“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.”

     –     Riley B. “B.B.” King

Loves me some Blues music.  And B.B. is “King of The Blues.”

Even at 87 years old, the thrill is not gone.  He’s still a sponge, soaking up learning because you get to keep it and you get to use it.

If you get a chance, listen to him play with a modern artist.  Ok, here’s a chance.  The learning is flowing back and forth, the master and the student, interchangeable even over the decades that separate them.

It’s the same for us.  If we’re focused on the learning.

“How will you ever see eye-to-eye if you’re never face-to-face.”

–     Warren Buffett, in an ad for the National Business Aviation Association

Heading in to the holidays, we’re reminded of the thought:  While our presents may not be remembered, they’ll never forget our presence.

Being there makes a difference.

“High expectations are the key to everything.”

–     Sam Walton

Sorry, Sam.  Not buying it.

CLEAR expectations (not the kind in this clip from Dumb and Dumber!) are the key to everything.  Not everyone aspires to high expectations, but everyone has expectations.

Unless we know and understand what the person across the table from us expects, we can’t have very high expectations of success.

How do we find out?

Yesterday, we talked about preparation.  That’s a good start.

In order to know another person’s expectations, we have to ask them.  We have to listen to them.  We have to validate, by making sure we establish a shared understanding — confirming each other’s intent.

Intent matters more than content.  If our intent honors their expectations, the outcome is more likely to make a difference.

“It’s not the will to win that matters — everyone has that.  It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”

–     Paul “Bear” Bryant, legendary college football coach (1913-1983)

Today, it’s not ok not to know.  Don’t believe me?  Believe Seth Godin, from his October 9th blog post.  (A good life guide, by the way, is to “believe Seth Godin…” but I digress.  He’s not always right, he’s just almost always right….but I digress again…)

Where was I?  Ah, yes!  Changing the Conversation.  Perspectives v. Facts.

The key to Perspective-Led Conversations is preparation.  We ought to know and understand — before we go in.  Today we can, too.  On November 1st, a sales guy I know told me that a big deal he was working was held up because the customer was waiting for the election, hoping Mitt would win.  A quick check (and I mean less than 2 minutes!) showed that the customer had donated to Obama’s campaign, that his wife had also donated to Obama’s campaign and that he’d posted half a dozen “Pro-Obama” messages on Facebook.

The sales guy didn’t have the will to prepare to win.  So, what does it take to have the will to prepare to win?

It will require us to dig in to the other person’s wiring, their experiences, their circumstances, and, most importantly (and maybe not until we actually engage) their expectations.  The good news is, it’s easier than ever before to find out.  The bad news is, it will take time and commitment, and persistence — the key verb in this paragraph is “dig.”

That’s more work than just “winging it.”  It takes more time than just showing up.

Just showing up will not make a difference.  Preparation will.

“You have your way.  I have my way.  As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

–     Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (1844-1900)

You may be thinking to yourself, “Gee, self, that’s an odd quote from a guy who’s company slogan is “The right thing.  The right way.  At the right time!”  The key word here is “only.”  There’s never only one right way, the key is to find one that works.  That requires changing the conversation.

Late yesterday, I had the honor of addressing the 100+ attendees of the Fall Business Kick-Off session here in suburban Milwaukee.  Our topic was “Changing the Conversation; Why Perspective Matters More Than Facts.”

Perspective matters more if only because “facts” are more difficult to come by than ever before.  This is not your Joe Friday, “just the facts, ma’am,” era.  This is an era where perspective matters more.  Just as there are no true “news” media, there are precious few irrefutable facts for them to report.  There are more data and the data is more readily available to more people, in and out of context (which is a synonym for “perspective”).

Need examples?

Both candidates used “facts” to support their positions in the recently completed election.  Both politicians countered the “facts” their opponent used with contradictory “facts” of their own.  Under oath, they could cite reliable sources to validate their “facts.”

During the banking technology phase of my career, the four leading vendors all claimed to have “over 3,500 banks using their system.”  All four could provide a list of banks, “factually” who used their technology.  The problem with the facts, in this case, was according to the leading providers to the industry, there were 14,000 banks in an 11,000-bank-world.

If everyone in a deal cites “facts” claiming to have the “best _______ in the market,” then it’s either 100% commoditized or there are some discrepancies with the “facts.”

Or, perhaps it’s just a matter of perspective.

Knowing the other person’s perspective is more important than ever before.  It’s also easier than ever before.  (More on that tomorrow…)  And, empathetically considering the perspectives the other party brings to the conversation is more welcome than ever before, simply because so few business people do it.

Another way we can make a difference…

“Oh, dear!  What’s going to go wrong next?”

–     Pat Heston, who passed to new life six years ago today

She was a great mom.  She was not, however, a “glass is half full” person.  That doesn’t mean she was negative, though.  She was simply so convinced that Murphy’s Law (“whatever can go wrong, will go wrong…”) was true that she became the classic over-preparer.  No small detail escaped her, and if she was responsible for getting something done, it tended to get done.  On time.  Correctly.

