It’s all about the Effort

As an avid Seth Godin Fan, I check his blog regularly.  I stumbled on this posting he did, and I really enjoy it.    It really struck me as he begins by mentioning the golf score, and if you’re a golfer you know this is true.  I have an article in Golf Digest that details how much work it takes for an 18 handicapper, a 10 handicapper and a scratch golfer to reduce their score, and compares a high ranking PGA pro to Tiger Woods.  The difference in effort is remarkable.

It’s that last 10 percent that separates the great from everyone else.

Please enjoy this posting thanks to Mr. Godin, and check out his blog at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Hardly worth the effort

In most fields, there’s an awful lot of work put into the last ten percent of quality.

Getting your golf score from 77 to 70 is far more difficult than getting it from 120 to 113 or even from 84 to 77.

Answering the phone on the first ring costs twice as much as letting it go into the queue.

Making pastries the way they do at a fancy restaurant is a lot more work than making brownies at home.

Laying out the design of a page or a flyer so it looks like a pro did it takes about ten times as much work as merely using the template Microsoft builds in for free, and the message is almost the same…

Except it’s not. Of course not. The message is not the same.

The last ten percent is the signal we look for, the way we communicate care and expertise and professionalism. If all you’re doing is the standard amount, all you’re going to get is the standard compensation. The hard part is the last ten percent, sure, or even the last one percent, but it’s the hard part because everyone is busy doing the easy part already.

The secret is to seek out the work that most people believe isn’t worth the effort. That’s what you get paid for.

Again, thank you for sharing your knowledge Mr. Godin.  I’ve read Seth’s books, and his insight is remarkable.  Take the time to pick them up and read them, you’ll be glad you did.

Matthew Schmitt

Keep Your Eye on the Strategy

Think about someone going out to the shooting range.  He has a beautiful rifle, complete with high tech scope.  Out in front of him, in plain sight, are targets.  They’re large and well defined, red standing out in front of a green woodland background.  He carefully puts on a blindfold, spins in a circle several times, takes aim and fires a shot……at the man next to him.

This story is absurd, but funny enough is an exact description of how some people manage their daily lives at work.  I was recently in a situation where I was in a training session.  Our global strategy came up in discussion, and many in the room did not know what the points were, or even our main goals.  This struck me as a real issue, and I voiced that issue.  I posed the question to the group, “how do you know that what you’re doing is right?”  I asked, “how, when you take up a task, do you know it’s valuable for our company? Or more importantly, how do you know you’re not getting in the way of the people driving the strategy (shooting the man next to you, so to speak)?  I was shocked to hear the instructor say, “you’ve made a choice to be aggressive and move up, but that’s not for everyone.”  He shot the man next to him, only he wasn’t blindfolded. Totally missed the point (and totally discredited him in my eyes).

Your organizations high level strategy is critical to developing a local strategy. Take for example our nation and it’s focus on the environment. Green initiatives are in focus now.  Our local translation of that strategy is to replace our light bulbs with efficient florescent bulbs, and recycle as much of our waste as possible.  This is the same in our companies.  I’ll say it again; Your organizations high level strategy is critical to developing a local strategy.  Understanding it, and I mean really understanding it, is key to developing your own departmental strategy that drives the high level goals every single day.

I encourage you as you head to work every day, to understand your company or organizations strategy and tie clear lines to what you’re doing every day.  Ask yourself, what am I doing to, not only make the company more successful, but to avoid “shooting” the man next to you as he works hard to drive those goals?

As always, I’m excited to hear your thoughts.  Connect with me on twitter (@matt_schmitt) or subscribe today.  I want to learn more about your viewpoints and ideas.