Pull the Tomatillos: A Gardener’s Parable of Enterprise Leadership

This parable about enterprise leadership and strategy starts in our backyard vegetable garden in Detroit.

Our small urban garden in Detroit is a raised bed measuring just 4x12 feet. As novice gardeners, we often cram in more transplants than we should. Despite the tight space, tending to the garden is a joy, and I often talk to the plants while working the soil.

Last year, we took a chance and planted tomatillos. Although they grew well, we didn’t use them much because I wasn’t sure how to incorporate them into recipes, and we didn’t harvest enough to make it worthwhile. Many of the tomatillos fell into the bed and nestled into the soil. This year, tomatillo plants sprouted up all over the raised bed with cheer and resilience.

This weekend, while clearing weeds and preparing the bed for the fall crop season, I reflected on a lesson in enterprise strategy and leadership. We belong to a wonderful garden club, Keep Growing Detroit, and I’m picking up transplants from them this week. This is where the parable begins to take root.

As a gardener, some choices are easy. Do I pull the weeds? Absolutely. Weeds steal resources and space from our vegetables. It was sad but straightforward to cut our losses and pull the carrots we planted. Despite our efforts, the carrots didn’t thrive because weeds and grasses consumed the resources and space they needed to grow. Moreover, we planted them 2-3 weeks too late, and the cool-weather-loving carrots couldn’t withstand the heat. After assessing the situation, it was clear these carrots wouldn’t reach maturity.

We were disappointed because carrots are a family favorite. They’re delicious, and it’s fun to pull them while joking, “What’s up Doc?” like Bugs Bunny. Despite being a risk worth taking, the carrots didn’t turn out as planned.

Next, I had to decide about the tomatillos. Should I pull them or let them grow? The fallen tomatillos were thriving, already fruiting with many more to come. Ultimately, I decided to pull the tomatillos from the bed. It was painful and felt wasteful since they were already producing fruit.

What I realized was that even with a bumper crop of tomatillos, I would have had to go out of my way to use them. Honestly, I wasn’t interested in experimenting with new tomatillo recipes; I would have preferred trying a new vegetable like a pepper, squash, or bean. I would have used them, but I wouldn’t have been excited about the results. Tomatillos weren’t going to get me where I wanted to go.

In our garden, those tomatillos represented a real opportunity cost. With limited space in the bed, keeping the tomatillos meant losing the chance to plant fall crops that would better serve our needs. The tension was real; the tomatillos were already fruiting, creating inertia to leave them in the ground. But I knew I had to pull them because of the opportunity cost. Even a bumper crop of tomatillos wouldn’t help me achieve the outcomes I cared about.

We have to pull the tomatillo priorities. In enterprises, just like in a garden, attention and resources are limited. As enterprise leaders and strategists, we must focus on initiatives that not only bear fruit but also get us to where we want to go.

Every enterprise I have worked in has projects analogous to the weeds, carrots, and tomatillos in my garden. It’s challenging, but relatively easy, to end pet projects that pop up uninvited and steal resources and space from our most critical initiatives. We just have to recognize these projects for what they are—weeds—even if it requires a crucial conversation with the project leader.

We also have to pull the carrots, which are the projects we should be doing but have run off the rails and are no longer viable. For these, we need to celebrate our failure and learn from our mistakes so that the next time we attempt them, we succeed.

And hardest of all, we need to pull the projects that are bearing fruit but aren’t getting us where we actually want to go. These tomatillo projects are crucial to end because if they grow and succeed, they commit us even more to a direction that isn’t in the enterprise’s long-term interest. Tomatillo projects make us feel great right now but are dead ends in the long run.

To be sure, it’s not easy for any enterprise to say no, establish priorities, and end initiatives. But the enterprise is our garden bed, and we have to do what helps the garden grow the fruit that gets us to where we want to go.

That means we have to find the weeds and pull them. Even if it’s sad, we have to pull the carrots. And even though it feels terrible to end projects that are bearing fruit, we must have the courage to pull the tomatillos. The success of our enterprises and our gardens depends on it.

Stale Incumbents Perpetuate Distrust

In a society where trust levels are low and have been falling for decades, have you ever wondered who stands to gain from this pervasive and persistent distrust?

My hypothesis is this: low trust isn’t just a social ill—it’s a profitable venture for some. Over the years, I’ve noticed different groups that seem to benefit from distrust, both within organizations and across our culture. In this post, I’ll share my observations and explore who profits from distrust. If you have your own observations or data, please share them as we delve into this critical issue together.

Adversaries

The first group that benefits from low trust is straightforward: our adversaries. Distrust and infighting often go hand in hand. It’s much easier to defeat a rival, whether in the market, in an election, in a war, or in a race for positioning, when they are busy fighting among themselves and imploding from within.

Brokers

Another group that profits from distrust are brokers. Though they often don’t have bad intentions, brokers make a living by filling the gap that distrust creates. By “broker,” I mean someone who advocates on our behalf in an untrusting or uncertain environment. This could be a real estate agent, someone who vouches for us as a business partner, a friend who sets people up on blind dates, or someone whose endorsement wins us favor with others.

Mercenaries

Mercenaries are a less well-intentioned version of brokers. These people paint a dark picture of a distrustful world and then offer to fight for us or provide protection—for a price. Mercenaries never portray themselves as such, even if that’s what they really are.

Aggregators

Aggregators are people or organizations that build a reputation for being consistently trustworthy, especially when their rivals are not. Essentially, they aggregate trust and communicate it as a symbol of value. A good example of aggregators are fast food brands. When traveling abroad, people trust an American fast food chain to be clean, consistent, and reasonably priced. Many brands across industries thrive because they’ve built a trustworthy reputation.

