can rapidly work it's way through the planning/decision cycle and execute will have a competitive advantage and will overcome resource constraints to defeat its enemies over time. My sense is that companies will benefit from a similar (albeit less combative) approach to sustainability. Taking sustainability from idea to execution faster that your competitors will become a critical competitive advantage over time.

Leading Change - As an officer in the Air Force I have sat through a few leadership presentations in my day. In fact, my undergrad experience at the Air Force Academy was almost entirely centered around character based leadership. In hindsight, a great number of those sessions drifted into discussions about leading change. The military isn't all about following orders as many like to think. And although as whole the military machine may be categorized as a bludgeoning bureaucracy of sorts, in smaller pockets the most successful units/organizations are all about leading and implementing change. SB&I is all about leading change and I imagine that is consistent throughout the sustainability space. There are a ton of methodologies for leading change (a book review on John Kotter's "The Heart of Change" coming soon) but like anything else academia can only get you so far. It is the organization that can consistently lead change that will prevail in their efforts to implement sustainability or any other initiative for that matter.

Below is a video of Nike's VP of Sustainable Business & Innovation, Hannah Jones, in which she not only provides an excellent overview of what SB&I is all about, but also some of the concepts I discussed above. Definitely do yourself a favor and watch the full video and enjoy Hannah's, very eloquent, discussion on the future of sustainability.

Check out the full video HERE, it is very interesting.

Book Review: Creative Project Management

Creative Project Management by Michael Dobson was the latest book I plucked from the local library. It was in a similar vein to my last read in that it was all about project management and given my recent career change this should surprise no one.

The book was a solid read and although it took me quite a while to make my way through it, I think that was more attributed to buying and remodeling a home than to the quality of the read. What I really liked about the book was the manner in which it illustrated fairly classic project management concepts. Instead of focusing on a few illustrations and concept diagrams, the book focused on well known (often military) leaders and how they successfully and unsuccessfully implemented project management throughout history. These historical events, viewed through a project management lens, did a lot to show how these concepts can be applied universally to projects instead of sticking with more generic examples of project management like IT implementations.

What I didn't necessarily love about the book was the way in which it dragged out relatively straight forward concepts. It wasn't that the length was the issue it was the fact that some of the concepts went into great storytelling depth with relatively little practical explanation. It almost felt like the second half of the book was filler to get the book to a certain length. Yet, taken in totality the book was a pretty solid.

Throughout the book there were great questions that every project manager should ask themselves and others regarding the project. The author even went so far as to compile these questions as an appendix at the end of the book. These questions are an extremely helpful guide in determining what elements of the project must be developed and at what stage they should be developed in order for the project to be successful. I enjoyed the way the author built the appendix so much that I copied the pages and plan on using them to help develop each stage of the projects that I manage. If anything, the book is worth picking up for that reason alone.

Notes:

Chapter 1 - Why Do 70% of Projects Fail:
- 32% of projects were delivered on time, on budget, and with the required features and functions
- 44% were finished either late, over budget, or only partially completed
- 24% failed altogether, and they were cancelled or abandoned
- Two reasons projects fail: 1. Things that nobody thought of or prepared for 2. Things everybody thought of but no one prepared for
- Four PM questions: 1. Why are we doing this? (Business Case) 2. Who has an interest & what do they want/need? (Human Being Aspect) 3. What do we have to do & how? (Project Management, Planning, Qualitative) 4. Who needs to be involved & in what way? (Top Management & Other Involvement)
- Embrace the uncertainty & fluidity of the projects you manage
- What makes this project hard? (chart pg 13) 1. Constraints - How tight are time, cost, performance? 2. Complexity - Tasks, resources, technology 3. Certainty - How much do we know about risks & issues?
- Risk = Probability X Impact
- Cognitive biases pg 18
- When work is temporary & unique the unique part guarantees the presence of uncertainty
- 2 ways of learning: 1. Have an experience and learn from it 2. Learn from someone else's experience (The second it cheaper!)

