image by scootie, flickr artist

i like trance music. a lot. in fact i’d say that i truly love it. the reasons why are many, but aside from being good music it’s the trance community surrounding it which makes it so special to me.

in a musical genre categorized by well defined characteristics, the level of innovation and collaboration is off the charts. to use such common musical elements and structures as other artists and rearrange them to form entirely new tracks takes a great deal of creativity. add to your original mix countless mashups and remixes from other artists and your EP is — the vast majority of the time — largely filled with someone else’s work.

what i love so much about trance is that these artists not only create their music but they actively invite people to take it and make it better — to put their own spin on it (sorry for the pun).

the business world could use a little trance influence.

you never see the giants of industry partnering together to create something special. when was the last time you saw facebook and google working hand-in-hand on anything? or microsoft and apple? or sony and samsung? for that matter, sometimes we even have trouble getting our own internal teams to collaborate together — like information security and the end users.

we were always taught that competition makes everyone better, and there may be some truth to that. business has no doubt followed in that tradition ever since history can remember. but what if we took the time to collaborate a little more? what if we partnered more between business and charity for instance? what kind of mashups and remixes could we make?

that would be some kind of beautiful music.

image from softsupplier.com

there has been a bit more attention paid to video games since it became a multi-billion dollar industry. and even though sales were down last year, those figures don’t include many of the emerging facets of the industry such as downloadable content (game add-ons and such) or mobile gaming (angry birds alone raked in $12m). with that much money flowing around, it’s hard to ignore it.

but what if we didn’t just analyze video games as a business and instead thought about how business can be more like a video game? jane mcgonigal gave a fantastic talk at TED in 2010 pointing out what gamers are good at, and why they spend so much time playing them. why not try shaping our businesses to engage and leverage these ‘virtuosos’ as jane calls them?

one of the great things about video games is the constant feeling of progress towards a goal. but it’s not just the progress, it’s also the measurement of that progress — many times in terms of experience points, or XP. it’s what keeps people playing. “i only need 200 more XP before i level up!” and that’s where i think we have things backwards in business today.

we like to use salary as a reward for hard work, but in considering rewards you must also consider the social implications of them. after all, as humans, we are social creatures. i don’t know why, but it seems that business often forgets about this fact. salary is nice, and financial rewards do certainly help because someone has to pay the bills. however, when you look at it, no one really knows how much another person earns. you can make assumptions based on various factors, but still, you’re never really 100% certain unless that person has told you. and when yearly performance reviews occur, and someone gets a bump in pay, it’s generally done behind closed doors with just that person and their manager. not much of a reward, if you ask me.

but when people are promoted, it’s often made public some way, and those persons are greeted by co-workers with smiles, congratulations, and handshakes (i prefer fist bumps) — all of those social things that make people feel good about themselves. but because there are so few levels for people to climb in business, it’s not a feedback mechanism that people get very often.

in games, however, it’s not uncommon to have 20 levels or more for you to strive towards. each action of yours gaining you XP, and each level up earning you more and more options and bonuses. all along the way, you discover things — in treasure chests, or getting to a hard-to-reach place, etc. — things that you can use to help you in your next quest or to make your character different from the others. why can’t we do some of the same things in business?

primary author on a deliverable: 5XP. give a presentation to the client: 10XP. go outside your workstream to help solve a problem: 20XP. speak at an industry event: 250XP. be the keynote speaker at an industry event: 500XP. all different scales of things that we do on a normal basis, we add on a measurement to, and in order to get to the next level, you have to gain enough XP. since you know how much XP it takes to get to the next level, you know exactly what you need to be doing to level up. and with each level getting progressively harder to move to the next, it’s a simple formula: if you want to level up, get the biggest XP items or be prepared to put in lot of time taking out a lot of small items. it becomes a motivator to get people to seek out industry events to speak at, or to spend time developing that new idea.

but we can’t just have the standard 4 levels of hierarchy, we need a lot of these levels. we need 20 levels for people to strive towards because if there’s too much distance between the one they’re currently in and the next level up, they’ll just be discouraged and feel defeated; that it’s not even worth trying for. why is it that there are so many people stuck in professional levels and never make middle-management? is it because they don’t have the ability, or is it because there’s no motivation to get there, or because they feel it’s a gap too far?

constant feedback. social rewards. understanding progress towards a goal. earning things better than what’s provided by default. these are all things that make video games so appealing. these are the things that motivate us as gamers to keep picking up that controller, even when you’ve failed the mission on multiple occasions. it’s that intrinsic drive to prove our mastery, to prove that we’re capable of being that level 20, that keeps us in the game. it’s these very qualities that are blatantly missing from corporate life as we know it.

image source: treycopeland.com

i have to say this right up front: malcolm gladwell is my boy. i’ve read his books, i’ve watched his talks, and i’ve read his other pieces in the new yorker (his article on concussions in football is a must-read). so, with that being said, it pains me to say this but i think gladwell was wrong in his assumptions about the inability of twitter and facebook to rally people around an idea to promote social change.

in his recent article for the new yorker, gladwell states: “the revolution will not be tweeted”. i say, if the revolution will not be tweeted, ask gap how their new logo redesign efforts went.

now i know that malcolm gladwell is talking specifically about social activism more so than he is about anything else. he even mentions that social media can be used quite well for other situations that don’t really require people to risk much of themselves in order to do it. but if that alone isn’t a revolution, then i don’t know what is. because if there’s one thing that we’ve seen from gap dumping their logo redesign (and from facebook bending to the will of the user community and making changes to their privacy settings on multiple occasions), it’s that the authority is no longer the authority anymore.

organizations are responsible to more than their boardroom now. they’re responsible to their clients; they’re responsible to their people; they’re responsible to just about anyone that owns an internet-connected device. public opinion has always been important, but even more so in such a web-integrated world where one person’s tweet can turn into a meme that instantly spreads across the globe. it’s a lesson that organizations are going to have to learn, and learn quickly, if they’re going to be successful in this new world.

the revolution will not be tweeted? think again, gladwell.

it already has.

image by steve.grosbois, flickr artist

you work for 32 hours from monday through thursday.  you wake up on friday morning with an extra spring in your step, looking forward to the upcoming weekend.  but today isn’t your ‘normal’ friday; today is different.

instead of working on client deliverables, or manning the grill at a local restaurant, or waiting tables down at the pub, you get 8 hours to do whatever you’d like to do.

what would you do with it?

would you start work on that big idea you’ve always had?  would you enroll in a culinary course in your area?  would you learn how to brew your own beer? … or would you play farmville on facebook?  or sleep in until noon?  or drink some free cold ones that your friends bring you out back behind the bar?

if you’re an employer, why not give your employees 8 hours a week and see what they do with it?  trust me, you’ll recognize the ones who are worthwhile and the ones who aren’t very quickly.

then, invest heavily in the ones that are because they’re going to take your organization places.  they’re natural born world-shakers.

image by flickr artist, Dunechaser

there’s a distinct difference between a solution-based approach and a problem-based approach.  let me give you an example of what i mean.

i was watching a show on pbs that was talking about battleground mobility — from the time of egyptian chariots through to today’s modern, technologically advanced tanks.  i found the bit about the development of the tank to be quite interesting.

during the first world war, trench warfare had become the status quo.  miles and miles of fronts in europe and russia covered in 6ft wide trenches.  it made fighting a conventional land battle extremely deadly, and the allies were finding out just how difficult it would be to take down the german war machine.  until a technologically curious winston churchill had an idea.

churchill had seen armored cars and thought about how they could be implemented to provide cover for infantry forces whilst they attacked the german trenches.  ”little willie” was born.  after some unsuccessful attempts where “little willie” ran into a few ditches and couldn’t climb its way back out, it was modified into “the flying scotsman” which solved those issues.  the mark II was utilized to some success on the battlefield and helped to spur the innovations which have led to today’s marvels of engineering.

the developers of the first tank took a problem-based approach.  problem: “these 6ft wide trenches are literally killing us!”  to answer that problem, they needed an armored vehicle that could ride over muddy grounds, that could get itself in and out of ditches, and could traverse a 6ft gap in the ground with no issues.  it was that approach which led to the development of the british mark I, mark II, and the entire lineage of tanks from every nation around the world.  but if you had asked the generals in charge of fighting that war what their solution would be to winning the battle, they’d most certainly have said, “we need more troops! every man that jumps out of our trenches is getting killed.”

you’re asking the wrong question when you take a solution-based approach.  ”what do you need?”  it lends itself to the wrong line of thinking because people don’t always know what they need, they only think they do or — worse yet — think they know what they want.  as consultants, when we take a solution-based approach, often times we end up developing systems and solutions that provide little to no value.  the best way to combat that is through approaching clients in a different way.

don’t ask what people need.  don’t ask what people want.  ask them what they do.  interview them, and interview a handful of them.  what do you do every day?  what reports do you have to provide on a regular basis?  what outcome are you looking for?  what tools do you have available to you right now?  how long does it currently take you to accomplish your tasks?

after you interview your clients, cross-reference what they gave for their answers.  you’ll find the problem underneath it all.  and from there — knowing the problem and all the other factors that may constrain your solution(s) — you can start to formulate a strategy for the way ahead.

just look out for the ditches.

image by unclebumpy, flickr artist

i recently came across a post on wired.com’s science section about american bullfrogs and their leaping ability.   in short: when in the wild, bullfrogs have a certain expectation of maximum leaping distance which scientists have previously measured at 4.3 meters. however, at a county fair in california’s calaveras county their bullfrogs have been known to leap over 7 meters when involved in their frog jumping competitions.  that’s quite an improvement!

