How can this be a good thing?

Entrepreneurship is ALL about change. Change is where the opportunity is at. But, it is also a problem.

Undoubtedly you will agree with me when I say people resist and fear change. In fact, humans are hardwired to resist change. The psychological name, for this phenomenon, is the Status Quo Bias.

The Status Quo Bias has been empirically proven. And, what scientists have found is that we value what we have roughly twice as much as what we could have. Stated simply, we do not want to change.

Let me go a little deeper into the problem. The famous philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said life exists in tension. I agree. Allow me to explain.

Another thing you would have to agree with is the old paradox, “The only constant is change.” Change is inevitable. But, just a second ago we agreed that people resist changing. Can you see the tension?

Enter the entrepreneur. One of the main things entrepreneurs do is we help people to make good changes. So, if you wish to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be comfortable with change. To that end, I have a little exercise for you.

Here is an exercise, I personally use, when faced with change. Whenever I encountered a change, in my life, I ask myself, “How can this be a good thing?”

As the beginning of this blog suggests, change equals opportunity. And, the reality is, you cannot capitalize on change if you do not ask yourself how any given change can be a good thing.

Let me give you two examples. One personal. The other more public.

First off, I use Realtor dot com a lot. Recently, they changed their search function and it kind of messed me up. However, I asked myself, “How can this be a good thing?” And, I kept trying to get the website to work for me.

It took me a little while, but, it turns out the new search method is actually much better, and more effective, for me. Make no mistake, when the site was changed I almost threw in the towel and went elsewhere. The only thing that helped me was the question, “How can this be a good thing?”

Now for my second example. Most of you will probably remember an old service called Napster. Back in 1999 a guy by the name of Shawn Fanning created a file-sharing software that came to be known as Napster.

Napster was the way many people illegally downloaded music. It turned into quite the ordeal. Many people in the music business thought their industry would be destroyed.

In an attempt to salvage their golden goose many record companies, and artists, banded together and started suing the downloaders. What these companies and artists were doing was a rear-guard action. They were trying to protect the past.

But, Apple Computer was smarter than that. The folks at Apple asked themselves some form of my question, “How can this be a good thing?” And, their answer changed everything. Today, iTunes practically owns the music business.

Tension is a reality of life. You are wired to fight against change. And yet, change is one of the few things you can reliably count on.

If you can overcome the Status Quo Bias, and begin to see change as the opportunity it is, you are moving in the direction of successful entrepreneurship. Good luck!

Entrepreneurship Explained Very Simply

What do true entrepreneurs do? They bring valuable innovations to the market.

Innovation is about making things better.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, a good exercise is to always ask yourself, “Can this be done better?”

When you find something that can be improved upon, and sold to people, you have one important hurdle.

You need to test it out.

That is to say, you need to prove there is demand for your concept. Some might call this a “Pilot.”

Get out there and see if people are willing to pay for what it is you have to offer.

If enough people are volunteering to buy what you've got, then it is all about distributing (selling) your product as quickly as possible.

Easy in theory. Difficult in practice.

Good luck!

Revitalizing Oneself

As we all know, the new year is a time of renewal. A time to begin anew. Any regular reader of this blog is familiar with my nearly ridiculous fondness for Peter Drucker. In honor of Profesor Drucker I would like to give this year's first blog to the man himself.

Drucker once wrote an article describing seven experiences that taught him how to grow, to change, and to age–without becoming a prisoner of the past. The contents of this article have been labeled Revitalizing Oneself. The remainder of this blog post are Peters' words.

I was not yet 18 when, having finished high school, I left my native Vienna and went to Hamburg as a trainee in a cotton-export firm. My father was not very happy. Ours had been a family of civil servants, professors, lawyers, and physicians for a very long time. He therefore wanted me to be a full-time university student, but I was tired of being a schoolboy and wanted to go to work. To appease my father, but without any serious intention, I enrolled at Hamburg University in the law faculty. In those remote days--the year was 1927--one did not have to attend classes to be a perfectly proper university student. All one had to do to obtain a university degree was to pay a small annual fee and show up for an exam at the end of four years.

THE FIRST EXPERIENCE

Taught by Verdi

The work at the export firm was terribly boring, and I learned very little. Work began at 7:30 in the morning and was over at 4 in the afternoon on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays. So I had lots of free time. Once a week I went to the opera.

On one of those evenings I went to hear an opera by the great 19th-century Italian composer, Giuseppe Verdi--the last opera he wrote, Falstaff. It has now become one of Verdi's most popular operas, but it was rarely performed then. Both singers and audiences thought it too difficult. I was totally overwhelmed by it. Although I had heard a great many operas, I had never heard anything like that. I have never forgotten the impression that evening made on me.

When I made a study, I found that this opera, with its gaiety, its zest for life, and its incredible vitality, was written by a man of 80! To me 80 was an incredible age. Then I read what Verdi himself had written when he was asked why, at that age, when he was already a famous man and considered one of the foremost opera composers of his century, he had taken on the hard work of writing one more opera, and an exceedingly demanding one. "All my life as a musician," he wrote, "I have striven for perfection. It has always eluded me. I surely had an obligation to make one more try.”