These groups are fairly straightforward, and many of you might find these categories intuitive and relatable. However, they didn’t seem to cover enough ground to explain the persistent low trust levels in our culture. As I thought more about it, I realized that the largest group benefiting from distrust might be hidden in plain sight…

Stale Incumbents

Now, let’s consider the largest group that might be benefiting from distrust: stale incumbents.

Imagine someone you’ve worked with who always slows down projects. They resist learning new things and believe in sticking to the old ways. They’re nice, but their team never meets deadlines or finishes projects—they always have a believable excuse. This person is a stale incumbent.

More specifically, a stale incumbent is someone in a position who is out of ideas or motivation to innovate. Their ability to keep their job depends on everyone being stuck in the status quo. Here’s how it works:

1. They get into a comfortable position.

2. They stop learning and trying new things.

3. They run out of ideas because they stopped learning.

4. They try to hide and let new ideas fade.

5. They allow distrust and low standards to settle in.

6. When new people ask questions, they blame distrust: “It’s not my fault; others aren’t cooperating.”

7. They make the status quo seem inevitable, doing the minimum to keep their position and discourage change.

8. They repeat steps 4-7.

Stale incumbents need distrust to hide behind. They want to keep their comfortable position but have no new ideas because they stopped learning. A culture of distrust is the perfect scapegoat: it can’t argue back, and people think it can’t be changed, so they stop asking questions and give up. The distrust also makes it harder for new people to show up, innovate, annd expose the stale incumbent.

Ultimately, stale incumbents can keep their jobs while delivering mediocre results. This staleness spreads, making the culture of distrust harder to reverse because more stale incumbents depend on it. It’s a cycle of mediocrity, not anger and fear.

I don’t have experimental data, but I do have decades of regular observation draw from. I believe stale incumbents help explain the persistent low trust in America. Many people started with energy but never found allies, and the stale culture assimilated them.

The good news is there’s hope. If distrust is due to stale incumbents rather than malicious actors, we may not face much resistance in bringing about change. The path to change is clear: bring in energetic people and help them bring others along. It’s hard, but not complicated. By fostering a culture of learning, innovation, and trust, we can break the cycle of mediocrity and create a more trusting and dynamic society.

How to Avoid Boondoggle Projects

I’ve spent too much of my life on absolute boondoggles of projects. Now, I know better.

To avoid boondoggle projects in any organization or team, these five questions must be clear to everyone (especially to me): who, what, to what end, why, and how.

Here they are:

• Who are we serving? Answering this provides clarity on whose needs we really have to meet and who the judge of success and failure actually is. If we’re not clear on who is saying “thank you” at the end of all this, how can we do something magical for them?

• To what end do we aspire? This clarifies what a successful mission looks like. The needle has to move on something; otherwise, why are we putting forth any effort?

• What are we delivering? This clarifies the tangible thing we have to put in front of someone’s face or into their hands. If we’re not clear on what we’re building, aren’t we all just wasting our time?

• Why does this matter? This clarifies the urgency and importance. If this doesn’t matter a lot, let’s respect ourselves enough to do something else that does.

• How are we going to get from here to the end? This clarifies the process. If we don’t know how to get this done, will we ever finish?

Answering these five questions is the cheapest, simplest project charter you’ve ever had. If everyone on the team has the same answers to these questions, you’ll prevent the project from becoming a boondoggle.

If we’re part of leading a project, getting the team to clarity on these five questions is our job.

Beyond Efficiency: Strategically Deploying Gen AI in Enterprises

The concept that velocity is different from speed is one of the core ideas I draw upon when thinking about strategy, leadership, and organizational management. Lately, I've been using this concept to think about how to deploy emerging tech, like Generative AI, within enterprises.

The difference between speed and velocity is crucial. Speed is about how fast we're moving, for example, 55 miles per hour. Velocity, however, describes moving at 55 mph towards a specific direction, like heading East. This distinction has helped me see some nuance when discussing generative AI with colleagues and peers. For example, a computer software engineer can debug code faster using a large language model as a coding partner. While generative AI certainly helps with speed, merely focusing on productivity through speed probably misses the larger opportunity generative AI provides to managers of teams and enterprises.

In this example, improving speed might actually reduce overall productivity and impact, if the software being improved isn't solving a valuable problem in the first place. Here, generative AI would be more useful in helping the software engineer determine which feature would be most relevant and impact for the user. Going faster is only helpful if you're going in the right direction, the most valuable direction, to begin with. Using generative AI to increase speed in the wrong direction would be a missed opportunity.

It might be tempting to think of generative AI as a tool to "make our employees more efficient." However, it would probably be more transformative to use generative AI as a tool to "help our colleagues spend their time on the most valuable problems." This logic doesn't just apply to IT departments. For example, generative AI can help marketing teams draft copy faster, but it's probably more valuable to ensure they're targeting the best possible consumer segment. For operations teams, Gen AI might help to spot and improve manufacturing inefficiencies, but it might be more useful to help spot which product lines aren’t worth producing in the first place.

As an enterprise leader scrambling to deploy Gen AI, it’s easy to assume that the job to be done is to make everyone else more efficient. While this is partly true, business and technology leaders, especially those deploying powerful, emerging, tech like AI, should also contemplate use cases that improve the quality of leadership and strategy in enterprises - even though doing so might indicate that those leaders had it wrong in the first place.

Employing generative AI in a self-aware manner will require a significant degree of humility. But I believe it's worth it. After all, what's the point of heading east faster if we should be going northwest to begin with?