Chapter 2 - What We Know & What We Think:
- PMs are supposed to challenge assumptions whenever possible but we all have blind spots, biases, & perceptual errors that keep us from recognizing our own misjudgments
- Johari's Window test pg 28
- More PM questions: 1. What aren't we seeing correctly or at all? 2. How will people react to this project? 3. What if I'm wrong? 4. What am I not seeing?
- Ignaz Semmelweis hand washing theory pg 31
- Vietnam quote "Anybody who thinks he knows what's going on clearly doesn't understand the situation."
- Sewell Avery & General Patton project management stories
- "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown" - Carl Sagan

Chapter 3 - The Most Dangerous Word is a Premature Yes:
- "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of "emergency" is that it is unexpected; therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning." - President Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech to the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference, Washington DC 1957
- First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is a mountain." Your first understanding of the mountain is an outline, a shape in the horizon. As you get closer the mountain decomposes into a million individual details. Finally you know the mountain as a whole. Zen koan.
- No one starts a war - or rather, no on in his senses ought to do so - without being first clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it." - Clausewitz
- A project isn't the end its the means to bridge the gap
- The first step in any project is to define the gap
- Eisenhower closing the gap story pg 55
- What is the minimum that can be done now?
- Project triage: 1. Likely to survive no matter what 2. Likely to fail no matter what 3. Projects where the level of effort will make a positive impact in success

Chapter 4 - Good Enough, Barely Adequate, Failure:
- 7 Levels of project outcomes: 1. Perfect 2. Outstanding 3. Exceeds Expectations 4. Fully Satisfactory 5. Barely Adequate 6. Failure 7. Catastrophe

Chapter  5 - When The Project Appears Impossible:
- "If an elderly and distinguished scientist says something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says it is impossible, he is very probably wrong." - Arthur C. Clarke
- Just because a project appears to be impossible doesn't mean it is
- Can you adjust time, cost, performance to make it possible?
- Ways to accomplish the impossible project: 1. Change the constraints - analysis, negotiation, problem solving, requirements management 2. Get around the constraints - creativity, exploiting holes, different approaches, rethinking assumptions

Chapter 6 - Knowns & Unknowns: The Risk Factors:
- "The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mastery of risk: the notion that the future is more than a whim of the gods and that men and women are not passive before nature." - Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk 1998
- Risk is a proposed future even that would have a significant impact on you or something you care about should it happen. Positive or negative. Above all risk is uncertain.
- Risk -> severity and likelihood
- Pure risk is all downside
- Business risk has upside and downside
- Residual risk is leftover risk after mitigation
- Secondary risk is new risk introduced as a result of solutions to the original risk
- Risk management table & responses pg 134
- Managing knowns & unknowns pg 138
- Six dimensions of project management table pg 149
- Leverage, relax, absorb = triple constraints risk responses

Chapter 7 - Project Intelligence:
- Spies pay attention to their environment
- Intelligence process - Collection, Analysis, Packaging, Dissemination

Chapter 8 - It Takes A Village To Wreck A Project:
- "Normal people believe that if it ain't broke don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet." - Scott Adams, cartoonist, creator of Dilbert
- "Want to know if you are a leader? Look back and see if anyone is following." - Marilyn Moats Kennedy
- 4 types of managerial challenges - Martyr, Scapegoat, Hall Monitor, Peon
- 4 types of stakeholders - Positive, negative, tangential, conflicted
- 4 stages of managing stakeholders - Identify, Understand, Maximize, Manage
- There are 3 reasons to communicate: 1. You want someone to do something 2. You want someone to know something 3. You want someone to feel something or some combo of the 3
- Table page 88

Chapter 9 - Framing Change:
- I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years. Two years later we ourselves made flights. This demonstration of my impotence as a prophet gave me such a shock that ever since I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions." Wilbur Wright
- Counterfactuals are examinations of what might have happened had an actual even turned out another way. A great way to analyze and cope with change

