This one’s subtitled: An essay on learning (and trying not to drown).

Once upon a time, I decided I wanted to experience the excitement and anxiety of learning something new – the art of whitewater kayaking. Ever since my first rafting trip as a teenager, I knew I wanted to paddle my own boat. The kayakers looked like they were enjoying the river in ways that we on the large raft were unable. I told my buddy next to me that someday I wanted to do that. Someday. So, a few years ago, I decided to stop letting life get in the way of something I yearned to do. I signed up with a local kayaking school and set out to pursue a goal that I had put aside for too long.

However, the first course did not go quite the way I envisioned. I naïvely thought kayaking would be much easier than it actually was and that I would pick up the instruction much faster that I actually did. In reality, I felt awkward in the unstable boat and unnerved by my inability to master something that on dry land looked so easy.

Yet I walked away from that experience with three powerful lessons that offered insights into my own sense of learning and living.

Lesson #1: Just because you’ve been on a river before does not mean you already know what you’re doing. I’ve been rafting before in whitewater and even done some flatwater kayaking and I thought those experiences would give me an edge in quickly learning how to paddle a kayak. One mistake I made was that I didn’t approach this new experience from a place of “not knowing,” but instead tried to filter it through past experiences that may have gotten in the way of actually learning. Recognize each experience, regardless of how familiar it may be to you, as an opportunity to learn something new.

Lesson #2: Don’t be afraid to do something new because you might look like you don’t know what you’re doing. Guess what? More than likely, you don’t know what you’re doing! This means you might notice some uncomfortable feelings like incompetence and helplessness. About half-way through the lesson, I committed a typical newbie mistake of panicking when I accidentally capsized my kayak. Trapped underwater in my kayak, I thrashed and flailed trying to get my boat upright. Two instructors came to try to rescue me before I remembered that I could rescue myself by ejecting from the boat. When I surfaced and caught my breath, I realized that my classmates had witnessed the whole episode with a mixture of fear and thankfulness that it wasn’t them. Yet regardless of how I must have looked, I learned very quickly how to remain calm while underwater and how to get myself out of a capsized kayak. Remember that embarrassment only lasts for a few minutes, while the lessons you gain through trying something new last much longer.

Lesson #3: We’re all in-between swims. After I managed to get back in my kayak, one of the instructors said, “Even the best paddlers get themselves into jams. Dude, we’re all in-between swims.” As I rejoined my fellow kayakers, the full force of that statement hit me. Individuals who choose to fully experience life inevitably encounter challenging situations that are bigger than themselves. Sometimes we can paddle through the situation and sometimes we have to eject. It’s about not letting our fears get in the way of fully learning and living. Be open to not getting it right all the time and understand that failing can often lead to the greatest learnings of all.

So, are you taking tentative action in order to always remain upright in your boat or are you pushing yourself and allowing for the possibility of tipping over? The first option is one of safety, the second is risky, but one of true growth. If you’re playing it safe now because you’re afraid of capsizing, ask what it’s costing you. Maybe it’s a life of significance, meaning, and fun. Start paddling in your life and see where it takes you.

photo credit: davichi (via Flickr)

Peter Drucker once said, “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” Exactly…and I’d also suggest hearing what isn’t said is just as important in building a remarkable customer experience.

But instead, how many times do businesses listen for what they want to hear from their customers? Or maybe get defensive about what is said? Or take what is said at full face value and miss out on so much of the subtext and subtle (but far more powerful) meanings behind the customer’s experience? If you’re only paying attention to what sits at the surface, your business is missing important data that could mean the success or failure of your product, service, or full brand proposition.

We anthropologists are trained to uncover these clues. When we listen, we don’t just use our ears – we use our full set of senses. We detect behaviors that might otherwise pass unnoticed. And we ask questions that attempt to understand how customers interact with their world and give their it meaning.

That may seem like a huge undertaking, but at the heart of our anthropological work is simplicity. Here are five simple ways to listen like an anthropologist:

Shut up.
The hardest thing for a marketer, executive, or consultant is to put away the agenda and stop talking. But do it. It is near impossible to talk and listen at the same time. Even if we don’t come at a customer issue with an agenda, we may still find it difficult to keep quiet. However, if we’re going to understand how to meet the needs of our customers, we’ve got to shut up.

Be naive.
This is the first of two steps toward having a child-like mind. As adults, we think our expertise is built on always knowing the answer (or thinking we probably know the answer). But its this very temptation to appear all-knowing that keeps us from actually knowing anything. Kids learn instinctively because they really don’t know things and they ask a lot of “Why?” questions. Here’s a truth: when it comes to understanding the world our customer lives in, we REALLY don’t know anything.