Consider the lesson learned from my own experience at work, which vividly underscores the crucial difference between speed and velocity in the application of generative AI. As a product owner for data, I've seen my engineering colleagues leverage tools like ChatGPT to streamline coding SQL queries, boosting our operational speed. However, a pivotal moment came when I discovered that a dataset we had meticulously prepared and delivered was left untouched by our business customer for months. Which, by the way, indicated that I had made a poor decision on what was worth spending time on.

Despite our efficiency in producing the dataset, it lacked the essential element of value to the customer. This incident revealed a stark truth: our focus on making engineering tasks faster, though beneficial, paled in comparison to the importance of selecting the right targets from the outset. There have been instances where the right datasets, aligned with clear and compelling use cases, saved our customers millions of dollars. The real win, therefore, isn't just in enhancing our engineers' efficiency but in ensuring that our efforts are directed towards creating datasets so valuable and relevant that our customers are eager to utilize them for significant impact from the moment of delivery.

To truly leverage the potential of generative AI within our enterprises, we must go beyond the pursuit of efficiency. The most obvious path is often the least disruptive—enhancing what already exists. However, the opportunity to create significant, long-lasting value lies in our willingness to question the fundamentals of our strategies and leadership approaches. It's about asking ourselves:

• Where are we merely maintaining the status quo when we could be exceeding it?

• In what areas are we failing as leaders and strategists to anticipate and shape the future?

• How can we redefine our objectives to not just improve but transform our enterprise?

This journey requires a substantial dose of humility and a willingness to embrace change, characteristics not often associated with leadership but absolutely critical in this context. Challenging our 'sacred cows' and reevaluating our core assumptions about what our enterprises do can reveal the most impactful opportunities for applying emerging technologies. Let's commit to this introspective and transformative approach, aiming not just to enhance but to innovate and redefine our enterprises for the better.

Crafting a Resident-Centric CX Strategy for Michigan

Last week, I shared an idea about one idea to shape growth, talent development, and performance in Michigan through labor productivity improvements. This week, I’ve tried to illustrate how CX practices can be used to inform talent attraction and retention at the state level.

The post is below, and it’s a ChatGPT write-up of an exercise I went through to rapidly prototype what a CX approach might actually look like. In the spirit of transparency, there are two sessions I had with ChatGPT: this this one on talent retention. I can’t share the link for the one on talent attraction because I created an image and sharing links with images is apparently not supported (sorry). It is similar.

There are a few points I (a human) would emphasize that are important subtleties to remember.

1. Differentiating matters a ton. As the State of Michigan, I don’t think we can win on price (i.e., lower taxes) because there will always be a state willing to undercut us. We have to play to our strengths and be a differentiated place to live.

2. Focus matters a ton. No State can cater to everyone, and neither can we. We have to find the niches and do something unique to win with them. We can’t operate at the “we need to attract and retain millennials and entrepreneurs” level. Which millennials and which entrepreneurs? Again, we can’t cater to everyone - it’s too hard and too expensive. It’s just as important to define who we’re not targeting as who we are targeting.

3. Transparency matters a ton. As a State, the specific segments we are trying to target (and who we’re deliberately not trying to targets) need to be clear to all stakeholders. The vision and plan needs to be clear to all stakeholders (including the public) so we can move toward one common goal with velocity. By being transparent on the true set of narrow priorities, every organization can find ways to help the team win. Without transparency, every individual organization and institution will do what they think is right (and is best for them as individual organizations), which usually leads to scope creep and a lot of little pockets of progress without any coordination across domains. And when that happens, the needle never moves.

4. It seems like the State of Michigan is doing some of this. A lot of the themes from ChatGPT are ones I’ve heard before. Which is great. What I haven’t heard are the specific set of segments to focus on or what any of the data-driven work to create segments and personas was. If ChatGPT can come up with at least some relatively novel ideas in an afternoon, imagine what we could accomplish by doing a full-fidelity, disciplined, data-driven, CX strategy with the smartest minds around growth, talent, and performance in the State. That would be transformative.

I’d love to hear what you think. Without further ado, here’s what ChatGPT and I prototyped today around talent attraction and retention for the State of Michigan.

—

Introduction: Charting a New Course for Michigan

In an age where competition for talent and residents is fierce among states, Michigan stands at a crossroads. To thrive, it must reimagine its approach to attracting and retaining residents, and this is where Customer Experience (CX) Strategy, intertwined with insights from population geography, becomes vital. Traditionally a business concept, CX Strategy in the context of state governance is about understanding and catering to the diverse needs of potential and current residents. It's about seeing them not just as citizens, but as customers of the state, with unique preferences and aspirations.

Understanding CX Strategy in Population Geography

CX Strategy, at its essence, involves tailoring experiences to meet the specific needs and desires of your audience. For a state like Michigan, it means crafting policies, amenities, and environments that resonate with different demographic groups. Population geography provides a lens to understand these groups. It involves analyzing why people migrate: be it for job opportunities, better quality of life, or cultural attractions. This understanding is crucial. For instance, young professionals might be drawn to vibrant urban environments with tech job prospects, while retirees may prioritize peaceful communities with accessible healthcare. Michigan, with its rich automotive history, beautiful Great Lakes, and growing tech scene, has much to offer but needs a focused approach to highlight these strengths to different groups.

Applying CX Strategy: Identifying Target Segments

The first step in applying a CX Strategy is identifying who Michigan wants to attract and retain. This involves delving into demographic data, economic trends, and social patterns. Creating detailed personas based on this data helps in understanding various needs and preferences. For instance, a tech entrepreneur might value a supportive startup ecosystem, while a nature-loving telecommuter may prioritize scenic beauty and a peaceful environment for remote work. These insights lead to targeted strategies that are more likely to resonate with each group, ensuring efficient use of resources and increasing the effectiveness of Michigan's efforts in both attracting and retaining residents.

