Goodbye winter

I thought people were supposed to take vacations in August? Yet look below at all those who stayed around to join the fun during this past month.

(Don't tell me they were using blackberries at the beach!)

Ta very much!

Yee're greet, the lot of ye!

commentors

Stephanie West Allen, Antoine Henry De Frahan, Mark Baker, Deepa Balaji, Martin Bamford, Eric Boehme, Leo J. Bottary, Bob Brown, Bruce, Duncan Bucknell, James Bullock, Tim Burrows, Shawn Callahan, Jimmy Campbell, Charles, James Cherkoff, Todor Christov, John Clough, Colin, Tom Collins, Petri Darby, Bob Daugherty, Mike DeWitt, Dean, Stephen Downes, Francis M. Egenias, Eric, Raissa Evans, Steve Farber, Anna Farmery, Doug Fletcher, David Foster, Allan Freeman, Jordan Furlong, Michelle Golden, Brooks Gould, Mark Gould, Lisa Guinn, Jim Hayward, Ken Hedberg, Joseph Heyison, Dennis Howlett, David Jacobson, Eric C Jaffe, Jaylpea, Jennifer, David Koopmans, David Law, Ed Lee, Bruce Lewin, Karen Love, Tom Lowe, Ludwig, Andrew Lumsden, Tim MMF, Peter Macmillan, Greg Magnus, Stephen Marshall, Steve Matthews, Lex McCafferty, Jim McGee, Jeff Merrifield, Ann Michael, Cristian Mitreanu, Johnnie Moore, Matt Moore, Mike Myatt, Liz Nash, Steve Pearce, Bill Peper, John Eric Pollabauer, Gregory Price, RJON, Jeff Risley, Rolf Van Der Meer, Bill S, Kosol S., Shuchetana, Carl A. Singer, Brijinder Singh, Andrew Smith, Prashant Subhedar, Nut Suwapiromchot, Charles Tippett, Eric Tong, Fiona Torrance, Coert Visser, Dan W,Curt Wehrley, Ian Welsh, Fred Wiersma, Mott Williamson, Darren Woolley, Hyokon Zhiang

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Marketing in a One-Off Industry

Tim Burrows, from GHD in Australia, has submitted the following question for us to discuss. Here's Tim:

Across the spectrum of industries, there is a wide variety of client needs, ranging from repetitive and regular advice through to one-off projects. In the latter case, some of these clients you may never serve again. How do you market yourself if you are in a one-off industry?

I'm not arguing that word of mouth referrals are not useful, and that's still where you start to build a reputation and a lead flow. But does the emphasis need to change if you are mainly or mostly working on one-off jobs? Are there other activities that would be useful in this situation that would not be that useful in the case of "repeat business clients"?

I would be interested to see what kind of responses you get from the rapidly growing community that is participating in the discussion on this blog.

OK, Tim. You clearly want the views of others as well as me, so I'll try and keep my views concise.

The essence of being in a one-off industry is that you have to have to repeatedly impress a stranger -- quickly -- with your capabilities. You're always meeting new people, and need to get them down their buying cycle fast.

I still believe that the best tactics for attracting new clients (even or especially) in a one-off industry are those I wrote about in Managing the Professional Service Firm:

a) Give lots of speeches,

b) Keep up a regular stream of little articles

c) Put on seminars (on-line) and

d) Do surveys and other data-gathering research that can position you as the source of "Facts no one else has got" -- even if those facts are just opinion surveys among your target audience asking them about current trends.

The surveys provide the regular, fresh content for the speeches, article-writing and seminars.

Those were my opinions, 10 years ago, and so we have to add in everything we've learned about online marketing (see my recent article Adventures in Modern Marketing), so you probably especailly need, in a one-off business, a website -- with lots of content -- where people you don't know (or who don't know you) can find you easily and be easily impressed with what you have to offer. (The second part is harder)

****

So, that's my contribution to get us started. Others? How do you market in a one-off business? What do you do DIFFERENTLY than you do in a "repeat transaction" or "ongoing relationship" world?

The Sad Life of the Staff Person

In Are Law Firms Manageable? (Also published as "The Trouble with Lawyers") I described a common culture where individual partners did not really want to be teamplayers, working for the "greater good" of the firm. Instead, they focused on their own practice or that of their own small group.

(Lawyers are not unique in having this individualistic, lone-wolf culture, as we have frequently seen in this blog.)

However, as a result of this culture I get lots of emails from people in firmwide staff support roles -- like marketing, HR, IT -- who ask me "How can I perform my role if the partners won't cooperate? How do I get individualistic partners to work for the common good and invest time or resources in HR, IT, marketing? How can I do my job if the partners won't let me?"

