Effort Archive - Page 4 of 6 - This Moment Counts

The best use of your time

Clarity takes time. Time to think things through. Time to change perspectives. Time to ask for feedback.

Time that we often lack in our daily business.

Given all the other things that are on our table, clamoring for our attention, it often feels that we just don’t have time to refine our story or to look for simpler ways of explaining our product.

I don’t think that’s true. In fact, I feel that the opposite is true: Investing in simpler language is one of the best uses of our time while settling with hard to understand or plain confusing messages is about the worst use of anyone’s time.

When you aim to speak with clarity, then yes, it will consume some of your time. But on the other hand, it will spare your audience an enormous amount of time – time that they would otherwise need to spend in order to figure out what you mean.

Arguably that’s going to be worth way more than your time invest.

It would be better to make a film

Film director extraordinaire Werner Herzog famously said: “I felt it would be better to make a film than go to film school.”

Herzog knows that the best learning is by doing the work. Because it’s all theory and “could” and “would” until you actually do the work.

I feel like today is a great day to stop overthinking and start learning – by simply doing the work.

Open your eyes

Today’s as good as any other day to start becoming a better speaker. Here’s one step towards that:

Fire up YouTube and search for “great speech”. Choose one. It doesn’t matter which one. Any will do.

Note everything that you like about the speech. Describe why you think it works. Give the concept a name. And then think about how you could apply the same technique.

Also, note everything that you don’t like about the speech. Describe why you think it doesn’t work. Give the observation a name. And then think about what you would do differently.

Actually, that’s a method you can use every single day. When you look at or listen to a piece of communication, then occasionally look more closely than you normally do, observe what you notice, and learn from it.

The cost of inaction

Usually, it’s a lot easier to grasp the cost of an action than that of inaction.

It costs $X to service your car. But what does it cost to not have it serviced?

It costs $X to buy that book and Y hours to read it. But what does it cost to not know what you’ve learnt from reading it?

It costs $X, a phone call, and one evening of your time to invite a friend you haven’t met in a long time for dinner in that new restaurant. But what does it cost to not spend the evening with them?

It costs $X to book a coaching session plus an hour of preparation, three hours to meet, and the guts to implement the insights. But what does it cost to not book it?

Bypasses

Straight lines are not always the quickest path.

That’s why bypasses exist. It might be shorter to drive straight through the town, but the detour is quicker because you travel faster. It’s a clear, fast track without all of the messy obstacles and annoyances that city traffic brings with it.

But (a big but): It took time and (a lot of) money and workforce to build the detour.

Now that it’s ready, you wouldn’t want to miss it.

It’s the same with clarity. It takes time and commitment to achieve it. But when it’s there you wouldn’t want to miss it.

The problem: Not everyone is willing to make that investment.

The perfect job reference

Job references are issued at the end of a work relationship, sometimes in between, in regular intervals.

They are usually a judgement of how well an employee has performed during the period after the work has been done. You are the judge. You evaluate their work and you write your verdict up in a reference. It makes it seem like the responsibility for an employee’s performance would be totally theirs, not the leaders.

This relationship changes dramatically when you write a job reference at the beginning of your relationship and keep it in your drawer.

How would you like the employee to perform? What would the ideal job reference for that employee look like if it turned out to become a perfect relationship?

Really, write your employee the best reference you can think of – in advance!

Here’s the crux: Make it your responsibility that they live up to it, not theirs.

Provide them with the environment and the support they need to thrive. Don’t blame them if they don’t deliver the results, ask yourself how you can support them better.

It forces you to be more considerate about whom you hire. But more importantly, it forces you to do everything you can to get the optimum out of your relationship.

And in that sense, when you finally write the real reference, the one that gets handed over, it’s much more a verdict about your performance as a leader as it is about their performance.

The power of staring at a blinking cursor

Never underestimate the power of staring at a blinking cursor.

Resist the urge to grab your phone if there’s no immediate thought and nothing to type.

Just the blank screen. And a blinking cursor.

Resist the urge to check Insta, LinkedIn, Mail etc.

Still only that blinking cursor.

Resist a little longer.

A little longer.

You will start typing, eventually.

And what you’ve typed is something to work with.

(Works with a blank piece of paper, too.)

How cool is that?

“How cool is that? I can speak about my idea for 30 minutes and everyone’s going to listen? Wow! This is great. Let’s get to work. I want to make sure that this is going to be the best presentation we ever did.”

Well, sadly, this was a rather unusual way of looking at things. More realistically, reactions are often more like this:

“What? Thursday? Impossible! I still have to write that report plus a bunch of meetings. How long did you say? 30 minutes? Phew. Martin, you did a similar presentation the other day. Can you send it to me? Let’s see whether I can just wing it from there. Yes, Wednesday is fine. I won’t have time to prepare, anyway.”

Crazy, isn’t it? And yet, it’s the typical reaction.

But honestly: Where else do you get 30 minutes of exclusive attention from an entire audience other than with a presentation?

So, what are you going to do with it the next time this opportunity opens up for you?

Settling with second best

A lot of doors open up when you are willing to settle with second best. Many of these doors never get within reach when you are unwilling to settle with anything less than perfect.

The art, of course, is in deciding what the areas are that you are never going to compromise.

When you have clarity about that, it’s a lot easier to see where second best is actually better than never opening the door.

Just the way you are

You’re not Apple. Neither Red Bull nor Tesla.

Keynotes that work for Apple won’t work for you. You just don’t have the media attention that Apple has and you won’t get it by out-producing Apple. It’s not the slick production that make these events work for Apple. Mimicking them is a waste of resources.

PR stunts that work for Red Bull won’t work for you. Buying a Formula 1 team is probably prohibitively expensive for you and you don’t own extreme sports to the degree Red Bull does. It’s not the logo on the cars that make these investments work for Red Bull. Mimicking them is a waste of resources.

The results that these companies see from their marketing efforts are the results of patience and perseverance. They have earned their spots by building an infrastructure around their flagship strategies.

That’s not to say that you couldn’t do the same in principle. But it’s a mistake to consider these marketing efforts as singular events – which many people do.

It’s not one Apple keynote but the history of decades of doing these events and the culture of making a secret of what will be announced exactly that turn these events into these enormous PR waves.

It’s not the logo on Max Verstappen’s car but the history of decades of sponsoring extreme sports plus the culture that Red Bull has built around it that turn these ventures into a huge bargain.

Most of all, it’s been derived out of these companies’ cultures. It’s true to what these brands stand for. It’s authentic to them.

Given the culture in your company. Also, given your budget. It pays to look not so much on what these gigantic companies do but much more to who your customers are. What resonates with them? How can you attach to that?

And then, when you’ve done something that works, stick with it and amplify it. Just like Apple, Red Bull, Tesla, Lego, Coca-Cola, Nike, and all the others did. For decades.

Posts in Tag: Effort