bill mccreary image from nhl.com

some nights in hockey — especially if your team has a reputation — referees will blow the whistle a little more than usual. it just happens that other games are merely called tight with little room to interpret the rules. whatever the cause, you never want to have your players cutting ruts to the penalty box.

on the bench during those kinds of games, there’s a common saying that gets passed around among coaches and players: “don’t give them an excuse to put you in the box.” it’s a simple message. even if what would normally not be called an infraction earns you a 2 minute trip to the sin bin, as a player you have to be smarter than that and adapt. you can’t give the referees any excuse to call you for it. keep the sticks down, keep both hands on your stick, and watch the play along the boards.

business can be much the same with clients instead of referees. some might love everything you develop for them or the kinds of services you provide, but others may be insatiable still and find flaws with anything you bring to bear. if you know you’re dealing with the latter, follow the same simple rule: don’t give them an excuse.

don’t give your clients a reason to question the validity of your statements; be sure to practice each and every one of your presentations and always perform the proper amount of due diligence in defining answers to their questions.

don’t give your clients a reason to believe that your products are broken; test, retest, and test some more until you’re absolutely certain that your products or services are programmed properly, or mathematically sound, or have multiple research studies to support them.

don’t give your clients a reason to feel like they can go elsewhere and get the same service; go out of your way to prove your organization’s commitment to them by answering their phone calls promptly, replying to their emails the same day, and generally making them feel like you give a damn about them as customers.

if you’re dealing with a difficult client, don’t complain if they’re bitchy or a hard-ass or they’re calling bad penalties. just don’t give them an excuse to call one in the first place.

image by ortizmj12, flickr artist

one of the higher-ranking members at booz allen has an internal blog titled, “lead, or get out of the way!”

i certainly appreciate his willingness to to pass on the knowledge that he has learned over his distinguished career — and in such a contemporary form — but i have to say that i think it’s wrong.

at least in the innovation age it is.

i’d like to change my colleague’s statement to become “lead, then get out of the way!” and here’s why…

the old notions of what leadership is all about work for the old notions of what business is all about: well defined, well documented, and well understood challenges that are solved through controlled, repeatable processes. but increasingly, the challenges we face in business are open-ended ones that we’ve never faced before. there are no blueprints for solving these problems. there are no repeatable processes. in order to meet these challenges, it’s going to take some ingenuity from a lot of free-thinking, self-motivated individuals.

to lead in such an environment, it’s going to take a different kind of approach from the generally understood form of leadership which is “get behind me, and i’ll take you there“. the ideas and approaches to solving today’s issues don’t come from the top, but rather they bubble up from the bottom. a true leader in the innovation age understands this new dynamic.

leaders will always be responsible for putting their people in the right positions to succeed; that much will always be true. leaders will still be responsible for setting the strategic direction for an organization, and they’ll need to build their organizations to support that vision. this is the crux of leadership in the innovation age: filling your organization with the right people.

but once you’ve articulated your vision and built your organization, it’s time to step away from it all. your job — from here on out — isn’t to lead, but to support. provide the necessary tools for success — be it training, capital, mentorship, or even just lending an ear — and try your very best to not get in the way.

don’t tell people that they have to work on something else other than what they want to be working on. don’t tell people that they can’t use a certain set of tools or technologies. don’t ever balk at an idea because of whom or where it came from. don’t get too focused on what your current strategy is (it might be obsolete now). don’t let yourself, your plan, or your project become bigger or more important than the overall success of your organization.

forget your previous notions of what leadership is because they don’t work anymore. get out of the way! people are going to do some amazing things, if only you’ll let them do it.

don’t spoil it.

“risk aversion is actually very risky behavior because with every moment that you’re looking at risk averseness you are also throwing away a lot of seemingly improbable ideas, but those are the ones that might allow you to make a leap rather than just make an incremental advancement.”

that’s awesome stuff, honestly.

this quote directly spoke to me because of my line of work. one of the specific capabilities that i’m expected to bring to the market as a consultant is an understanding and assessment of risk. the way that we plan our projects looks at risk and focuses on avoiding those situations. when we’re developing ideas and recommendations for our clients we are often looking at the least risky solution of a given set of possible solutions.

i’m thinking now that perhaps this isn’t really the right approach. what good is it to live in the center? true innovation happens at the fringes. perhaps what i should be doing is douse myself in it; i gotta get lousy with risk.

naturally, for all instances this won’t work. there’s certainly a defining line between accepting risk and poor judgement. but keeping one foot across that line might not be such a bad idea. as they say, you gotta be in it to win it.

apple took a certain level of risk when they first introduced their multi-colored line of imacs and ibooks. how would people respond to these candy-colored computers? well, quite positively actually! many people believe it marked the changing point in apple’s history — the tipping point which led to the resurgence of the computer maker in the home computer market.

microsoft took a gigantic risk when they entered the video game console market with their original xbox. the sony playstation was the best-selling console of all time with a large library of games available on the market, including both exclusive sony titles (like the metal gear franchise) and an extensive list of third party titles. with the dawn of the playstation 2, there was really not much reason to expect anything else from the sequel. but where the playstation lagged behind in online multiplayer, the xbox capitalized thanks in part to the creation of their own exclusive franchise — a little thing called halo.

so don’t shy away from risk. identify it, and use it to your advantage. rub risk all over you; roll around in risk. you might just be onto the next big thing.

i wanted to do a quick and dirty case study on the “i want to go to the zoo with roy halladay” brand to see if we can figure out how all of this national exposure came to a simple bolg that someone created on blogger.com (it has since been moved to its own domain).

1. the bolg is really fun.
i think the first thing to look at is of course the fun factor.  things go viral on the internet for only a few reasons: (a) they’re absolutely hilarious, (b) they’re extremely inspirational, (c) it involves justin bieber.  the whole bolg is predicated on wanting to spend a day at the zoo with the phillies right-handed ace, roy halladay.  if that’s not funny enough, just read some of the bolg posts and tweets (especially drunk zwr tweets).  i’m not saying that it’s hilarious to everyone, but it’s comedy certainly has found a market — even bringing sam rosen and tim mccarver to laughter in the fox broadcast booth.  people love to share laughter, and it’s easy to share zoowithroy.

2. it’s over the top.
not only is it funny, but it’s over the top.  is zwr serious about going to the zoo with roy halladay?  yes he certainly is.  but he has taken something serious and made a farce out of it.  it’s not just ridiculous, it’s so ridiculous.  (it’s not just cuttered, it’s so cuttered.)  it’s not a woody allen brand of humor, it’s a will ferrell movie.  certainly woody allen has a lot of fans, but do you walk into a bar on a saturday night and hear people quoting small time crooks?  no.  you hear them quoting talladega nights and anchorman.

3. zwr lives his brand.  everyday.
this one is maybe the most important lesson that we can learn from zoowithroy.com.  its creator lives the brand he’s made.  he doesn’t have a name.  he doesn’t have a face.  he lives his brand — zwr — everyday.  when he tweets, when he writes his bolg posts, even when he’s on television.  it’s zwr 24/7.  everything you see and hear is consistent across every medium.

4. zwr has made his bolg a community.
there are a lot of key pieces to the zwr puzzle to be found in this arena.  everyone knows that a sense of community is really important for the success of a brand.  zwr builds a community around a central idea — going to the zoo with everyone’s favorite phillies pitcher — but he does so through the use of language and inside jokes.  terms like “donkey,” “so cuttered,” “so buttered,” and “moyer’d, yo” are common lexicon for phillies fans now.  the shirts he has created and sells in his online store only reinforce that sense of community.  you walk through the ticket gate and into a phillies game, see red zwr shirts all over the ballpark, and you think to yourself, “awesome, yo!  that donkey is a fan too.”

5. zwr interacts.
i’ll say this one until i’m blue in the face:  social media is supposed to be social.  if you’re not engaging your fans, then you’re not doing things the right way.  is it difficult?  it certainly can be, especially with the more fans you get.  you certainly can’t RT everything you see come across twitter from your followers, and you can’t post every email you get to your blog, but you can post enough that people still feel like they’re being heard.  the days of broadcasting information are over.  viewership includes feedback loops now, and if you’re not monitoring those channels and taking part in them then you’re only hurting yourself.

what can we learn from zwr?
we can learn a lot from zwr and the way he has built his brand.

