The Actors Studio.

Watching James Lipton discuss in depth, the best interviews of the past 250 episodes of the "Actors Studio", got me thinking about the acting and special effects that go on in the business world. Lipton talked about the best episodes being where actors showed their real selves, took off their day job masks and revealed who they really were and what they stood for. They were episodes where true emotion got the better of the actors and people were able to see their authentic inner persona. Our expectation is for actors, to wear a mask, stay in character, be a personality, not show their inner self, work with the facades put up by the special effects people and be someone selling a product based on make believe, for them it's a job.

In the business world it should be the opposite, people should show their true personality at every opportunity, never wear a mask, never hide behind the facade of a product and be authentic in their relationships. I don't have to think too hard, to come up with many examples where this is not the case and business is done from behind masks and using special effects, so as not to show the truth behind the curtain.

The digital business world is often closer to Hollywood than it is to the corporate work life, giving people the ability to be actors in their own movie, selling and hawking their wares behind facades created to influence decisions, decisions not based on reality.
It's rare to see behind the curtain in the digital world and rarer still to find the person behind the website, the forum or the blog. The anonymity provided by the web, gives people the ability to play many characters, most of them make believe and this has contributed to the search for truth and integrity online. Something that's missing if you've ever been scammed, hoodwinked or defrauded in any way.

The corporate boardroom is no different and sees Shakespeare acted out each day as kings and CEOs are tumbled, company cultures become the stuff of theatre and egos grow to engulf the unwary player. How often have you heard the term "player" referring to those aspiring and climbing the corporate ladder, how often have you seen the real face of people once they have accomplished their deeds and how often have you felt yourself caught up in a Greek tragedy at work. From the costumes worn, Hugo Boss or Armani, to the cars driven, Porshe or BMW, the watches worn, Breitling or TAG, and the many accoutrements required to play the role effectively, today's business is often seen hiding behind the stuff of theatre.

When you find business people who have divested themselves of the greasepaint and costumes, you are often surprised by the honesty of products and services that previously you doubted and had reservations about. Like the slow food revolution, realism in business is becoming a force and people are searching out the "real" in people so they don't have to read the end credits to find out who they were dealing with. Maybe the analogy is to stay in documentary mode when doing business, at least that way no one is in Oscar mode hiding behind a script.

Blink.

In a nod to Malcolm Gladwell's seminal tome of 2005, the art of thin slicing, "our ability to gauge what is really important from a very narrow period of experience", has seen me recently gauge and react accordingly to people I have not met before or known for a very short period of time. Gladwell indicates that often we have too much information and decision paralysis along with prejudices, likes and stereotypes can get in the way of a spontaneous decision. Often the further collection of information just goes to validating our original thinking or belief and that micro seconds are all that is needed when summing up people from the expressions on their faces.

In a meeting last week, I met a young man who was in charge of a very large and powerful innovation fund. He had come to a meet us and learn more about the business and the team behind the strategy. Half my age and twice as wise and unusual in a good way, is how I described him later, when my wife asked how the meeting went. For the longest time he said nothing, listened intently, had a totally open mind and was completely non judgemental. I gathered that from his body language and facial expressions and as the studies of Paul Ekman, who came up with the Facial Action Coding System, indicate, the face is a rich source of what is going on inside our minds and that micro-expressions give note to emotions and thoughts picked up if studied closely. The meeting went on to last for 6 hours, so was my initial thinking, my initial "thin slicing" correct? It was validated over and over again as the young man brought forth salient points of interest to the business, asked the most probing questions, couched in language that made the room comfortable and showed he knew it was all about us and not about him.

The so called 7 seconds, you have to make an impression, the power of body language and the ability to sum yourself up in less than 30 seconds in an "elevator speech", have long been the arena of sales folklore and many make their living touting the value of that first meeting and what can be accomplished long term, if all the right signals are sent. Seth Godin often quotes "if you can't state your position in eight words, you don't have a position", giving further rise to the power of decisions made on a big picture rather than gathering mountains of information.

Many push back and address the conundrum with a wait and see attitude, gathering data, facts and information to be analysed, appraised and evaluated. For many this analysis becomes a wall too high to scale and all the advantages gained by intuition, "gut feelings", insight and instinct fall by the wayside and they stay closed to the surprise of meeting someone for the first time and knowing they'll be a great friend or colleague, just by the smile on their face.

When asked I often tell people my philosophy is based around the thinking, the next person I meet, could be my best friend for the rest of my life, so why wouldn't I smile and extend my hand. You never know who you might meet if you are open to the moment.

If I didn't have a dime ....