I have never forgotten those words--they made an indelible impression on me. When he was 18 Verdi was already a seasoned musician. I had no idea what I would become, except that I knew by that time that I was unlikely to be a success exporting cotton textiles. But I resolved that whatever my life's work would be, Verdi's words would be my lodestar. I resolved that if I ever reached an advanced age, I would not give up but would keep on. In the meantime I would strive for perfection, even though, as I well knew, it would surely always elude me.

THE SECOND EXPERIENCE

Taught by Phidias

It was at about this same time, and also in Hamburg during my stay as a trainee, that I read a story that conveyed to me what perfection means. It is a story of the greatest sculptor of ancient Greece, Phidias. He was commissioned around 440 b.c. to make the statues that to this day stand on the roof of the Parthenon, in Athens. They are considered among the greatest sculptures of the Western tradition, but when Phidias submitted his bill, the city accountant of Athens refused to pay it. "These statues," the accountant said, "stand on the roof of the temple, and on the highest hill in Athens. Nobody can see anything but their fronts. Yet you have charged us for sculpting them in the round--that is, for doing their back sides, which nobody can see.”

“You are wrong," Phidias retorted. "The gods can see them." I read this, as I remember, shortly after I had listened to Falstaff, and it hit me hard. I have not always lived up to it. I have done many things that I hope the gods will not notice, but I have always known that one has to strive for perfection even if only the gods notice.

THE THIRD EXPERIENCE

Taught by Journalism

A few years later I moved to Frankfurt. I worked first as a trainee in a brokerage firm. Then, after the New York stock-market crash, in October 1929, when the brokerage firm went bankrupt, I was hired on my 20th birthday by Frankfurt's largest newspaper as a financial and foreign-affairs writer. I continued to be enrolled as a law student at the university because in those days one could easily transfer from one European university to any other. I still was not interested in the law, but I remembered the lessons of Verdi and of Phidias. A journalist has to write about many subjects, so I decided I had to know something about many subjects to be at least a competent journalist.

The newspaper I worked for came out in the afternoon. We began work at 6 in the morning and finished by a quarter past 2 in the afternoon, when the last edition went to press. So I began to force myself to study afternoons and evenings: international relations and international law; the history of social and legal institutions; finance; and so on. Gradually, I developed a system. I still adhere to it. Every three or four years I pick a new subject. It may be Japanese art; it may be economics. Three years of study are by no means enough to master a subject, but they are enough to understand it. So for more than 60 years I have kept on studying one subject at a time. That not only has given me a substantial fund of knowledge. It has also forced me to be open to new disciplines and new approaches and new methods--for every one of the subjects I have studied makes different assumptions and employs a different methodology.

THE FOURTH EXPERIENCE

Taught by an Editor-in-Chief

The next experience to report in this story of keeping myself intellectually alive and growing is something that was taught by an editor-in-chief, one of Europe's leading newspapermen. The editorial staff at the newspaper consisted of very young people. At age 22 I became one of the three assistant managing editors. The reason was not that I was particularly good. In fact, I never became a first-rate daily journalist. But in those years, around 1930, the people who should have held the kind of position I had--people age 35 or so--were not available in Europe. They had been killed in World War I. Even highly responsible positions had to be filled by young people like me.

The editor-in-chief, then around 50, took infinite pains to train and discipline his young crew. He discussed with each of us every week the work we had done. Twice a year, right after New Year's and then again before summer vacations began in June, we would spend a Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday discussing our work over the preceding six months. The editor would always start out with the things we had done well. Then he would proceed to the things we had tried to do well. Next he reviewed the things where we had not tried hard enough. And finally, he would subject us to a scathing critique of the things we had done badly or had failed to do. The last two hours of that session would then serve as a projection of our work for the next six months: What were the things on which we should concentrate? What were the things we should improve? What were the things each of us needed to learn? And a week later each of us was expected to submit to the editor-in-chief our new program of work and learning for the next six months. I tremendously enjoyed the sessions, but I forgot them as soon as I left the paper.

Almost 10 years later, after I had come to the United States, I remembered them. It was in the early 1940s, after I had become a senior professor, started my own consulting practice, and begun to publish major books. Since then I have set aside two weeks every summer in which to review my work during the preceding year, beginning with the things I did well but could or should have done better, down to the things I did poorly and the things I should have done but did not do. I decide what my priorities should be in my consulting work, in my writing, and in my teaching. I have never once truly lived up to the plan I make each August, but it has forced me to live up to Verdi's injunction to strive for perfection, even though "it has always eluded me" and still does.

THE FIFTH EXPERIENCE

Taught by a Senior Partner

My next learning experience came a few years after my experience on the newspaper. From Frankfurt I moved to London in 1933, first working as a securities analyst in a large insurance company and then, a year later, moving to a small but fast-growing private bank as an economist and the executive secretary to the three senior partners. One, the founder, was a man in his seventies; the two others were in their midthirties. At first I worked exclusively with the two younger men, but after I had been with the firm some three months or so, the founder called me into his office and said, "I didn't think much of you when you came here and still don't think much of you, but you are even more stupid than I thought you would be, and much more stupid than you have any right to be." Since the two younger partners had been praising me to the skies each day, I was dumbfounded.

