Alexandersmap

    Category: Culture

    • Brand Awareness

      “To me marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It’s a very noisy world. And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us—no company is. And so we have to be really clear on what we want them to know about us… But even a great brand needs investments and caring if it’s going to retain its relevance and vitality, and the Apple brand has clearly suffered from neglect in this area in the last few years. And we need to bring it back. The way to do that is not to talk about speeds and feeds. It’s not to talk about bits and megahertz. It’s not to talk about how we’re better than Windows…
      The question we asked was, ‘Our customers want to know, who is Apple and what is it that we stand for? Where do we fit in this world?’ What we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done—although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some cases. But Apple is about something more than that. Apple, at the core, its core value, is that we believe people with passion can change the world for the better. That’s what we believe. And we have the opportunity to work with people like that. We’ve had the opportunity to work with people like you. With software developers, with customers who have done it in some big and in some small ways. And we believe that, in this world, people can change it for the better. And that those people who are crazy enough to believe that they can change the world for the better are the ones that actually do.” — Steve Jobs, speech at the release of the ‘Think Differently’ advertisement

      The speech is in low resolution. The transcript is inaccurate in some places (I’ve tried to correct it here). But Steve Jobs words shine through this grainy time machine like a beacon. When he plays the ad, viewed from the lens of time, you see that he was and would always be one of the crazy ones, one of the misfits, rebels and troublemakers. And we celebrate Jobs today for what he created, even as we recognize he was never perfect. But who is?

      Even a great brand need investments and caring if it’s going to retain its relevance and vitality… this is true whether we’re looking at our company, our country, and certainly, ourselves. Jobs points the way with the question, “where do we fit in this world?”. It’s a question we ought to wrestle with in our own lives, in quiet places when the day is ripe with possibility. For in the quiet moments we’re best prepared to answer such questions.

      And we ought to answer boldly. Our brand—our identity—isn’t something to trivialize. It ought to give us goosebumps just to think of it. And it must be more than words. For we are what we work consistently towards. We are the sum of our lifetime contribution. But really, we are the next five minutes.

      We’re not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us…. no person is. Our brand ought to be remarkable and memorable for all the right reasons. We can’t control who pays attention, but we can control just how compelling our story is when the world stumbles upon us. Compelling begins with how we view our own contribution. Our identity—our brand—is ours to shape and mold, honed by life but envisioned and realized by the intangible force deep inside of us. We ought to craft something remarkable and memorable.

      For this moment is our own time machine, isn’t it? What will we remember of ourselves in this five minutes of boldness or timidity? We aren’t what we think we are, we are what we do! Just what is our brand?

    • Wednesdays Reveal Our Roots

      Wednesday is called hump day because once you clear it you’re over the hump of the week and it’s all downhill to the weekend. When you’ve worked in a job that makes you count down the hours until the weekend, you appreciate the jobs where you forget which day it is altogether. But doesn’t that make you wonder, if we’re all here for such a short time, why exactly would we spend so much time doing work that make us wish the time away?

      There’s work that puts food on the table and work that is transformative. If we’re really lucky they’re one and the same. Most transformation is earned over time and hard to see while we’re doing it. Hindsight makes that job we hated seem more worthwhile when we see where it led us in our career, skills that proved more useful than we originally thought, and especially, who we met in the trenches who helped us later on. For the network is everything in a career, and the sooner we develop deep roots the faster we’ll grow.

      We learn that most roots aren’t all that deep. Most are shallow connections that don’t nurture us, just as we aren’t nurturing them. LinkedIn connections are 90% shallow connections and 10% deep and meaningful. We collect thousands of connections in our careers—how many know the names of our spouse and children, or what we did to stay sane during the pandemic?

      Still, even shallow roots help keep us upright most of the time. When times are good anyway. We play the game when the sun is shining and hunker down when it rains. It takes stormy days in our career to find where our deepest roots lie. When there’s a recession or a layoff and careers are being uprooted all around us, it’s the deep roots that keep us standing. They can also help us replant ourselves when everything goes badly in that one dark storm.

      The very best thing about establishing deep roots is being there to help anchor others during their growth spurts or in their own time of need. There’s natural reciprocation in deep roots, and the bond strengthen both ways. It’s always better to take the initiative in helping others, for roots intuitively know where to find nourishment just as they know where the dead ends are. How we feel about Wednesdays might be one indicator of the health of our root system.