in business, it seems everyone is focused on collaboration; on finding synergies and maximizing productivity.   but what if we increasingly looked not towards collaboration on our teams, but towards competition?  how would the game change then?

instead of placing an employee or a team on a specific task, why not place two employees or two teams on a task and have each work independently of each other?  for the duration of the task in question, have periodic reviews — once every week or two weeks depending on the length of the overall task — where each presents their current progress.  they will see what the other is doing allowing them to recognize where they’re stronger, identify areas for improvement, and (most importantly) learn from the other.

this kind of competition may hurt burn rates on billable hours for a project but it might just be worth it when you take a look at the big picture.  this friendly jousting between employees working on the same task could lead to more innovation, better products for the client, different options for the client, and an incentive system that’s actually based on something (winning ‘competitions’).

i understand that this method might not work in all situations, but if you can find a way to implement it just think about how much your organization and clients could benefit.

don’t you want to find out how far can you jump?

image by Reini68, flickr artist

when was the last time you had a good idea?  one of those eureka moments?

i remember back in college my roommate and i were discussing which of the honey bunches of oats ‘flavors’ we enjoyed the most.  after trying pretty much all of them, i told him with conviction that hbo with strawberries was my favorite.  i said:  ”the thing i love about it is how your milk turns strawberry-flavored afterwards.”

immediately i thought, ‘hey — they actually make that stuff!’ and i shouted out with such joy, “dude!  what if i make strawberry milk, and then pour that into my hbo with strawberries?  it’s double the strawberry!  how awesome would that be?!”

the very next time we went to the grocery store i bought some strawberry nesquik mix and put my theory to the test.  naturally it ended up being horrendous, but it was still a good idea at the time.

the reason i mention this is because good ideas (even the ones that fail) are almost always a product of some kind of external stimulation.  these ideas come to you through conversations, through listening, through watching other people.  this is why working in distributed teams causes such problems for so many.

this notion of “you have your job, i have my job, and we’ll call each other every tuesday and discuss the status of things,” doesn’t work.  it separates out the work being done from the actual creative process.  as leaders and managers, it’s important that we create environments that support the creative process rather than work against it.

it’s not always possible to have people in the same geography — i think we all know that.  business is global, and so too must your workforce be.  but we can certainly provide them with the tools they need to become better collaborators.  let your employees join and use social networks.  join them on those networks.  become part of the process yourself.  stop using email as your primary means of communicating work.  hold more video conferences and web meetings with visuals.

for those who are co-located, don’t put them in cubicle farms.  give them offices and more than enough spaces where they can come together with their thoughts, challenges, and proposals.  give them time in the day to work on something that’s entirely non-work related.  pro-bono work that they want to work on.  lessons learned from those efforts will carry over into the billable ones.

stop treating people as if they’re just cogs that can be placed anywhere.  find out who works well together and put them in the same space.  if it means moving someone from the 1st floor of your building to the 4th floor, then so be it.  throw those old “organizational standards” out the window because they don’t work anymore.

ideas do not occur in a bubble; so stop putting your employees in them.

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.

not bad, right?  wrong.

the new house has popcorn ceilings with … sparkles? in it.  and both the downstairs as well as the back room upstairs have floor to ceiling mirrors which one can only assume is to ‘make the room look larger’.  to me, it all makes the room look ‘horrible’.  but such was the style back in the day (…i suppose).

there’s a slight problem, however: namely the fact that it’s now the future and such designs are way outdated, look bad, and worse yet are hard to change.  painting the ceilings was not fun.  first, the popcorn soaks up all the paint so you end up using far more than you would have used on a normal, flat surface.  second, it falls apart on you.  i know this too well.  my brother and myself both had paint covered pieces of the ceiling fall off and into our mouths.  (yes, it would have made sense to have a mask on, but we didn’t exactly have an OSHA approved setup.)  the mirrors?  they’re still up there.  it would have cost too much money to have them removed, and then you have to worry about what’s behind those mirrors once you do take them down.  beyond the cost to remove them, you may incur even more costs in fixing whatever is behind the mirrors.  it’s not an agile design for the interior of a house.

much like designing a house, you may want to be careful when you are making design choices for your organization.  you will be tempted to put a lot of processes in place and begin to adopt “industry best practices” from competitors in your marketplace.  i say to exercise caution because the more processes you have, by definition, the less agile your organization is.  processes reduce your ability to make changes, and therefore your ability to innovate.

don’t get me wrong – some processes are important.  you do still need a ceiling, and you certainly need walls.  before you go making choices, however, think about the future.  are you making the same choices based on what everyone else sees as the newest fad, or trend?  are you making decisions that are restricting your organization’s ability to adapt to changes?  are you going to be stuck with popcorn on the ceiling that’s hard to change and mirrors on the walls that are expensive to get rid of?

don’t let “this old house” turn into “this old organization.”  always plan for the future.

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.