(By the way, this is not just a problem of partnerships. The dilemma exists wherever there is an internal corporate shared services group. I've worked a lot with those people, too.)

My answer is always the same: Forget the common good. As a lowly, subordinate staff person it's not your place to try and convince people who are effectively your superiors to be better team players. If top management has failed in that, you're not likely to pull it off.

Instead, my advice is to start small and go for an early success. Find a single person, partner or small operating group who WANTS your help. Help them with what they want to accomplish as an individual or small group. Prove that you can help.

You're not looking for where you can make your biggest impact, but where you can make your quickest impact. If an powerful individual says "I worked with this staff person and they really helped me" then you'll have your advocate to help get you used by others in the future. You will slowly build influence and power.

When many of them are using you, then you will be well-known enough and influential enough to drive for common approaches and collective action.

So, that's my initial advice for a staff person trying to have an impact in an individualistic culture. Anyone else got suggestions?

What Should My Comment Policy Say?

I greatly appreciate the contributions of the many readers who take the time to comment on this blog.

It has been suggested that I should offer some general comment guidelines in order to set expectations for new readers and to assure a consistently positive experience for ongoing readers of this site.

However, I don't want to do this alone. You're part of this, too. So, I've drafted some comment guidelines here, and I'd like your reactions. What should I add, delete, modify?

When we're done, I'll post the finished guidelines on the blog.

Humour is always welcome on the blog, but please take this topic seriously.

COMMENT GUIDELINES

Please recognise that the comments on the blog are part of a conversation between real people. We interact here with professionalism and courtesy.

Also please recognise that this is a conversation between and among all of us, not just between you and me. Try to address your comments to the broader community.

For the sake of your own privacy and that of others, please do not post phone numbers or email addresses in the body of your comment -- you cannot assume the good intentions of everyone who reads them.

Please do not post raw URLs -- which may be long and skew the page or the comment sidebar -- but make the URL an actual HTML link. (Just highlight the term you want to hotlink and then click on the "link" icon in the comment editor to add the URL.)

My blog is not the place to promote your services or products to readers.

I will edit/delete spam comments and trackbacks, duplicate comments, unsupported accusations, personal attacks of any kind, terms offensive to groups when used in a pejorative manner, or comments that explicitly promote a product or service.

In addition, I reserve the right to edit/delete comments that are some combination of vulgar, vile, cruel, without redeeming qualities, and an embarrassment to the site.

If you have left a valid email address, I will let you know by email if I edit or delete your comment. If you prefer to keep your email address private, and I support your right to do so, then I will edit your comment without notice.

As an absolute last resort, I will ban repeat or particularly egregious offenders.

In short: please behave here as you would in any other public space surrounded by your family or professional peers, and all should be well.

Thank you for your understanding and support in making the discussions on this blog a productive and enjoyable experience for our entire community.

*****

So, what do you think? What Should I add, delete, modify?

What My Boss Could Do To Convince Us

a) That he / she really wants to make this place customer-centric

b) That he / she really cares about the long term

c) That he / she really wants us to be team players

*******

Suggestions?

Octoberspiel

MACONOMY will be conducting a conference in Copenhagen on People and Profitability: A Time for Growth on October 5 and 6. I will be a speaker on the first day.

Getting Hired by New Clients -- new client videocast & audiocast

The 21st episode of this series, Getting Hired by New Clients, will focus on the challenges involved in building a trustworthy reputation and the importance of demonstrating rather than asserting your capabilities. As you will see, as with any relationship, it is up to you to go first.

Audio Timeline

00:39 -- Introduction
01:03 -- A personal account of the power of recommendations and reputation
03:37 -- The cycle of mutual recriminations the client/provider relationship
05:31 -- How to "go first" as a provider
12:11 -- Demonstrate, don't assert
14:22 -- Conclusion

You can download Getting Hired by New Clients or sign up to receive new videos automatically with iTunes or other video players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.

You Gotta Go First

In my post about The Best Advice I Ever Received a wonderful lesson was contributed by Jeff Risley:

"Just remember, wherever you go, there you are."

In other words, if you think change is needed in a situation, think about changing yourself first before changing everything around you.

I particularly like that lesson. In fact, I'm struggling to write an article with that theme, aimed at CEOs and other top executives who always want their people to change but overlook the fact that they have to go first.

If you have a story or an insight on that theme that I can use in the article, comment here or drop me an email (richard@vistageconsulting.com.au).

Wasn't it Gandhi who said something like "You must become the change you wish to see"?

Corporate Strategy and Personal Profiles

I was recently facilitating a strategy discussion with a company in an industry that has a long tradition of hiring, celebrating and rewarding individualistic solo operators. In spite of that tradition, the company's leaders wanted to develop a company-wide reputation and strategy.

