Tom Asacker

You are already naked

"Almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart." - Steve Jobs

Don't wait for your brush with death. Have the courage to follow your heart and create your own exciting life, instead of living someone else's.

2011: Breakout, Breakthrough, or Breakdown

Forget about the reality of the economy. Focus on your reality.

I’ll never forget an enlightening conversation with college friends back in the economic heydays of the 90s. It has stuck with me for the past fifteen years and often helps inform my decision-making, especially during uncertain times like these.

As we relaxed and enjoyed a Labor Day cookout, and our good health and fortune, I spurted out that I was, once again, venturing into the great marketplace unknown. At the time we were all disengaged yet seemingly secure in executive positions with established organizations, unquestioningly embracing the status quo.

Upon hearing my news, one bewildered friend glanced at me, shook his head from side to side, and professed, “I could never do what you do.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You know,” he answered, pausing to gulp his beer. “Risking it all.”

“Risking it all?” I replied. “It’s you who are ‘risking it all.’ And for what it’s worth,” I continued. “I could never do what you guys are doing.”

What they were doing, what many are still doing, was playing it safe instead of playing it with passion. And by “playing it with passion,” I don’t mean “following” ones passion.

I’ve never “followed my passion,” because, frankly, I have no idea what my singular passion is. Perhaps it’s why I’m so amused by comedian Mitch Hedberg’s absurd declaration: “I’m sick of following my dreams, man. I’m just going to ask where they’re going and hook up with ‘em later.”

But why follow them? Why hook up with them? Why not be the leader of your life and let your dreams hook up with you? Don’t be stuck. Don’t be confused. It’s really simple: Your life’s purpose is the quality of your life’s experiences. Living life with passion is following your passion.

Unfortunately, most people believe that passion will mysteriously appear, or that the purpose of life is the pursuit of comfort. They view life as a waiting game with a series of problems to avoid, rather than an exciting game with the clock ticking and opportunities to pursue.

Comfort is an illusion; a fantasy that imagines freedom from pain and suffering if only we stay still and avoid change. What most fail to realize, typically until it’s very late in the game, is that change happens to us whether we like it or not.

G. K. Chesterton wrote, “If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution.”

Without intervention, without progressive change, without revolution, everything in our work and our lives gets worse. Our bodies degrade, our relationships fizzle, our jobs disappear, and our ideas become obsolete (it has happened to countless organizations and to most of my friends). Face it: We are either breaking out of our spirit-sucking routines and breaking through to new insights and experiences, or we are breaking down.

When the opportunity to step out of your comfort zone screams at you in 2011, and it will definitely come, take it. Say no to the sure thing and say yes to a creative challenge. Say no to short-term, comfort producing activities, and say yes to fear and passion.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” Lose your footing in 2011, experience life fully, and perhaps you’ll find yourself again.

My best to you and to those dear to you this holiday season, and in the coming New Year.

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The art of non-persuasion

I recently watched an interview with the great screenwriter Robert McKee where he made clear that, in his mind, there are three ways for business people to persuade someone, and of the three "story" is the most effective:

1. Rhetoric - "Fact, fact, this authority, that statistic, fact, etc. Therefore, you should believe this because I just proved it."
   
   
2. Story - "Take those facts and dramatize them into a story and you involve them 'as if' in the story. And then they come out believing, because the story has emotionally persuaded them."
   
   
3. Coercion - "You can bully people. You can seduce them. You can bribe them. You can play with their heads in various ways."

McKee went on to explain the problems with rhetoric and coercion:

"The trouble with coercion in that it is successful, but only in the short term. And then it will come around and kick you in the ass, if you misuse people like that in business."

"The trouble with rhetoric is that the person you're trying to persuade has their own statistics and their own authorities and their own facts. And while you're trying to persuade them, they're arguing against you. Also, they know from their experience that when you use rhetoric, you are concealing all of the negative evidence. You're arguing only from those points that would support your arguments."

Thus his conclusion, and point of view, that story is the best way to persuade people.