Chapter 10 - Salvaging Project Value:
- Closeout of a project is often taken for granted
- Closeout: 1. Complete 2. Turned Over 3. Closed Out 4. Value Captured

- Appendix A - Questions For The Creative Project Manager:
- Questions pg 227

Book Review: Poke The Box

Poke The Box by Seth Godin was pretty much exactly what I expected.....it was awesome. Seth has an uncanny ability to write short, hard hitting, meaningful statements that transcend profession or background and provide the reader with real life, actionable knowledge. Poke The Box is a self proclaimed manifesto about initiative. In short, the book is all about the importance of starting and failing, and how both contribute to doing something meaningful.

We send our kids to school and obsess about their test scores, their behavior and their ability to fit in. We post a help wanted ad and look for experience, famous colleges and a history of avoiding failure. We invest in companies based on how they did last quarter, not on what they’re going to do tomorrow. So why are we surprised when it all falls apart? Our economy is not static, but we act as if it is. Your position in the world is defined by what you instigate, how you provoke, and what you learn from the events you cause. In a world filled with change, that’s what matters — your ability to create and learn from change. Poke the Box is a manifesto about producing something that’s scarce, and thus valuable. It demands that you stop waiting for a road map and start drawing one instead. You know how to do this, you’ve done it before, but along the way, someone talked you out of it. We need your insight and your dreams and your contributions. Hurry.

The book is definitely a great read that I would recommend to a wide range of readers, however I think it resonates best with business and entrepreneurial minded people. Not only does the book help to shape your outlook towards initiating and failure, but it also inspires you to go out and start something.

I will keep my review relatively short since I have already partially reviewed the book on a previous post, and since I took notes that equate to about half the book! Typically I take notes on my books to singe particular lessons and important concepts into my mind. I only write when I feel it is an important passage or concept. As you can see my notes speak for themselves on the quality of Seth's latest work. Although the book is a fairly short read it took me forever to get through it because I spent the entire time taking notes! I guess that shows the quality and importance Seth places on each individual riff and rant. Below are my notes.

Poke The Box:
- The job isn’t to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo.

The Initiator:
- Annie story page 41
- para pg 44-48
- This is a manifesto about starting

The Seventh Imperative:
- The world is changing too fast. Without the spark of initiative, you have no choice but to simply react to the world.
- 6 imperatives page 63
- The seventh imperative is to have the guts and the heart and the passion to ship

The difference of Go:
- Passage pg 78

The buzzer box:
- Uncle is an MIT PHD built a buzzer box for kid with lights and buzzers. To a child it is exciting to poke this and see what happens. Life is a buzzer box. Poke it.

The Elements of Production:
- Elements pg 100
- “All these elements are cheaper and easier to find than ever. Which makes the motive force so critical”

Walking in Circles:
- Study shows that lost people walk in circles. Don’t trust your senses because they’re not good enough. People need a map.
- If you’re brave enough to draw one, people will follow

Who Says Yes?:
- What do you do here?
- Almost no one says I start stuff
- Where is the VP of Starting? How many no’s have to be summated before you get to yes? Who is in charge of yes?

Poke the Box:
- How do programmers learn?
- The great ones all learn the same way. They code and see what happens, change it and see what happens, repeat until they figure out how it works.
- The box may be a computer, a market, a customer. It’s a puzzle that can be solved in one way – by poking!

What Can You Start?:
- You don’t have to be a famous entrepreneur to be an initiator
- People have come to the erroneous conclusion that if they’re not willing to start something separate, world changing, and risky they have no business starting anything.
- Somehow we’ve fooled ourselves into believing that the project has to have a name, a building, a stock symbol to matter

When Can You Start?:
- Soon is not as good as now

Kinds of Capital:
- What can you invest? What can your company invest?: 1. Financial capital 2. Network capital 3. Intellectual capital 4. Physical capital 5. Prestige capital 6. INSTIGATION CAPITAL

Double Double:
- In the old world innovation was sufficient to double profits
- In the Google world the competition is essentially infinite and innovation alone isn’t sufficient
- The only way to thrive is to double and then double again. Innovate on the way to innovating.