And then the old gentlemen said, "I understand you did very good securities analysis at the insurance company. But if we had wanted you to do securities-analysis work, we would have left you where you were. You are now the executive secretary to the partners, yet you continue to do securities analysis. What should you be doing now, to be effective in your new job?" I was furious, but still I realized that the old man was right. I totally changed my behavior and my work. Since then, when I have a new assignment, I ask myself the question, "What do I need to do, now that I have a new assignment, to be effective?" Every time, it is something different. Discovering what it is requires concentration on the things that are crucial to the new challenge, the new job, the new task.

THE SIXTH EXPERIENCE

Taught by the Jesuits and the Calvinists

Quite a few years later, around 1945, after I had moved from England to the United States in 1937, I picked for my three-year study subject early modern European history, especially the 15th and 16th centuries. I found that two European institutions had become dominant forces in Europe: the Jesuit Order in the Catholic South and the Calvinist Church in the Protestant North. Both were founded independently in 1536. Both adopted the same learning discipline.

Whenever a Jesuit priest or a Calvinist pastor does anything of significance--making a key decision, for instance--he is expected to write down what results he anticipates. Nine months later he traces back from the actual results to those anticipations. That very soon shows him what he did well and what his strengths are. It also shows him what he has to learn and what habits he has to change. Finally, it shows him what he has no gift for and cannot do well. I have followed that method for myself now for 50 years. It brings out what one's strengths are--and that is the most important thing an individual can know about himself or herself. It brings out areas where improvement is needed and suggests what kind of improvement is needed. Finally, it brings out things an individual cannot do and therefore should not even try to do. To know one's strengths, to know how to improve them, and to know what one cannot do--they are the keys to continuous learning.

THE SEVENTH EXPERIENCE

Taught by Schumpeter

One more experience, and then I am through with the story of my personal development. At Christmas 1949, when I had just begun to teach management at New York University, my father, then 73 years old, came to visit us from California. Right after New Year's, on January 3, 1950, he and I went to visit an old friend of his, the famous economist Joseph Schumpeter. My father had already retired, but Schumpeter, then 66 and world famous, was still teaching at Harvard and was very active as the president of the American Economic Association.

In 1902 my father was a very young civil servant in the Austrian Ministry of Finance, but he also did some teaching in economics at the university. Thus he had come to know Schumpeter, who was then, at age 19, the most brilliant of the young students. Two more-different people are hard to imagine: Schumpeter was flamboyant, arrogant, abrasive, and vain; my father was quiet, the soul of courtesy, and modest to the point of being self-effacing. Still, the two became fast friends and remained fast friends.

By 1949 Schumpeter had become a very different person. In his last year of teaching at Harvard, he was at the peak of his fame. The two old men had a wonderful time together, reminiscing about the old days. Suddenly, my father asked with a chuckle, "Joseph, do you still talk about what you want to be remembered for?" Schumpeter broke out in loud laughter. For Schumpeter was notorious for having said, when he was 30 or so and had published the first two of his great economics books, that what he really wanted to be remembered for was having been "Europe's greatest lover of beautiful women and Europe's greatest horseman--and perhaps also the world's greatest economist." Schumpeter said, "Yes, this question is still important to me, but I now answer it differently. I want to be remembered as having been the teacher who converted half a dozen brilliant students into first-rate economists.”

He must have seen an amazed look on my father's face, because he continued, "You know, Adolph, I have now reached the age where I know that being remembered for books and theories is not enough. One does not make a difference unless it is a difference in the lives of people." One reason my father had gone to see Schumpeter was that it was known that the economist was very sick and would not live long. Schumpeter died five days after we visited him.

I have never forgotten that conversation. I learned from it three things: First, one has to ask oneself what one wants to be remembered for. Second, that should change. It should change both with one's own maturity and with changes in the world. Finally, one thing worth being remembered for is the difference one makes in the lives of people.

I am telling this long story for a simple reason. All the people I know who have managed to remain effective during a long life have learned pretty much the same things I learned. That applies to effective business executives and to scholars, to top-ranking military people and to first-rate physicians, to teachers and to artists. Whenever I work with a person, I try to find out to what the individual attributes his or her success. I am invariably told stories that are remarkably like mine.

Keep Banging On

Craig Ferguson is one interesting dude. Do you know who he is? He is a comedian who used to be on The Drew Carey Show. But, he is better known for the ten years that he did The Late Late Show.

I think Ferguson is a genius. He is a cool dude to boot. However, about this time last year, The Late Late Show came to an end. For the first segment, of his last show, Ferguson did a musical cover of a song titled “Bang Your Drum” by the Scottish band Dead Man Fall.

In the past year, I must have listened to the song a million times. So, I figured I should pass it along. The video includes quite a number of A-Listers. Check it out! Click here to watch the video on YouTube.

Happy New Year!!

Keep banging on...

Far Niente

A couple weeks ago I wrote a post about the fact that no one is ever doing nothing. The post was titled, “Busy Doing Nothing.” Click here to read it.

What I did not mention, in the previous post, is the fact that the phrase, “Doing nothing,” is a contradiction. Perhaps a paradox, I am not completely sure.