Get curious.
Step two toward a child-like mind is getting curious. When we approach a customer from a place of UNknowing, we ask better questions. And we don’t make the killer mistake of allowing assumptions to guide us.

Show me.
Having problems understanding what your customer is trying to express? Respond with, “Show me what you mean.” Get creative and help them show you what they’re seeing, hearing, feeling, experiencing. Look for the symbolism and meaning behind what they show you.

Record it.
As anthropologists, we’re trained to record every single detail we possibly can. We don’t edit, we simply record because we never know what will turn out to be vitally important while sharing an experience with a customer. Don’t just rely on electronic monitoring. Practice observing subtleties, seeking meaning behind the surface language and really listening for what’s not being said.

photo credit: niclindh (via Flickr)

I wish I didn’t have to write this post. I wish it wasn’t required to point out something that seems so damn obvious. But it has become tragically necessary based on far too many things said and emailed to me lately. Therefore, I’m going to attempt to clear up an unfortunate misconception that blinds too many otherwise smart individuals. It’s called Big Brand Blindness and its based on a lie that seems to carry so much weight:

An individual with little-to-no “big brand” professional experience isn’t able to be effective in a large corporate environment.

To which I can only say, “Bullshit!” It’s pure crap and constructed from at least five myths. Let’s take a look at each one that unfairly stigmatizes the hard work of professionals in small and medium enterprises (I’m including nonprofits here with SMEs):

Myth #1: You can’t cope with complexity.
Yes, I get it. Your megasized multinational company is an elaborate, convoluted leviathan that defies the laws of reason. Guess what? Someone who has built a career within an SME also understands complexity. That’s because – unlike in Big Brand – we don’t have the luxury of specialization. We can’t and that’s honestly to our benefit. We wear two, three, sometimes four hats because that’s what is needed to complete the project and make the customer happy. We’re experts at creativity, constantly doing more with increasingly fewer resources. We can cope with complexity because we live it every single working day.

Myth #2: You can’t handle pressure.
Want to know what pressure is? When Big Brand has a bad quarter, looks like Wall Street won’t be happy. If an SME has a bad quarter, it could mean the end of the company. Now which one seems more pressure-intensive to you? And because SMEs are typically closer to their customers, there’s a tremendous amount of pressure to keep them satisfied. If they’re unhappy and tell others, there goes a potentially huge chunk of business.

Myth #3: You don’t know how to communicate with executives.
As if multinational corporate executives are some strange race of aliens that require knowledge of a special language only learned by toiling through the hierarchy of Big Brand. Communications skills are universal. If you know how to get your point across successfully to your SME’s senior leaders or Board of Directors, I guarantee the communication capability translates fine to the CEO or CMO of Big Brand.

Myth #4: Your skillset (feel free to plug in expertise, knowledge, etc) doesn’t scale.
This one drives me batshit. We’re not talking about going from CEO of a two-person office to the CEO of Big Brand (though you might argue that the CEO of an SME could run a company like aol., BP, Lehman Brothers just as well as their current counterparts). Just because you have experience within Big Brand doesn’t necessarily mean you’re any more qualified to do work at another Big Brand. I’m further convinced this myth is a smokescreen because you’ll never know if it does actually scale. You’ve already cast your judgment and you’ve already missed the talent in front of your nose. Good luck with that.

Myth #5: You don’t really know about business.
The coup de grâce. Let’s face it, this is what’s really being said every single time the charge of not having enough Big Brand experience is leveled toward a candidate. There’s a sense perpetuated by those within Big Brand that business is only truly conducted at the multinational level. SMEs are small potatoes where the real lessons of managing P&L, budgets, employees, customer relations, and executive expectations still mean little in comparison. Really? Sorry but I strongly disagree with that small-mindedness.

For my parting shot, I’m going to go out on a limb with my own hypothesis for what’s to blame (at least partially). If we’re honest, there’s some posturing going on – particularly when it comes to consulting agencies who work with Big Brand. The desire to fill the stables with people from a well-known, Fortune 500 corporation isn’t so much about their ability or expertise as it is about their prestige (“Oooh, he worked for Big Brand, he must be smart. And that’ll look great on our website’s About Us page.”) There’s a mystique that people like to attach to work done at Big Brands. Some of it is truly well-deserved and to be respected. Some of it is unspectacular but lauded because Big Brands get attention. And quite a bit of it is built on non-creative, safe, ineffective adherence to not rocking the Big Brand boat. In reality, work done within a Big Brand isn’t any better or worse than work done within an SME. So let’s stop with all this shallow Big Brand Blindness where candidates get overlooked not because of the quality of their past or potential of their future work, but just because of for whom their past work was done.