And I didn't take the time to play the jukebox, Gene Pitney's lament to love discovered on a Saturday night, has interesting overtones and analogies to business today and making sure you are prepared and in the right place to take advantage of opportunities that may come your way. Being in the right place and being prepared are the hallmarks of good business acumen but how do you go about being prepared and knowing where the right places are?

Is an MBA a guarantee of knowledge, of knowing, of being prepared? Not by itself of course but as part of a package you sure cant go wrong if you have the maximum amount of learning at your disposal. Having said that, learning is not about higher tertiary qualifications, learning is about your capacity for openness and acceptance of ideas that may not "float your boat" or "rock your world". Being prepared is about building on your skill set, having the motivation to dig deeper than your competitors and realising there is no end to the preparation. For many, the mistake is thinking graduation, course completion and the end of projects is all you need, for others there is no finish line and everything they do is in preparation for opportunities. The question you continually need to ask, is which are you?

So you set your course, you learn continuously, you stay open to new ideas but how do you put yourself in a position to be in the right place at the right time for the opportunities you have prepared for? Like learning and new ideas finding the right people that can help you, mentor you and guide you means getting out of your comfort zone. It means opening yourself up to others, other than your small circle of influence and safety. It means going out of your way to meet people in circles you may think have nothing to do with your end game. You can't prepare and ready yourself for the next level on the business ladder by working in a silo environment. Leave your ego at the front door and find the people more intelligent and capable than yourself and you have a good recipe for your mix of preparation and being in the right spot. Your supporters, mentors, colleagues, will find the right spot and when get there, you'll have the "dime" to play the "jukebox". You just need to put the coin in the slot.

Okay so the decision analogy maybe a bit thin but the final scenario in all of this effort is about your mental state and self worth that has hopefully been built from your learnings, your openness and preparation and the support and guidance of people around you. The idea isn't to build and prepare yourself for monumental decisions way in the future but to have the ability on a daily basis to play the jukebox with a pocket full of dimes, always ready to embrace the opportunity. Gene Pitney, wherever you are, I hope you're okay with this?

New phone.

The release of the new iPhone this week will see a global media frenzy targeting the Apple zealots lining up to be first, the Apple disbelievers who will pull apart the phone to show there is no magic inside and business analysts citing the aberration between Apple's low 13% marketshare and high 60% profit of the entire smart phone sector. There will be debates over usability, the latest operating system and how well the phone fits into a handbag. For me the most interesting numbers centre on the small marketshare of the iPhone and the large influence it has globally. Most companies that have such a small marketshare in their sector are generally relegated to third or fourth place in the pecking order, with no voice and certainly no influence, especially when it comes to innovation and design.

So why will every media channel carry the launch? Why will every analyst and pundit put forward their opinions? Why will your neighbour want to beat you to the post, showing off his latest acquisition, the iPhone 6? Some tribes become powerful because there a lot of them, some because they are the smartest and some because they are led by the smartest and most powerful. Such is the Apple tribe and they don't care what anyone says about them, they don't care the majority of the world carries Samsung, they don't care there could be alternatives that match or better their product, for they are safe within their tribal zones with a chief constantly validating their choice of technology.

The closed ecosystem that Apple has created is the most powerful of business relationships because everyone believes and works towards the same determination within a support system geared towards the end user. Apple worked out early, if they made it about you, there was less opportunity to point the finger back upstairs amid accusations of profiteering and mismanagement. Apple worked out early that brand allegiance was the most powerful mindset for profit and longevity, allowing the company flexibility to innovate and fail, innovate and fail, innovate and launch, products designed purely for the Apple tribe user and not to pander to marketplace trends.

With over 5 billion mobile phones on the planet, over 1 billion being smart phones, Apple figured out early, mass domination was a futile pursuit, think Nokia, Blackberry and Motorola. What they concentrated on doing well, was designing a phone that appealed to a small but influential tribe, happy to pay a premium for a product that exceeded their expectations, gave them a sense of exclusivity via a small tribe and gave them something to look forward to every time there was a launch of a new iPhone.

From a personal and business viewpoint, the Apple model works if you know it's about them and not about you, know it's about delivering on what you say you are going to do, know it's about having the authenticity to be able to fail and still hold true to your beliefs. Go on, start your tribe.

Social proof.