As the bookkeeper for Fairfield Veterinary Clinic and P & R Farm Management Corporation, Pat Heston was balanced, to the penny, always.  Our house, while modest, was very, very clean at all times.

I am sure, these six years later, that Mom wonders how we get anything done without her.  So, what’s all this mean to a bunch of people who never met her six years after the fact?

Preparedness provides focus.  Focus provides clarity.  Clarity steers action.  Action produces results.

If we’re going to make a difference, hadn’t we better prepare for whatever might go wrong next?

“Audacity and self-confidence are not the same as rashness; a healthy self-confidence is based on developed and tested powers of thought and action, not on nervous compulsion.”

–               Henry M. Boettinger, in Harvard Business Review article, “Is Management Really An Art?” (circa 1975)

There is a reason that Boettinger used the word “audacity” in this description.  When someone acts in a decisive way when those around them are accustomed to indecisiveness and lack of direction, it can seem pretty outrageous.  Pretty audacious.  Almost rash.

Why is that?

Imagine if every morning you just tossed one little bag of garbage from your kitchen in to the garage, next to the trash bin.  Just one bag of ‘nana peels, coffee grounds, yogurt cups and bread crumbs.  It’d take less than a second.  In the interest of busy-ness, just one little act of carelessness, of disregard for what you knew you should do.  All in the interest of serving the beast of the “urgent” in your mind.  Over the course of time, the stench in the garage would become pretty awful, huh?

So, one evening, you arrive home, and realize there’s no room in the garage for the car.  You’ve had a hard day.  You’re tired.  You’re “mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore,” to borrow the ol’ movie line.

You take a deep breath, and calmly, yet directly, haul, lug, drag all that garbage to the curb.  It takes a lot less time than you thought it would, but your spouse looks at you like “why now, after all those weeks?”

Your answer might be, “because it’s time.  Because just tossing the garbage out in the garage never worked.  Oh, maybe it worked the first day or two, before things started to smell and the flies started moving in, but, the fact is, it never really was the right thing to do.  And now it’s time to correct the mistake, once and for all.”

Your “audacious” act?  The self-confidence with which you carried it out, compressing months of inactivity in to minutes of appropriate response?  The apparent rashness of your action?  Well, they might seem a little wacky to someone who watched you just open the door and toss for so long, or to someone watching you drag a year’s worth of garbage to the curb for no apparent reason.

The sense of audacity comes from the change in behavior…no matter how positive it might be, it’s different and it feels weird to those observing it.  The reality, though, as we’re reminded by this quote, is that, to really make a difference, we may need to take action that is based on developed and tested powers of thought and action, and not on habit and / or nervous compulsion.

“This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.”

–     Elmer Davis

A few years back, I worked for a company that used a software development partner that was based in Sri Lanka.  The Sri Lankan team told me that there were two obstacles that might likely affect their ability to get to work on time.  One was elephant herds.  The other was a terrorist attack.

Like we worry about traffic on the freeway or road construction, they literally left for work every day aware that they might a) not make it on time, or b) not make it at all because of someone trying to blow them up.

That’s why, every Veteran’s Day, we should be mindful of the brave — the ones that make it possible for us to be free — the heroes who shaped our dysfunctional -but-still-better-than-whatever’s-in-second-place-homeland.  While we might struggle to understand what “in harm’s way” means, they’ve put themselves there.

In fact, even if they’ve not served in combat, every person who’s ever donned the uniform is a hero.

Thanks, veterans, for making a difference.

“Show your hand.  The art of life is to show your hand.  There is no diplomacy like candor.  You may lose by it now and then, but it will be a loss well gained if you do.  Nothing is so boring as having to keep us a deception.”

–     E. V. Lucas  (1868-1938)

Much is made of negotiation tactics and strategies that require some misdirection, or for people to hold back their true wishes for the outcome.  Terms like “the art of the deal” help sell books.  One of my mentors often cautioned not to “spill your cookies in the lobby.”  Showing your hand was never taught and rarely encouraged.

Over time, Lucas’ perspective has become more prevalent.

As Spicoli said, in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, “Mr. Hand, if I’m here, and you’re here, doesn’t that make it OUR time?”  (No pun intended with the whole “show your hand / Mr. Hand thing…but I digress…)

If we’re at the table with another party, it is “our time,” of course.  And, today, everyone has less time to waste than ever before.

Why not show our hand, or at the very least, indicate what our intent is?  It will absolutely save “our time,” and maybe it will even make a difference.

“Is it ignorance or apathy?  I forget these lessons taught to me.  Some say life isn’t fair; hey, I don’t know and I don’t care!”

–     Lyric from the Jimmy Buffet song, “I Don’t Know and I Don’t Care”

Parrot heads unite!

It seems that these times might tempt us to not invest the time to know or the energy to care.

Ignorance and apathy are not our friends.

Know.  If you can’t know, know someone who knows.  But, even if you decide you can’t know, care.