Strategy. Innovation. Brand.

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Always Be Conversing

He was so young!

He was so young!

In the 1992 movie, Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin played a very hard-nosed sales manager determined to teach a bunch of rookies how to sell. He used intimidation, fear, stress, and money as motivators. He didn’t believe in being nice. He believed in closing.

Baldwin also introduced a term that I’ve heard many times since: Always Be Closing or ABC. The idea is simple – you’re always looking for prospects, qualifying them, moving them through the sales process, and closing them. Then you start over. You’re like a shark – always moving, always eating.

Always Be Closing is associated with pushy, high-pressure sales tactics. You might find them in use at car dealerships or time-share condo conventions. We’re all familiar with them and we all profess to hate them.

Now what about nonprofits? Is Always Be Closing an appropriate technique for raising funds for a nonprofit organization? I don’t think so. For me, nonprofit fundraising is all about relationships. It’s about building for the long run, not closing in the short term.

So I’ve created a new ABC for non-profits: Always Be Conversing. A conversation, of course, has two parts: talking and listening. Always Be Conversing suggests that we’re always ready to talk about our nonprofit organization (NPO) and listen to our constituents’ needs. By conversing with constituents, friends, and our broader network of acquaintances, we build relationships. Over time, those relationships allow us – quite naturally – to ask for donations.

Always Be Conversing also implies that we actively seek out conversations. To create rich conversations, we need to prepare ourselves. Here are some pointers:

  • Always have a story – people love stories – they’re easy to understand, relatable, and memorable. When you tell a story, you’re not being a pushy sales person. Rather, you’re building relationships, awareness, and interest. Tip: focus on outputs, not inputs. If your NPO donated a million dollars for scholarships last year, that’s an input. It’s an interesting fact but not a story. On the other hand, if you can describe how your scholarships changed people’s lives, that’s the output of your investment. It’s also a memorable story that most people will be eager to hear.
  • Use conversation starters – how does anyone know that you’re passionate about your NPO? How does anyone know that you’re a source of information and assistance? The simplest way is to wear some identification. If you wear a lapel pin or a brooch or a jacket with your NPO’s logo on it, people can identify you and have a conversation. It can happen at random times, so always have a story ready.
  • Don’t ask, offer– my NPO is the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. When I wear my NMSS jacket to the grocery store, people frequently ask me about my connection to the Society. Then they often say, “My (wife, cousin, mother, neighbor, etc.) has MS.” I typically respond by saying, “How can I help?” As it happens, NMSS can help in a variety of ways, from insurance advice to exercise programs. But I’m also invoking the reciprocity principle – you’re more persuasive if you offer a favor before requesting a favor.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll write more about fundraising for nonprofits through story telling and relationship building. In the meantime, start telling your stories. You’ll be surprised at the impact you can have.

(My NPO is the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. If you need information about multiple sclerosis or help in dealing with it, just drop me a line. I want to Always Be Conversing).

 

Button-Down Innovation

Liberty Bell Collar Roll (oxforclothbuttondown.com)

Liberty Bell Collar Roll (oxforclothbuttondown.com)

Men’s fashions change very slowly. By and large, the shirts I wore in high school are still in fashion. (Too bad they don’t fit). In fact, I bet that many of the shirts my Dad wore in high school would still be in fashion. So, there’s not much room for innovation in men’s shirts, is there? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

It’s a good thing that Elliot Gant didn’t get the memo. Elliot, who started Gant Shirtmakers with his brother Martin in 1949, died a few days ago at age 89. The Gant brothers innovated where most other managers never even thought about it. The Gants observed closely and made a series of innovative enhancements. Though each innovation was small, the cumulative effect was huge (as they say in New York).

Here’s how the New York Times describes how the Gant brothers changed and enhanced the traditional button down shirt.

The Gant brothers perfected the collar’s shape, known as the perfect roll, formed by the front edges of the buttoned collar. They introduced the box pleat in the back to allow more freedom of movement, the extra button in the back of the collar to keep the tie in place, and the patented button tab that connects beneath the necktie to push the knot up and out. (The tab won an award from Esquire magazine.)

They also introduced the hanger loop on the back of the shirt so that it could be hung on a hook — in a locker, say — without wrinkling.

The Times writes that the locker loop became, “…a collegiate and high school totem: A young man would remove it from his shirt to signal that he was going steady.” I remember it somewhat differently. If a girl liked you, she would walk up behind you in the high school hallway, pull the loop off the back of your shirt, and keep it as a memento. Sadly, most of my shirts still had their loops.

How did the Gant brothers create a teenage totem from something as unoriginal as a shirt? According to the Gant website, the Gant brothers knew their customer well and focused on a very specific segment: young, preppy men. They never let their gaze wander. They also dedicated themselves to quality as an important differentiator in a largely undifferentiated market.

They also innovated in advertising and marketing communications. They relocated their company from Brooklyn to New Haven, Connecticut largely because New Haven had a large population of skilled tailors. It also, of course, had Yale University. As the website notes, the Gant brothers used Yale for design inspiration and also for marketing. They created the American East Coast University look, which was “distinctive and debonair”. It was what the cool kids wore.