As we discussed the investments and initiatives necessary to pull this off, one of the "players" in the room asked: "Why would I want to do this. What's in it for me?"

(This is normal. The industry I was working with is only unusual in that people there actually say things like this out loud. In other industries and professions, they just think it all the time, without actually saying it!)

Anyway, as I worked to help the company -- and the individuals within it -- understand their choices, we came up with a categorisation scheme based on two dimensions.

The first dimension (or choice) is whether people actively want to be part of a team, with joint accountabilities, responsibilities, and rewards (team players), or whether, (as solo operators), they would prefer to be in situations where they can avoid being tied down, tied up or tied into working with other people, preferring to rise or fall or their own personal efforts.

I may have used biased language here, but the point is that people really do differ here as to how they want to live their lives. (Disclosure -- I admire the heck out of the true team players, and would bet on them to win, but prefer to be what I am -- a solo operator.)

The second dimension we explored was that some people have an appetite for high-investment strategies (invest a lot to get the chance to reap high rewards) while others are reluctant to invest that much, even in their own future. They prefer to focus on "winning today," letting tomorrow take care of itself.

Combining these two dimensions led us to analyse 4 kinds of preferences that individuals (and companies) have. The labels were developed in conjunction with "Linda." (Thanks.)

Type 1 is the solo operator who makes little investment in the future, but bets on the ability to catch fresh meat each and every day. Call this the Mountain Lion approach. "Pay me for what I kill today."

Type 2 is the individual who prefers to act in coordination, but doesn't like to invest too much. Call these people (collectively) the Wolf-Pack. "If we act together we can kill bigger animals, but it had better pay off soon or I'm joining another Pack!"

Type 3 is the individual who wants to act as a solo operators, not really enjoying collective action, but is interested in taking care of their future by investing resources to get somewhere new. We weren't sure what to call these people, but they remind me of Beavers building dams to provide a home for their family. (The reason I have difficulty coming up with the right species for this one might not only be that I'm a country boy, but also because this category is the one I think I'm in.)

Type 4 are individuals who want to be part of something bigger than they can accomplish alone, and have the patience, the ambition and the will to help the collective organisation invest in that future. I want to call this "The Human Race" since one of the rare things about Homo Sapiens that differentiates it (at least in scale) from other species is its ability to act collectively to build and develop. (It's called civilisation.)

However, Linda pointed out that Type 4 could also be a description of an Ant Community.

"Ant Community" doesn't sound very appealing as a self-image, does it? Yet it's what I and a million other business consultants and CEOs and political leaders are trying to get their people to do whenever there is talk about strategy -- join together for a common purpose and stretch for common achievement. Are we trying get people to be more fully human, or be like ants?

To many people, the OTHER types seem so attractive. Who wouldn't want to be a Mountain Lion and or part of a Wolf-Pack (so muscular, so strong, so energetic,) rather than an ant (or just a homo sapiens.) Why wouldn't you vote for that?

We had secret voting machines in the room which allowed people to remain anonymous, so I asked people which of these four preferences best described their own, personal desired way of behaving. (I took the vote before coming up with the animal labels.)

Guess what? All four groups were well represented. Only 10 to 20 percent in this particular company put themselves in the "I want to be part of something bigger than me that is working to build for the future." (I don't know if that's shockingly low to you, or matches your experience.)

What do you think the chances are of melding people that describe themselves that way into an institution that has a differentiated reputation?

I'm really interested in how misaligned the very concept of "strategy" can be for some companies with the type of people they attract, hire and retain. Firms and their leaders PRETEND and HOPE and SAY that they want to invest and build collectively, and everyone else pretends to go along as if that's what they want too.

But, when you look closely, that's not actually the truth about what the people in the company really want to do.

Can anyone help me make sense of all these thoughts? What do you think?

The Best Advice I Ever Received

Get over it. Let it go. Move on.

**********

What was the best advice you ever received?

Two Entrepreneurs

I have just published two profiles of entrepreneurs who exemplify how disruptive and revolutionary a true commitment to client service and business principles can be.

In the first article, An Innovative Law Firm, 29-year-old Christopher Marston launches his own law firm, convincing all new hires (from a recent graduate to a 30-year veteran bank executive) to defer compensation until his experimental model pays off.

On his blog, Marston wrote: "Most attorneys I know are not happy. The opportunity to build a firm that can be a win for the attorneys by creating a great work environment and at the same time be a win for clients who are endlessly disappointed with law firm service and billable hours is what drives me to get up every day and do what I do. People who think Exemplar is about a pricing model have missed the point. