“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

• Michael Porter (b. 1947), Harvard Business School professor, author and leadership / management guru

That thing we’re trying not to do, but doing, can trip us up when we’re plotting strategy – especially if we’re single-threading that strategy.

As we started to consider yesterday being able to pivot when things are getting wobbly is important — even at the same time as being committed to a direction until new information presents itself.

The common denominator is knowing what not to do.

“We need to improve the bottom line!” There are at least a few ways to impact that metric in almost any company — and deciding which ones won’t get considered is the best first step.

“We need to increase revenue but lower our cost of sales!” Do we go wider in our current Client base (less costly) and price accordingly to existing streams (more efficient), or do we hedge by going after key market-share plays to increase positive market talk and creating demand? Or, do we blend those strategies?

Blended strategies are more flexible, and make it easier to adjust to market shifts. A key is to not let the blend become distracting and divert us into doing that thing or those things we set out not to do.

It’s 56% art and 44% science. (As Larry The Cable Guy told us, by the way, 42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot. Those two statistics, were, in fact, completely made up on the spot. But, you get my point…)

The blending matters. Art, science, growth, profit, staffing, Client-care — all ingredients worth considering, and in each case, from the perspective of what we decide not to do.

“The problem with solving the wrong problem is that it feels like success until you get to the bottom.“

• Greg McKeown, in edition #143 of the One-Minute Wednesday

If the problem is too clear, look around. It might not be the problem at all. One of my favorite DD lines of all time is by hockey player Dean McAmmond. “I don’t have a concussion problem,” he famously said. “I have a problem with people giving me traumatic blows to the head.”

How do we decide which problem we need to solve? How do we avoid treating the symptom at the expense of the cause of the pain?

A little success can be addictive. My favorite basketball team plays lights-out offense and often pretty pedestrian defense. When the shots aren’t falling, it’s really hard to pivot to stopping the other guys. My favorite football team plays defense better than any other team out there. That said, it’s become difficult to win counting on the defense to score points — even when The “D” manages to put a few points on the board. So, while we might want to get out over our skis on the great offense with the round orange ball, or the phenomenal defense with the pigskin, we’re never quite as far from the bottom as we’d like to be.

Solving the real problem usually begins with recognizing who’s giving us traumatic blows to the head, to use McAmmond’s example. And it usually takes a blended strategy to either avoid the blows or counter them with an attack of our own.

Revenue growth with unchecked costs? Bad math. Expense control so stringent that it limits growth? Different equation, same outcome.

Stepping back, looking around, asking questions — and adjusting course, speed or both — helps us solve the problem we need to solve in the manner that best serves long-term success.

“Life is only precious because it ends, kid.”

• Rick Riordan, American Author of Novels for young readers, in one of those novels, The Son of Neptune

He was only 20-some-odd years old.

I met a young man named Michael two years ago on the golf course. He was tall, fit, athletic, charming, warm, and engaging. He was probably a bunch of other things, too. Positive things. All of them. He was, in fact, infinitely positive.

Michael was the kind of young man I hope our daughters meet and spend 100 years with.

I played golf with him a half-dozen times or so. Saw him at the gym at least twice a week. He was as comfortable with the old guard as he was his young buddies, and he was a bridge between the two groups.

Michael didn’t wake up Monday morning; if we’re reading this on Tuesday, we did. Heart issue. Surgery last week – and he seemed on a clear road to recovery until he wasn’t. If you’d have told anyone that Michael had a heart issue, they’d have thought you meant he liked people too much, was too positive, that his heart was so big it almost wasn’t fair the rest of us.

The post informing the world that Michael had left us was titled “Jesus Was His Caddy.” And so, Michael’s destination is set, and wonderfully positive, like he was. He’ll be there when we get there. Too soon, but he’ll be there.

And until we get there, let’s make a conscious decision to honor a young man who made a difference, and who went home before he had a chance to make a difference over the longer haul with whatever we do next.

If we’re reading this, we woke up this morning. What will we do to make sure that if we don’t wake up tomorrow, someone will remember us the way we’ll remember Michael?

“To one who has Faith no explanation is necessary.  To one without Faith no explanation is possible.”

–      St. Thomas Aquinas

It bears repeating.  To one with Faith no explanation is necessary.  To one without Faith no explanation is possible.

To some degree, in our workaday lives, what we believe dictates what we can accomplish.  In the grander scheme of life, what we Believe (upper case “B”) dictates who we are.

A friend of mine and Brother in Belief suggested the Twitter hashtag “#itisdone” for Easter.  And, he’s right.  It is.

It.  Is.  Done.

No greater gift could ever be given.  No level of appreciation could ever be enough.

Yet we’re not called to appreciate.  And we’re not called to reciprocate.  We’re called to love.  To follow.  To Believe.  To live with the knowledge that with one, incredible, heroic feat borne of love — nothing else matters.

Whether no explanation is necessary, or whether no explanation is possible, it is done.

And no greater difference will ever be made.

#itisdone #Heisrisen

Editor’s Note:  This is the 19th Good Friday that this Daily Difference has posted.  Some minor variations, but pretty much these words in this order every year.  Upper-and-lower case letters matter in this post. 

“Ideas are the currency of difference-makers.”

• Steve Heston, author of this here blog…

There sure is lots written about currencies these days. Recession’s impact on the value of a dollar. The dollar in comparison to other nations’ currencies. Crypto currencies…

Markets fluctuate, ebb and flow.

Ideas grow in value, especially when they’re sought out, nurtured, celebrated and rewarded, even if they’re not all great.

Ideas, I’ve long maintained, are the currency of difference makers.

Long-time subscribers know my dad was a farmer. Prep the soil, plant the seeds, do everything you can and then hope for good weather. An exercise in Faith if ever there was one.

As leaders, are we prepping the soil to be ready for ideas to be planted? Are we encouraging our teams to bring ideas forward. Are we nurturing, fertilizing, and caring for those ideas?

Some will grow to bear great harvests. Some will never sprout. Some will show up as a shoot and then not survive the light of day. Their value is shared. It’s combined. The great harvests are borne off the volume of seeds we plant, and if we try to hand-pick the seeds that we just “know” are going to be big winners — we’ll fail.

Ideas are the currency of difference-makers. And their value grows, the more we seek them out.

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

• Dr. Suess

Willis Reed passed away earlier this week. My earliest “goose bumps” memory is of May 8, 1970, when Willis came limping out of the tunnel in Madison Square Garden to lift his New York Knick teammates to a world championship over the mighty Los Angeles Lakers and some dude named Wilt Chamberlain.

Our grainy, black and white TV and the crappy over-the-air signal it drew down to our farmhouse couldn’t betray the murmur, the buzz and then the ground-shaking roar of the Garden’s capacity crowd, and for a nine-year-old boy who loved basketball and sports in general — the impression was permanent.

I’m not big on “heroes.” I only have one, and He passed a couple thousand years ago. That said, Willis Reed, Tom Seaver, Muhammad Ali — made an impression that shaped the way I’d think, work, and play long after they were done in the spotlight.

Someone is watching us “come out of the tunnel” today. Someone will notice the way we pick up a teammate or whether we don’t.

It probably won’t be broadcasted (although in today’s world, who really knows, right?) and it probably won’t be reviewed on social media 53 years from now. But someone will still be watching. Someone will still notice.

Let’s make it as noteworthy as we can.

“If you walk in with information about you, they consider you a salesman. If you walk in with ideas and answers, they consider you a resource. Which one are you?”

• Jeffrey Gitomer, long-time sales trainer and coach

Gitomer is a good one, usually a relatively clear voice in the static. Even with an over-emphasis on the word “answers,” he covers the spectrum well here, and more importantly, he touches on the holy grail of sales professionals.

Ideas are the currency of Difference Makers.

Ideas transform challenges into strategies. Ideas move us forward, and if we end up moving in the wrong direction, fresh ideas will allow us to course-correct, keep moving and stay in the game.

I’ve never been a “system” guy, or a “methodology” guy, and it’s because ideas have always trumped the system or the method.

https://thehestongroup.com/5478-2/

“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

• John Kenneth Galbraith (1908 – 2006), Canadian-American economist and diplomat

Truer today than ever, perhaps?

One, Galbraith was a diplomat, and diplomacy is in short supply these days. In fact, with all the talk of supply chain issues, why don’t we focus more on the short supply of diplomacy, grace and presumption of good intentions?