In the next section, we'll explore the importance of differentiation in attraction and retention strategies, and delve into the specific segments that Michigan should focus on. Stay tuned for a detailed look at how Michigan can leverage its unique attributes to create a compelling proposition for these key resident segments.

Importance of Differentiation in Attraction and Retention

Differentiation is crucial in the competitive landscape of state-level attraction and retention. It’s about highlighting what makes Michigan unique and aligning these strengths with the specific needs of targeted segments. For attraction, it might mean showcasing Michigan’s burgeoning tech industry to young professionals or its serene natural landscapes to nature enthusiasts. For retention, it involves ensuring that these segments find ongoing value in staying, like continuous career opportunities for tech professionals or maintaining pristine natural environments for outdoor lovers.

In focusing on segments like automotive innovators or medical researchers, Michigan can leverage its historic strengths and modern advancements. By tailoring experiences to these specific groups, the state can stand out against competitors, making it not just a place to move to but a place where people want to stay and thrive.

Overlap and Distinction in Attraction and Retention Strategies

The overlap and distinctions between attracting and retaining segments offer nuanced insights. Some segments, like tech and creative professionals, show significant overlap in both attracting to and retaining in urban settings like Detroit. This indicates that strategies effective in drawing these individuals to Michigan may also foster their long-term satisfaction. However, for segments with minimal overlap, such as medical researchers (attraction) and sustainable farmers (retention), strategies need to be distinct and targeted to their unique needs and lifestyle preferences.

Successful implementation teams will use these insights to create nuanced strategies for each segment. Avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach and recognizing the different motivations between someone considering moving to Michigan and someone deciding whether to stay is key. The primary pitfall to avoid is neglecting the distinct needs of each segment, which could lead to ineffective strategies that neither attract nor retain effectively.

Deep Dive into Experience Enhancements

Let’s delve into two specific segments: nature-loving telecommuters for attraction and tech and creative young professionals in Detroit for retention. For the nature-loving telecommuter, Michigan can offer unique experiences that blend the tranquility of its natural landscapes with the connectivity needed for effective remote work. Imagine "remote worker eco-villages" scattered across Michigan’s scenic locations, equipped with state-of-the-art connectivity and co-working spaces, set against the backdrop of Michigan's natural beauty. This not only caters to their desire for a serene work environment but also positions Michigan as a leader in innovative remote working solutions.

For tech and creative young professionals in Detroit, the strategy should be about fostering a dynamic urban ecosystem that offers continuous growth opportunities and a thriving cultural scene. Initiating a Detroit Tech and Arts Festival could serve as an annual event, bringing together tech innovators, artists, and entrepreneurs. This festival, coupled with collaborative workspaces and networking hubs, would not only retain existing talent but also attract new professionals looking for a vibrant, collaborative, and innovative urban environment.

Conclusion: Michigan’s Path Forward

Michigan is uniquely positioned to become a beacon for diverse talents and lifestyles. By adopting a resident-centric CX Strategy, informed by population geography, Michigan can tailor its offerings to attract and retain a dynamic population. It’s about moving beyond generic policies to creating experiences and opportunities that resonate with specific segments. The call to action is clear: Let's embrace innovation, leverage our unique strengths, and build a Michigan that’s not just a place on a map, but a destination of choice for a vibrant and diverse community. With these strategies, Michigan won’t just attract new residents – it will inspire them to stay, contribute, and flourish.

Attraction Segments Table:

Retention Segments Table:

Corporate Strategy, CX, and the end of gun violence

What gut punches me about gun violence, beyond the acts of violence themselves, is not that we’ve seemed to make little progress in ending it. What grates me is that we shouldn’t expect to make progress. We shouldn’t expect progress because in the United States, generally speaking, we haven’t actually done the work to define the problem of gun violence clearly enough to even attempt solving it with any measure of confidence.

Gun violence is an incredibly difficult problem to solve, it’s layered, it’s complex, and the factors that affect gun violence are intertwined in knots upon knots across the domains of poverty, justice, health, civil rights, land use, and many others.

Moreover, it’s hard to prevent gun violence because different types of violence are fundamentally different, requiring different strategies and tactics. What it takes to prevent gang violence, for example, is extremely different from what it takes to prevent mass shootings. Forgive my pun, but in gun violence prevention, there’s no silver bullet.

I know this because I lived it and tried to be a small part in ending gun violence in Detroit. I partnered with people across neighborhoods, community groups, law enforcement, academia, government, the Church, foundations, and the social sector on gun violence prevention - the best of the best nationwide - when I worked in City Government, embedded in the equivalent of a special projects unit within the Detroit Police Department.

Preventing gun violence is the hardest challenge I’ve ever worked on, by far.

Just as I’ve seen gun violence prevention up close - I’ve also worked in the business functions of corporate strategy and customer experience (CX) for nearly my entire career - as a consultant at a top tier firm, as a graduate student in management, as a strategy professional in a multi-billion dollar enterprise, and as a thinker that has been grappling with and publishing work on the intricacies of management and organizations for over 15 years.

(Forgive me for that arrogant display of my resume, the internet doesn’t listen to people without believing they are credentialed).

I know from my time in Strategy and CX that difficult problems aren’t solved without focus, the discipline to make the problem smaller,  accepting trade-offs, and empathizing deeply with the people we are trying to serve and change the behavior of.

