Shackleton's Notice

Men wanted for hazardous journey.

Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness.

Safe return doubtful.

Honour and recognition in event of success.

Ernest Shackleton

The Times, 1913

It's interesting to reflect on the change that will be possible when we spread a little more of the courage that Shackleton took on his trip with him.

Courage or compliance

Seth Godin posted an interesting blog today about the balance between teaching compliance and innovation; it prompted me to think about the fear-driven measurements that society has become so comfortable with using. Measuring what we know we can teach is wonderful for short term safety, yet doesn't teach many of the skills that will give us the innovation we need to find new, human-friendly ways of doing things.

It's good to aim for innovation, for sure, and before we get that, it's important to focus on doing some gardening. Grow some courage, commitment and passion - they're the food for innovation.

Here's the blog post:

"Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.

Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It's difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it's a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.

Schools like teaching compliance. They're pretty good at it.

To top it off, until recently the customers of a school or training program (the companies that hire workers) were buying compliance by the bushel. Initiative was a red flag, not an asset.

Of course, now that's all changed. The economy has rewritten the rules, and smart organizations seek out intelligent problem solvers. Everything is different now. Except the part about how much easier it is to teach compliance."

What's it like?

Seth Goldin is a respected commentator on a range of emerging topics, and has a knack of capturing the essence of an insight. Too often, when we've been developing new programmes that link re-design for nature, business and community, or connecting purpose, wellbeing and innovation, clients have often shied away because they don't know what it's like. Next time, I'll give them this to read:

What's it like? (The sad story of the hot pepper)

Can you imagine how difficult it was to sell the jalapeño when it came over from the new world?

"What's it like?" you'd be asked.

Well, it's like a pepper (of course, it wasn't. Black pepper is dried and tastes very different).

Well, it's hot (no, it's not. Hot is a temperature, spicy is a taste).

It's not like anything, actually. Capsicum is an experience unto itself, and forcing me to tell you what it's like does neither of us much of a service.

"What's it like," is actually shorthand for, "I don't trust you enough to just try it, so you better explain in detail what category this item fits into so I can decide in advance how to understand it."

"What's it like?" is a huge impediment to growth and to the spread of new ideas, because forcing a marketer to pigeonhole an idea naturally limits it.

"What's it like?" leads to sequels and high concepts and crossovers, but it doesn't get us 1966 Bob Dylan or even yoga class.

Great marketers take advantage of categories every day. Great marketers understand how to create books or services or products or technologies that are very much like something else, but better. You should do that whenever you can.

If you want a fast start and good sales, be ready to answer the question.

When you have something that's a breakthrough, though, perhaps you need to say instead, "It's not like anything. You need to trust me and just taste it."