Gant chose to market in nontraditional ways as well. They started with the Yale Co-op, a campus store “…where [students] went to buy clothing and as the Ivy League Look exploded the Yale Co-op was the nexus of the new style.”

Gant also advertised in non-traditional media – non-traditional for men’s clothing at least. They started with small one-eighth page ads in The New Yorker, a magazine for the smart set. They grew upward and outward from here.

When we think of innovation today, we of then think of big, audacious game-changers – artificial intelligence, robots, automatons, and so on. But let’s remember that we can innovate on a smaller scale as well. Changing where and how you place a button on a shirt can create a valuable brand, important differentiation, and even a teenage totem. Innovation doesn’t require large-scale genius. It simply requires observation, imagination, and dedication. Thinking small is just as important as thinking big.

Self-Herding At Breakfast

Just like Grandma served.

Just like Grandma served.

I’ve always believed that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Why? Because my mother told me so. Why did she believe it? Because her mother told her so. Who told her? Probably Edward Bernays, “the father of public relations.”

Is it true that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Well, maybe not. If not, I’ve been self-herding for most of my life. I reached a decision (without much thinking) that breakfast was important. My only evidence was my mother’s advice.

Making the decision may have been a mistake. But, c’mon … she was my Mom. The more egregious mistake is that I never doubled back on the decision to see if anything had changed. I made the decision and never thought about it again. I self-herded into a set of fixed behaviors.

I also suffered from the confirmation bias. Researchers published articles from time to time confirming that breakfast is important. These studies confirmed what I already believed. Since the studies didn’t challenge my mental framework, I didn’t bother to check them closely. I just assumed that they were good science.

As it turns out, those studies were based on observations. Researchers observed people’s behavior and noted that people who ate breakfast were also generally healthier and less likely to be obese compared to people who didn’t. Clearly, breakfast is important.

But let’s think about this critically. There are at least three possible relationships between and among the variables:

  • Eating breakfast causes people to be healthier – breakfast causes health
  • Healthier people eat breakfast more than unhealthy people – health causes breakfast
  • Healthier people eat breakfast and also do other things that contribute to good health – hidden variable(s) lead to healthiness and also cause people to eat breakfast.

With observational studies, researchers can’t easily sort out what causes what.

So James Betts and his colleagues did an experimental study – as opposed to an observational study – on the relationship between breakfast and good health. (The original article is here. The popular press has also covered the story including the New York Times, Time magazine, and Outside magazine).

Betts’ research team randomly assigned people to one of two groups. One group had to eat breakfast every day; the other group was not allowed to do any such thing. This isolates the independent variable and allows us to establish causality.

The trial ran for six weeks. The result: nothing. The researchers found no major health or weight differences between the two groups.

But previous research had found a correlation between breakfast and good health. So what caused what? It was probably a cluster of hidden variables. Betts noted, for instance, “…the breakfast group was much more physically active than the fasting group, with significant differences particularly noted during light-intensity activities during the morning.”

So it may not be breakfast that creates healthier outcomes. It may be that breakfast eaters are also more physically active. Activity promotes wellness, not breakfast.

If that’s true, I’ve been self-herding for many years. I didn’t re-check my sources. If I had, I might have discovered that Edward Bernays launched a PR campaign in the 1920s to encourage people to eat a hearty breakfast, with bacon and eggs. Bernays was working for a client – Beech-Nut Packing Company – that sold pork products, including bacon. I suspect the campaign influenced my grandmother who, in turn, influenced my mother who, in turn, influenced me. The moral of the story: check your sources, re-check them periodically, and be suspicious of observational studies. And don’t believe everything that your mother tells you.

(By the way, I recently published two short articles about the effects of chocolate and sex on cognition. Both of these articles were based on observational studies. Caveat emptor).

Heard of Self-Herding?

Should've gotten Grover's Grind.

Should’ve gotten Grover’s Grind.

How many times do you need to make the same decision?

Let’s say that, on your drive to work, there are two drive-through coffee shops: Grover’s Grind and The Freckled Beauty. You try each and decide that you prefer the mocha delight from The Freckled Beauty. Why would you ever make that same decision again? It’s more efficient to make the decision once and repeat the behavior as often as needed.

Let’s change the context. You’re walking down a busy street in a big city when you see a cluster of, say, six people. They’re all looking upward and pointing to a tall building. Chances are that you’ll slow down and look up as well. The cluster of people has “herded” you into behaving the same way they behave.

Herding affects us in many ways. Teenagers wear essentially the same clothing because they want to be part of the same herd. College professors dress like college professors. Similarly, if we’re surrounded by liberals, we tend to lean liberal. If surrounded by conservatives, we tend to lean conservative. We sort ourselves into different herds based on appearances, clothing, lifestyles, political position, religion and so on.

Herding is essentially a cognitive bias. Instead of thinking through a decision and using logic to reach an advantageous conclusion, we use a shortcut (also known as a heuristic). We let the herd think for us. If it’s good enough for them, it’s probably good enough for me.

