Tag Archives: Seth Godin

The Quadrants of Discernment

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Passion is a frequent theme in Seth Godin’s latest book, Linchpin. He also spends a good bit of time on discernment. The ability to see things they way they really are. Each corner of the illustration below represents a different kind of per and the way he responds to situations at work.

“In the bottom right is the Fundamentalist Zealot. He is attached to the world as he sees it. There is no prajna her, no discernment. Change is a threat. Curiosity is a threat. Competition is a threat. As a result, it’s difficult for him to see the world as it is,because he insists on the the world being the way he imagines it. At the same time, he has huge reservoirs of effort to invest in maintaining his worldview. Fundamentalist zealots always manage to make the world smaller, poorer, and meaner.

The top left belongs to the Bureaucrat. He’s certainly not attached to the outcome of events, and he definitely won’t be exerting any additional effort,regardless. The bureaucrat is a passionless rules follower, indifferent to external events and gliding through the day. The clear at the post office and the exhausted VP at General Motors are both bureaucrats.

The bottom left is the corner for the Whiner. The whiner has no passion, but is extremely attached to the worldview he’s bought into. Living life in fear of change, the whiner can’t muster the effort to make things better,but is extremely focused on wishing that things stay as they are. I’d put most people int he newspaper industry in this corner. They stood by for years, watching the industry crumble while they resolutely did nothing except whine about unfairness. Almost all the positive change in this industry (like The Huffington Post and YouTube) is coming from outsiders.

And that leaves the top right, the quadrant of the Linchpin. The linchpin is enlightened enough to see the world as it is, to understand that this angry customer is not about me, that this change in government policy is not a personal attack,that this job is not guaranteed for life. At the same time, the linchpin brings passion to the job. She knows from experience that the right effort in the right place can change the outcome, and she reserves her effort for doing just that.

Here’s another way to describe the two axes: One asks, Can you see it? The other wonders, Do you care?

Mark Ramsey interviews Seth Godin

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Mark Ramsey has done another interview with Seth Godin that I highly recommend. Mr. Godin is promoting his new book, “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?” I encourage you to listen to the interview. It isn’t long. Here are a few excerpts:

“…school was organized by the powers-that-be to turn the typical student into a compliant, quiet, sit-in-straight-rows, fill-in-little-circles-on-the-SAT, follow-the-path, go-to-the-job-you-get-at-the-placement-office kind of person. And there’s a reason for that: It’s that if you are the organization busy hiring people, the more people you have who want to do the jobs you’ve got, the cheaper you can get away with paying them. As a result, we’ve created a culture where a few people are able to drive the agenda and a lot of people end up working hard to fit in and have a lot of fear about doing anything but that.”

“You read about people who are making $80K, $90K, $200K a year as middle managers for Fortune 500 companies, and then they get laid off and can’t make $15,000 a year working at a 7-11, and the question I’d ask is: Where did the $70,000 worth of value go? Did the person change or just their income?”

“It’s a crisis because all these years that we were watching blue collar people lose their jobs, exported to China or wherever… All these years that we watched machines replace people on assembly lines, we just shook our heads and said that’s really sad but that’s not us, that’s them – good thing it’s not us. And now it’s us, now they’ve come for us.”

“Well, I think that broadcasters have now embraced the fact that spectrum is finally on its way to being valueless. It was an 80-year run, but there’s no intelligent person I know that says that in 10 or 15 years from now they are going to be glad they own 660 on the AM dial.”

“All those kids who are in school today, who are learning how to do the jobs of 1960 or 1970, they’re in big trouble. All those 40- or 50-year-old executives who are hoping they’re going to wait this thing out, they’re in really big trouble.”

Pick your decade: Frustration or Change

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I should just point www.smays.com to Seth Godin’s blog. Maybe change to WhatHeSaid.com. Mr. G picks two important trends for the coming decade. I’m opting for “change” over “frustration,” but you should read the full post.

Change: The infrastructure of massive connection is now real. People around the world have cell phones. The first internet generation is old enough to spend money, go to work and build companies. Industries are being built every day (and old ones are fading). The revolution is in full swing, and an entire generation is eager to change everything because of it. Hint: it won’t look like the last one with a few bells and whistles added.

In my experience, the people who poo-poo the idea of radical change usually have the most invested in keeping things the same. Good luck.

“Is it too late to catch up?”

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A few questions from the always brilliant Seth Godin:

“What if your organization or your client has done nothing? What if they’ve just watched the last fourteen years go by? No real website, no social media, no permission assets. What if now they’re ready and they ask your advice?

I think my honest answer might have been, “Too late.” But Mr. Godin comes through with 10 practical suggestions. I encourage you to read them all. Here are my favorites:

  • Start a book group for your top executives and every person who answers the phone, designs a product or interacts with customers. Read a great online media book a week and discuss. It’ll take you about a year to catch up.
  • Offer a small bonus to anyone in the company who starts and runs a blog on any topic. Have them link to your company site, with an explanation that while they work there, they don’t speak for you.
  • Do not approve any project that isn’t run on Basecamp.
  • Don’t have any meetings about your web strategy. Just do stuff. First you have to fail, then you can improve.

Mr. Godin concludes the problem is no longer budget or access to tools, rather it is the will to get good at operating in our new world. I have to wonder if you haven’t found the will by now, how likely are you to do so

Seth: “If you were starting your business today…”

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“Your industry has been completely and permanently altered by the connections offered by the internet. Your non-profit, your political campaign, your service business. Not a little different, not just email enabled or website marketed, but overhauled.

Unfortunately, that’s hard to embrace. But it’s still true. What are you going to do about it? If you were starting your business today, knowing what you know now, how would you do things (very) differently?” — Seth Godin