You don’t need to ‘help’ great idea so much

“I have a great a idea,” Laura says to you. She speeds through her thoughts clearly excited. ”What do you think?”

“Cool,” you respond. “You know, you should try…”

And in those six words, you might’ve killed the idea. And you might even be suggesting the greatest addendum ever to Laura’s idea. The problem is that when we add on to someone else’s idea, we often take away ownership. The great idea no longer is her idea, it is more of our idea.

Now you don’t always kill commitment when you do this, but I’m sure it happens far more often than we are even aware of. I know I do this all the time. I mean, I’m being helpful aren’t it? In actuality, I probably would be more helpful with just a smile and nod. Maybe a thumbs up. It is hard, but sometimes we need to stop from being too helpful.

This post was inspired by Marshall Goldsmith’s talk at Google around the 9 minute mark.

By adding to someone else’s idea, we might add 5% or 10% of value to that idea but we may very well kill that person’s commitment to it. We transform the idea from his/her’s or well our’s.

Good day, bad day

Sometimes the smallest thing can change a bad day to a good day. When it happens, take note because those little things are priceless.

What Programmers Need

A programmer is most productive with a passion for a crazy idea, a friend or two to confide in & laugh with and an internal sense of urgency. Everything else is being pandered to.

I think it’s fun to read other people’s status messages at work. I try to respond to their status messages every once in a while. Gaurav Giri has had one recently that caught my attention, it’s from Joel at Fog Creek Software:

A programmer is most productive with a quiet private office, a great computer, unlimited beverages, an ambient temperature between 68 and 72 degrees (F), no glare on the screen, a chair that’s so comfortable you don’t feel it, an administrator that brings them their mail and orders manuals and books, a system administrator who makes the Internet as available as oxygen, a tester to find the bugs they just can’t see, a graphic designer to make their screens beautiful, a team of marketing people to make the masses want their products, a team of sales people to make sure the masses can get these products, some patient tech support saints who help customers get the product working and help the programmers understand what problems are generating the tech support calls, and about a dozen other support and administrative functions…

Here’s my response:

A programmer is most productive with a passion for a crazy idea, a friend or two to confide in & laugh with and an internal sense of urgency. Everything else is being pandered to.

I love Seth, but Godin Won’t Tell You How-To

I just listened to a stream of Seth Godin at Mima Summit. And of course he has a great speech about being remarkable. Seth wants you to cultivate and lead a tribe. He gives you a great overview of how other companies have done it.

He went over the usual suspects including Zappos, TOMS Shoes and his favorite, LittleMissMatched Socks. (I would like to point out while Seth says they have grown tremendously without any advertising, his mere mention of them is worth dozens of TV ads).

When you listen to Seth talk, be expect to be inspired. He’s the type of speaker to move you to action. But don’t count on him telling you how to do it. His stories start off with a remarkable company whose customers talk about them to others. And that’s where Seth’s hand-waving begins. Seth’s stories end with the company’s  message spreads and its tribe grows from user to user, but he always glosses over how that really happens.

In truth, being remarkable isn’t enough. There’s a lot of work to be done beyond being remarkable, and I suspect the real end to Seth’s stories aren’t so neat and tidy, and involve a lot more nitty gritty.

I believe the devil’s in the details, which is why it is so hard to get it right. And Seth’s not going to tell you how to get those details right, you’re going to have to figure it out on your own. And that’s exactly how it should be.

He doesn’t know your product, your customers, or your situation. There’s no blanket advice that will work all the time, and for goodness sake don’t trust the salesman with the silver bullet. If you’re looking for a “how to be successful” that’s beyond motivating, just get back to work. That’s the only way to get there.

I’m not interested in building a faster horse

For the record, I’m not really interested in building faster horses. I believe in moving quickly, iterating and improving. I love customer feedback. Doing all that is good, but it isn’t enough. You also need to keep your head up, eyes open and see the entire court.

There are a lot of people great at building faster horses, but I hope I don’t settle for that. I hope I can see the problem behind the solution. People always seem to more. More functions, more capacity, more options, more simplicity. More of the same. “To hell with more, I want better.”