Like most cognitive biases, herding leads us to good conclusions much of the time … but not always. When it goes wrong, it does so in predictable ways. As Dan Ariely says in the title of his book, we’re Predictably Irrational.

If we think about it, it’s easy to recognize herding. With a little forethought we can defend ourselves against groupthink. But what about self-herding – a notion that Ariely developed. Can you easily recognize it? Can you defend yourself against it?

Self-herding has to do with difficult questions. Daniel Kahneman pointed out that, when we’re asked a hard question, we often substitute an easy question and answer that instead. Here’s a hard question, “How likely is it that you’ll be shot in your neighborhood?” We don’t know the answer, so we substitute an easier question: “How many neighborhood shooting incidents can I recall from memory?” If we can remember many such incidents, then we assume that a recurrence is highly probable. This is known as the availability bias – we assume that things that are easily available to memory are likely to happen again.

Self-herding is a variant of the availability bias. As Ariely points out, it’s not easy to answer a question like, “What’s the best place to eat in your neighborhood?” So we substitute an easier question, “Where have I eaten before that I really liked?” Ariely notes that, “We can consult our preferences or we can consult our memory. It turns out it’s often easier to consult our memory.”

When you continue to choose The Freckled Beauty over Grover’s Grind, you’re herding yourself. It was the right decision at one time and you assume that it continues to be the right decision. It’s an efficient way to think. It’s also easy – you use your memory rather than your thinking muscles.

But, as we all know, things change. In fact, the speed of change seems to be accelerating. If the conditions that led to our initial decision change, then the decision is no longer valid. We can miss important opportunities and make serious mistakes. Every now and then, we need to un-herd ourselves.

Innovation’s Speech Impediment

It's not a good idea if I don't understand it.

It’s not a good idea if I don’t understand it.

One of the most important obstacles to innovation is the cultural rift between technical and non-technical managers. The problem is not the technology per se, but the communication of the technology. Simply put, technologists often baffle non-technical executives and baffled executives won’t support change.

To promote innovation, we need to master the art of speaking between two different cultures: technical and non-technical. We need to find a common language and vocabulary. Most importantly, we need to speak to business needs and opportunities, not to the technology itself.

In my Managing Technology class, my students act as the CIO of a fictional company called Vair. The students study Vair’s operations (in a 12-page case study) and then recommend how technical innovations could improve business operations.

Among other things, they present a technical innovation to a non-technical audience. They always come up with interesting ideas and useful technologies. And they frequently err on the side of being too technical. Their presentations are technically sound but would be baffling to most non-technical executives.

Here are the tips I give to my students on giving a persuasive presentation to a non-technical audience. I thought you might find them useful as well.

Benefits and the so what question – we often state intermediary benefits that are meaningful to technologists but not meaningful to non-technical executives. Here’s an example, “By moving to the cloud, we can consolidate our applications”. Technologists know what that means and can intuit the benefits. Non-technical managers can’t. To get your message across, run a so what dialogue in your head,

Statement: “By moving to the cloud, we can consolidate our applications.”

Question: “So what?”

Statement: “That will allow us to achieve X.”

Question: “So what?”

Statement: “That means we can increase Y and reduce Z.”

Question: “So what?”

Statement: “Our stock price will increase by 12%”

Asking so what three or four times is usually enough to get to a logical end point that both technical and non-technical managers can easily understand.

Give context and comparisons – sometimes we have an idea in mind and present only that idea, with no comparisons. We might, for instance, present J.D. Edwards as if it’s the only choice in ERP software. If you were buying a house, you would probably look at more than one option. You want to make comparisons and judge relative value. The same holds true in a technology presentation. Executives want to believe that they’re making a choice rather than simply rubber-stamping a recommendation. You can certainly guide them toward your preferred solution. By giving them a choice, however, the executives will feel more confident that they’ve chosen wisely and, therefore, will support the recommendation more strongly.

Show, don’t tell – chances are that technologists have coined new jargon and acronyms to describe the innovation. Chances are that non-technical people in the audience won’t understand the jargon — even if they’re nodding their heads. Solution: use stories, analogies, or examples:

  • Stories – explain how the innovation came about, who invented it, and why. Put real people in the story. Explain what problems existed before the innovation arrived. How is the world better now?
  • Analogies – compare it to something that the audience knows and understands. A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), for instance, is remarkably similar to a modular stereo system.
  • Examples – tell the story of other companies that are using the technology. What benefits have they gained?

Words, words, words – often times we prepare a script for a presentation and then put most of it on our slides. The problem is that the audience will either listen to you or read your slides. They won’t do both. You want them to listen to you – you’re much more important than the slides. You’ll need to simplify your slides. The text on the slide should capture the headline. You should tell the rest of the story.

If you follow these tips, the executives in your audience are much more likely to comprehend the innovation’s benefits. If they comprehend the benefits, they’re much more likely to support the innovation.

(If you’d like a copy of the Vair case study, just send me an e-mail. I’m happy to share it.)

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