"When you Assume..."

You probably know how the saying ends, right?: "...you make an ass out of 'u' and me." I remember hearing this phrase at a young age and thinking that assumptions must be bad. Isn't that what the saying is all about? It focuses on the fact that often people make assumptions and get themselves and others into trouble when their assumptions turn out to be wrong. The implied admonishment is: DON'T ASSUME ANYTHING!

Time-Out
But don't we make assumptions every day that range from rational to ridiculous? I assumed when I walked outside this morning that the laws of gravity would continue to apply today (as they have every day since 1978 in my own personal experience). Okay so far. But last week I assumed when I posted a comment to my classmates blog that the reason it didn't appear was that my classmate had deleted it (presumably utterly disgusted by my opinion). I came to find out this week that I only might be correct in this assumption.

Assumptions in Business
People make assumptions in business all the time. Our biases lead us in the direction of making confirmatory assumptions. For example, in marketing we often assume that our products are the best in the world and customers will come flocking. A friend of mine in Business Development told me a story about a software company owner who's company he was seeking to acquire who arrogantly compared his own company to Rolls Royce and my friend's company to Hyundai. This happens all the time. Many, many wrong assumptions were made in the past decade of American Capitalism that proved catastrophic. These guys weren't the smartest guys in the room, after all. They just made asses out of all of us.

To Assume or Not to Assume?
Assumptions are just things we take for granted in the face of either ignorance or uncertainty. I am strictly speaking uncertain that gravity will continue to apply today, but I assume it will so I can go about my day. I was ignorant to recent issues with posting comments on blogger.com until I saw a post to our group discussion board, so my assumption that my comment had been deleted seemed reasonable. Good thing I didn't confront my classmate and demand an explanation. I would have seemed...well, like an ass.

Going Forward
I think the best we can do, both in business and in life, is to try to identify our assumptions and honestly assess their validity, or likelihood of being right. Admitting that we just might be wrong is a good first step, and the proceeding with the humble admission that we might learn something new that sheds a whole different light on our path is step #2.

What do you think?

How to Number Crunch Your Blog

If you are like me, you love to crunch numbers and analyze the world from as many different angles as possible. It's pretty easy to go metrics crazy with your blog using Google Analytics. There is a very straightforward How-to blog post here. I set it up last week, and it took a few hours for Google Analytics to recognize my blog and a few more days to get meaningful data about my blog.

What did I learn?
9 unique visitors have visited my blog in the past week, and they stayed for an average of 2 minutes and 22 seconds. The most popular browser was the BlackBerry browser (that's me checking repeatedly for comments on my latest post from the Orlando airport!) and the most popular post so far was last week's post about signaling.

How could I use Analytics to help me?
If I were trying to monetize my blog, I could experiment with different methods to drive traffic (and thus increase ad revenue) to my site via social networking and search engine optimization. I could use the data to figure out where people were navigating to, and were there were leaving my site to better understand what people are interested in.

Let's give it a try...
My approach to "promoting" my blog so far this term has been sort of akin to the "build it and they will come" way of thinking. This time, I will post a notice to the Google Groups site to see what happens. Look for results in the comments section later this week... Thanks for playing!

Are You Giving the Right Signals?

Whether we are aware of it or not, we are giving out signals to others all throughout the day about who we are and what we are all about. We judge and are judged based on these signals. In a certain sense, signals and the screening process to detect them underpin social interactions of any type, whether for pleasure or business. Let's talk about some examples.

When Signaling is Blatant
This past week, a colleague of mine told me a story about a recent college grad she was interviewing that responded to the question, "What do you like to do in your spare time?" with the answer "I like to go out and party with my friends." My colleague told the story with an air of bafflement, marveling that a person having gone through college should not know that this is an inappropriate answer even if it is true. In other words, truthfulness can signal immaturity or lack of awareness of certain norms. The person didn't get the job.

On the Other Hand...
But sometimes a person can proudly proclaim their lack of a "filter" on what they say, indicating that they are too passionate or perhaps too important to play by the same rules as the rest of us. In game theory lingo, this is known as a "countersignal" and is very much the same as the genius wearing eccentric clothing (a suit with white tennis shoes) or the truly talented person downplaying their credentials. Signaling that we are the same as others, that we are "normal", puts us in the same bucket as everyone else. We all want to be abnormal, just in ways that are admired. Exceptional, not purely normal. The trick is knowing which rules to break. Another colleague listening to the story of the interviewee remarked, "at least you know you're going to get someone who says it like it is!"

