Tag: entrepreneurship

Impulse

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The impulse to control, dictate, micro-manage is strong.

We just have to think carefully at what happens when we do it.

Example: a colleague is planning to send out an important email. You submit to the impulse and ask to review it first. The colleague obliges and shares a draft with you. You once again submit to the impulse and, since you do not really have time for this, give them some broad feedback about tone of voice and points to make. They edit the draft and send it back. For the third time, you submit to the impulse and go deep with comments, edits, and formatting. They end up sending your version.

The results.

  1. You are exhausted and you have lost the chance to focus on something that was truly your responsibility.
  2. They are demotivated, because they are probably good to write an email on their own.
  3. The outcome is most likely not going to be what either of you expected, adding to exhaustion and demotivation.

That is a lot of negativity spread around just because you once sent out an email that – in that particular context – turned out to get a pretty positive response.

Get out of the way.

The price you want

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You have a good product, some customers, and then you start losing opportunities because they say you are too expensive.

Two options.

You cut the prices (discounts, special offers, etc. fall into this same category). It’s a risky game, of course everybody else can follow you there.

You work on perceived value. And you can go about it like this.

  1. Express value – Many times features are disguised as value, often mere functional value, so you need to start digging what the customer really wants.
  2. Reframe value – It might be that the problem you are solving is not worth the price you are asking, so you need to figure out if there is a deeper feeling, ambition, desire that you can leverage.
  3. Work on brand – Your story, your tone, your appeal can make your product desirable and unlock a fear of being left out.

Cutting prices is short-term (and short-viewed), working on perceived value takes resources and time.

The sooner you start working on 1, 2, and 3, in parallel, the better positioned you will be to ask the price you want.

From the top

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There are companies where it is normal to talk about mistakes and failures, and there are companies where all you hear is success, success, success.

Of course, the latter still make mistakes. It’s just that their culture makes it very difficult to go out there and say: “here, I have done this, and I was wrong”. So, mistakes are repeated over time. People feel stuck, learning is at a minimum, frustration rises.

Fortunately, there is something very concrete that leaders can do. They can share their own failures as learning opportunity for their own group.

It always starts from the top.

Repeat

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Getting in a practice of doing makes you fall in love. With the comfort, with the routine, with the known, with the already done.

You can nurture that relationship for a while. It’s a way to build stronger foundations and reliable habits. But at some point you have to say goodbye as you move on to the next stage. Not too far away, still close to the practice. Forward.

Do. Over and over again. Then stop, assess the situation, see if you are where you are supposed to be. And take a step in the right direction.

Repeat.

In context

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In it’s most popular form, Goodhart’s law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

You do not have a healthy company because your revenue increases year after year. Revenue is just one measure of the health of a company, and it should be put in context.

You do not have a great place to work because your engagement score says so. Engagement score is just one measure of how your employees feel, and it should be put in context.

You do not have a terrific team because they meet their targets quarter after quarter. Numbers are just one measure of how well your team is doing, and they should be put in context.

You do not have a successful campaign because you are getting clicks. Clicks are just one measure of the success of a campaign, and they should be put in context.

The point is, measures are easy to game, and the more you put them at the center of every conversation, the more people will be inclined to game them.

It takes time and effort to take the whole picture into consideration. It takes awareness, it takes courage, it takes honesty. It is the only way you can truly assess how you are doing and make adjustments, so that you don’t wake up one day in a place where you had never wanted to go.