But there's a critical unasked question hidden in the interview, one that changes the dynamics of the challenge and, subsequently, of the business relationship. And it's this: Why try to persuade people in the first place? Why not lay it all out there, albeit in a transparent, expressive and artful way, and let people convince themselves and influence each other?

Like rhetoric and coercion, aren't we catching on to storytelling as a means of persuasion? When the President references a particular person in the heartland struggling to keep the family business afloat, don't we think: "I know why he's saying that; he's trying to tug at my heartstrings. He wants me to adopt his policies and point of view." I certainly do.

In Opportunity Screams, I wrote:

"People's attitudes about an idea are changed in two primary ways: through their active participation (behavior-induced) and through persuasion, where you use semantic and symbolic means to convince them to change. 

Persuasion was a perfectly fine marketplace approach when people were predisposed to believe various claims, both overt and subtle ones, and when commercial messages were welcomed and consciously assimilated. But not so much today. The marketplace has changed."

What hasn't changed is that story remains the most influential form of communication. But not McKee's version, which is more properly referred to as "storytelling." Rather, it's the story we tell ourselves and each other about our experiences with organizations, products and people that carry the most weight.

Resist the urge to tell more stories in 2011. Instead, create something special that others will want to tell stories about. There's a difference.

Are you willing to be confused?

If not, please don't read my new book, Opportunity Screams.

I'm being quite sincere; the book will shake up the fundamental way you look at succeeding in the marketplace. For example (page 40 - 41):

"One of the most pernicious myths in the marketplace of ideas is that the Door to Interest is opened with media exposure and salesmanship. Dean Kamen believed it. Most politicians rely on it. And Google makes billions appealing to it.

Why does it persist? Because there are a lot of people whose imagined futures, self-worth, and livelihoods are tied up in that myth. They suffer from what Nassim Taleb, author of the influential book The Black Swan, calls the 'narrative fallacy,' the notion that people sometimes explain events by cooking up stories - by reverse engineering an explanation.

The cooked-up story about this Door is that people become interested in something, in an idea, because they're repeatedly exposed to it or are otherwise conditioned or convinced to take interest. And then their interest in the idea eventually leads to desire for the idea.

The fact is very much the opposite. As author and neurologist Robert A. Burton points out, 'In order to pursue a new thought, we must feel the thought is worth pursuing before we have any supporting evidence or justification.' In other words, desire stimulates interest.

Despite the increasing flood of advertising dollars and the explosion of media consumption, most ideas languish. They never move beyond the Door to Engagement, which is why eight of ten new ideas, and nine of ten entrepreneurial ventures, struggle for significance.'

See what I mean?

"Until you are willing to be confused about what you already know, what you know will never grow bigger, better, or more useful." - Milton Erickson

A marketplace theory of everything

When I moved into my office a little over four years ago, there were three Italian sandwich establishments within a one-block radius (Fortunately for me, there was also a YMCA within walking distance). The subs at all three (or hoagies, heroes, grinders, torpedoes) were all above average in quality and competitively priced. It was truly difficult to tell one Italian with the works from another.

Fast-forward to 2010 and the number of sub shops has doubled, without a corresponding increase in population. This scenario is being played out in virtually every category of products and services; from coffee to computers, from subs to apps. Web-based business models, especially "info products" and "content marketing," provide an extreme example of the problem.

The problem, or course, is one of abundance: abundance of information, abundance of technology, abundance of ideas. This wealth of opportunity has resulted in too many ideas chasing too few, very well-informed and extremely overloaded customers. The consequent shift in power has put some serious hurt on the growth plans of even the most "customer-centric" companies as they struggle to understand the new value equation of these turbulent times.

Well, here it is. A simple Theory of Everything in business: in an information rich, oversupplied economy, customer feelings drive purchase decisions, growth and profitability. If people "feel" that Wal-Mart's products are as valuable as yours, they'll save some time and money and "feel" good about that decision. If they "feel" that they’re getting ripped off on the excessive price of a brand of razor blades, they'll eventually become perturbed enough to spitefully switch and "feel" good about it. Persuasive advertising be damned!