      When we establish such deep roots, we don’t think about things like hump day much at all, we think about contribution and collaboration, and we think about growth. Our lives, and certainly our careers, will fly by before we know it. What will it mean in the end? Generally, through good jobs and bad, shallow roots and deep, it comes down to what we put into it.

    • Building Upon the Dream

      “Qué lindo es soñar despierto, he says. How lovely it is to dream while you are awake. Dream while you’re awake Andre. Anybody can dream while they’re asleep, but you need to dream all the time, and say your dreams out loud, and believe in them.” — Andre Agassi, quoting Gil Reyes, Open: An Autobiography

      I detected movement in the pool, a light ripple that telegraphed swimming. Walking over to see what was generating the ripple, I saw a mouse treading water while desperately trying to find a way out of the pool. Isn’t it funny that the very thing I might attempt to kill if it were in my home is something I immediately set about rescuing when I found it floundering in deep water? We can’t possibly kill something that so desperately wants to be alive, and go to great lengths to save it.

      But what of our dreams?

      Qué lindo es soñar despierto… How nice it is to daydream. For in dreams we find ourselves. And begin to believe you might just reach them. Which is exactly what Thoreau pointed out to us:

      “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Dreaming is the necessary first step, but too many forget to build upon the dream. The foundation is the required next step in the process of getting there. We’ve all neglected this next step a few times in our own lives—for the dreaming is easy, while the building is hard. But build we must to get where we dream of going.

      Have you seen The Secret Life of Walter Mitty? It’s a frustrating, tedious movie when Walter is daydreaming all the time. It becomes compelling when he finally acts. The message is clear: We must wake up from our daydream and act upon it to reach excellence.

      We can’t let our dreams flounder and drown. Act! While there’s still time! For we can’t tread forever.

    • Making Room

      Things!
      Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful
      fire! More room in your heart for love,
      for the trees! For the birds who own
      nothing—the reason they can fly.
      — Mary Oliver, Storage

      We talk of downsizing. Simplifying. Getting rid of stuff that doesn’t matter in favor of that which matters very much: Elbow room for the body and soul.

      Leaving the anchor behind and setting course for adventure! Clearing the runway and lightening the load! Surely there’s liberation in releasing the weight of years of accumulation: stuff, beliefs and biases, people trying to hold you to what you once were.

      What do we cling to that is holding us back from soaring?

    • Finding the Safe Channel

      I once met with a boss I had great admiration for, a boss who dressed the part, had a witty remark for everyone, intelligent and clearly marked for future big shot roles in the corporation. He seemed to like me as well, encouraged my growing collection of ties and appreciated the early starts and late finishes to my work days. And then one day I walked in and told him that some employees were grumbling about some initiative or another, repeating their logic for why it wasn’t the right path for our company, relaying what I’d heard but didn’t feel strongly about in my soul. His face grew dark, he looked me squarely in the eye and told me that I should never aspire to be the messenger for other people, because it was the messengers who always got shot. Welcome to corporate America, kid.

      Fast-forward to today, I don’t wear ties much anymore. I work hard but don’t feel compelled to be the first one in or the last one out the door. And I’ve learned to always listen to but avoid repeating what other people say. But there are exceptions to this rule.

      In a recent management meeting, I lobbed a hand grenade on the assembled managers, repeating a statement from the employee of another manager who stated that he had to cover his ass with some tasks that had to be completed. When you hear something like this you might hold that card for a moment alone with that manager, or maybe bring it to the company President to discuss in private, or leave it for others to reveal. When you’re a small company and highly dependent on each other, you must identify potential problems. Without revealing the department where the trouble lay, I tossed it right on the virtual floor in front of the encircled management team and revealed it for the underlying problem it was. The thing is, there’s a time and a place and an audience for everything. This wasn’t an opportunity to undermine, it was an opportunity to mark the channel.

      When you’re out on the water, the ocean often looks tranquil and safe in all directions, but underneath the surface there are rocks and other hazards that can sink a boat if you blithely sail into them. When you identify threats, you must mark the channel, that others might continue on safely. There are some hostile environments where the channel isn’t marked, where you must fend for yourself. Progress slows dramatically in such places, and the bottom is littered with the broken hopes and dreams of those who foundered before.