I used to walk past empty restaurants. Why not, surely without patrons, the assumption of bad service, bad food and bad experience was a given. That was until I opened my own establishment back in the late 90s, catering for what I thought might be a new wave of foodies interested in the flavours of southern USA and Mexico. Attendance at the Santa Fe cooking school and introducing new flavours and ideas was all I needed for my start up. That was until people walked by and went to the local greasy spoon, not because the food or service were any better, far from it, but because it was filled with patrons. I could never understand the reasoning behind the herd mentality or as Cialdini calls it, pluralistic ignorance. Why didn't people experiment, leave their comfort zone or want to be early adopters was a mystery to me.

This mentality of group behaviour has a name, social proof, and Wikipedia describes it as “a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others, reflect the correct behaviour for a given situation, driven by the assumption the surrounding people possess more information about the situation.” So it wasn't my cooking after all, just a mistrust of individual decision making. The restaurant survived and eventually gained crowds via social proof from locals looking for something new, people hearing about a new cuisine and word of mouth generated by individuals of influence. It's these individuals willing to be first, willing to lead a tribe and willing to be scrutinised I thank the most for the success of the restaurant and I was determined from then on, to not be part of the herd mentality, for there was so much more to discover if you were brave.

The famous murder case in 1964, where Catherine Genovese was stabbed to death over a period of 35 minutes with over 30 witnesses in surrounding apartments, gave new highs to pluralistic ignorance as everyone assumed everyone else would report the murder and no one did. It was social proofing to the maximum where everyone assumed and no one acted. Social proofing is not a new phenomenon but one taken to great lengths today by the social media giants or anyone wanting validation of their skill and expertise online. How often have you seen bloggers, tweeters, celebrities and anyone selling a product, brandishing the number of followers, after all a 10 million people can't be wrong and we're wired to learn from others, so let's follow this site. You can go back as far as 1955 for examples of social proofing, when Ray Kroc of McDonald's fame put up the conspicuously aggrandising sign "over one million served", leading people line up for hamburgers for the first time in history.

The trick to not becoming a part of the herd is having a mind of your own, trusting your judgement and not being concerned what people think, if you have your own thoughts and ideas. Seems simple enough, but all the indications point to global herds led by a few and validated by many. Everyone has the opportunity to stand out and make a difference, but it takes unflinching individualism. How brave are you?

Waste of time.

The meeting went long. The trains were late. The download took forever. The traffic was stalled. The upload took forever. The project went over time. The developers hit a snag. It seems everything takes longer than you think and I have no idea at all, how long anything takes anymore. My expectations have been raised to unattainable heights, thanks to technology but anytime there is a hitch, a snag, a delay or even a hesitation, the timeframe for finishing anything on time, goes out the window. I have succumbed to the best case scenario argument and with that comes disappointment when tasks are not completed on time. I only have myself to blame for being sucked into the technology vortex built around speed of information, speed of communication and speed of expectations.

I am wistful for bygone days when projects would take forever because we didn't have the equipment or resources and expectations were low and if by chance there was an early completion, we celebrated. Today, completion expectations run high for anything from simple developments tasks to getting to work on time but calamity awaits us at every turn. There is a reason for all this disappointment and it was cognitive scientist, Douglas Hofstadter, who came up with a law in 1979, that stated any task you were planning to complete will always take longer than expected. Doh! He surmised we habitually underestimate the time it takes to do things, citing projects such as the Sydney Opera House, completed 10 years past the original end date. Yet even when we take Hofstadter's law into account, we still don't finish on time as unforeseen delays, being unforeseen, are not accounted for.

So the consequences of being late, running overtime in a meeting, encountering a technical hitch or getting caught in a train strike are far more extreme than the positive side of everything working out for you. Nassim Taleb in Antifragile, uses air travel as an example, for when things go right and you arrive 30 minutes early, you have some time up your sleeve for a coffee but arriving 30 minutes late is compounded by missed meetings, missed flights, cancelled agendas and generally a more extreme aftermath to those expectations you had when getting out of bed that morning.

The technology culture has compressed time for all of us and along with the aspiration of that culture, comes a faint mist of discontent as time betrays us by never being in accord with our planning. So I struggle along, hearing the words of my Mother, "if you're not 10 minutes early, you're late" ringing in my ears and I struggle with the comprehension that no matter how well I plan, my plan is likely to be disrupted by unforeseen circumstances. For it seems no matter how much in control I think I am, I can't see around corners and the vague notion of control is just a trick of the mind to keep me motivated and galvanised in my actions.

The only saving grace in all of this, is we are all in the same boat. So next time it doesn't work out as planned, someone arrives late for a meeting and that document just won't download, remember, you are not alone.

Father & Son.