Are you competing in a market category oversupplied with interchangeable products or services? Can customers easily (remember, this is subjective) switch from you to a competitor and get just about the same rational and emotional benefits? Do you find yourself frequently competing on price?

Welcome to the feelings economy, where planning what to make and how to market has changed dramatically - and permanently.

It used to make sense to pay attention to your industry and benchmark your direct competitors. It used to be enough to learn and diligently apply the latest sales and marketing tactics and techniques. It used to be prudent to treat business like war and try to kill your competitors. But not any longer.

It should be apparent to you by now that the status quo is not working. Your new imperative is to assess and appeal to your customers' feelings . . . period. Feelings are the basis for all profit generating consumption in a market at the mercy of customer choice. Focus on feelings, especially the subtle ones that customers themselves cannot articulate.

What are feelings, anyway? Let's keep it simple. "Feelings" refers to a very specific quality: pleasantness, unpleasantness, or neutrality in an experience. Pleasant feelings - ease of use, excitement, fun, reward, increased self-esteem, etc. - habitually condition desire. Unpleasant feelings - pain, effort required, decreased self-esteem, etc. - condition aversion. And neutral feelings condition forgetfulness.

Given this definition, the purpose of every business in an oversupplied market should be to increase customers' pleasant feelings while minimizing their unpleasant ones. This goal should be systematically applied to every interaction a customer has with a product, a company, its outlets, platforms, communication, or representatives. A comprehensive feelings analysis should be applied to every business process - to your brand!

For several decades, the mantra of marketing has been "USP" and "features and benefits." This traditional view, however, concerns itself with a rational, analytical view of value. In an oversupplied market with an incomprehensible amount of conflicting information, rational decision-making is a myth. So instead of a Unique Selling Proposition, start thinking about your Unique Feelings Proposition.

Start paying attention to what people do (which is the best indication of how they feel), not what they say. And realize that the more choices there are and the more complex life becomes, the more people make decisions on what "feels" right to them and not on some objective truth.

The US economic tide has receded and there are a lot more brand boats in the sea. Growth is no longer guaranteed. Take a look at how strangely the stock market has been behaving. Even though companies are exceeding their earnings projections, share prices are stalled. Why? Because investors care more about future earnings, and they too are having a difficult time seeing the growth potential

I wrote it in Opportunty Screams, and it's worth repeating here: "Great success is the product of a great passion, a passion for sweating the small stuff and adding value to every product, every serivce, and every interaction. Value delivered - value that causes people to become interested in an idea and feel proud about their decisions - is the meaning and purpose of any successful idea."

Welcome to the feelings economy.

Can you taste the tension?

The air is heavy with a growing debate about the nature of the marketplace and the purpose of business and work. You can find evidence in the data (employee engagement is woeful), in the mainstream media, and sprinkled throughout reader comments on blogs and in social networks.

Here's an example from a recent letter to the editor of Fast Company magazine:

Not Lovin' It

"Super Style Me" left my blood boiling. As McDonald's points out, the designs from this $2.4 billion makeover "will lose freshness" and "have to be updated more frequently." That's a lot of remodeling, retooling, and waste to keep what should be a dying sector going. If McDonald's spent $2.4 billion on improving food quality, sourcing local ingredients, and improving the communities within which it operates, that would be designing for the future.

Paul Janowitz
Austin, Texas

Here's a contrasting sentiment from a comment made on a recent HBR blog post on collaborative innovation by Michael Schrage:

Here's another example of the HBR espousing too much theoria and not enough praxis. I've been a business owner for a while now and let me tell you there's far too much attention given to peripheral issues such as these. Talk of "emotional branding", "open book management" and "innovation partners" - trivial phrases in most cases. Because, in the final analysis, business is about sales and profit. Period

Eric Bryant, Director, Microtank

Theoria or praxis? Philosophy or action? Improving communities or increasing profits? Making a difference or making a buck?