Is flux the same as risk?:
- Risk involves winning and losing
- Risk to some is bad because risk brings the possibility of failure
- People confuse flux and risk
- 2 mistakes: Risk is a bad thing and movement is bad as well
- These people are stuck
- Now the whole world is in flux
- If your project doesn’t have movement then compared to the rest of the world you are actually moving backward.
- Like a rock in a river, you might be still but given the movement around you collisions are inevitable. There is less turbulence around the log floating down the same river.
- The economy demands flux. Flux isn’t risky.

The trail of failure:
- List of people who have made a career out of starting on page 209

The epidemic:
- We are hardwired with fear in our lizard brain

The first rule of doing work that matters:
- Making a difference is hard
- Make your schedule before you start or your lizard brain will find ways to escape
- Show up

Naps.Google.Com:
- What separates Google from just about every other startup?
- Google ignored Wall St and continued to invest in the new. Most initiatives fail. That’s fine. At least Google isn’t napping.

Your ego and your project:
- Somewhere ego became a dirty word. It’s not otherwise all great work would be anonymous and it’s not. Let it motivate you to initiate.

Redefining quality:
- Quality used to be “good enough”. Then “zero defect”. Now we expect it.
- Now we are beyond quality to remarkable which demands initiative.

Brainwashed by the pit boss:
- You can trust judgment of employees to improve or settle on the certainty of compliance. Most choose compliance.
- This causes organizations to be unable to innovate and promotes the bare minimum.

Why is this mediocre:
- We love to point out broken systems but rarely look at mediocre products and wonder why they aren’t great
- There is never a problem of getting a posse together to fix the broken. The upside and the challenge for you is to find the will and the energy to challenge the mediocre.

When in doubt:
- Quote page 285

Where did curious go?:
- Initiative is a little like creativity in that both require curiosity
- Not a search for the “right” answer but an understanding of how something works and how it can work better

Pick me! Pick me!:
- There is brainwashing that creative people or people with something to say must wait to be chosen
- Pick me mentality acknowledges the power of the system and passes the responsibility to someone else to initiate
- Reject the tyranny of picked. Pick yourself!

The promoter and the organizer:
- Every organizer gets picked and the promoter does the picking. Why not be the promoter?

Entrepreneurship is merely a special case:
- Even entrepreneurs understand that a thriving organization needs more than one person creating change.

The seasons pass:
- Ski resorts sell a year long pass for the cost of a week.
- People who buy it realize it’s easier and cheaper to decide once than it is to decide over and over
- Initiation is like that
- Why not sell your boss and colleagues on being the initiator. It’s your job. You start things. Ask once. Do many.

No free lunch:
- Of course the challenge is you’ll be wrong. You will pick the wrong thing. You will waste time. You will be blamed.
- This is why being an initiator is valuable.
- Most people shy away from the challenge
- Initiative is scarce…..hence valuable.
- The fact is doesn’t work every time should give you confidence because it means you’re doing something that frightens others

Check In Chicken:
- 2 things you’re afraid of at every meeting: Things that might fail and things that might work

The lizard misunderstands the economics of poking:
- When the cost of poking the box is less than the cost of doing nothing you should poke the box
- You don’t shut down a steel mill to use untested technology
- Most of us don’t run steel mills. The cost of being boring is high.
- Our lizard brain exaggerates the cost of being wrong.

