Measure the Day

Does every person on your team know what a good day looks like?

Do they know what goal posts they are aiming for? One set. Not two or more, or some part-time, only on Monday’s goal post. One set. One target. And it is a stretch.

Do they have the freedom to make the call for how they are going to get there?

Have they incrementally earned that freedom? Have they demonstrated that they have the passion and competencies to make the calls? Are they responsible and accountable for it?

At the end of every day can they quantifiably measure the day and answer “yes, I made good progress, I had a good day. Or no, I didn’t have a good day. I know I didn’t, because my measure is off. I know why. And because I know why, I know what needs to be done tomorrow.

And when the day is measured and it is a good one, do you pause, celebrate and recognize the achievement?

The Conspiracy Is With You

Assume the world is conspiring to help you. Not throw you down, but help you.

Everything, for good or bad, is here to help you. Take it.

Pay it forward. Help someone else.

It’s a circle that can become a flywheel.

The Real Question

When asked a question consider the answer, but more importantly, consider why the question was asked.

That’s the real question.

Peripheral Vision

The line curves up, or down. It never runs straight.

We think everything is straight. We look straight.

We need to widen our peripheral view to not only look further left and right, but more importantly up and down.

Two Sided Efficiency

To be of value to our customers, meaning that we provide a product or service at a price that is competitive and of use, we have to be efficient in the creation and delivery of that product. If we aren’t, we won’t be able to provide the product at a price that is acceptable to the customer and profitable to us.

This is first order efficiency.

The second order is how efficiently can the customer work with us. How easy is it for them to acquire, use, service, share with their friends, etc. We can provide a great product and at a great price but if it is difficult to acquire, hard to setup, impossible to service, and has no network effects, we greatly impede the return on our first order efficiencies. Second order efficiencies are harder to spot, diagnose and correct, they are usually felt by the customer, not us, and as such we have to constantly researching, asking, pretending to be the customer, or whatever it takes to make sure we feel deeply what their pain points are. Not ours, theirs.

That is second order efficiency.

In the situations I encounter a provider usually has one side of the efficiency equation working, typically first order, better than the other, unless of course you are government, who has completely forgotten why they are doing what they are doing and who they serve. But that is another story. In rare situations, double unicorns, both sides work perfectly.