      You know when you work in a culture that encourages open communication. These are clear channels that enable progress and growth. It’s an essential element in drawing out the potential in any team, and when it’s missing the team reverts to an every man for himself mentality. That tie-wearing, hard-charging kid I once was was thrown to the wolf by some men and women who didn’t dare confront the boss with objections themselves. It was no surprise that that company soon folded under the weight of competitive pressure they couldn’t adapt to. We must feel empowered to mark the hazards else we’ll surely find our ship foundering on the rocks someday. Clear channels of communication foster safe passage.

    • The Wanting-to-Know Type

      “There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

      Belief is the easy route. We suspend our own development and believe the stories other people tell us. Beliefs about other people seemingly different from us. Beliefs in political “leaders” who make promises and amplify those differences, always pointing their finger in another direction so followers don’t look too closely at them. Beliefs about religion or sports or the best movie ever made (don’t even tell me it’s not Local Hero).

      Belief is arrogant, closed, and the end of the story. Stories we’ve arrived at, or stories we’ve never left. Wanting to know is self-effacing, open, and a path to new places. When you want to know you pursue answers. Belief is static, wanting to know is dynamic and fluid. Which of these characters do we want to be in a conversation with at a cocktail party? Who would they want to be having a conversation with?

      This business of becoming is a journey with wanting to know. There’s a place for belief in this world, but the thing is, when you arrive at belief you’ve ended a journey. And who really wants that when there’s so much living still to do?

    • Laying Tracks for the Journey

      “Every man is the sum total of his reactions to experience. As your experiences differ and multiply, you become a different man, and hence your perspective changes. This goes on and on. Every reaction is a learning process; every significant experience alters your perspective.
      So it would seem foolish, would it not, to adjust our lives to the demands of a goal we see from a different angle every day? How could we ever hope to accomplish anything other than galloping neurosis?
      …beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.”       — Hunter S. Thompson, via Farnam Street

      “Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

      How do we want to live? Why don’t we ask ourselves this more often? We keep adding to our collection of more (experiences, relationships, stuff, distractions) in hopes that we’ll eventually find all the answers. If we look up from our own reflection long enough we might notice that everyone else is trying to figure it out too.

      There’s a gap that emerges between people as they each follow their own path. Sometimes the path intersects again, sometimes the path diverges and you grow further apart. And sometimes one or both parties decide to find a new path together, come what may. This itself is a decision. We can’t have it all, yet we have that nagging voice that whispers that we might. At some point, we’ve got to stake our claim on a way of life that feels right for us.

      We owe it to ourselves to seek as much experience as we can, that we might draw from each some nugget of how we might want to live. That collection of more isn’t so bad after all, so long as we’re collecting the things that determine our desired future state. More ought to be railroad ties to lay our tracks upon, not driftwood.

      It always comes back to how we want to live in this moment in our lives, but also (if we dare) in our next moment. With an optimistic eye towards the future, we might pivot towards something more, or pause in more of the same. Of course there is no stasis, the world will keep moving whatever we decide on. We can’t expect the train that just left the station to come back to get us. But maybe that wasn’t the track we were meant to go down anyway. While we don’t always know our destination, pointing ourselves in a direction that feels right is a way to break free of indecision towards discovery.

      It’s always been about the journey, hasn’t it?

    • Acquiring Different Frames

      “I think well-read, well-travelled is nothing but acquiring more lenses in life to see things. The word ‘unusual’ starts dying as you travel more, as you read more. You are less shocked. You are less surprised. Because nothing seems unusual. You’ve seen it all, and therefore you have acquired different frames. And therefore, most intolerant people who have neither read nor travelled… don’t know alternate realities… We have to be able to tap into multiple biases that coexist in us by creating all these multiple biases in our head.” — Kunal Shah, on The Knowledge Project

      We’re all frame collectors, collecting frames of reference that we use to determine how we act and react in and to the world around us. When our frame of reference bumps into someone with a contrary frame of reference it may create friction, but it ought to create a measure of curiosity as well. Why do they see things differently that we do on this topic? Are they viewing the world through limited frames, or are we missing that particular frame in our collection?

      I won’t defend the worst tendencies of humanity, but I can better understand why some people blindly fall into categorizing other people based on politics, religion, race, sex, and on and on. They have limited their frame of reference to something so narrow that they’re compelled to lash out at anything that contradicts that view. This is what makes burning books or dictating what is taught in schools so dangerous—it constricts frames of reference to only what the book burner or policy maker want it to be. Which perpetuates biases and extends the chain of willful ignorance.