This is why how we approach gun violence in the United States, generally speaking, grates me. Very little of the public discourse on gun violence prevention - outside of very small pockets, usually at the municipal level - gives me faith that we’re committed to the hard work of focusing, making the problem smaller, accepting trade-offs and empathizing deeply with the people - shooters and victims - we are trying to change the behavior of.

If I had to guess, there are probably less than 100 people across the country who have lived gun violence prevention and business strategy up close, and I’m one of them. The solutions to gun violence will continue to be elusive, I’m sure - just “applying business” to it won’t solve the problem.

However, all problems, especially elusive ones like gun violence, are basically impossible to solve until they are defined clearly and the strategy to achieve the intended outcome is focused and clearly communicated. To understand and frame the problem of gun violence, approaches from strategy and CX are remarkably helpful.

This post is my pitch and the simplest playbook I can think of for applying field-tested practices from the disciplines of strategy and CX to gun violence prevention. My hope is that by applying these techniques, gun violence could become a set of solvable problems. Not easy, but solvable nonetheless.

If you can’t put it briefly and in writing the strategy isn’t good enough

The easiest, low-tech, test of a strategy, is whether it can be communicated in narrative form, in one or two pages. If someone trying to lead change can do this effectively, it probably means the strategy and how it’s articulated is sound. If not, that change leader should not expect to achieve the result they intend.

The statement that follows below is entirely made up, but it’s an illustration of what clear strategic intent can look like. I’ve written it for the imaginary community of “Patriotsville”, but the framework I’ve used to write it could be applied by any organization, for any transformation - not just an end to gun violence. Further below I’ll unpack the statement section by section to explain the underlying concepts borrowed from business strategy and CX and some ideas on how to apply them.

Instead of platitudes like, “we need change” or “enough is enough” or “the time is now”, imagine if a change leader trying to end gun violence made a public statement closer to the one below. Would you have more or less confidence in your community’s ability to end gun violence than you do now?

Two-Pager of Strategic Intent to End Gun Violence in Patriotsville

We have a problem in Patriotsville, too many young people are dying from gunshot wounds. We know from looking at the data that the per capita rate of youth gun deaths in our community is 5x the national average. And when you look at the data further, accidental gun deaths are by far the largest type of gun death among youth in Patriotsville, accounting for 60% of all youths who die in our community each year. This is unacceptable and senseless heartbreak that’s ripping our community apart by the seams.

I know we can do better - we can and we will eliminate all accidental shooting deaths in Patriotsville within 5 years. In five years, let’s have the front page stories about our youth be for their achievements and service to our community rather than their obituaries. By 2027 our vision is no more funerals for young people killed by accidental shootings. We should be celebrating graduations and growth, not lives lost too early from entirely preventable means.

We know there are other types of gun violence in our community, and those senseless death are no less important than accidental shootings. But we are choosing to focus on accidental shootings because of how severe the problem is and because we have the capability and the partnerships already in place to make tangible progress. As we start to bend the trajectory of accidental shootings, we will turn our focus to the next most prevalent form of gun violence in our community: domestic disputes that turn deadly.

Our community has tried to have gun buybacks and free distribution of gun locks before. For years we have done these things and nothing has changed. So we started to do more intentional research into the data, the scholarship, and best practices, yes. But more importantly, we started to talk directly with the families who have lost children to accidental shootings and those who have had near misses.

By trying to deeply understand the people we want to influence, we learned two very important things. First, we learned that the vast majority of accidental shootings in Patriotsville have victims between the ages of 2 and 6. This means, we have to focus on influencing the parents and caregivers of children between the ages of 2 and 6.

And two, we learned that in the vast majority of cases, those adult owners of the firearms had access to gun locks and wanted to use them, but just never got around to it.

What we realized the more we talked with people and looked into the data, is that gun locks could work to reduce accidental shootings and that access wasn’t an issue - we just needed to get people to understand how to use gun locks and realize that it wasn’t difficult or a significant deterrent to the use of the firearm in an emergency.

So what we intend to do is work with day care providers to help influence the behavior of parents and caregivers of children who are in kindergarten or younger. We’re going to partner with the gun shop owners in town who desperately want their firearms to be stored safely. And we’re going to help families have all the resources they need to create a system within their entire home of securing firearms.

We’re proud to announce the “Lock It Twice” program here today in Patriotsville. There are many key roles in this plan. Gun shop owners and local hunting clubs are going to have public demonstrations on how to use gun locks and help citizens practice to see just how easy it is to use them. Early childhood educators and the school district are going to create a conversation guide for teachers to discuss with parents during parent teacher conferences. And finally, the local carpenters union, is going to help folks to make sure there are locks on the doors of the primary rooms where guns are kept. The community foundation is going to fund a program where families can get a doorknob replaced in their home for free.

We’re all coming together to end accidental shootings in our community once and for all - and we’re going to do it creatively and innovatively, because we know marketing campaigns and free gun locks don’t actually work unless they’re executed as part of a comprehensive strategy.  To this end, we’re committing $2 Million of general fund dollars over the next five years to get this done - we are committed as a government and we invite any others committed to the goal to join us with their time, their talent, or financial backing.

Finally, I’d like to thank the leadership team of our local NRA chapter and Sportsmans’ club who helped us get access to their members and really understand the problem and the challenge in a deep and intimate way. We couldn’t have come up with this solution without their help.

We have said for so long that the time is now. And the time finally is now - we are focused, and we’re committed to ending accidental shootings in our community. In a few short years, if we work together, we know we can end these senseless deaths and never have a funeral for a young person accidentally shot and killed in this community ever again.

Unpacking the key elements of the two-pager of strategic intent

Again, the statement above is entirely an illustration and entirely made up. Heck, it’s not even the best writing I’ve ever done!