I was born within sight of the Hamburg docks and then moved half way round the world to the heart of a steel city. So it was inevitable to end up left of left whenever discussions arose about politics, the state of the roads and wages. The attitudes developed at a young age mirrored those of the people around you, especially Fathers and the likelihood of change was a distant future you couldn't see. For in those days there was no middle ground and no one had ever met anyone from the right, so the chance for political or any other kind of change was slim. You did what your Father did and you said what your Father said, it was a black and white argument because people read, watched and listened to only those who were around them. The global opportunities were decades away and attitudes ingrained were attitudes difficult to change.

"It's not time to make a change, just relax, take it easy, you're still young, that's your fault, there's so much you have to know". The first lines of the Cat Stevens song encapsulate the thinking of my Father at the time, personifying the attitudes of all those around him. Congenital thinking, dyed in the wool attitudes and strong beliefs with no other sides to the argument, left little to negotiate.

I mention the above as a segue to today, as the political parties ramp up their mud slinging, their denouncements of each others policies and their general bad behaviour towards each other and their voters. Left and right have long since raced to the middle because polarising attitudes leave nothing to negotiate and today, everything is up for negotiation. Political intrigue is no longer the domain of shady back rooms but is played out in the glare of media not in control of the politicians but in control of the masses.

This change in control has finally given people power to speak out and not just follow in the footsteps of the Father. It has given people the amplitude and capacity to envisage change via their own voice, via media not anticipated by their Fathers, to affect change for personal and widespread equivocation.

So I watch and read in anticipation for rallying cries and rumblings from below, challenging the parties to confront the issues of the day. Certainly there are pockets and the QI brigade are keeping politicians accountable for their actions but the broader society can't see beyond the past and the past belongs to their Fathers. The ability and capability for change is finally in the hands of the people, you need only to look at the global landscape of change brought about by media avenues such as Twitter, Facebook and all the online forums, allowing opinions and attitudes to be challenged and changed.

With an election only weeks away, it behoves all within earshot of technology to stand up for their beliefs and give the politicians something to think about, other than slanging off at each other. The power and authority for change is not just about the vote, it's about attitudinal change bought about by knowledge wider than your Father ever thought about. Knowledge you don't have to ask your Father about.

Competition.

I haven't changed my landing page in years, Yahoo is so last century, I haven't deviated from my news searches or thought of changing my book supplier, why is that? Most of my friends have not changed their favourite shopping sites in ages and wont look at others until they are of comparative size and breadth to the ones they are used to using, if that is even possible. Competition for your attention, your time and your money depends on many variables, the main one being, having an alternative choice that brings with it, extra value, a good price point, convenience, knowledge and the capacity to be 100 times better than what you are using now. Not an easy accomplishment, so will the likes of Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, eBay, Amazon, YouTube et al, ever face strong opposition again? Even a giant like Microsoft can't gain ground with their search engine Bing. Will there ever be competitors that do what they do better? Why aren't people looking for alternatives?

The answer to a lot of those questions lies in human behaviour that abhors change once a plateau of satisfaction has been reached and no amount of cajoling or attention grabbing behaviour from competitors will entice them from that plateau. The net is Darwinian in its make up, ceding the high ground to those that have become the top of the food chain. I am still fascinated by the disappearance in the 70s of the orbital engine, designed by Ralph Sarich for greater efficiency, it would have revolutionised the car industry but quickly disappeared under a mountain of money, when Detroit came calling to take care of the competition. Times haven't changed much when we look at the web, with larger fish eating their way through the schools of competition. Whenever we hear of an innovative APP, a new way of navigation or a creative aggregator, a bank roll of cash from the big fish, isn't far behind.

From billion dollar investments like Instagram for Facebook, to eBay's purchase of Skype through to Google buying ITA, there are more smaller companies that no longer exist because the big 10 have more money than the rest of the world combined. There is no shortage of new and ascendant companies with evolving ideas to prick our imagination but the lifespan of most will depend on their relevancy to the dominate sites. If the big sites see you as competition or worse a synergy to their business plan, your days are numbered, The dominant sites are all looking to build closed eco systems, to control your attention, your buying behaviour and your capacity to change. Where else can you search for Facebook information, other than Facebook?

The Times recently released a list of the most interesting new sites on the web, from newsworthy like Quartz and Narratively, to audio and video sites such as SoundCloud and 5-Second Films, through to social sites RebelMouse and NextDoor, not forgetting shopping via Outgrow.me and Outgoing. It's not an exhaustive list but it does cover everything we like to do on the web but as you read this, think small fish surrounded by big fish and know the list is decreasing. I was going to look at some of the new entries but I couldn't find them on Google.

Forks.

