Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but there has been an on-going debate on which is more important to an organization’s long term success: ideas or execution?

• Those who favor ideas as being more important point out that a bad idea which is extremely well executed is unlikely to provide a positive return on investment.
• On the other hand, those who favor execution remind us that the greatest idea is unlikely to become successful if it has incompetent execution.

Headquarter executives, strategy aficionados, and entrepreneurs often chime in on the side of creativity and ideas. Operational executives and line workers usually favor execution.

Actually, debate might be too strong of a word because the loudest voices speak out in favor of execution. To quote Steve Jobs:

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

Perhaps more memorable than a Jobs quote is the story of the Mice and the Bell:

A large family of Mice were living in fear due to a nearby aggressive Cat. One day, they get together to brainstorm ideas on how to defend themselves from the Cat. After much discussion, one young Mouse suggests they put a bell around the Cat’s neck so they can hear the Cat whenever it approaches. All of the Mice agree with the innovative idea, except for one wise old Mouse who asks: “Which one of us is going to put the bell on the Cat?”

(Yes, another animal story.)

And while the debate may rage on, I think it’s time to reframe the discussion. It’s not a choice between ideas or execution. The key is to come up with ideas which are executable.

This is why I once said that brainstorming is brain dead and that you should embrace design thinking instead. Design thinking explicitly balances desirability (what people want), technical feasibility (can it be executed), and economic viability (will it make money). Unlike other approaches, design thinking starts with what is supposed to be achieved (the goal) rather than what needs to be changed (the problem).

There’s a false dichotomy between ideas and execution. Focus on executable ideas.

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The parable of the Zen farmer reminds us to avoid hasty generalizations.

In both life and in business, when an unexpected good or bad event happens, it’s common to quickly assess the situation and then jump to a conclusion. When things go well, we’re overjoyed. But when things don’t turn out as we’d hoped, we’re deflated.

Since bad experiences are felt more strongly than good ones, people often catastrophize and even promote a “you’ll see how bad it will get” attitude to others. However, in my experience, the hasty conclusion is inevitably much more negative than what actually happens later on. Instead of a “you’ll see” hastiness, people would likely be better off adopting an attitude of “wait and we’ll see.”

To reinforce the “we’ll see” attitude in a memorable way, here’s the parable of the Zen farmer:

A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped them earn a living. One day, the horse escaped from their farm through a broken fence. Upon hearing the news, the neighbors came to express their sympathies, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!” The farmer enigmatically replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.” The neighbors were confused, but decided to ignore him.

A few days later, the horse returned home with three wild mares. The neighbors came to congratulate the farmer, shouting “What great luck!” To which the farmer replied, “We’ll see.”

The following day, the farmer’s son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown off, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy: “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer again replied, “We’ll see.”

A few weeks later, soldiers came to the village, drafting all the able-bodied young men for the army. Seeing the boy’s leg was broken, they passed him over. The villagers shouted, “Your boy is spared; what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied as he always did, “We’ll see.”

This parable of the Zen farmer reminds us that no event on its own should be judged as good fortune or bad fortune; only time can tell. Rather than reacting quickly to events – either positive or negative – try to step back and put the new information in perspective. Let a little time go by so as to get more context.

Remember the Zen farmer and adopt the attitude of “we’ll see.”

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In the spirit of everything old is new again, I’m blogging the classic ‘give the frog a loan’ story since none of the 20-somethings I recently told it to had heard it before. Give the frog a loan is an example of a shaggy dog story; a longer joke full of seemingly irrelevant details with twists and turns that ends in an anti-climactic pun.

Comedian Norm Macdonald tells an expletive-filled version [NSFW]; here’s one for general use:

One afternoon a frog hops into a bank. Seeing a bank teller’s name tag, the frog says, ‘Hi Mrs. Whack. I would like to take out a loan to renovate my lily pad.’

Mrs. Whack is confused because… it’s a talking frog asking for a loan. Trying to be polite, Mrs. Whack says, ‘Please call me Patty. What’s your name? What’s your background?’

The frog responds, ‘My name is Kermit and you may not believe this, but my father is Mick Jagger.’

Mrs. Whack says, ‘Well, I suppose Jagger has a froggy face, so I guess I see the family resemblance. Even though your father is rich, you’re going to need some collateral for the loan.’

Kermit takes out a little pink elephant figurine and asks ‘Is this good enough for collateral?’

Puzzled, Mrs. Whack replies, ‘I have no idea; let me check with my manager.’

‘Sure, tell him I say hello,’ adds the frog. ‘He knows me.’

Mrs. Whack approaches the bank manager to explain the situation. ‘There’s a frog who wants to take out a loan. Apparently, he’s Mick Jagger’s son! However, all he has for collateral is this little pink elephant. Should we give him a loan?’