Polish this:
- Polishing loses benefit quickly and turns to stalling
- What if your reminder wasn’t to polish but to create

The Semmelweis Imperative:
- Poking also requires tact. You want change not anger/fear
- Semmelweis devoted his life to showing that lack of Drs hand washing was the cause of much of the death and disease
- He died alone and a failure
- He never explained why!
- He was a jerk and never tried to persuade

Welcome to project world:
- Most companies have been around for a decade or more and are based on scalability (Ford model T)
- The system is the system. Don’t mess with it.
- The new companies making an impact are shipping projects. Apple, Google, etc..
- After a project is shipped there is no useful work unless someone starts a new project!

The Ford system is dead. Long live the Ford system:
- You can’t cut prices forever
- The new Ford system is a stable and productive business platform that develops projects

What happened to excellence:
- Tom Peters changed the world with In Search of Excellence
- Excellence is about taking the initiative to do work you decide is worth doing
- Quote page 420

Business Development:
- Some orgs have business development teams. Most are horrible at it.
- This initiation capability is what every org needs but most are too scared

What’s next?:
- What differentiates humans from every other creature is our willingness to go places and explore. The factory has programmed the adventurous out of us.
- What's next is now the driving force for individuals and organizations. Ever onward. Ever faster.

If you see something say something:
- Examples where society will actually dampen our instinct to speak up on page 450

Allowed (not allowed):
- Most employees can give you a long list of things you aren’t allowed to do
- Allowed lists are harder to remember and write down
- Were afraid of how much freedom we actually have and how much we are expected to do with it

The death of idealism:
- Sooner or later many idealists transform themselves into disheartened realists who mistakenly believe that giving up is the same as being realistic

Don’t tell Woodie:
- Seth’s dog was trained with a shock collar in their yard. It broke a year ago but the dog can only leave the yard when he takes the collar off. The boundary is in his head not the system

I wonder what would happen:
- None of this works without curiosity
- Success minded people can follow instructions
- We’d all be happy to follow a map if it came with a guarantee
- There is no guarantee there are no maps
- The opportunity lies in pursuing curiosity instead

3000 TED Talks:
- TED conference morphed into TEDx with independent conferences and speakers
- 3000 talks later and it’s pretty clear that big ideas and unsettling concepts were not just the work of people who get paid to think that way
- That’s your opportunity. To approach your work in a way that generates unique learning and interactions that are worth sharing

The joy of wrong:
- Original Starbucks founder Jerry Baldwin just sold beans not coffee. Howard Schultz turned Starbucks into Starbucks.
- But what if the “wrong” Starbucks was never built?
- One led to the other but the usual route which is never a straight line
- The hardest part is the first one, the wrong one
- Poking doesn’t mean right. It means action.

The world is a lot more complicated than it appears:
- Google finds your answer, blogger tells you what to do, a book gives you steps to achieve, the company has a policy manual
- It’s enough to persuade you that all the answers are here and all we need from you is compliance
- Two forces driving this: Industrial age where we must make immediate decisions or the system is waiting or digital age where computers like only on or off not a maybe
- Initiative and starting are neither of these. They are about let’s see and try.
- Something new is often the right path when the world is complicated

Rote:
- Quote page 524

“This might not work”:
- It’s ok to say those four words
- Change is powerful but always comes with failure as its partner

Attempt:
- The circus says the performers will attempt not perform. Attempt is something new, something risky, something interesting.
- Yoda was wrong when he said “Do or do not. There is no try.” There is a try and it’s the opposite of hiding

Take a lid off it:
- You already have good ideas, something to say, a vivid internal dialogue about what you could do and how you might make things better.
- There’s an engine running on better but often lies low

Starting implies (demands) finishing:
- What's the distinction between carrying around a great idea, being a brainstormer, and tinkering, and starting something?
- Starting means you are going to finish!
- At some point your work has to intersect the market. Otherwise it is merely a hobby.

Notions belong in the sewing store not in your work:
- We all have notions, inklings, hunches. This isn’t the same as poking the box.
- If you don’t finish it doesn’t really count as starting. And if you don’t start you aren’t poking.