At any rate, there exists a winery, in the Napa area, called “Far Niente.” Which, translated from Italian, basically means, “Doing nothing.” I have enjoyed some lovely wine, from Far Niente, and the name inspired this post.

The mind can be a very wild place. As the old saying goes, “An idle mind is the devil's playground.” It is for this reason people love to stay busy. Even if what they are doing is utterly useless. Soon I will post an interesting article titled, “Addicted to Distraction.” Stay tuned.

Being left alone, to our thoughts, can be quite intimidating. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever tried to meditate? It ain't easy. That said, I am a huge fan of meditation. I think everyone should do it.

I first learned to meditate back in college. I had heard of the idea and it intrigued me. So, I bought a CD from Andrew Weil and gave it a whirl.

Quieting the mind can be a very difficult thing to do. Perhaps that is exactly what makes the practice so valuable. Meditation might be the best way to learn how to focus.

And, the ability to pay attention is the critical first step in improving the quality experience. That is a key takeaway from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's phenomenal book, Flow.

For our purposes, we are not really concerned with improving the quality of experience, per se. If you are an entrepreneur, or a knowledge worker, your work requires some degree of creativity. And, creativity demands that we learn how to integrate information.

For this reason, I believe you need to make time to waste time. Meaning, we need time to reflect. One of the best ways to do this is with a mundane task. Showering would be an example.

That great ideas come to us in the shower has become something of a cliché. It also happens to be true. The reason is that our mind is engaged but it is doing a task that it has mastered.

Newton's First Law tells us that objects in motion tend to stay in motion. This applies to the brain. The recommendation I am making is that you do structured activities. Activities that you know how to do.

Steve Jobs was famous for the walks that he would take. Myself, I like to hike in the hills. Either way, each one of us has certainly “mastered” walking. This engages the mind but leaves plenty of computing power to think of other things.

Lots of people enjoy driving to clear their head. And, if it helps you solve your problems, I say, “Go for a drive.”

All-in-all what I am saying is that we should schedule our ideal time. The time when we do nothing. But, there is a twist.

With all due respect to wine drinkers, for most people, casually enjoying a glass offers no structure or direction. I encourage you to intentionally do easy things that have a beginning and an end.

Walks, hikes, and showering are all great ways to free the mind for integrative thinking. Yard work and doing the dishes might work as well.

I am a believer in the mundane. And, I believe we should not pooh-pooh the ordinary. Properly channeled, mundane tasks can be great opportunities for creative thinking. Provided we pay attention to the times we are far niente.

THE WINNER, AND NEW...!!!

This past weekend was a big one for sports fans. Stick with me, and let me explain, because this post contains a great lesson on effectiveness.

In this post, I will interchangeably use the words effectiveness, success, and achievement. As you might know, the two main things, that impede achievement, are fear and doubt. This post is about doubt.

Have you ever noticed that super-achievers tend to be arrogant? Do not get me wrong, once a person is successful it is smart to feign humility. Warren Buffett is an absolute master at it. But, to achieve high levels of success requires enormous amounts of confidence. Perhaps even arrogance.

The reason is simple. The reason is one word: doubt. On your entrepreneurial journey, doubt will be your ever present companion. And, it is a real pisser because doubt is simultaneously a big thing and a bad. It is a paradox.

Doubt is good when it comes in the form of a healthy skepticism. A healthy does of skepticism will help you sniff out, and avoid, the hucksters. And, let's be honest, there is a lot of snake oil out there.

The bad form of doubt is self-doubt. When things are not working out the way you had planned, doubt will be there to rush in. We euphemistically believe that doubt keeps ego in check. But, the truth is, doubt destroys entrepreneurs.

And, that brings me to this past weekend. Over the weekend, Conor McGregor defeated Jose Aldo to become the UFC featherweight champion. There is a good chance you might have heard about McGregor.

McGregor is obnoxiously confident (to borrow a phrase from Gary Vaynerchuk.) Indeed, many would call Conor cocky. He is. But, is that a problem?

Don't get me wrong, sometimes it seems Conor goes too far. He does talk trash about his opponent. Which is rough. But, the trash talk is meant to gin up controversy, sell more tickets, and make more money. As far as the fight game goes, it can be a smart move.

Aside from the trash talk, is arrogance a problem? Not necessarily. When it comes to effectiveness and entrepreneurship, confidence works much better than doubt. Have you ever heard the saying, "Often wrong, never in doubt"? Pretty wise.

As an aside, I am a big fan of Jim Collins. I think he is a smart dude. But, Collins had led lots of people astray with his notion of “Level 5 Leadership.” If you have not read Good to Great let me summarize and tell you that Level 5 Leadership is about being humble.

Listen, now is neither the time nor place to get into a thorough discussion on the complexities of human beings. Suffice it to say people can be simultaneously confident and humble. To cut to the chase, I disagree with Collins on his conception of leadership.

Leaders might choose to present themselves as humble. But, believe me, under the surface, a successful leader is very confident. If Level 5 Leadership is so necessary, how do we account for people like Steve Jobs and Donald Trump?