Is This Some Kind of Game?
We all know the person who obsesses way to much about what others think, especially in the corporate world. They spend their days crafting a persona, wearing their credentials and accomplishments on their sleeves, and being entirely transparent about the game they are playing. If you are like me, this is laughable at best and intolerable at worst. Can't we just be who we are and forget all the social intrigue and gamesmanship? Fortunately, the answer is a resounding YES!

Find Your "True North"
It starts with being acutely aware of who we are and what we stand for. Our internal moral compass, our "True North" as a former CEO of my company, Bill George, described it, tells us what rules to break because obeying them would be breaking a more important personal rule. It helps, though, to have an accurate appreciation for how others perceive us because we are being screened based on the signals we are giving out. That may mean we "lose" at a game others are playing in order to win at a larger game. There is always a larger game.

Tell me about rules you or someone you know has chosen to break - countersignals and their impact. What about your "True North" - in what ways does your internal compass drive you to swim against the stream?

When you just plain get it wrong...

A "Rubber-Necking" Society
The news is full of people getting it dead wrong. Whether it's a politician, referee, corporate executive or celebrity, we seem to very naturally fixate on the egregious calamity known as human error. Certain individuals are unfortunate enough to have their biggest gaffes played out on the national stage, recorded and forever immortalized for all to gawk at for generations to come.

This post is not about screw-ups, though. We all screw up. The real question is what we do next.

Perfect Imperfection
There was an example in the news recently of a baseball umpire named Jim Joyce blowing a call with two outs in the ninth inning that cost a Detroit Tigers pitcher a perfect game. For those of you who don't know what a perfect game is, there have only been 20 recorded perfect games in 135 years of Major League Baseball. In order to notch a perfect game, a pitcher needs to retire all 27 batters in a 9 inning game - 3 per inning. No hits. No walks. No errors. It is the opposite of the type of imperfection we are addressing here.

A "Mea Culpa" Case Study
Jim Joyce did not pull a Rod Blagojevich and insist in his innocence. He did not pull a Bill Clinton and hide behind a technicality or semantics. He owned up to the mistake and apologized without reservation.

Here's what he said: "I missed it...this is a history call...and there's nobody that feels worse than I do. I take pride in this job...and I took a perfect game away from that kid that worked his [expletive] off all night...I thought he beat the play...there was nothing else...What do I say, I missed it. It's probably the most important call of my career and I missed it." When reporters gave him the chance to throw others under the bus - his staff, the fans, the Tiger's manager - he refused, and claimed that he would have done the same in their shoes. Remarkable.

...And when you're on the receiving end of a mistake
Perhaps even more remarkably, the pitcher, Armando Galarraga, didn't even protest the call. He never complained, or got in the umpire's face. He accepted the decision and moved on. When asked about Galarraga, Joyce marvelled, "He didn't say a word. Not a word." How many of us would have remained silent in his shoes? Not me.

It's usual to see screw-ups in the news. It's not usual to see people facing blame with the accountability of Jim Joyce. And it's not usual to see people facing unfairness with the acceptance of Armando Galarraga. If we take a page from these individuals, I believe we will be better equipped to deal with the inevitable errors and unfairness in business.

In case you're interested, you can watch the play here.

Thoughts?

Carried away with C's...

Inspiration on a Leash
Walking my dog this evening, my brain was stuck on C's for some reason (maybe because I'm still disappointed about the Celtic's win last night). In any case, I came up with the following list of traits that it would seem to me are critical to being a success in business (and life?..)

