Missable Start with missable targets.
William Tell didn’t learn archery by shooting apples off people’s
heads. He started with missable targets, likely sparing the lives
of fellow villagers. Are you starting people you manage with
missable targets? When they begin new roles or responsibilities, do
they know failure is an option? Can your organization afford for
them to fail? Maybe they aren’t following through because the
stakes seem too high. Consider how you can change that perception.
A side note to this point is whether we are missable. John Moore of
Brand Autopsy wrote several posts asking whether or not we
would miss Dairy Queen, Ace Hardware or Eddie Bauer. His questions
about various brands beg us to ask of ourselves what value we
bring. Would our absence create a noticeable vacuum? This isn’t
just a question for brands, but also for individuals. Do you
consider yourself a linchpin?

Missional Is there meaning and purpose
pulsating from the core of you, your team, your organization?
Organizational structure and processes can design a great engine,
but mission is the fuel. The jet won’t leave the tarmac, let alone
fly, without fuel. As Simon Sinek stated in his famous TED video, we need to start
with the Why. To have meaning, you have to mean something. Most
mission statements have a purpose, but don’t mean anything to your
people and customers. Ask the”why” that matters or you won’t make a
dent in styrofoam, let alone the universe.

Amassable Can you build on top of what
you’re building? Smart consultants bring all their former projects
into their current ones. Lessons learned about what does and
doesn’t work make the next project more successful. Do today’s
decisions amass value? Does this web design project add to your
portfolio in a way that leads to the projects you want to do in the
future, or is it just a means to sustain business for now? Are you
building sandcastles at the edge of the water or are you using the
laboratory of life to test theories that can build into your life’s
work? This is by no means an exhaustive list for creating something
meaningful.

Let me hear your thoughts on how to
create something that matters. Let’s experiment in
the lab for a bit.

If there is someone in your life you believe in, you know what to do. I encourage you to do it today.

Perhaps we got it backwards. Do we want the emphasis on thinking or creating? I would argue the world has no shortage of creative thinkers. We have a wealth of ideas spoiling away like excess food in the dumpsters behind your favorite restaurant. What the world is actually starving for is not just imagination. It craves courage with wisdom, initiative with judgment and a reckless abandon tethered to integrity. We have the resources, but fail to deliver them.

Your friends, our culture, the global community… we are all aching for thoughtful creators who understand they cannot afford to let their talent and efforts remain on a dry erase board. We need THOUGHTFUL CREATORS to help MAKE a new world, not just imagine it.

I have found myself saying this during a movie or play that just didn’t ring true. And if we’re honest with ourselves, at the beginning of ANY performance we could cross our arms and furrow our brows in absolute refusal to believe the artists’ portrayals. What a loss this would be.

In cinema, performing arts and literature, willful suspension of disbelief describes the cooperation between the artist and the audience to create believability in what is presented. The artist does her work to create plot, characters and dialogue which resonate with the truth of the world they author. The audience is left to connect the dots which, if it they are in close enough alignment with each other, is done cheerfully and voluntarily.

Writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase in order to re-introduce poetry and fantasy to 19th century readers whose sensibilities no longer found stories of magic and sorcery true to life. He suggested that infusing human interest and “a semblance of truth” into a fantastic tale would allow readers to suspend judgement of its plausibility.

As helpful as this theory may be toward the arts, it is also of use for life in general. Disbelief can plague us daily like the dust cloud surrounding Pig-Pen. When we are faced with decisions in life, we all too often succumb to the billowing cloud of disbelief reminding us of our past failures we feel doomed to repeat. Possibilities become implausible and we no longer allow ourselves to believe in magic.

But isn’t there a kernel of something deep inside of us that yearns to believe? A little trapeze artist within tired of standing on the platform; begging for a simple net he can twist and twirl above? Just a momentary suspension may give him the window he needs to dazzle and amaze.

Launching a new business calls for this suspension. So does admitting you love someone, as does ascribing to religious faith.