Anyhow, back to Conor McGregor. Saturday night Conor took the belt from Jose Aldo. If you are not familiar with mixed martial arts you need to understand that Aldo had not lost a fight in ten years. Ten years! And, Aldo was widely considered the best fighter in the world, pound-for-pound.

I think we have all heard that quote, attributed to Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't–you're right.” It is mostly true. But, one thing that is certainly true is that you cannot beat the best fighter in the world if you do not believe you can.

Belief, faith, confidence. These are the antidotes to doubt. And, doubt is an insidious problem. For this reason, I think we can forgive people for going too far with the confidence thing.

Life is not black and white. It is a gradient, not unlike a dimmer switch. We need to concern ourselves with tendencies more than absolutes. I am talking about leaning in certain directions. And, if you ask me, when it comes to entrepreneurship, I think it is wise to err on the side of too much confidence rather than too much humility.

Don't be an ass. But, do believe in yourself. Unapologetically. 

Busy Doing Nothing

If you are an entrepreneur, you are a salesperson. Period. Full stop. How does that feel? If you object, we might need to iron your brain out a little bit.

You see, if you are to build a successful business, you must get attention. Lots and lots of attention. On this point, sales trainer Grant Cardone is spot on. Here is an image I took from Cardone's website:

This is where a lot of people fall down. The reasons people fail to get the necessary attention are numerous. Some people do not know how to get attention. Others do not like the idea that they will be judged. While some do not like interrupting people. It is this last reason I wish to focus on in this post.

Let me make an important and unequivocal statement. When you aim to get people's attention you will always be interrupting. Always. That statement is a tautology.

The first job of a salesperson is prospecting. Prospecting is simply the act of searching for something of value. In the case of an entrepreneur, prospecting means searching for customers and distributors.

Recently, Jeb Blount wrote a book titled Fanatical Prospecting. In the book Blount agrees with me. He says that we must always be interrupting people. Let us expound upon the idea.

One way to get attention is with the cold call. For various reasons, a lot people would sooner die than make a cold call. Many do. And, while I do not agree with everything Grant Cardone teaches, one point we definitely do agree on is the value and importance of making cold calls.

Back to my tautological statement. Whenever you endeavor to get a person's attention you will be interrupting that person. To put it in different terms, nobody is sitting around doing nothing.

Think about it. I can think of a great activity which is meant to do nothing. That activity is meditating. However, even people who are meditating are not doing nothing. What are they doing? They are meditating!

As you might be able to tell, I have spent some time thinking about this concept. Can you think of a person who is doing absolutely nothing? It is harder than you might think.

A person who is "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" would appear to be doing nothing. But, what would they say they are doing. They are watching television, of course.

The best example I could come up with, of a person who is busy doing nothing, is the image of a person sitting on their front porch, sipping on a cold glass of iced tea. Now, is that person doing nothing? No! S/he would tell you that s/he is relaxing!

The irony of the whole thing is, what do most people say when you ask what they are doing. “Nothing,” right? It is so funny.

Fun and games aside, it really is true that everyone is always doing something. So, whenever you try to get a person's attention you are necessarily interrupting that person.

And, here we run into a big problem. Most of us were raised to believe that it is rude to interrupt people. That belief is not necessarily true, but we have all been taught it. The problem occurs if we take the lesson too literally.

The fact of the matter is that sometimes it is completely appropriate to interrupt a person. Let us come up with an example. Imagine that a couple of neighbors are chatting it up on one of their driveways. The conversation gets pretty interesting and they lose track of their small children.

Now let us imagine you come walking by and notice that the child has gotten into imminent danger. To take an extreme example, the child is playing with some downed power lines. I do not know if that ever really happens but I want to drive the point home.

What would you do? Would you not interrupt the parent's conversation to ask if that is their child? Of course you would! And, would the parents be upset with the fact that you interrupted? Quite the contrary, it is much more likely that they would thank you for the interruption.

The fact of the matter is, it is completely appropriate to interrupt people. The key is to have something of great value to say. In sales we speak of the importance of relevance. What we have to say is valuable if it is relevant to the prospect's life.

In fact, the company MarketingSherpa found that 92 percent of B2B buyers are open to cold calls if the salesperson is relevant. I think this finding is not too surprising. But, it is nonetheless important and it bears repeating.

I am always amazed at the number of people who flat out refuse to make a cold call. It is sad, really. As I have mentioned, one of the main problems is a fear of interrupting people. And, I hope this blog has done at least something to help allay that irrational fear.

It is important that we all learn how to make a cold call. Because, as Grant Cardone would say, “Strangers have everything you want.” It is a cute little statement. It is easy to remember and it drives home the point.

Personally, I prefer the way sales trainer Mike Bosworth puts it. Bosworth says we need to be searching for latent pain. This is especially true of entrepreneurs. True entrepreneurs solve new problems, or fix existing problems in new ways. Either way you will need to get attention. You will need to interrupt people.

The Surprising Difference Between Careerism and Leadership

Coming off of our weeks long discussion about Stephen Covey's effectiveness I thought I would mix it up. This week I want to give you a guest post. The rest of this post was written by Bill George who is a professor at the Harvard Business School.

In my new book, Discover Your True North, I challenge readers to ask themselves this key question: Are you leading with purpose or just trying to get ahead?