• you need a good product, and — when talking about the internet especially — humor always wins out.
• don’t be afraid to take your content and your brand over the top because ordinary is nothing anymore, you have to be uncommon.
• building and maintaining your brand is an everyday thing.  to be really successful, your brand has to be on at all times.
• foster a sense of community through shared experiences, inside jokes, common language, etc.
• you have to be a part of your own community.  interact with your fans because they’re what make your brand successful.

i think that a lot of brands are afraid to go to some of these places for certain reasons.  they don’t want to use humor because that would seem unprofessional.  they don’t want to fully invest in their brand because they fear that they might appear to be ‘fake’ during those times they are willing to live their brand (or times when they’re not).  and they don’t like genuine, person-to-person, communication because they’re afraid of saying the wrong things.

if we take a look at those people that are successful, however, you’ll find the reasons why it’s worth taking chances and going to those places.  you’ll find the reasons why it’s worth going to the zoo with roy.

image by prettyfriendship, flickr artist

i like drawing parallels between sports and life.  there are so many lessons that we can learn just by taking a look at things through a different lens.  the beautiful game is no exception.

it’s world cup time right now; for me this is a huge deal.  the only way i can describe it to non-football enthusiasts is to take thanksgiving, wrap it up in christmas, and then get rid of it for 4 years.  it’s massive.

as i’ve watched the games and results unfold this year, i’ve had to rub my eyes in disbelief on more than one occasion.  most notably, for me, the first group-stage match between spain and switzerland where the swiss won with a 1-0 final score.  if you look beyond the score to the match statistics you see today’s lesson.

official stats for the game: spain 63% possession, 12 corner kicks, 24 shots… only 8 on target.  switzerland 37% possession, 3 corner kicks, 8 shots… but 3 made it on target and of course one resulted in that crucial goal.

by all accounts spain has the better squad, from the starting XI all the way through the last player on the bench.  two years ago they were the european champions and rode into this tournament on an incredible streak having lost just 1 match in their last 48, including a 10-0-0 record in qualifying.  as for the swiss.. not so much.  it was a true david versus goliath match-up, and the stats illustrate that perfectly.  spain dominated in every significant category, especially possession.  it’s rather difficult to score goals and win matches when you don’t have control of the ball.

but what the beautiful game teaches us is this, and it’s very important:  make the most of every opportunity.

on the one hand you have the indomitable spainiards who spoiled chance after chance wide of the goal, over the goal, straight into the keeper and had nothing to show for their tremendous effort.  then on the other, you have the very opportunistic swiss who only had 3 real chances to score a goal (two coming on just the one play), and they did.  another match worth bringing up is the italy v. paraguay fixture, where paraguay managed a draw with the defending world champions from 2006 — my boys — gli azzurri. paraguay managed 8 shots, and only 1 on target, with that one shot being the one goal they needed to split the points and help propel their squad into the knockout rounds.

it’s true, in life, that some people have more opportunities than others.  where we’re born, the parents we have (or don’t have), our environment growing up — all of these factors and more have an influence.  some of us are spain and some of us are switzerland, but in the end we all get opportunities to score.

if you have a chance, take it.  spain or switzerland, you have to make the most of your opportunities.

image by Tony M...., flickr artist

i was just at the grocery store picking up supplies for the week.

when i got home, i took out the bottle of vitamin water i had purchased as part of those supplies and cracked the top.  the flavor was called “spark” and was one that i hadn’t tried before, so — being new to me — i held up the bottle to read the label.

to my amusement, the text was upside-down.  i turned the bottle to read it and, the label — the text i was reading — talked about the action which i had just performed (turning the bottle upside-down).  it closed with a clever joke, and it was at that point that i realized what just happened.

i was having fun!

fun from a plastic vitamin water bottle?  yes.  (well, more specifically it was the label itself.)  so i started to ask myself a very simple question: why, when we create products, do we always leave out the fun factor?  when did we all become mr. soggy pants?

it’s not like we forgot how to have fun, but it’s just not part of our development process when we’re creating new products.  really, what do you think of?  what questions are you trying to answer?

• how many clicks is it going to take for the user to get to [insert feature or function]?
• how do we increase performance to make this run faster?
• how can we combine similar tasks into one process?
• how do we hydrate athletes better?
• what fabrics are going to be lightest and provide the least wind resistance?
• how can we structure our footwear to provide the most high ankle support?
• how are we going to package everything together so that our clients/users/consumers are going to have fun?

yeah, that last one doesn’t come up during brainstorming sessions often, does it?  why not?

we want all those things, yes.  i want a web system that’s going to be easy to use, fast to work in, and provide me with results that i expect.  i want a sports drink that’s going to hydrate me during hot summer days in southern virginia.  but i also want to have fun.  i want to know there were actual people behind the science and development, not some end product that does what it says it will that was produced by a robotic, corporate, dull, senseless process.