For most publicly traded and private equity owned businesses, like McDonald's, making a buck (shareholder returns) drives strategic thinking and both short and long-term initiatives. A rational business case can be made (and most certainly has been) that redesigning McDonald's restaurants will appeal to, and thus attract and retain, more customers. More customers (or more customer visits) at a certain anticipated cost over time equals more profit. Case closed.

On the other hand, who can say that sourcing local products and investing in the community will increase profits? In fact, it will take time and money to figure it out, and will most likely increase costs. The bottom line? Unless customers pay more, margin growth will suffer. Case precarious, at best.

Will customers change? Will they pay more?

Those seem to be THE strategic marketplace questions of our time. Because a future focused squarely on cost cutting, efficiency gains, and lower pricing is an absurd race to the bottom.

Consider fast food. How much cheaper can we make and deliver a hamburger? I know, let's squeeze the soul out of service with more assembly line processes, cut worker pay and health care to the legal minimum (oh yeah . . . we've already done that), and use advanced genetic engineering and automation to fatten and slaughter more animals more quickly.

Who benefits? Shareholders? Perhaps, if viewed extremely myopically. Shareholders are people too; people who live in communities, people with children looking for a decent wage and meaningful work, people with health concerns, people who coexist with other living creatures.

Don't delude yourself. We all suffer from this meaningless race. In the long term, we end up with nothing of value. Even money is inherently valueless; its use in the community is what gives it value . . . and meaning.

Which is why I was inspired by a short piece in that same issue of Fast Company magazine about a company that sells $4,000 luggage. I know what you're probably thinking: "Who the hell needs a $4,000 suitcase? That kind of conspicuous consumption is what's wrong with today's modern marketplace."

That was my first thought. But I was wrong. And so are you. Buying a Brunello Cucinelli leather trolly suitcase is not conspicuous consumption. It's not about keeping up with the Joneses. It's about caring about beauty, and caring for the Joneses, the Smiths, the Rossis, and the Hernándezes.

Here's how Fast Company describes Cucinelli's business and philosophy:

Thirty-two years ago, Brunello Cucinelli entered the fashion world with 30 cashmere sweaters and an admittedly bizarre message of luxury helping humanity. "I had a dream to make the life of my employees more dignified," he says. As his eponymous firm has grown into a $200 million business producing everything from ready-to-wear to accessories like this hand-stitched, water-resistant leather suitcase, he has stayed committed to that vision.

At first glance, it may be hard to understand how a $3,868 piece of luggage helps the world, until you realize that Cucinelli's business has been the saving grace of Solomeo, a village of fewer than 500 residents in central Italy. Cucinelli employs the majority of the town and keeps local button manufacturers and leather and cashmere providers in business. He lunches with his workers daily and commits 20% of company profits to humanitarian work. He has restored a medieval castle and built a community theater. And his philanthropy extends stateside; he's renovating a children's park on New York's Bleecker Street. "I want to embellish the world around me, and this way, my employees feel part of a project that won't last just three or five years, but 500 or 1,000 years," Cucinelli says. "I don't feel like the owner of Solomeo; I am just the custodian."

Our marketplace needs more $4,000 suitcases like Cucinelli's. We need to care more and to pay more for products and services like his. We're all custodians of our communities; each and every one of us. And, believe it (and like it) or not, we enhance those communities in large part by the decisions we make with our wallets in the marketplace.

In my latest book, I wrote: "Think about why you do what you do each day. Is it simply to grow your financial wealth, so that someday you can escape from people and relax with your grill and your pool, your gadgets and games? Or do you see each day for what it truly is; an opportunity to add a spark of meaning, caring and passion to life and to the lives of others? Are you simply tolerating today, so that you can eventually arrive at a better tomorrow? Or do you realize that today is your life, and that it’s the quality of your trip with others that really matters?"

The marketplace is changing. There's tension in the air. I can taste it. Can you?