Doing Stuff Different
This week I wanted to drill down a bit further on an aspect of what I was writing about last week. In order to #findaway, you have to be able to think about problems differently than everyone else.
We all know the Albert Einstein quote: "You can't solve a problem with the same level of thinking that got you there in the first place." You have to be able to think differently about it.
Ooooh cars and steamed milk
I had two things happen to me this week that reminded me about the need to think differently.
First, I was in the car with my son, CJ, and he said, “Dad look, there's an ooooh car!”
Confused, I responded, “What are you talking about CJ? I don't know what an ooooh car is.” He pointed over to a car with an Audi logo on it. “Aah,” I thought, “that makes so much sense.”
When you see it for the first time, it looks like four Os: OOOO. It’s an “ooooh car.”
The lesson is this: Someone who is looking at the Audi logo for the first time might not see the logo we all know and recognize. They might just see four Os.
Second, I was telling a friend about how I was trying to drink less milk on my new diet. He told me the best thing to do was to make a shot of coffee and add only a tiny amount of steamed milk. Just an ounce or two.
Now I've tried to steam a few ounces of milk. It's really hard to do. The milk jug is 12-14 ounces, so it's a tiny amount in the bottom of the jug. It also heats up really fast because there's so little of it.
As I was contemplating all of these problems in my mind, I decided to ask him how he makes two ounces of steamed milk? “Simple,” he replied. “I froth four ounces and throw away two.”
Duh. But the thought never crossed my mind.
The secret to entrepreneurial success
I forget the source, but there was a study done of successful entrepreneurs some years ago looking at what characteristics made them successful. Was it hard work, high IQ, high EQ, money, talent, optimism? What was the one characteristic that had the highest predictive value as to whether someone would be a successful entrepreneur?
Answer: It was none of the above. This is not to say those things don’t matter, but they didn’t have the highest link. It turned out the number one characteristic by far was the ability to think outside the box.
To explain this further, they asked a normal person to name as many uses as possible for a brick. A normal person would say something like, “Well, you could build a wall, you could build a house, and…” And very quickly, most people would run out of ideas.
However, the successful entrepreneur group would come up with near unlimited number of ideas. You could throw it through a window with a nasty note written on it. You could use it as a stepping stool to reach a higher cupboard. You could carve it into a minifigure and sell it for a profit. And on and on they would go.
How can you solve a problem if you can't analyze it from all different angles?
The common wisdom is often wrong or, at the very least, incomplete. If you follow the crowd, you’ll end up in the same place as everyone else. To achieve more you have to become better, and you have to think differently. Only then you can achieve more.
Think differently to #findaway
How do you #findaway and think differently then? Here are a few suggestions:
First, you need to read widely.
If you have too limited a perspective, you cannot approach a problem with a new and insightful perspective. I love reading biographies. Every time I read one, I gain an additional perspective that I can add to my repertoire and consult when faced with a problem.
How would Steve Jobs think about this problem? What about Warren Buffett, JFK, LBJ, Ringo Starr, or Gandhi? The point is not to adopt that person's worldview but to be able to (if needed) adopt their problem solving approach.
In this way, reading content that challenges you, is by far the best approach.
Read books from 500 years ago, from different cultures, from different geographies, and written in different styles. Don't read to simply adopt beliefs, but rather, read to analyse their thinking, adopt any truth you find, and leave the rest. Chew the meat, and spit the bone.
Cicero said: “Read at every wait; read at all hours; read within leisure; read in times of labor; read as one goes in; read as one goest out. The task of the educated mind is simply put: read to lead.”
Second, you need to read deeply.
One of my great virtual mentors used to have a story he would tell. He said one day he was sitting in his home in Beverly Hills, and he got a call from a group of businessmen that asked him to be part of a deal that was worth millions of dollars. His initial thought was, “Why would someone call me to be part of this deal? Who am I to be included at this high level?” But then he thought, “Of course, they called me. Who else would they call? I can add value to their deal that will make their entire deal worth 10x what they're paying me.”
It's possible to find yourself in a pickle and to be able to research that particular problem to find a number of solutions to it. Google is your friend. There's so much great content available out there now that I taught myself all manner of new skills by reading blogs, watching videos on YouTube, and listening to podcasts.
As a CEO, I had very limited knowledge about HR in the US, legal concerns, product marketing, product management, design, UX, payments in NZ, payments in the US, being a CEO, capital raising, and so on. I learned them all through research.
I didn’t learn enough to go and become a VP of marketing at Amazon, but I learned deeply enough that I could ask the right questions and make critical determinations about the state of our business. If the Pareto principle holds true (that you can learn 80% of a subject with 20% of the effort), then you can learn almost any subject well through disciplined and focused effort. The key is to not spread yourself too thin, learn one topic for one or two quarters and then move to the next.
Third, you need to get comfortable borrowing from other industries.
Here's an important truth: Knowledge compounds. Knowledge is learned through saying Thing A is like thing B. The more things you know, the more containers you have to file new content into. That’s why you should try asking yourself, “How do people in other industries solve this problem?” If you learn broadly, you will have an exponential head start on someone who doesn't.
Consider this: Roll-on deodorant was invented in 1888, but the ballpoint pen was invented in the 1930s. Bread was invented thousands of years ago, but pre-sliced bread wasn't invented until the 1930s. The lesson here is that what is common in one industry might be unique in another. That’s why you should try taking ideas from one industry where they're common and applying it to another where it's radical.
For example, if you're in HR trying to figure out how you should do recruiting, why not look at how sports teams evaluate and recruit talent? What could be learned from them? What could apply here?
Fourth, you need to think outside the box.
When I joined my business partner in our first startup, our tagline was “Doing stuff different.” Yes, I know that makes no grammatical sense, but that's kind of the point.
The idea behind it was that it's not enough to think differently, but you actually need to do something about it. Everyone wants to think outside the box, but no one wants to live outside the box. But unless you try, you'll never find out what’s possible.
Mostly, my point is this: Don't be afraid to look stupid. Pride (or wanting to appear smart and put together) is the antithesis of learning. It's impossible for a good student to be prideful. A student is an amateur, one who is in the process of learning something. Good students aren’t afraid of asking stupid questions or showing how little they know. It’s the only way they’ll get better.
The one thing I hope my direct reports will say about me is that I was a student of business who was always learning. I would like them to say I was always pushing myself and those around me to be better—ultimately out of care for our business, mission, and customers.
Fifth, you must be ruthlessly self-reflective of everything you do.
You can learn from the outside through books, podcasts, and blogs, but you can also learn from your own experiences. If you try things that are different, people will give you a hard time for it if it fails. You have to be able to take it, keep moving forward, and continue living outside of the box of average (and other people's expectations).
It might take a while to get used to this. But if you don't take any risks, you will not succeed. Someone put it like this: To become successful you need to be wise. To be wise you need to have gained some experience, and you gain experience from trying something adventurous and learning from it.
I’ll close by reminding you all of how Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Less Traveled” ends:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Don’t be afraid to take that road less traveled. It will make all the difference.
→ Your turn. What’s one thing you’ve done differently than people expected? Did it pay off? What did you learn?