experience

Staying calm in a tempest

Though those that grew up with me would laugh, I am often asked how I stay calm in various, stressful situations. The reason my friends and family from long ago would laugh is that I’m not known by them as having an even temper. I’m passionate about life and that comes out pretty clearly and quickly, but what I’ve learned from my experience that they haven’t seen… perspective.

HSBC has been running an ad campaign for about a year that hits perspective well. The ads juxtapose two images with labels, then show the images again with the labels switched. My favorites:

With each of these I can remember my own perspective turning point. I am not and never have been interested in having children, and earlier, I often wondered why anyone woud do it. As my friends have had kids and I’ve gotten up close and personal with kids, I’ve seen what a sense of fulfillment and happiness children can bring. It has not changed my beliefs for my life, but it does make me much more calm and centered when I’m sitting on a flight next to a screaming, breast feeding baby. (I am completely serious.)

In business, even when I don’t have specific experience perspective, I do ask myself, “Why would that be happening?” And then try to realize what different perspectives there might be. This helps come to not only a sense of calm about the status, but a set of possible solutions based on different perspectives.

As I am writing this, I’m reminded of a Dan and Chip Heath Fast Company Make Goals Not Resolutions article from this Winter. Their analysis of how you achieve your resolutions is to visualize how you are going to reach what you want. Perspective is exactly that… visualization from different angles. In this case, it is to understand and succeed.

What is on my shirt today? In another post, I’m going to cover my thoughts on Danny Meyer’s book Setting the Table, which is an extraordinary book on business and hospitality. He introduces the word

umbuntu

as a South African greeting, which was translated as “I see you.” As Danny says, “That simply and effectively addresses the core human need to be seen and to feel seen.” To me, understanding someone’s perspective is the best way to really see them.

Experience: The good, the bad, the ugly

Experience is a hot topic around Spreadshirt. Over the past few years, Lukasz, Michael, and Matthias have built a terrific team that exemplifies the Gen Y workforce described by Jay Adelson in Business Week’s “Digg This: Talking to Gen Y”. A few weeks after I joined, I wrote to Harry Nellis, “our” partner at Accel, and told him that I could feel at Spreadshirt what Adelson describes as the ideal for Gen Y:

“…create an excitement about the company’s achievements, but more important, help employees recognize their role in accomplishing that mission.”

I love seeing and feeling this at the company. So, what’s the hot point? Well, Gen Y also means younger, which means fewer years of experience. Since we have a great, motivated team… why do we need experience? Our discussions have led me to these thoughts:

We know the good:

Experience brings us the possibility of learning… from mistakes, from success… mostly from mistakes. Mistakes can give us that “hand on a hot stove” imprint in our brains… you remember not to do it again from the OUCH. The important thing is that you step back to learn from your experiences, and [Alert: hard part here] do your best to — without bias — understand why something failed. It is only then that you can actually apply your experience… and not be doomed to repeat history.

We know the bad:

A fun example of the curse of knowledge is given by Stanford professor Chip Heath in Made to Stick (which gets an A++ rating from me… I’ve followed Chip’s work for a few years and am a believer). In a Stanford study, participants were assigned either a “tapper” or “listener” role. The tapper would tap out a very well-known song and the listener would have to guess the tune. Before the answer was revealed the tapper had to say whether the person would guess the song or not. The tappers said that the listener would get it right 50% of the time… reality… the listeners got it 2.5% of the time. The reason: The tappers had the curse of knowledge; they heard the full song in their head with complete accompaniment, while the listener heard some form of Morse code. When you are applying your experience, remember that you are hearing the full symphony, while others could likely be hearing you tap on the table… or it gets bad.

I’ve recently discovered the ugly:

Closely related to the good and the bad is my recent discovery of the ugly. With the Spreadshirt exec team, you are rarely lacking in critical analysis, which is awesome 95% of the time. The ugly is the 5% of the time when you just can’t explain why something is wrong. But, you have seen it so many times in so many different ways that you know what will happen — and, you don’t want to stick your hand on that stove or see others go through it. Ugh. While your gut (which, IMHO, is your inner self expressing your experience) tells you it is wrong, you can’t justify why. And, the arguments contrary to your gut are compelling. When this happens for me, I try to get to what experience is driving my gut. When that doesn’t work… call it ugly, decide whether you can live with the decision either way, make your case, and move on.

Along with my intro story, another story goes well with what’s on my shirt today. Harry recruited me for this position. As I talked to him more about the opportunity, I admit to being surprised when I realized that they were recruiting me as the gray hair for the org. I did think that I had a couple more positions (not just a couple of years, but a couple of positions!!) before I was the gray hair. But, alas… here I sit as a:

gen X geezer