So, let’s hear it. If you’re currently working inside a big brand, what’s your take? And if you’ve been passed over due to big brand blindness, what have you done to heal this unfortunate affliction? Lay it down in the comments.

photo credit: spoinknet (via Flickr)

…Sometimes it’s the simple things that really differentiate who we are and what we can add to the world.

What our hero, Bicycle Repair Man, shows is that it doesn’t matter if we’re surrounded by awesomely powerful individuals. Our job is to dig down and discover what truly makes each of us unique and what skills we have that we can use in our own distinct way.

So what about you…how do you relate to our hero here?

If you’re anything like me, you probably deal with clutter in your life. Even though I try to stay organized, I often find my home office in some state of mess. Oh, and my garage, my truck, my storage shed…you get the picture. And what about our minds? Any crap cluttering up our thoughts like anxiety about tomorrow or worries about past mistakes? Perhaps lingering bitterness around a relationship gone bad or a job that’s gone downhill? Personally, I was hanging on to some regrets about my past and the decision to work in the nonprofit sector (more on that below).

But you know what? Keeping all the clutter around doesn’t do us one damn bit of good. It just takes up valuable mindspace and heartspace that could hold the greatest stuff in our lives. So, let’s do this instead:

Let’s think of all the crap that’s cluttering our lives and tell it to get the hell out of here! When we do that, we create a vacuum in which we can replace it all with joy, passion, appreciation, and perhaps most importantly, hope.

If we have a client that’s just not working out for us, let them go. When we do, it means we now have space to bring in clients who will bring out our best and pay us fully what we’re worth.

If we’re feeling anxious about what tomorrow holds for us, for our family, or for our career, let this anxiety go. Yep, I know it’s hard, but what’s that feeling getting us besides headaches and ulcers? What would happen if we replace that anxiety with hope and a firm belief in our ability to be prosperous?

If we’re living in regret for a decision we made in the past, it’s definitely time to let it go. When I got out of college, I bounced briefly around minor jobs until I landed in nonprofit membership management. Nearly all of my 12 years of professional experience has involved nonprofit work, which is fine except it can be considered a liability when you want to move on to the corporate world of multinational brands. Just last week, I even cursed my youthful ignorance for not having the sense to work for a Fortune 500 company at the start of my career. But that’s not only holding on to crap, it’s denying all the good I’ve ever done in my career and all the good I can now do as a professional. It ignores the fact that I learned fundamental principles and developed successful programs for creating remarkable customer experiences from my work in the nonprofit sector – the same programs and strategies that any Fortune 500 will benefit from.

So, let’s take some time today to think about all the crap cluttering our life. Then, tell it to get out. Make room for the good stuff in our head and heart. We might just find that once we create a vacuum from where all the crap used to live, we can hold way more good than we ever knew possible.

Last week, Reuters published an article called Americans more loyal to brands, country than company. For employers, it poses a wake-up call. But what I found most interesting was this statement at the end:

When asked how companies could improve loyalty the top answers included offering cash awards to consumers, replacing automatic answering machines with real people, making good products and not raising prices.

I think this shows why consumer opinion and sentiment shouldn’t always be taken at immediate face value. The way we think about things is complex and requires us to go exploring for more specific answers. This is were doing more qualitative work is an important complement to the quantitative work of surveys and polls.

Thinking about the snippet above from the Reuters article…What does making good products mean? How about not raising prices? Before you go thinking you know exactly what the answers are, take a step back and consider how many different possible answers are possible here. A good product can have a multitude of meanings in the mind of the customer. Now amplify it by hundreds or thousands of customers. And the desire to not raise prices may be contradicted if there is the possibility of adding more value to the product.

As an anthropologist, we’re trained to not just look at what’s said, but also look for what’s not said. Interestingly, what’s omitted here is listening. Well, sort of. We might be able to extract listening from the desire to talk to real people instead of answering machines. But…

What would happen if our companies set up experiences that encouraged customers to talk, to share ideas, to voice frustrations?

What would happen if we genuinely listened to what was said and not said?

What would happen if we took all of those opinions and sentiments and put them to action so our customers would feel heard?

Can you imagine how powerful that might be? Forget short-term buzz. Think long-term customer movements.

photo credit: abrinsky (via Flickr)

I found this clip of Jeff Jarvis via Johnnie Moore’s blog. Contained within it are some rather provocative ideas. A few of them are spot on (like how our educational system still operates as if it’s an industrial world). A few of them might be bullshit but I’m still debating internally.