Shipping and fear:
- As you get better at shipping your ability to instigate starts to fade as the fear that others will actually see it makes you scrutinize yourself more.

The initiator as outsider:
- Society isn’t nice to those who don’t fit in
- Great organizations have figured out how to turn the standard or status quo on its head
- The best way to become an insider, leader, someone who matters is to initiate

Winning the Halloween contest (now vs. later)
- Easiest way to win is to tell your kid what to do
- Easiest way to lose is to let him sit there
- The easy way may be the best in the short run
- In the long run though all you’ve done is taught conformity and punished initiation
- Quote page 590

The kid who made a ruckus:
- Kids initiate. They create situations. They start ruckuses. All of them. The essence of being human is to initiate.
- But we aren’t left to our own devices and cease troublesome behavior. Most of us.
- Those who don’t are still busy starting things big and small.
- We can unbrainwash ourselves while there’s still time

The best thing I ever done:
- Don opened up a pizza joint in NYC
- What would his life have been like had he spent more time thinking about and evaluating whether his handcrafted life’s work was a good idea?

How did you end up with this job?:
- Typically a few unlikely breaks and unadorned initiative
- People get good gigs because they stand up
- Annie Duke the poker player set out to fail often enough to get good

The person who fails the most usually wins:
- Once and big is not the most
- Never and you’re lucky or you’ve never shipped anything
- Fail, succeed, fail, fail, succeed, - you get the idea

Juggling is about throwing not catching:
- That’s why juggling is so difficult. Were conditioned to make the catch. To not drop the ball.
- If you get better at throwing the catches take care of themselves
- The only way to get better at throwing is to throw again and again

A paradox of success:
- People with credibility and resources are so busy trying to hold on to them they fail to bring ideas to market.
- The greatest challenge is finding the guts to risk that success in order to accomplish something great

How to walk to Cleveland:
- Shipping is an event. Life before you ship. The moment you ship. Then life after.
- Starting isn’t like that. It is a series of events.
- You start walking to Cleveland. The next day you have to start again.
- Keep starting until you finish.

The go of science:
- One company invented the laser printer, mouse, onscreen windows, and a frame buffer for special effects in movies in 24 months.
- The team had the expectation of initiation and you couldn’t be a star unless you started something audacious
- Al great science works that way. An individual does something audacious, counters the status quo, pursuing a dream that seems ridiculous at first.

The fear of wrong:
- It’s not surprising we hesitate. Starting maximizes the chances of ending up wrong.
- The boss hassles, disciplines, humiliates, fires people who are wrong
- If you’re not wrong that’s not going to happen
- On the other hand, the boss finds someone who never starts, criticizes and plays devil’s advocate and hassles, disciplines, humiliates, fires them
- Wait that never happens in a factory centric organization
- In the new network focused economy the innovation focused organization has no choice but to obsess on those who don’t start
- Today not starting is far far worse than ending up wrong.

10000 hours of hard work and an overnight success:
- Hollerado band used to show up to shows far away from home and say their show down the street got cancelled then they would ask to play and it worked. They would sell burned cds at the local hot topic.
- Released their first cd free online
- Booked a residency tour playing the same bar on the same night during each week 7 nights a week
- Started a label and released a cd in a bag
- 4 years of doing something new, seeing what works, and doing it again

The market is obsessed with novelty:
- So go make some. Were tired of your old stuff.