Do you actually believe in something larger than your compensation, your career trajectory or your next success?

I often tell young leaders, if their work has no meaning or satisfaction, they are better off quitting and sitting on the beach until they decide what they want to do.

Many people's work is completely disconnected from their values and their purpose. This lack of purpose isn't something to deal with by working with a nonprofit in your spare time. If you don't take action to address this disconnect, it can become like an insidious cancer that eats at your soul. Long-run, a lack of purpose can lead to burnout, poor decision-making and even moral derailment.

Understanding Your Purpose

Your purpose is the genuine deeper meaning in your work. It reflects why you do what you do.

Understanding your purpose is essential to becoming a better leader. People who lead with a sense of purpose that is aligned with their company's purpose make better long-term decisions and are more authentic.

But this is not as easy as it sounds. Discerning your purpose takes a combination of introspection and real-world experiences before you can determine where you want to devote your energies.

The first step to knowing your purpose is to understand your life story. We all face times of crisis, pain or rejection in our lives. Reflecting on the life you've lived helps you to discover your True North - the beliefs, values and principles most important to you.

Before you take on a leadership role, ask yourself: "What motivates me to lead this organization?" If the honest answers are simply power, prestige and money, you are at risk of being trapped by external gratification as your source of fulfillment.

This never works. Why? Simply, you can never have enough money, fame or recognition. When you give someone else the power to decide if you're successful (whether it's the Forbes 400 list or an invitation to Davos), you lose. If you allow some external force to define your success, you have essentially abdicated your soul.

There is a deep voice inside you that yearns to bring your unique gifts to this world. If you neglect that voice, you create deep misalignments that eventually will surface.

Purpose at Work

Ken Frazier traveled a unique road en route to becoming CEO of Merck, the leading pharmaceutical research company. Born before the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, Frazier's grandfather was a slave in South Carolina. He sent his son, Frazier's father, to live in Philadelphia. With no formal education, Frazier's father became a janitor, yet taught himself to read, reading two newspapers a day. In spite of his limited opportunities, he had a profound influence on Frazier's life.

After his mother died when he was 12, Frazier and his sisters had to fend for themselves after school, avoiding the gangs that dominated the streets outside his house. "I learned very early from my father that one has to be one's own person and not go along with the crowd," Frazier says. His father asked him, "Kenny, how are you going to carry on your grandfather's narrative of being free and your own person? You better do what you know is right, and not be fixated on what other people think of you.”

While studying at on Penn State scholarship, Frazier decided he wanted "to become a great lawyer like Thurgood Marshall, affecting social change." At Harvard Law School, he was acutely aware he wasn't from the same social class as his classmates. He wryly notes, "Lloyd Blankfein [CEO of Goldman Sachs] and I were the only students who 'were not of the manor born.”

Shortly after he joined Merck, Frazier took on the extremely difficult task of defending Merck from over 40,000 lawsuits filed after the pain drug Vioxx was withdrawn from the market due to alleged cardiovascular problems. Frazier did so successfully, catapulting him into the CEO's chair where he faced a greater challenge: short-term shareholders pressured him to cut back Merck's research as several of its competitors were doing. Frazier stayed the course, committing to spend a minimum of $8 billion per year on research in order to pursue cures for devastating diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's.

Reflecting on his sense of purpose, Frazier explains, "Merck's purpose is aligned with my personal sense of who I want to be and what I hope to contribute to the world. At Merck, you have the opportunity to make tangible contributions to humanity. There's a yearning in all of us to leave something meaningful behind, because we know we have a short time on earth. Merck gives me the chance to leave something to people 20, 50 or even 100 years from now because we did the right things today.”

Asked what his father would say about his remarkable success, Frazier says modestly, "He'd say, 'The boy did what he was supposed to do.'”

Turning Purpose Into Action

Your leadership purpose is not meaningful until it is applied to solving problems you encounter in the real world. When you align your personal purpose with an organization's mission, you unlock the full potential of people in the organization.

That's what I tried to do at Medtronic where we connected employees' True North with the company mission of "restoring health, alleviating pain and extending life." My successors, especially current CEO Omar Ishrak, have pursued this mission with vigor, contributing to the 100 times increase in the company's market value over the past 26 years. More importantly, the number of people each year restored to full health has grown from 300,000 to 15 million.

As long as you focus on your True North, understand your purpose and use it to make a difference in the world, you can leave a legacy that inspires those who follow.

Sharpen the Saw

This week is the last of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If you recall, from earlier, the first three habits were characterized as “Private Victories.” And, the second three habits Covey called “Public Victories.” As one might expect, the private victories come before the public victories.

This final habit is all-encompassing and universal. The idea comes from that old anecdote which says, if you have five hours to chop down a tree, four of those hours should be spent sharpening your saw.

We all know that without effort it is virtually impossible to stay sharp. Covey writes, “As soon as we leave the external discipline of school, many of us let our minds atrophy.” I believe this is a rather unfortunate mistake. To counter this natural tendency to atrophy I like a quote I once heard. The quote said, “The only time you can coast is when you are going downhill.”