The awesomeness comes in the form of how we interact with learning. So much of our training tells us that an A is better than a C, that a glowing performance evaluation trumps one with negative marks, that perfection looks smarter than blunders. And our training is completely wrong. As Jarvis notes, mistakes must be the goal, the object of the lesson. Life is a beta. It’s messy and complex and in constant flux. We’re never absolved of our responsibility to learn and improve.

What did sort of put a twist in my knickers were Jarvis’s arguments that all the good ideas are taken and that the best we can hope to achieve now is “curator” status. I get where he’s coming from: Why recreate the wheel when great content already exists? Creating content is about the ego and when we get in front of someone – regardless of whether its on stage, in a classroom, or on a blog – we do so in a quest for validation.

What seems to go unsaid is that the audience, student, and reader are merely passive participants of the process. That’s a mistaken assumption. Instead, we should think of content creation as an ever evolving mashup of ideas and personal experience. But maybe this is where Jarvis was trying to lead us. Maybe his idea of a curator is someone who is able to collect diverse information, mash it up, and recreate new knowledge.

What I don’t want to see is a tiered order where curators are relegated to second-class beneath the creators. In such a system, creators maintain their elite status and govern it through the power to release information and knowledge. Okay, so maybe that won’t happen like that but power is an interesting construct. Those who possess it don’t often give it up willingly. So who has power right now? And who will have it tomorrow?

This week’s Python Thursday introduces some Interesting People.

Okay, so some of us might not be able to put bricks to sleep or are more interesting than a wet pussycat. But hopefully, you’re not invisible like Mr. Walters (3:00).

Thinking about hidden talents (or as Rosa Say calls them, sleeping talents), what makes you interesting and how do you use it to your advantage in jobhunting or in your work?

“I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.” ~ G. K. Chesterton

Asking for and receiving career advice can always be a tricky proposition. We often ask for help when we’re stuck in the muck or otherwise when we’re most confused. And then when we start collecting advice from people we trust or believe to be fairly smart individuals and we only get more confused. It shouldn’t be surprising though…everyone has an opinion, right? But what complicates things is what sits behind those opinions: motives. These motives can be positive (think about a parent who wants their child to succeed or a spouse who wants their significant other to be happy or a manager who wants their employee to advance their skills). And we all know examples of people who express motives that aren’t quite so well-intentioned.

The problem is that motives are often more focused on the desires of the advice-giver than the advice-seeker. That’s just human nature. Anthony Balderrama at CareerBuilder.com writes:

Of surveyed advertising and marketing executives, 58 percent say co-workers gave them bad career advice. Bosses didn’t fare much better, as 54 percent blame them for bad career advice. Parents and relatives are better career counselors, but 35 percent of surveyed executives received unsatisfactory guidance from them. Thirty percent of spouses and significant others are blamed for bad advice (and probably had to sleep on the couch at some point). Mentors have the best record for dispensing advice, as only 21 percent have the finger pointed at them.

He goes on to introduce some tips from Donna Farrugia, Executive Director of The Creative Group, who notes that it’s important to always evaluate the motives of the advice giver.

In addition to those tips, I’d also suggest a couple of other ideas:

1. I think there’s some wisdom to Chesterton’s approach. If not actually doing the opposite, then at least contemplating whether there’s a potential solution there.

2. Even more importantly, we need to own our decision-making process. It’s okay to collect advice, but committed action needs to come from us. Deep down, we do know what we want.

What are your thoughts? Any experience in getting good (or bad) career advice?

photo credit: ambergris (via Flickr)

Experts have been getting such a bum rap lately. It seems no one likes them and no one (at least who is reputable) wants to be considered one anymore. There are even some who believe they’re on their way to extinction.

It’s easy to understand why. Because they’re always in your face telling you how smart they are and how their way is the only way to do something. And all this bullshit is usually backed up with actual expertise that has about as much depth as a kiddie pool…or blasted at you by an ego roughly the size of the Grand Canyon. Never mind that they act like Moses just back from a tête-à-tête with God complete with stone tablet in hand.

But I’m here to preach a different gospel. I argue the true experts – the ones who know and value their own worth – will humbly submit what works fantastically for them and show others how they got their results. They don’t cast about with “should’s” and “must’s” and “do as I say’s.” Instead, they offer suggestions knowing that every situation varies and what works well in one place and time might not work nearly as well in another.

Put simply, it’s the difference between dragging and leading. A pseudo-expert feels they need to drag everyone to their truth. A true expert believes in their value and will lead anyone seeking new learning to their own experience.

Don’t be afraid to be an expert. Let’s show these pseudo-expert dimwads what true expertise looks like so maybe folks will trust and respect experts again.