the next time you’re going to chemistry up the new generation of sports drinks, or are looking for new features to add to your web service, don’t forget to add the fun.  if people can get the same or comparable end results from two products, but the one is corporate and dull whilst the other is fresh and fun — people will almost always opt for fun.

image courtesy of the herb brooks training center

“you can’t be common, the common man goes nowhere; you have to be uncommon.” — legendary hockey coach, herb brooks

of all of herb brooks’ quotes, i love this one the most.  i don’t know that it’s something i do intentionally, or if it’s something in my natural programming, but i don’t do common work.

over the last week or so, i’ve heard some pretty high praises from my client.  the program manager said of me in a management meeting, “john scardino, that dude is phenomenal.”  and just about a week after that comment was made, another member of my client’s organization said, “not to put any pressure on you, but you’re going to save [this project].”

i only know how to do things one way: the best way that i know how to do it.  so, to me, i’m not so sure that i’m really doing anything that’s truly special.  i see coworkers all the time logging long hours and doing a lot of great things.  the stuff my officemate, m. gregory white I, is doing makes me shake my head in astonishment.  i say it no matter where i go:  there are better people than me.  but there’s something that seems to separate me from the rest.

i’m uncommon.

i do a lot of the same things that other people on my team do.  i build models (sometimes fairly complex ones) in microsoft excel, just as they all do.  i build powerpoint decks, just as everyone else in booz allen.  what i don’t do is use default formatting.  and what i don’t do is take the easy way out.

i could create models that illustrate how things will work once in the system, but i don’t.  i create models that work now, outside of the system.  if you expect drop-down menus with options online, you’re going to get the same features in excel.  i could create images in powerpoint that use the default formatting, but i don’t.  i create slides that present information in a way that makes more sense, keeps clutter down, and looks good in the process.

having recently passed my 1 year mark at booz allen, i’ve been trying to reflect on what i’ve accomplished over that 12 month span — something that i can look at and say, “you know what, i’m doing something right.”  and i can say that the one thing i can hang my hat on is influence.  i’ve been able to influence the other members of my team.  my supervisor has learned as much from me as i’ve learned from him, and every day i’m seeing my officemate and other coworkers on the team starting to introduce bits of my work into theirs.  i see them starting to become uncommon.

i hate two words more than any:  ”default,” and “common.”  because it means that you’re being wholly unoriginal.  you have to be original.  and honestly that’s the best thing that i can say about a person — that they are original.  because as herb brooks said, ‘the common man goes nowhere.’

i can sit around and do common work, but frankly booz allen pays me too much money to do so.  they deserve better from me, and i deserve better from myself.  i do uncommon work because in the end, that’s what separates me from the rest.  there are other people who are smarter than i am, who are better than i am, and who are more talented than i am — but i’ve been able to reach the levels of success that i have strictly because i do things differently.

and because a year ago, there was a man who took a chance on hiring me.  thank you, brian.  you’ve helped entirely change my career and my life.  i am eternally grateful.

but how do you measure leadership?
there’s no school, no collegiate program, no certifying authority that says you are a registered leader.  there are no crash courses, no study guides, no ‘leadership for dummies’ book that has all the information needed to be a great leader.  actually, there is a leadership for dummies… but still!

some people measure a leader by their accomplishments, but is this really a good method?  given unlimited resources, anyone can accomplish anything.  success is as much a product of your people as it is your ability to lead them.  it can come because of one’s leadership, or in spite of it.

other people measure a leader by the number of his or her followers, but surely this can’t be a good method – can it?  people can be front-runners and only follow someone because it’s the popular choice.  then what happens when things get tough and popular opinion changes?

some would put the onus of leadership on the shoulders of the old veterans; the ones who have been around a while.  but certainly there has been no shortage of successful enterprises led by young guns.  you’d be wrong to immediately discount someone based on age alone.

so how do you measure leadership?  maybe leadership, like some things, you just know when you see it.

when you set goals, you want to make them SMART:

• specific
• measurable
• attainable
• relevant
• time-bound*

example of a really bad goal: “lose weight this year.” first of all, losing weight is a stupid goal to begin with.  most people don’t realize that muscle weighs more than fat does, and working out might cause you to actually gain weight.  you should be looking for a better resolution.