For most of us, it takes a crisis for us to work on improving ourselves. Knowing this, Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying, “Every generation needs a revolution.” But, Jefferson was being overzealous.

I agree with Peter Drucker who said, “We now know that 'revolution' is a delusion...It results from senile decay, from the bankruptcy of ideas and institutions, from failure of self-renewal.” Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out that revolutions do not demolish the prisons of the old regime; they enlarge them.

To my way of thinking, staying sharp, self-renewal, entrepreneurship, and growth are all virtually synonymous. Entrepreneurship is fundamentally about renewal. It is about constant, never-ending improvement. It is about growth, which I believe is life's imperative.

I talk a lot about my love for Peter Drucker. But, if I had to pick one book, as my favorite of all time, it would probably be Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. As it turns out, Csikszentmihalyi used to teach at the same school as Drucker. Actually, Mihaly is still there though Peter has passed.

There are so many important lessons to take away from the book Flow. However, for our purposes today, I wish to point out one lesson in particular. If you really understand what Csikszentmihalyi is saying, you realize that growth is the imperative of life.

If you will allow me to get nerdy for a minute, I would like to make a quick reference to physics. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is a governing principle of the cosmos. Without getting too deep into it, just understand that the second law has to do with a concept known as entropy.

To put it in lay terms, entropy is practically synonymous with the words decay and death. If you truly understand entropy, you realize that life exists because it can. And, life is completely dependent on growth. It is like what the character Andy said in the move The Shawshank Redemption. We need to either, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Sharpening the saw is the living part. It is growth. You may know the name Ray Kroc from McDonald's fame. Kroc put it this way, “As long as you are green, you are growing. As soon as you are ripe, you start to rot.” In slightly different terms, Steve Jobs said, “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

However you wish to think of it, growth is the imperative and we must always sharpen our saw. Covey states, “I commend to you the simple practice of spending one hour a day every day doing it – one hour a day for the rest of your life.” Sounds good to me.

Synergize

Have you been following me over the last few week? I sure hope so. I have been running through each of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Today, we discuss the sixth habit. Which is the third, and final, of what Covey calls “Public Victories.”

This blog is about effectiveness and entrepreneurship. It is meant to link the two ideas together. For the most part, entrepreneurship requires the building of organizations. Drucker said we live in a society of organizations. And, synergy is all about organizations.

There are many important functions in a large and successful business. And, no one person can be good at all of them. So, we must hire, or partner with, people who can do the jobs we are not good at. Thus, as you can imagine, we need self-awareness and the ability to identify our strengths.

Drucker recommends we always ask ourselves the question, “What should my contribution be?” In order to answer that question we must identify the mission of the organization, the necessary tasks, and our particular strengths. Then, we can match strengths to tasks. This is harder than it first appears.

An example would be the entrepreneur who prides him/herself on being an “Idea person.” That person is basically saying they are not good at execution. In turn, an idea person needs to partner/synergize with an execution person. A good example would be the partnership between Charles Kettering and Alfred Sloan.

Even if you are good at both ideas and execution, the world is much too vast and complicated to know it all. Most people believe they are objective and see the world the way it is. The problem is that we tend to see the world, not as it is, but as we are. For this reason, it is wise to value differences of opinion.

Covey would say, “The essence of synergy is to value differences. Synergy means two heads are better than one. It is the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. One plus one equals three, or six, or sixty.”

If Sloan had to come up with the ideas, he might not have gone far. Conversely, had Kettering needed to be an executive he would have struggled. So, in some ways, we could say that synergy is similar to teamwork. The only problem is that synergy is much more than teamwork.

Teamwork can often involve an element of uniformity. I think we have all heard that funny quote of Henry Ford saying, “You can have whatever Model-T you want. As long as it is black.” Additionally, John Wooden was one of the best college basketball coaches of all time. And, one thing was for certain, on Wooden's team, you did it his way.

As I have mentioned, synergy is different. With synergy we value the differences. You could have uniformity, with the Model-T, because it was the only show in town. And, uniformity also applies to basketball because it is a pretty simple game.

The great game of business is different. Basketball has not changed much in one hundred, or so, years it has been around. But, business changes constantly. Remember MySpace?

To stay ahead, in business, requires great talent and diversity. Which is very difficult. Most of us seek out people who are similar. Differences often create friction. The great organization builder knew how to lubrication that friction so they were able to utilize the concept of synergy.

A great example of an organization builder would be Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is, arguably, the greatest President in United States history. And, one thing Lincoln was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was a great organization builder.

If you have never done so, I encourage you to read the great book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The book explains the political genius of Abe Lincoln. And how, one man cobbled together a team that saved, and reinvented, America.

Lincoln's success was the very essence of synergy. Difficult but worth it. As Covey wrote, “When properly understood, synergy is the highest activity in all life.”

Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

We are now on to Habit #5 of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I think this habit is extremely straightforward. At least it is on an intellectual level. However, when it comes to execution, when it comes to implementing this habit, it is one of the hardest. In fact, in this post (click here) I suggest that Habit #5 is the second most difficult of the habits.

I actually could not think of a lot to say about this habit. Seeking to understand before we try to be understood is a pretty simple idea. Simple in theory but difficult in practice. So, let me quote Covey. Central to the habit of “Seek first to understand, then to be understood,” is the idea of empathic listening.