But even if it’s not true (or perfect) it’s helpful to have an example of what clearly articulated strategy and intent can look like. I’ve picked it apart section by section below. A narrative of strategic intent can be distilled into 10 elements. Literally 10 bullet points on a paper could be enough to start.

Element 1: Acknowleding the problem - “too many people are dying of gunshot wounds”

The first step is acknowledging the problem and communicating why change is even needed. This question of “why” is under-articulated in almost any organization or on any project I’ve ever been a part of. This is absolutely essential because change requires discretionary effort and almost nobody gives that discretionary effort unless they understand why it’s needed and why it matters.

Element 2 - The Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goal (BHAG): “we will eliminate all accidental shooting deaths in Patriotsville within 5 years”

The second step is to set a goal - a big one that’s meaningfully better than the status quo. This question of “for what” is essential to keep all parties focused on the same outcome. What’s critical for the goal is that it has to be specific, simple, and outcomes-based. Vague language does the team no good because unless the goal is objective, all parties will lie to themselves about progress. It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: it’s practically impossible to lead collective action without a clear goal.

Element 3 - The Statement of Vision: “no more funerals for young people killed by accidental shootings”

The third element helps people more deeply understand what the goal means in day to day life. The vision is a deepening of detail on the question of “what”.

Having an understanding of the aspirational future world helps everyone understand success and what the future should feel like. This is important for two reasons: 1) it clarifies the goal further by giving it sensory detail, and, 2) it makes the mission memorable and inspiring.

In reality, the change leader needs to articulate the vision, in vivid sensory detail, over and over and with much more fidelity than I’ve done in this two-pager. Think of the vision statement I’ve listed in the two-pager as the headline with much more detail required behind the scenes and with constant frequency over the course of the journey.

Element 4 - Where to Play: “But we are choosing to focus on accidental shootings because of how severe the problem is and because we have the capability and the partnerships already in place to make tangible progress”

Where to play is one of the foundational questions of business strategy. The idea is that there are too many possible domains to play in and every enterprise needs to double down and focus instead of trying to do everything for all people. This isn’t a question of “what” as much as it is a question of “what are we saying no to.”

In the case of Patriotsville, the two-pager describes the reasons why the community should focus on accidental shootings (severity and existing capabilities / partnerships) and something important that the community is saying no to (domestic violence shootings). It’s essential to clearly articulate what the team is saying no to so that everyone doubles down and focuses limited resources on the target. Trying to “boil the ocean” is the surest way to achieve nothing.

Element 5 - Identifying the target: “we have to focus on influencing the parents and caregivers of children between the ages of 2 and 6”

There’s substantial time spent describing how the change team is focusing on the specific people they’re trying to influence, parents and caregivers of children aged 2-6. Identifying this specific segment is important, and an example of the ‘for who” question. Who are we trying to serve? Who are we not? What do they need? Without this, there is no possibility of true focus. Defining who it’s for is an essential rejoinder to the “where to play” question.

Element 6 - Deep Empathy and Understanding: “By trying to deeply understand the people we want to influence, we learned two very important things”

The two-pager talks about the deep observation and understanding of the “consumer” that the team took the time to do. This yielded some critical insights on how to do something that actually works.

There’s a whole discipline on UX (User experience) and CX (Customer experience), so I won’t try to distill it down in a few sentences - but a broader point remains. To change the behavior of someone or to serve someone, you have to really understand, deeply, what they want and need. When problems are hard, the same old stuff doesn’t work. To find what does work, the team has to listen and then articulate the key insights they learned to everyone else so that everyone else knows what will work, too.

Element 7 - How to Win: “we realized that gun locks could work to reduce accidental shootings and that access wasn’t an issue - we just needed to get people to understand how to use gun locks, and realize that it wasn’t difficult or a significant deterrent to the use of the firearm in an emergency”

“How to win” is the second of the foundational questions asked in business strategy. It raises the question of “how.” Of all the possible paths forward, which ones are we going to pursue, and which are we going to ignore? That’s what this element describes.

Because again, just like the “where to play” question, we can’t do every implementation of every strategy and tactic. We have to make choices and be as intentional as possible as to what we will do, what we won’t, and our reasons why.

By articulating “how to win” clearly, it keeps the team focused on what we believe will work and what we believe is worth throwing the kitchen sink at, so to speak. Execution is hard enough, even without the team diluting its execution across too broad a set of tactics.

What I would add, is that we don’t always get the how right the first time. We have to constantly pause, learn, pivot, and then rearticulate the how once we realize our plan isn’t going to work - the first version of the plan never does.

Element 8 - Everyone’s Role: “There are many key roles in this plan”

Element 8 gets at the “who” question. Who’s going to do this work? What’s everyone’s important role? What’s everyone’s job and responsibility?

Everyone needs to know what’s expected of them. And quite frankly, if a change leader doesn’t ask people to do something, they won’t. It seems obvious, but teams I’ve been on haven’t actually requested help. Heck, I’ve even led initiatives where I’ve just assumed everyone knows what to do and then been surprised when nobody on the team acts differently. That’s a huge mistake that’s entirely preventable.

Element 9 - Credible Commitment: “To this end, we’re committing $2 Million of general fund dollars over the next five years to get this done”

Especially when it comes to hard problems, many people will wait to ensure that their effort is not a waste of time. Making a credible commitment that the change leader is going to stick with the problem nudges stakeholders to commit. By putting some skin in the game and being vocal about it publicly, a credible commitment answers the “are you really serious” question that many skeptics have when a change leader announces a Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goal.