example of a really good goal: “run in four 5k events for charity this year.” it’s specific, not just a random notion of weight loss.  it’s measurable because you can mark off events as the days pass through the year;  make it one run each quarter.  it’s certainly attainable.  asking yourself to run 4 marathons might not be, but a 5k is much more manageable and takes less time to train to.  it’s not an ‘always on’ kind of goal and allows yourself some wiggle room.  it’s relevant because your overall mission is to be healthier.  your soul will feel better too because you’re doing it all for charity.  and that asterisk i placed above is the most important for making goals… although i don’t necessarily see it in the same way as the textbooks do.  instead of time-bound i say to make that T in SMART stand for ‘tell everybody you know’.  telling other people puts that goal up-front and center.  you can’t hide from it because you just might have someone say to you in june, “hey, i thought you were running those 5k things.  what happened to that?”

so when it comes down to business, are you making SMART goals for your organization?  for yourself?  for your career?

it’s a new year, and there are no excuses.  come up with smart goals, write them down, and make sure you’re taking steps towards getting them every day.  start with something specific, measure your progress, make sure it’s feasible, ensure that it’s in keeping with your overall mission, and tell everybody about it.  you haven’t failed in the past because you weren’t good enough; it’s because you weren’t reaching for the right goals.

image by csitscenter, flickr collection

i was in a meeting recently with a senior associate in my firm, and spent the vast amount of the 4 hours we had together furiously taking notes.  unfortunately i couldn’t write as fast as he was talking, so i ended up not capturing all of the information that was there for the taking.  for the most part, the vast majority of the time was spent discussing our earned value management capabilities at booz allen.  we did talk some about business in general and building capabilities that can grow and expand, and it was from this discussion that my largest, boldest, “even used a highlighter on it” note came from.  he said something to me that made a lot of sense:

always plan on success.

it’s a great quote.  you may mistakingly take it as an inspirational message, but that’s not at all what he intended.  it was actually meant to scare us, and remind us that we need to be prepared to succeed.  to be successful in business, it’s not enough to have a good idea.  even having passion and being a hard worker isn’t enough.  when you’re trying to stand up or start up something brand new, you have to have certain things in place to handle the change in environment.  nothing can kill a good idea quite like being unprepared to succeed.  if you aren’t ready to expand with the business, you’ll undoubtedly experience growing pains – much like wearing a shoe that’s two sizes too small.

the main question you’ll want to ask yourself, “if 5 clients called me today, would i be able to provide this product to them?”  here’s a simple checklist that should have you on the right track to answering that question with a “yes.”

• do you have the right people in the right markets?
  business is about having the right contacts and having those people in the right places to get your foot in the door.  securing a $12 million contract is going to be difficult if you don’t have someone helping you out from the inside.  identify these connectors in your organization and get their buy-in with your new business venture because they’re probably going to be the ones who make the first sales pitch to your prospective clients.
• do you have the right people to do the heavy lifting?
  you need to have a people strategy for the actual work as well.  identify the skills and roles that will be needed in order to roll out new business to your clients and make a list of them.  do you already have people on your immediate team that fit into those roles?  if not, can you quickly obtain those resources either through new hire acquisitions or by borrowing from another team within your organization?
• do you have the right resources to onboard new employees?
  along with the item above – if you are bringing new people onto your team or into your organization, you need to also have the right resources to train them and get them up to speed on how to deliver the expected results to the client.  they need to understand their roles and responsibilities as well.  you need their buy-in too, just as you’d expect from anyone else.
• do you have the right resources to make a splash in the market?
  now that you have the right contacts, and the right people strategy, and the resources available to ramp up production of your new product or services – you have to ensure that your marketing materials are set.  you should have an ‘executive summary’ brief developed that gives a high-level overview of the product or service and the benefits to the client at the enterprise level as well as the user level.  it’s also important to have a brief that you can take to the user level of the client’s organization that shows why they want what you’re selling.  are there conferences you can speak at?  are there white papers in your organization you can help co-author?  identify areas to get your name out there.

once you have the questions above answered, you can begin in earnest to develop your business.  it’s always fun thinking up new business and being a part of it from the start.  brainstorming and whiteboarding and cocktail napkin doodling are definitely the stories that people tell when people ask the question, “where did you get this new idea?”  what many people don’t see are the strategic moves that happen behind those romantic stories of serendipity.  it’s important that you don’t become enchanted with the stories of overnight success and put in the effort to build the foundations of long-term growth.  always plan on success, because it just might happen.