Organizing for joy:
- Orgs and corporations are organized for efficiency and consistency not for joy
- Joy comes from surprise and connection and humanity and transparency and new
- McDonalds, Hertz, Dell, and others crank it out by lowering costs and measuring output
- The problem is that when you approach the asymptote of maximum efficiency there’s not a lot of room for improvement. Making your nuggets for .0000001 cents less doesn’t boost profit much
- Worse the nature of the work is unremarkable
- The alternative is to organize for joy
- The relentless act of invention, innovation, and initiative is the best marketing asset

To be really clear:
- Quote page 723

How to do vs. what to do:
- Often we turn to authors and experts for what to do
- There’s no shortage of to do knowledge
- There’s a shortage of people willing to do it

There is no just in just do it:
- The problem with the Nike slogan is the implication that all you have to do to take the initiative is to take initiative, that it’s a matter of will
- You’re not a starter because you haven’t been sold on the idea, haven’t been trained, or rewarded consistently enough to get into habit
- Now you know what's at stake the rest is up to you

The adventures of Andre and Wally B:
- Movie for son with digital animation. It freaked him out and wasn’t made into a feature film
- Was starting a mistake? How bad did he fail?
- John has won 6 academy awards and key in the evolution of Pixar, the most successful film company of all time. No one else comes close.
- John starts things

The space between the frames:
- The secret to comics is the space between the frames
- This between the frames actions is what makes poking the box so powerful. Action is easy once you have a plan. Formatting a plan is a rare and powerful skill

Why growth happens early:
- Almost all real job growth occurs in the first days
- Once they hit stability they replace workers not invent new jobs
- In the early days no one is sure what needs to be done. It’s not a job it’s a passion, mission, experiment
- Companies that grow after 5 years embrace the discipline of poking

The right thing to do:
- There’s a moral obligation to start. If you’ve got the ability to make a difference you must
- You owe it to others to start. To initiate. To be the one who makes something happen. To do less is to steal from them.

A lunch meeting:
- Boss at Yahoo told Seth to sit in cube and await instructions
- His advice if this sounds familiar: 1. Ignore this book (for now) 2. Start looking for a new gig ASAP
- Or ignore your boss if you’re really bold and allow everything to work out in the end.

When it falls apart:
- XFL was a total failure
- “So?” It wasn’t so bad. Everyone came out alright and probably better compared to those who didn’t have the guts to start.
- It’s impossible to have a success only policy. That policy itself guarantees no successes.

Not what I expected to find:
- Part of initiating is being willing to discover that what you end up with is different than what you set out to do.
- Starting doesn’t mean controlling. It means initiating. Managing means controlling but that’s an entirely different skill

What could you build?:
- So many doors are open, so much leverage available. If you could build anything (you can) what would it be?
- If you are afraid to start maybe you haven’t fully understood the cost of not starting

Poking Twitter:
- Watch people new to Facebook or Twitter. They post something and people respond
- That’s not the starting I am talking about. It’s not a real poke, real shipping, real change.
- If you can’t fail it doesn’t count!

Initiating is an intentional act:
- No one answers the phone, goes to a meeting, or reads an email by mistake. Most of what we do is intentional with preparation
- Starting is like that
- We can schedule for it, train for it, plan for it, announce it, and even hire for it.
- Why not invest in starting?

When public school forbids the act of starting:
- It’s not in the curriculum is it?
- How much time do we spend challenging our kids to initiate?
- Is it any wonder why we don’t teach this mindset? Factories and managers don’t want spunk or even innovation they generally seek compliance.
- We rely on the disobedient few for innovation but today innovation is our only option

The expensive act of planning on late:
- When you’re late there’s not a lot of choice, decision, initiative
- Run down the path you’ve taken before
- Late gives us cover. It permits us to trample forward without creativity or panache
Late might be useful but it’s expensive to avoid choice.

Dandelion Mind:
- Humans protect our offspring for to lose one would be a great tragedy
- Dandelions spout out thousands of seeds into the air and many end up on a sidewalk somewhere
- The important thing is every spring every crack in every sidewalk is filled with dandelions
- That is how you should treat your ideas, innovations, and creativity
- When was the last time you were promiscuous with your failures?