What disbelief do you need to suspend? Let’s not forget an operative word… willing. Are you willing to suspend your disbelief? Share it with others. You might be surprised how many are more than willing to do the same along with you.

Maybe we should, instead, craft a series of “micro messages.” We can focus on the little things we communicate to people.

• Actually smile… genuinely.
• Ask a question showing you care.
• Be eager to do the right thing.
• Do the extra work.
• Be generous.

When we “write” these micro messages, pretty soon we realize we are telling the big story and it feels like it is writing itself. After a while, we can even see a common thread*. The beautiful thing is that when people ask you to summarize the big story, now you can share a micro message (or two or three if they’re interested) that tells them what they really want to know.

*(Hint: the thread is the big story)

The calling of a leader is to stay courageous. Entropy will not happen on our watch.

Challenge teams to be constant tinkerers.

A leader’s most valuable asset is their energy and capability to energize others.

God didn’t make you a leader to respond to stuff all day. He made you a leader to move things ahead.

The most vulnerable phase of a vision is the mid-term, when we are out of gas and the finish line is not in sight.

Image Source - Flickr Less=More=Doh

A quick thought today about how we stunt our growth when we try to ‘artificially preserve’ what we have. The thing about life is we can’t shove it into a jar and set it on the shelf. When we try and preserve what we have (really, what we got in the past), we miss out on the freshness of now and forget what is growing for tomorrow. To put it another way, we get stuck.

Ask yourself a few questions:

• Am I moving forward, or am I stuck?
• Am I spending so much time holding onto what I’ve accomplished, that it is keeping me from worthwhile pursuits?
• What do I need to let go of so I can reach for something new?

Seeing where someone currently resides on the curve is important. Knowing their trajectory is even better.

The animation above shows three objects thrown at the same angle. The black object experiences no drag, while the other two aren’t so fortunate. Drag is another word for resistance, which Steven Pressfield aptly uses as a label for what keeps us from doing our best work.

What would make the above animation of trajectory and drag even more powerful is to see objects thrown with greater force fall shorter than those thrown with less… all because of drag. This would illustrate how people who are assessed as more talented, smarter or more productive may never reach their full potential.

When we continue to focus on assessing where people are when they are at rest, we miss the  opportunity to plot where they may be going. We fail to evaluate drag, its effects on people and how how well people adjust to minimize drag. Because, you see, we’re not inanimate objects thrown at an angle. We can adjust to reduce the drag.

We can remove the distractions. We can ignore the criticism. We can do the opposite of what society tells us.

Do you recognize drag affecting your trajectory? How do you adjust to minimize it and maximize your potential?

I wasn’t intentionally manipulating circumstances so I was the only person capable of editing the file. I was simply using the proper tools to create my best work. Still, I had done just what my accuser’s teammate had explained. I had ‘stitched myself into the work’. I understood the phrase had negative connotations, but what if this metaphor has positive qualities that could enhance our contributions and our satisfaction in contributing?

What I’m saying is similar to what Seth Godin endorses when he writes . . .

You have brilliance in you, your contribution is essential, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do it, and you must.

Seth Godin, Linchpin

The world seemingly demands us to create what the can understand and hold in their hand, manipulating it to whatever they wish or envision. But, can’t they make that themselves?

Truly, what the world craves is the rarity that resides within you. They want to be stunned by something they could not do on their own. We want others to inspire us with a sense of wonder that leaves us asking, “How did she do that?”

Our heroes are the men who do things which we recognize with regret and sometimes with a secret shame that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself there would be no heroes.

- Mark Twain

Do something others admire. You don’t have to write the next American classic or cure a disease. It could be something small, like the way you treat customers or how you encourage your co-workers.

What I do you cannot do; but what you do, I cannot do. The needs are great, and none of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.

- Mother Teresa

Stitch yourself into your work. Bring your unique personality, experience, passion, interests and gifts into the marketplace. It is what we really desire from you, and we will admire you for it.