The manager picks up the figurine, smiles, and exclaims:

‘It’s a knick-knack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man is a Rolling Stone.’

The ending is a pun on the nursery rhyme which contains the similar sounding phrase “With a knick knack, paddy whack, give the dog a bone. This old man came rolling home.”

When I was younger, give the frog a loan was a common enough saying that it became shorthand slang for agreeing to a ridiculous request – usually just so the person would go away.

English is confusing, even for native speakers.

(Let me know your favorite shaggy dog story in the comments. It might inspire a future blog entry.)

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In the 50 years since 1970, the world’s population has doubled while the number of chickens we eat has increased nearly 7-fold, from 11 billion to 74 billion.

So, why do we eat so much chicken? According to the National Chicken Council, it started with a mistake in 1923.

Like many rural Americans, Cecile Steele of Ocean View, Delaware kept a small flock of chickens as a source of eggs. The chickens would eventually become food once their egg-laying days were over. However, one day the local chicken hatchery accidently delivered 500 birds, 10 times more than Steele had ordered. Apparently, a clerk had written 500 on the order instead of 50.

To give you a sense of the size of the mistake, in the early 1900’s the largest farms only had ~300 chickens. Clearly, Steele didn’t need that many eggs so she decided to raise the chickens for meat. Less than five months later, she sold them for a huge profit.

Eureka! A new business was born. Steele’s husband quit his job to help with an expansion and, within three years, they had 10,000 chickens. By 1928, hundreds of farmers in the area followed suit, raising chickens for their meat instead of for eggs.

A huge expansion in the supply of chicken meat only makes sense if the demand increased as well. Fortuitously, the Steele’s expansion happened during the Roaring 20’s – a decade of unprecedented U.S. economic growth. As consumers felt wealthier, they wanted to consume more meat – chicken was less expensive and more plentiful than beef. These chicken farms were conveniently located near the rapidly expanding cities of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In addition, advances in refrigeration and transportation made it feasible to ship chickens to remote areas.

Marketing also played a role in why we eat so much chicken. Chicken benefited from the claim it’s healthier than red meat, even though the science is unclear. The perception that chicken’s white meat is healthier than red meat is so widespread that the pork industry launched a campaign entitled “Pork: The Other White Meat.”

Scientific advances made chicken less expensive to raise than beef or pork. For example, once farmers began fortifying chicken feed with vitamin D, they could raise them year-round indoors, without worrying about rickets. As a result, at a typical U.S. grocery store, the price per pound of chicken is less than half of other meats.

When the Steele’s started their expansion in the 1920’s, chicken accounted for less than 20% of U.S. meat consumption; these days, it’s above 40%. The beef industry’s slogan might be “It’s What’s For Dinner” but the reality is more often chicken.

We eat so much chicken due to a simple mistake made 100 years ago.

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“Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”

On a recent video conference call, a speaker used the gift horse idiom, much to the confusion of many of the attendees. For those who may not be familiar with the expression, it suggests people should not find fault with something that has been received as a gift or favor. It originated from the idea one should not inspect the teeth of a horse given as a gift to determine its age, and therefore its value.

While I’m a big fan of using animal stories, the lack of clear communication derailed the call for about 10 minutes – leaving little time to agree on the way forward for a project behind schedule. This isn’t to say all animal idioms are confusing. I suspect that most people – regardless of whether they are a native English speaker or not – would understand “when pigs fly” suggests something which is impossible or at least extraordinarily unlikely.

But many animal idioms aren’t so easy to determine what they mean, if you aren’t a native English speaker. It’s hard to determine what they mean from the words alone. Here are a few examples:

• Cat got your tongue?
  Asked of someone being unusually quiet to persuade them to start talking.
• Chicken out
  When a person changes their mind about something due to fear.
• Every dog has its day
  Everyone will have success or fame at some point, even the unlucky.
• It’s raining cats and dogs
  It’s raining very heavily.
• Until the cows come home
  A very long period of time.

If you’re a native English speaker, the meaning of these idioms is likely obvious to you. But that’s exactly the point – you have the context which makes it clear while others may not have the context and are therefore confused.

Clear communication is based on empathy, focusing on filling in gaps in the listener’s knowledge using concepts they already understand. This requires the communicator to know the audience ahead of time or to ask them detailed questions before starting to communicate.

Clear communication takes work but it’s a true gift.

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Q: What do you call a group of sharks?
A: A shiver of sharks.

Of course, because seeing Sharks make you shiver.

Shiver is an example of a collective noun; the name for a group of things. As I’ve often used animal stories to help illustrate specific points, reinforce behaviors, or to provide colorful rallying cries, I’m intrigued by animal collective nouns – especially ones with alliteration.

Here are five of my favorite alliterative animal collectives:

• Clowder of cats (source)
  Apparently, clowder comes from Old English and is related to the word clutter. As cats often mingle about in a disorderly fashion, clutter seems descriptive for their behavior. You can also use the term a glaring of cats; as a dog person, I think that alternative name for the collective is very appropriate.
  
  
• Horde of hamsters (source)
  Horde? Hamsters seem harmless; they mostly eat and sleep. In fact, it’s the stuff of a bad sci-fi movie to imagine a horde of hamsters invading my home.
  
  
• Murder of magpies (source)
  Magpies are birds known to eat other animals and even attack humans, which might have led to this name for their collective. But they are likely misunderstood. It’s also a murder of crows but that’s not an alliteration.
  
  
• Prickle of porcupines (source)
  One definition of the word prickle is a “sharp projection from the skin of an animal.” I could practically use that definition to describe a porcupine to someone who had never seen one before so prickle of porcupine is perfect.
  
  
• Rhumba of rattlesnakes (source)
  Snakes are rarely found in groups but, during the winter, will sometimes huddle together in a den or under rocks to conserve their energy. This is probably why a group of snakes is called a den. For some reason, rattlesnakes are the exception and called a rhumba – though they don’t dance. Anyone know why?

It’s not an alliteration but a group of ferrets is called a business. Ferrets spend up to 18 hours a day asleep and are most active at dawn and dusk. Most ferrets enjoy social groups but are territorial. I hope that doesn’t describe your business…

Fun, huh? You might even say it’s a barrel of monkeys. That’s another animal collective.

If you’re interested in learning more collective nouns for group of animals, here’s one useful collection.

The post A Shiver of Sharks and Other Animal Collectives appeared first on Manage By Walking Around.

In the book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, there’s a vignette called ‘Beware of the Leopard’ which explains why it’s critical to provide convenient access to important information. The vignette is a useful way to explain information asymmetry, in which one person has relevant information not known by or available to the other person. Here’s the conversation between Arthur Dent and the Council Official, Mister Prosser, who wanted to demolish Arthur’s house to make way for a bypass:

Prosser: “But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.”

Dent: “Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything.”

Prosser: “But the plans were on display…”

Dent: “Ah! And how many members of the public are in the habit of casually dropping around the local planning office on an evening?”

Prosser: “Er – ah.”

Dent: “It’s not exactly a noted social venue is it? And even if you had popped in on the off chance that some raving bureaucrat wanted to knock your house down, the plans weren’t immediately obvious to the eye, were they?”

Prosser: “That depends where you were looking.”

Dent: “I eventually had to go down to the cellar!”

Prosser: “That’s the display department.”

Dent: “With a flashlight”

Prosser: “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

Dent: “So had the stairs.”

Prosser: “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

Dent: Yes, yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.

As with the amusing Three Envelopes story, this vignette provides plenty of examples of how not to handle information. Here are my top three lessons:

1. Publicize in addition to publish

I’m a huge proponent of writing stuff down (WSD), especially in organizations steeped in traditions or with long-tenured employees. Relying on tribal knowledge limits an organization’s ability to grow.

It’s not enough to document something; you have to go out of your way to talk about it. Otherwise it’s the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Spend just as much time publicizing information as you do documenting it.

2. Make it easy for your customer, not for you

Planning documents aren’t for members of the planning department but rather for the public. Unfortunately, in many disciplines, documents are filled with jargon and acronyms which experts understand but casual readers do not.

Access to information is another situation in which end-to-end customer experience is critical. Design should be outside-in to make it easy for the customer; otherwise information is locked in the basement.

3. Think digital first

Hitchhiker was written in 1979 in a pre-internet world. Documentation was almost exclusively paper-based and stored in filing cabinets. Information was power so those who controlled information had the most power.

Democratization of information shifts the power from those who create information to those who consume it. Like all things digital, it also gets rid of the middleman.

In a digital-first world, the person who has the most power isn’t the one who controls the most information but rather the one who uses that information to help the most other people. People with real power never force anyone to beware of the leopard.

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When I first got into business, the HR manager asked me a series of informal questions which claimed to test my suitability for corporate life. As I recall, I didn’t do so well on the quiz but I’ve still managed to figure out the corporate gig. I recently came across the questions and started using them again – partly for fun and partly to see if they are applicable to new hires.

Here’s the quiz with the correct answers and some associated commentary:

Question 1: How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?
Answer 1: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door.

This question tests whether you overcomplicate simple tasks. Most people assume the giraffe is larger than the fridge and use elaborate descriptions to solve that problem.

Question 2: How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

If you’re like most people, you probably said “Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the door.” That’s the wrong answer.

Answer 2: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant, and close the door.

Question 2 is designed to test your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions. Each decision cannot be made in isolation.

Question 3: The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All of the animals attend, except for one. Which animal does not attend?

Answer 3: The elephant, of course. You just put the elephant in the refrigerator.

Question 3 is designed to test your memory and to associate events which don’t seem related.

Question 4: You need to cross a river but it is inhabited by crocodiles. You don’t have a boat but you do have a refrigerator. What should you do?

Answer 4: Jump into the river and swim across. All of the crocodiles are attending the animal conference.

Question 4 is designed to see whether you can ignore extraneous information (the refrigerator) and whether you learn from your mistakes in the previous questions.

I doubt this quiz is scientifically accurate and therefore it’s difficult to draw any specific conclusions from it. Nonetheless, it’s fun to consider what it might say about your personality.

How did you do on the quiz?

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Throughout my career, I’ve relied on story telling to reinforce abstract concepts or make announcements more memorable. Whether it’s oxen, elephants, monkeys, or camels, stories about animals are easy to remember and therefore more likely to be repeated. I’ve always want to tell a story which involved a platypus but I never really had a good rationale. A change in role provided me with an opportunity. Here’s the story I told:

Once upon a time, the Mammals, the Fish and the Birds all lived happily together. But after a while they began to quarrel. Each group thought it was the best and most important.

The Mammals held an all-hands meeting. The Kangaroo thumped the ground with her tail and shouted “We Mammals are the greatest! We are special. Only we have fur.”

“What about Platypus?” said the Deer. “He has fur.”

The other Mammals agreed and went to ask the Platypus if he would join them in their fight against the Fish and the Birds.

Platypus listened carefully and replied, “Thank you for asking me to be one of your family. I’ll think about it.”

A few days later, the Fish held a meeting. The Big Mouth Bass leapt out of the water and came down with an almighty splash. “We Fish are the greatest!” he shouted. “We are special. Only we can swim under water.”

“What about Platypus?” said the Cod. “He spends most of his life under water.”

The other Fish agreed and went to ask the Platypus if he would join them in their fight against the Mammals and the Birds.

Platypus listened carefully and replied, “Thank you for asking me to be one of your family. I’ll think about it.”

Finally, the Birds held a meeting. The Eagle spread and flapped his wings; the sound was like a tree falling. “We Birds are the greatest!” he shrieked. “We are special. Only we can lay eggs.”

“What about the female Platypus?” said the Dove. “She lays eggs.”

The other Birds agreed and went to ask the Platypus  if he would join them in their fight against the Mammals and the Fish.

Platypus listened carefully and replied. “Thank you for asking me to be one of your family. I’ll think about it.”

Platypus thought long and hard about what he should do. But no matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t be a part of just one group. At last, the Platypus knew what to do.

“I am a Mammal” he declared. The Mammals cheered. “But I am also a Bird and a Fish. I am not part of any of your groups. I am an Animal; I am part of all of them.”

The animals didn’t understand.

So Platypus went on, “Each of us, in our own way, is special. But special doesn’t mean better. None of us is better or worse than the other. Only different. We ought to respect each other’s differences, and live together without fighting.”

During my career I have had the chance to be part of many business “families”. Different companies and different roles. One lesson I have learned is that understanding different perspectives has allowed me to explore and exercise different parts of my own skills and personality. I’ve enjoyed my time as CMO and look forward to my next challenge. And I wish all of you continued success on your career journeys.

We will still be part of the same animal family.

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During my career I’ve often used animal stories to help illustrate specific points, reinforce behaviors, or to provide colorful rallying cries. Whether it’s elephants, monkeys, or camels, stories about animals are easy to remember and therefore more likely to be repeated. The heart of good communication is repetition.

When I originally introduced the story of the Six Blind Men and the Elephant, I was hoping to help people think beyond their normal point of view to take into account other peoples’ perspective. In my experience, most people understand their own function, group, or business unit but almost never know how they fit into the overall organization or how their actions impact others. As a result, people unintentionally hurt overall performance when they make decisions that optimize their own portion of the elephant.

While the story is memorable, it may not emphasize the downside of silo thinking. To make that point, I introduced the 6th century Aesop fable of the Four Oxen and the Lion:

A Lion used to prowl about a field in which Four Oxen used to dwell.

Many a time he tried to attack them; but whenever he came near they turned their tails to one another, so that whichever way he approached them he was met by the horns of one of them.

At last, however, they fell a-quarrelling among themselves, and each went off to pasture alone in a separate corner of the field.

Then the Lion attacked them one by one and soon made an end of all four.

It’s a vivid reminder of the consequence of operating in silos: united we stand, divided we fall.

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