Element 10 - The problem is the enemy: “Finally, I’d like to thank the leadership team of our local NRA chapter and Sportsmans’ club who helped us”

In my years, many ambitious teams get in their own way because they succumb to ego, blame, and infighting. Right away, it’s essential to make sure everyone knows that the problem is the enemy.

In this case, I’ve shared an example of how it’s possible to take seemingly difficult stakeholders, show them respect, and bring them into the fold. How powerful would it be if a group commonly thought of as an obstacle to ending gun violence (the gun lobby) was actually part of the solution and the change leader praised them? That sort of statement would prevent finger pointing and resistance to the pursuit of the vision. If the gun lobby is helping prevent gun violence, how could anyone else not fall in line and trust the process?

Conclusion

I desperately want to see an end to gun violence in my lifetime. It’s senseless. And honestly, I think everyone engaged in gun violence prevention has good intentions.

But we shouldn’t expect to solve the problem if we don’t take the time to understand it, articulate it in concrete terms, and communicate the vision clearly to everyone who needs to be part of solving it.

As one of the few people who have lived in both worlds - violence prevention and business strategy - I strongly believe tools from the corporate strategy and CX worlds have something valuable to offer in this regard.

Photo by Remy Gieling on Unsplash

We Need To Understand Our Superpowers

Surplus is created when something is more valuable than it costs in resources. Creating surplus is one of the keys to peace and prosperity.

Surplus ultimately comes from asymmetry. Asymmetry, briefly put, is when we have something in a disproportionately valuable quantity, relative to the average. This assymetry gives us leverage to make a disproportionally impactful contribution, and that creates surplus.

Let’s take the example of a baker, though this framework could apply to public service or family life. Some asymmetries, unfortunately, have a darker side.

Asymmetry of…

…capability is having the knowledge or skills to do something that others can’t (e.g., making sourdough bread vs. regular wheat).

…information gives the ability to make better decisions than others (e.g., knowing who sells the highest quality wheat at the best price).

…trust is having the integrity and reputation that creates loyalty and collaboration (e.g., 30 years of consistency prevents a customer from trying the latest fad from a competitor).

…leadership is the ability to build a team and utilize talent in a way that creates something larger than it’s parts (e.g., building a team that creates the best cafe in town).

…relationships create opportunities that others cannot replicate (e.g., my best customers introduce me to their brother who want to carry my bread in their network of 100 grocery stores).

…empathy is having the deep understanding of customers and their problems, which lead to innovations (e.g., slicing bread instead of selling it whole).

…capital is having the assets to scale that others can’t match (e.g., I have the money to buy machines which let me grind wheat into flour, reducing costs and increasing freshness).

…power is the ability to bend the rules in my favor (e.g., I get the city council to ban imports of bread into our town).

…status is having the cultural cachet to gain incremental influence without having to create any additional value (e.g., I’m a man so people might take me more seriously).

We need to understand our superpowers

So one of the most valuable things we can do in organizational life is knowing the superpowers which give us assymetry and doing something special with them. We need to take the time to understand our superpowers, as individuals or as an organization, so we have the best chance to create surplus.

And once we have surplus - whether in the form of time, energy, trust, profit, or other resources - we can do something with it. We can turn it into leisure or we can reinvest it in ourselves, our families, our communities, and our planet.

—

Addendum for the management / strategy nerds out there: To put a finer point on this, we also need to understand how asymmetries are changing. For example, capital is easier to access (or less critical) than it was before. For example, I don’t know how to write HTML nor do I have any specialized servers that help me run this website. Squarespace does that for me for a small fee every month. So access to capital assets and capabilities is less asymmetric than 25 years ago, at least in the domain of web publishing.

As the world changes, so does the landscape of asymmetries, which is why we often have to reinvent ourselves.

There’s a great podcast episode on The Knowledge Project where the guest, Kunal Shah, has a brief interlude on information asymmetry. Was definitely an inspiration for this post.

Source: Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

Measuring the American Dream

In America, during elections, we talk a lot about policies. Which candidate is for this or against that, and so on.

But policies are not a vision for a country. Policies are tools for achieving the dream, not the American Dream itself. Policies are means, not ends.

I’m desperate for political leaders at every level - neighborhood, city, county, state, country, planet - to articulate a vision, a vivid description of the sort of community they want to create, rather than merely describing a set of policies during elections.

This is hard. I know because I’ve tried. Even at the neighborhood level, the level where I engage in politics, it’s hard to articulate a vision for what we want the neighborhood to look like, feel like, and be like 10-15 years from now.

Ideally, political leaders could describe this vision and what a typical day in the community would be like in excruciating detail, like a great novelist sets the scene at the beginning of a book to make the reader feel like they’ve transported into the text.

What are you envisioning an average Monday to be like in 2053? I need to feel it in my bones.

Admittedly, this is really hard. So what’s an alternative?

Metrics.

I’m a big fan of metrics to help run enterprises, because choosing what to measure makes teams get specific about their dreams and what they’re willing to sacrifice.

Imagine if the Congress and the White House came up with a non-partisan set of metrics that we were going to set targets for and measure progress against for decades at a time? That would provide the beginnings of a common vision across party, geography, and agency that everyone could focus on relentlessly.

This is the sort of government management I want, so I took a shot at it. If I was a player in setting the vision for the country, this would be a pretty close set of my top 15 metrics to measure and commit to making progress on as a country.

This was a challenging exercise, here are a few interesting learnings:

• It’s hard to pick just 15. But it creates a lot of clarity. Setting a limit forces real talk and hard choices.