      And here we all thought we’d transcended our biases.

      It’s never been easier to acquire information, and never easier to acquire misinformation. We all must sift through the garbage to find a measure of truth that resonates for us. Shah, in this same podcast, points out that our minds are so fatigued with the information overload that we’re actually more susceptible to following people who state things with conviction. This explains the feverish followers of politicians, Bible-bangers and toxic faux news personalities. If you sip enough of any one flavor of poison, you develop a taste for it and tend to order it again next time you belly up to the information bar. We may be stuck in a world where we have to wade through the bullshit, but we don’t have to consume it.

      Our world is full of alternate realities, so why do we keep ordering vanilla? We must deliberately expand our pallet. We must challenge ourselves to read diversely, travel broadly, and listen more intently when others are speaking for a grain of truth we might have missed otherwise. We’re all figuring this sh*t out as we skate through life. We don’t have to listen to those who would have us skate in circles.

    • Opening Up This Moment

      “Our choice at every second: will we cut up this moment with chatter or open it up with silence?” — Pico Iyer

      We suffer from too much noise. Clutter, really, demanding our attention. And as with clutter, most noise imposed upon us eliminates skating lanes for our mind to wander. Noise often betrays insecurities or impulsiveness or disrespect. Noise reveals even as it repulses. Do we wonder, in the shattered moment, what retreats?

      When I walk with my bride, we talk of the future, about home renovation plans to plunge into or punt for a future homeowner someday, the progress of our children as they wade deeper into adulthood, money, our days… and frequently, blessedly, nothing at all. When you’re with the right person you don’t feel compelled to complete thoughts or otherwise step over what the other is saying. You don’t fill the gap with trinkets. You respect the quiet space between you and let it do all the talking.

      The thing is, silence has a lot to say. Things that so many are afraid to listen to. But not us.

    • Finding Soulfulness in Inefficient Places

      “Everything that feels soulful in life is inefficient. All the vacations that we find very soulful are inefficient places. The food that we really, really like and find soulful are inefficient to cook… maybe soulfulness is a function of chaos and inefficiency... It is impossible to imagine scaling in life without standardizing. And standardizing is the enemy of soulfulness.” — Kunal Shah, Interviewed on The Knowledge Project

      Don’t you feel the weight of truth in Shah’s words? Don’t we feel the lack of soulfulness in a “corporate” vacation destination versus the times we march to our own beat? Who seeks out a national restaurant chain for soulfulness and individual expression by the chef? No, we go to places like Disney World and Applebees for the predictability—good product delivered as expected. No need for translation or a Google search, it’s. just. as. expected. <yawn>.

      We all seek predictable when we can. Heck, I stayed at a Hilton in Vienna instead of a boutique hotel because I could use points and I knew there would be an iron and ironing board in the closet—because there is always an iron and ironing board in the closet of every Hilton property I’ve ever stayed in anywhere in the world. Sometimes you don’t need soulfulness, you just need to iron a damned shirt yourself.

      Contrast this my hotel in Castelrotto, Italy, where our room didn’t have a window but a skylight, no air conditioning or fan, uneven floors and a reception desk in another building down the street. The bell in the tower right above our heads through that open skylight would begin ringing at 06:00 sharp. And you know what? I loved it. The building was older than the United States, that bell was ringing long before I entered this world and the breakfast was a lovely spread of soulful local expression I’d never have found in a hotel chain. There’s something to be said for inefficiency too.

      So how do we create soulfulness in our own work? We don’t do it by parroting whatever business book we just read in our next meeting with coworkers or customers. And we don’t do it by following the corporate handbook to the letter (but don’t you dare stray a step too far). No, we create soulfulness when we find our unique voice in the process of turning chaos into order and eliminating inefficiencies. Ironic, isn’t it? But meaningful work isn’t chaotic, it’s expressive yet contributive. We don’t add to the Great Conversation by shouting over the crowd, nor do we help a company meet its quarterly objectives without following an informed policy or two.

      Here’s the twist: we find soulfulness in our work through routine. This isn’t standardization, this is disciplined dues-paying to reach a place where we might transcend the average. We write a million average phrases to turn one clever, soulful phrase that resonates. We refine widgets over and over again until something perfect emerges. Soulfulness is developed through routine but released through individual, and thus inefficient, expression.