Covey writes, “When I say empathic listening, I mean listening with intent to understand.” He continues, “Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival – to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.”

Obviously, this habit is all about listening. And, as Peter Drucker would say, listening is not a skill. Listening is a discipline. To seek first to understand, requires that we listen, which requires discipline. And, that is a lot of what makes this habit so difficult.

So often we think that we do not have time to listen. We all have a lot on our plates and time is of the essence. Covey says, “There are people who protest that empathic listening takes too much time. It may take a little more time initially but it saves so much time downstream.”

Miscommunication is a very real problem in this day and age. We are all extremely busy. Or, at least we convince ourselves that we are. We are always in a hurry. And, being in such a rush causes us to be much more likely to fool up our communication. Often times this miscommunication causes more problems than it solves. As paradoxical as it may sound, being in a hurry can waste a lot of time. Sometimes we need to slow down to speed up.

As it applies to entrepreneurship, this habit is at the very heart of selling. When it comes to selling our goods we are well advised to behave like doctors. That is to say, we need to diagnose before we prescribe.

Entrepreneurs are problem solvers. In this way, entrepreneurs are a lot like doctors. The essence of economic value derives from the solving of real problems. As it turns out, there are any number of people out there trying to solve false problems. Meaning, they bring a product or service to the market that solves a problem people do not really care about.

So, a fundamental question is, “What do people really care about?” That is a diagnostic question. Again, we want to diagnose before we prescribe. And, diagnosing before we prescribe is simply another way of saying, understand before you solve. If you want to sell somebody your solution, you are well-advised to first understand their problem. As the name of the book suggests, this all about becoming more effective.

One word of caution, do not assume you know people's problems. I think we all know that cliche about what happens when we assume. Rather than assuming we need to ask questions and listen.

Think Win/Win

This post marks a turning point in our discussion about The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Today is about Habit #4 which means we are now transitioning from independence to interdependence. From private victories to public victories.

Independence must come before interdependence. Stephen Covey writes, “Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make.” One of the main problems is that independent people often look at the world from the perspective of Win/Lose.

In this blog I apply effectiveness to the realm of entrepreneurship. Obviously, entrepreneurship is conducted in a capitalist economy. And, the fact of the matter is, capitalism is based upon competition.

For most people, competition necessarily means a Win/Lose mindset. What's more, we are raised playing games that reinforce the Win/Lose mentality. Sports being the most prominent example. And, a lot of people get frustrated with the current trend towards giving trophies to all participants. So steeped are we in the tradition of winners and losers that we sometimes have a hard time thinking Win/Win.

Don't get me wrong, sports were created to have winners and losers. And, giving trophies to the teams that do not win is pretty silly. That said, some people approach every aspect of life from a competitive perspective. In order for a competitive person to win, someone else is expected to lose.

The problem is that life in general, and business in particular, are different in rather significant ways. I will not discussion life in general. Let us only talk about business. Business contains elements of both competition and cooperation.

As a matter of fact, several years ago a couple of business professors, Barry Nalebuff and Adam Brandenburger, teamed up to write a book about the paradoxical nature of business. The book was titled Co-opetition and it applied the mathematical model of game theory to the realities of business.

As the name of the book suggests, business is part competition and part cooperation. And, the two parts exist simultaneously. In turn, being overly competitive can backfire because it keeps us from being able to cooperate.

Of course, we want to compete against our "competitors." Ford battles with Chevy and Coke tried to destroy Pepsi. But, we need to be careful to not do battle when we should be cooperating.

The most obvious example is our customers. I think most people understand the importance of not fighting with your customers. We should be serving our customers, not battling them. Even as obvious as that should be, many people use war metaphors and almost view their relationship with their customers as a military campaign.

Those of us who are enlightened enough to think Win/Win with our customers often happily go to battle with our suppliers. Which is most unfortunate. After all, are we not our suppliers customers?

Covey says, “There are three character traits essential to the Win/Win paradigm: integrity, maturity, and abundance mentality.” I think the preceding statements is self-explanatory. The real key to implementing the Win/Win mindset is “No Deal.” Whenever we go into a negotiation, or agreement, we need the option of choosing no deal. If we do not believe we are being properly served, we can call the whole thing off.

This much might seem straightforward. If we think we are being mistreated, we always have the option of walking away. Much more difficult is pulling the plug when it seems our negotiating partner is getting a raw deal. Covey writes, “It's twice as tough as Win/Lose. To go for Win/Win, you not only have to be nice, you have to be courageous. You not only have to be empathic, you have to be confident.”

The old saying says that business is war. And, to a point, I agree. As stated, there exists a profound and permanent tension in the cola wars. Car companies would sooner shoot themselves in the foot than give up even one iota of market share. That said, most of business is actually about cooperation. As a general rule you want to cooperate with your employees, co-workers, suppliers, and customers.

Being competitive can be adaptive, it can be the source of much needed drive and energy. But, being competitive can also be destructive and backfire. It is your job to decide when to compete and when to cooperate. As a suggestion, most of the time, you want to be thinking Win/Win. It is the very essence of interdependence, and it makes both sides stronger.