Two, even if selling is our career, the act of changing our mind might still serve us better than proving our point. See, as sales pros, we not only get focused on making the sale, we can get wrapped around the axle on how the buyer decides to make the purchase. If we just know that their motivator is “x” we focus all our energy on making that the focus of our “why you should buy.”

What if the buyer gives us a sign that something else is more important? What if we realize that some other element of that thing we sell matters more than the boss or the marketing materials suggest it matters?

In buying and selling, it’s about bringing people together for a common good. In life, politics, love, relationships, it ought to be about the same thing.

Changing our mind — not necessarily our principles or values, and certainly not our morals, but changing our mind within those boundaries — might be the best way to create a safe environment for others to change theirs.

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts – for support rather than illumination.”

– Andrew Lang (1844 – 1912), Scottish poet, thinker and literary critic

Using data is a crappy way to change someone’s mind. If all we’re tossing out is numbers, the odds are pretty good that we’re simply repeating the chorus of our song at the expense of the verses.

The story is told in the verses. The story is where the emotional connection gets made with our point, our position. If we’re using data at the expense of stories, we’re substituting something rational over something compelling.

Buying decisions are made emotionally and then rationalized with information, data or facts. I’ve been blessed with some very smart friends, many of whom are actuaries, CPAs, attorneys, and even judges. Even the actuaries look for the “why” behind the numbers, and base their decisions, strategic or otherwise on the stories the numbers help tell. Because the numbers never tell the entire story. Even though the “figures don’t lie” — the wise seller will put them in context and the wise buyer will consider them a part of their decision.

Dad said it differently; “Figures lie and liars figure,” he generalized, and he was on the right path, even though I don’t buy the dark undertone of the position. Business and salespeople who rely solely on numbers might be of a fixed mindset when a growth mindset is key to being viable tomorrow.

If we’re using data as more than a support mechanism, we are likely to lose our way and end up in an icky place. If we’re using stories and leveraging data to prop up the most important elements of those stories, our direction likely matches our intention.

“Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how well you play the pigeon is going to wind up pooping on the board and then strutting around like it won.”

• Randy Phillips, Monday Morning Memo March 4, 2022

Long-time subscribers know that I am a devoted fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes, and we’re heading into the peak of college football season. So, what’s the connection to today’s headline and quote?

Three weeks ago, a variety of chess-playing-pigoens on The Tweeter and Instaface or Facegram were calling for the head of Iowa’s legendary head coach, Kirk Ferentz. He’s won 181 games as Iowa’s leader and has placed dozens of young men in the NFL, most of whom started as “Who’s He?” recruits. And three weeks ago, the idiots were calling for the university to fire him.

Most reasonable folks ignored them, on account o’ not wanting pigeon poo on their chess boards. A few well-intentioned fans, God bless them, took up the argument. Only to face lots of pooping and strutting. Because, you see, the Hawks have recorded two straight wins — one against a very bad team and one against a relatively bad team) and now many of these same Tweeters and Sound-Off call-in show hacks are touting “the system,” and expecting Iowa to win 7 of its last 8 games this year. “Build a statue,” they’re shouting…

Sigh.

It’s the same in our businesses. Ask “what’s right?” and get ready for the crickets. Ask “what’s wrong?” and look out for the dump truck of pigeon excrement headed your way.

Theodore Roosevelt said as much in 1910 in his famous Citizenship In A Republic speech (more widely known as “The Man In The Arena.”)

“A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities — all these are marks, not of superiority, but of weakness.”

The key phrase for me is “work which the critic himself never tries to perform.” As Joe South (and later Elvis) sang, “…before you abuse, criticize and accuse, walk a mile in my shoes.” We live in a time when folks who’ve never been in the arena, sit in the bowl of the arena and bluster at the ones with the sweat and tears that come from doing the work.

Just like most people have never coached a Division I, Power Five Conference football team for 24 years and to almost 200 wins, most people who complain the loudest about (insert boss, teacher, coach, CEO) do not have contact with the realities of business. Nor do they have a clear handle on what it takes to lead a team, run or own a business, make the hard decision and open yourself up to critiques from the pigeons with tons of fiber in their diets.

Should we question authority? Yes, if we’ve got an idea of what might be done differently. Should we speak truth to power? Dang right, as long as we’re willing to use forethought and empathy in framing our voice.

Odds are, though, if we find ourselves cynical, aloof or out of contact with reality, we maybe ought to check our tongues and simply do the work.