My Mother often sites her decision to emigrate as the reason for any success I may have achieved, believing that success, would not have been duplicated in the country she left. I cannot conclusively argue the point because that decision had been made for me as child and all I could do was manage my way to the future without reference to what might have been. Decisions and life directions are often made for you, caused by external circumstances, accidental occurrences and people deciding for you. Without a chance to influence those directions and standing at those forks in the road, you have to become more adept in your ability to manage change and have the capacity to see the opportunities, regardless of whether they were your decision.

Decisions are often seen as the accumulation of our intentions but nothing could be further from the truth when your life, your work or your family is affected by external happenstance. When a fork is presented, your choices are limited to taking the new road or not seeing it and finding out later, there was a better way. So where, as Seth Godin, describes the difficulty in the fork in the road being, seeing it and taking it, the greater difficulty for most is the management of change that comes along with the new direction they are travelling.

Stories abound of successful people raising themselves from poverty and adversity, achieving against the grain of a life chosen for them. Malcolm Gladwell, in his seminal book on success, Outliers, sites the month you were born as a precursor of success for many professional athletes, the cultures and times that influence what you become when he described the top lawyers in New York but countered those arguments with his thinking on the 10,000 hours of work, sweat, determination and not giving up, that can counter everything else and bring success.

My favourite examples sites the Beatles, hailed as overnight successes in 1962, when their records hit the airwaves. Not achieving any success outside of their local cavern and only offered some gigs in the bars of Hamburg, the mop tops took it upon themselves to hone their skills to unimaginable heights via 10,000 plus performances before they put the grooves on their first record, to become overnight successes. Hard to imagine an act nowadays even performing that many gigs let alone doing it before their first success.

If a government changes, if you are made redundant, if relationships breakdown, if your Mother takes you to another country, standing at those forks in the road and all you can see is desolation, take an extra moment to look down the other path, for opportunity is not always about a path chosen for you but how you walk the one you take. So where a fork in the road is presented to you, there is still a decision to be made and success to be had but where as you thought it had nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with you.

Goodness gracious.

Attending a recent awards night, I was struck by the MC reminding winners to thank the appropriate people, colleagues, friends, partners, along with husbands and wives, who contributed to their success. Some were gracious and sincere in their thanks, some made comedic remarks about lack of partners and some were cursory in their thanks to others, while some forgot the instructions completely. None of the above made it an unusual night in regards to graciousness. The winners were there for a reason, to pick up a trophy, after all it was all about them. Yet the question should be asked, was it only about them?

Grace is not about you, grace is about others, the others who help you everyday, the others who make your life better for knowing them and the others who give without wanting anything back and knowing how to show that appreciation. It's a mistake to point at manners, thank you's, opening doors, giving your seat to someone older and equating that with graciousness. Grace is what emanates from everything you have learnt, everything you have achieved with the help of others and what you give back.

Professor Adam Grant of the Wharton school opines on great leaders and how their grace, generosity and altruistic attitudes provide as much, if not more success than the individualistic, self aggrandising leader. For the last decade he has researched characteristics that make up the high achievers of the business world and society. Motivation, ability and opportunity were the common threads linking success but he was able to include a fourth when he studied interaction in the workplace. The choice we make when we interact with someone saw him ask the questions, how much value do we claim from that person or how much value do we give without concern for reciprocity. This led him to categorise people into takers, matchers and givers and ask which of these led to the most success.

The general answer for many was takers, those who achieve because of their high level of self interest, while givers were seen to continue to give with no reward, especially in business. Grant himself noticed the amount of paranoia in the business world, where people saw the need to be takers or be seen as exploited and taken advantage of. He subsequently found a dearth of givers and the landscape nothing but competition for the top. A famous example given, was Jonas Salk, who never acknowledged his partners, claiming the cure of polio for himself. A taker, he never won a Nobel Prize, was snubbed by his peers and was never accepted into the scientific societies he so wanted to become part of.

Yet interesting data from Grant's research, showed people who rate the concern of others above their own self interest ended up the biggest winners in business and society. Not taking away success from any of the three categories, Grant put forward the thinking that society is better off with the givers as leaders because the cascade effect makes everyone a winner, not just the head of the company or the leader of the society. He saw the grace of a giving attitude separating the great leaders from the great managers and research showed people who freely gave their time and knowledge to colleagues, employees and people in general, become the most admired and appreciated within their circles. Givers always see the best in people, givers build trust and givers elevate others to achieve. This can become contagious, for people see themselves in leaders who inspire and bring out the best in others and this duplication can only be good for all.

Not even the individual athlete, accepting an Olympic gold medal did it by themselves. Is it time to be gracious and thank the people who got you to where you are today?