The sport of basketball is the same game that’s been around for well over 100 years. But how the game is played has changed. Ten years ago, there wasn’t a single team in the NBA that even attempted more than 30 three-point shots during a game. And now, just 10 years later, more than half the league averages nearly 42 three-point attempts per game. Wow. That’s one serious shift. This new approach means everything changed—from…
In the 1930s, many major record companies were exploring ways to create longer-playing records that could fit more music onto them. Company after company failed attempts to jam more music onto their records and sound quality plummeted. Finally, one studio, Columbia, figured out how to create a new LP that had a stronger foundation, purposeful design—and actually increased the sound quality. The LP was born and revolutionized the music industry! Many years later, entrepreneurs and…
Someone recently explained to me how a battery works. On every battery there’s a positive and negative side. Energy gets transferred when the electrons are pulled from the negative over to the positive. The concept felt oddly familiar. I quickly realized: It mirrors every team and organization on the planet. The thing is, there’s no such thing as a perfect culture, a perfect team or even a perfect individual. We can’t be 100 percent optimistic…
Many of the important anchors you drop are internal, meant only for the development of the people in the trenches with you each day. But sometimes, it’s important to drop anchors that reach externally in the world and set the temperature with those you serve. Black Friday, the day that begins at midnight on Thanksgiving with millions of excited shoppers rushing retail locations for discounted items, has been growing rapidly. Last year Americans spent 1.7…
Many times the habits we think we are anchoring are not truly being anchored. The brilliant Atul Gawande in his book The Checklist Manifesto showed us all that we cannot assume that even the small “routine” actions are getting accomplished when we live in a quick, complex and uncertain world. His passionate and persuasive message about the power of checklists cites case after case where simple reminders about the steps in a process allowed successful…
Who doesn’t love a solid underdog story? You know the one. The little-known nobody taking on the big, bad somebody. It just feels right to root for them, doesn’t it? That’s why March Madness is my favorite time of year. Every one of the 68 teams in the tournament has a shot. These teams have hope. They believe their one shining moment WILL happen. And it absolutely could. I like to think about the…
“Let’s test them,” I said with excitement in my voice. “After all, they say they are freaky fast.” The challenge was on. I was standing at the creative business retreat center, sparkspace, and staring at their founder and my good friend Mark Henson. Our meeting was about to begin, but first things first: We needed something to eat. sparkspace kept a tally of delivery times from recent Jimmy John’s orders on its dry erase board. They…
There are three times as many individual storage units in the U.S. as McDonald’s restaurants. We have a lot of physical stuff that we’re storing. That’s made even more apparent by the recent enthusiasm for “tidying up,” or taking stock of our things and disposing of items we no longer need, made popular by Japanese organizational consultant and author Marie Kondo. We also store plenty of digital stuff on thumb drives and in the cloud….
Mindfulness researcher Ellen Langer reminds us in her book Counterclockwise that “Our physical environment primes our feelings and behavior, although we are typically oblivious to its influence. Primes often tell us what is expected of us, and too often we mindlessly comply.” “Primes” is a term that comes from psychologists Anthony Greenwald and Mazarin Banaji, who use that word to refer to the cues that activate particular associations and influence in our behavior. All day…
You may know the old marketing adage about The Rule of 7. The concept is that someone has to hear a message seven times before they will take action and buy whatever you’re selling. I’m guessing it actually is more than seven times in today’s distracted world, but for now, let’s just go with seven. I invite you to think about this concept beyond just selling a product or service. I want you to think…