Riding a bike and being an adult:
- Helping a kid ride a bike and he had a ton of reasons he didn’t want to learn. Turns out the main reason was that he was afraid
- Were extremely adept at hiding our fear
- The point of this manifesto is not to magically extinguish your fear. It’s to call its bluff. Identifying the fear is the first step to making it go away

What to do with good ideas:
- Are you one of those people? Too busy inventing to actually instigate
- 2 things fix this: 1. Start 2. Ship

Fear on the left fear on the right:
- Many fear the start but some do the opposite. Start and then drop it
- The center is where we resonate with the market

It doesn’t hurt to ask:
- Actually it does if you don’t ask in the right way
- Instead of propositioning everyone invest some time in building relationships

Buzzer management:
- The best way to lose at Jeopardy has nothing to do with preparation or smarts. It’s not being good at using the buzzer
- Like most things that matter starting is not a black and white process. If you aren’t making an impact think about how you use the buzzer

Fear of hubris:
- Lesson of Icarus is burned into all of us
- Were trained to fit in not to stand out
- We spend most of our days waiting for permission to start
- It’s not hubris its essential

Starting as a way of life:
- It gets easier. The simple act of initiating is actually profoundly transformative
- Forward motion is a defensible business asset

Safe:
- Halloween is not safe, flying is not safe, selling is not safe
- Innovation is not safe. You’ll fail. Perhaps badly.
- What are you going to do about it? Hide? Work as hard as you can to fit in? That’s not safe either.
- Might as well do something that matters instead

GO! GO! GO!:
- para 974
- "There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth. Not going all the way, and not starting." - Siddhartha Gautama

Life Changing Cheese - Business Lessons From Everyday Life

People naturally seek to learn about things they are interested in. In my case I am definitely interested in business. I have read numerous books off the Personal MBA reading list, I read business blogs, I listen to business audio books, and I did my undergrad in business management. Although all those sources of information are extremely valuable in developing my own business acumen, I am amazed at how some of the most valuable business lessons are encountered when you least expect them during your daily life.

This past weekend a few friends, my wife, and I went up to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for the day. Portsmouth is definitely a cool little artsy town with plenty of shops, restaurants, and bars. Our couple friends had been there before and were showing us around. We stopped into a quirky shop with tons of kitchen accessories, wine, and other knick knacks (definitely the least manly thing I have ever written). Our friends had mentioned that the place always had wine tastings and that they had this amazing cheese that we "just had to try."

As I approached the tasting area I saw a man behind the table pouring wine and setting up a platter. It was then that the man said something that caught my attention.

“Life changing cheese.”

Wow. What a great line! I am a very passionate person. When I am into something I am really into it. Whether it is hockey, music, my work, business, or playing guitar I am the kind of person who takes things that I am interested in or enjoy and I turn them into passions. For that reason, I am naturally drawn to people who are passionate about what they do. This wasn’t some person who was there to serve a few drinks and cubes of cheese to collect a paycheck. This guy was passionate about what he did and he was good at it.

The man went on to explain how the cheese was made in a cave in England and that the unique conditions gave it the "life changing" taste characteristics. He spoke of how many cases of cheese they sold a week and how they couldn't keep up with the demand. As he spoke I couldn't help but imagine little leprechaun looking dudes working away in a candlelit cave somewhere in the countryside of England. I must admit the cheese was amazing. The man wasn't just selling cheese, he was creating an experience!

As we walked through the streets of Portsmouth I wondered how influenced my friends were by marketing of the man selling the cheese. I wondered whether the cheese was really amazing or if it was just good cheese that was made great by the experience. I wondered how many other people went around telling their friends about "life changing cheese." I wondered how much cheese the passionate cheese peddler sold compared to the emotionless sample distributors at supermarkets. The fact that the "life changing cheese" experience stuck with me and that I put so much thought into a subject like cheese tells me that it was an example effective marketing at its core.

Not only was it a great day amongst friends, it was also a real life lesson in marketing that I will be able to reference moving ahead. How can I create "life changing cheese" in my own endeavors?