• It pays to to be clever. If you go to narrow, you don’t have spillover effects. It’s more impactful to pick metrics that if solved, would have lots of other externalities and problems that would be solved along the way. For example, if we committed to reducing gun deaths, we’d necessarily have to make an impact in other areas, such as: community relationships, trust with law enforcement, healthcare costs, and access to mental health services.

• You have to think about everybody. Making tough choices on metrics for everyone, makes the architect think about our common issues, needs, and dreams. It’s an exercise that can’t be finished unless it’s inclusive.

• You have to think BIG. Metrics that are too narrow, are more easily hijacked by special interests. Metrics that are big, hairy, and audacious make it more difficult to politicize the metric and the target.

Setting up a scorecard, with current state measures and future targets would be a transformative exercise to do at any level of government: from neighborhood to state to nation to planet.

It’s not so important whether my metrics are “right” or if yours are, per se. What matters is we co-create the metrics and are committed to them.

Let’s do it.

Sports Are Designed To Be A Cultural Juggernaut

On my way home from a restaurant lunch last week I wasn’t upset, but I was a bit flabbergasted - how did we talk about sports almost the entire time?

It’s not that I’m disinterested in sports. On the contrary, I like sports quite a bit. But if I walk into a room, especially if the majority of the people present are men, I’m almost always the person least interested in sports. 

Which isn’t miserable, but it’s also not fun to be that guy. Being in the company of others, barely having anything to say because everyone else has a seeming encyclopedic knowledge of every game, player, and offensive scheme is legitimately boring.

When I originally envisioned this post, I imagined it as a cultural critique of hyper masculinity and the need for our culture to be more worldly. In my head I imagined, with full-on Yosemite Sam voice, posing this question as the post’s title: why does everyone talk so damn much about sports? Finally, I thought, I could have my emotional release as the sports novice arguing a greater cultural relevance for my preferred domains: like the arts, politics, and religion.

But when I actually thought about that question - why does everyone talk so much about sports - I realized there are tons of reasons why. Sports are designed to be a cultural force. Rather than berating sports (which is what I expected to do in this post), I’ve changed my mind, maybe other aspects of culture should actually be more like sports. 

Here are some examples of how the sports industry is designed to be culturally significant. Imagine if politics, the arts, or religion took on some of these attributes. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they’d have more cultural relevance than they do:

• In sports, there’s are much data and statistics that are shared transparently about games and players. Anyone who wants to can study those data to develop expertise and fluency about their favorite sports.

• Different “channels” have differentiated experiences that are catered to the audience. Going to the game and watching it on TV can both be terrific for different reasons. People talk about those awesome experiences, and word spreads.

• Announcers guide the audience and explain what’s happening in a supportive, non-pretentious way. That helps novices understand the game and experts engage more deeply.

• Anyone can become a fan of any team - it’s easy to opt in. There’s no test or application to submit. This is incredibly inclusive even if some artifacts like jerseys and hats come at a cost.

• Sports are highly localized, one can become a fan of their local team and watch a live game within driving distance of home. Sports teams are not geographically isolated from their fans, rather they’re highly integrated into their local community. And, fans can play sports in their own neighborhood with their friends and family!

• Though many leagues have ethical issues of many sorts, the integrity of the game is taken seriously. In major sports leagues, fans can trust that the game isn’t fixed, and athletes who gamble on games are harshly punished.

• Similarly, during games rules are tightly enforced, with referees who are highly trained professionals. For all the griping sports fans do about refs, it’s hard to claim they’re corrupt. And conduct that distracts from the game, like fighting or flagrant fouls, get players ejected.

• Players and coaches are highly visible and accessible, relative to other professions. There are press conferences, in-game interviews, and lots of fan events where regular people can interact with their hometown heroes.

• Even commentators on television networks seem like fun, everyday people. They comport themselves with professionalism and seem like a blast to be around. Who wouldn’t want to spend a day hanging out with Shaq or Michael Strahan?

• Athletes and coaches have compelling personal stories and they actually act like themselves on camera. The human storytelling element is a huge part of sports, which gives people a personal, emotional connection to the game. The 30 for 30 documentary series by ESPN is a great example of storytelling in sports.

• Sports have partnerships that cause intersections with huge swaths of culture: journalism, fashion, health and wellness, community service, social justice, politics, and commerce. 

Sports is incredibly accessible and multi-dimensional. It’s an industry designed to be talked about, shared, and culturally pervasive. It’s no surprise that sports has huge cultural influence relative to its size as an industry.

Of course, sports has its problems and dark elements - especially around the labor relationship between players and owners. There are also clear imbalances and issues to work out around the difference in treatment and compensation of male and female athletes. Personally, it’s also incredibly frustrating to me when people I know (usually men, many of which are my buddies) use sports as an instrument to project dominance and act with a pompous air of condescension and exclusivity. I acknowledge and agree that sports culture has serious shortcomings.

But dang, as a cultural force the sports industry really has it figured out. I wish that domains that I personally care about more - like the arts, politics, and religion - took note from sports. 

For example, wouldn’t it be an interesting experiment if the “game day experience” of church was more thoughtful for both in-person services and virtually? Or, what if political parties voluntarily hired independent referees to self-regulate “fighting” and “unsportsmanlike conduct” so that elections were less yucky to the average citizen? What if artists were much more accessible to fans and embraced partnerships outside their mediums as much as athletes and sports franchises do? If the arts, religion, and politics took a page from sports organizations, maybe they’d have more cultural relevance and more enthusiastic participation from their constituents.

Either way, I’ve started to appreciate the sports industry more in the past few months. Even if I still roll my eyes at how much cultural bandwidth sports consumes and how my guy friends don’t shut up about the last weekend’s games, I can’t help but respect how sports is designed to be, and truly is, a cultural juggernaut.