Climbing with the 9 C's
Contribution: Care more about helping others than achieving for yourself
Character: Commit to doing good things, and then do what you say you're going to do
Confidence: Believe in yourself, your capabilities and your intrinsic value
Credibility: Know the most about your subject matter and be the best at what you do
Charisma: Enjoy being around people and leave them feeling better about themselves
Connections: Value relationships and spend time building and preserving them
Class: Say the appropriate things at the appropriate times and avoid crudeness
Control: Have a plan amidst uncertainty and doubt
Creativity: Do things in ways that have never been done before

Deviating from the Usual "Self-Help" Mumbo Jumbo
Now I won't go so far as to say that these traits necessarily translate into climbing the career ladder. In many organizations people are promoted because they are feared. I would, however, rest my head on the pillow at night knowing that regardless of whether or not I got promoted, I fulfilled the well-known Army motto - "Be all that you can be".

What about your list - what would you add or take-away from my list (extra points if your words start with "L")...

Once upon a time...

You may know a story like this one. This is a story about a man who gave a company back it's soul. There was a company that used to be about helping people get better. It was wildly successful, and began to focus more and more on profit. A man in the company didn't like what was going on. He decided not to leave, and instead began collecting information - data - about customer's likelihood to recommend the company to family and friends.

At first, he collected this information behind the scenes, not making a big fuss about the results he came up with. To be fair, the company still had plenty of fans, but a rumbling of discontentment was building with what was perceived to be unfair policies that extracted "bad profit" - profit at the expense of the customer as opposed to profit coupled with benefit to the customer.

The man got his chance when the leaders of the business came to the realization that customers were leaving and profits were not growing at the rate they expected. He shared his data with the executives, and was given the task of turning the culture around.

He started his turnaround effort with an all employee meeting in which he showed the data. But no one really remembers the data, they only remember a single number: 14. 14 was the number of times a loyal customer had been transferred in her attempt to get credit for old accessories that would no longer be usable if she decided to upgrade to a newer product that used different accessories. In the end, she decided to go to the competition. The product was for her sick son.

This is a story about the power of storytelling. The charts and graphs did not elicit the same collective sigh from the audience that the story did. The data and statistics were not retained in the collective memory of the employees - the woman's plight was retained. The story began the process of re-injecting soul into the company.

Much of our effectiveness in business is determined by our ability to present to groups of people. I just attended my organization's national sales meeting, and there were plenty of slick slides, charts, even pyrotechnics (you gotta love sales). But years from now, I will recall the stories that were told. I am a "numbers" guy, but the story I told is a true story that taught me about storytelling, and about the human soul.

What other presentation tips or resources would you like to share?

Play much?

I'm reading an interesting book called Play, which is all about how playful behavior is helpful for development throughout childhood and into our adult years as well. The author, Stuart Brown, M.D., gives a few examples of how play is beneficial - it helps us "practice" for the real world, it allows the brain to begin to make sense of itself and find out what works and what doesn't, and allows us to build emotional intelligence and social skills. A somewhat stuffy definition for play is provided, but the author admits that a "few slides of kids playing hopscotch, or a cat playing with a string, or dogs playing fetch, creates more recognition and understanding than all the statistical analysis in the world." In other words, we know "play" when we see it.

Eight different "play personalities" are provided as follows:

1. The Joker - Play revolves around nonsense and the focus is on making other people laugh.

2. The Kinesthete - Play revolves around being on the move - athletes, dancers, and those who naturally want to push their bodies.

3. The Explorer - Play revolves around experiencing new places, feelings, or experiences.

4. The Competitor - Play revolves around a competitive game with rules, and playing is about winning.

5. The Director - Play revolves around planning and executing scenes and events, such as the party giver.

6. The Collector - Play revolves around accumulating objects or experiences.

7. The Artist/Creator - Play revolves around making things, whether they be artistic or functional.

8. The Storyteller - Play revolves around telling, reading, or watching great imaginative stories.

Like all attempts to categorize people, I usually feel that there are many times and many different situations in which each of us can show different sides of our very complex personalities. Nevertheless, there are times when certain people have strong tendencies. My wife, for example, single-handedly planned a huge Memorial Day picnic at the park, with over 20 people showing up. She loves being "The Director". You can't paint her in the corner, though, as she is currently working on a novel, and loves to play "The Storyteller". As for me, I was a huge Collector as a kid, and had to compete in whatever I did, but now I am not really either of those types, and am more "The Explorer" and "The Creator".

How about you? What type of play personalities do you tend to have? Complete the poll to the right!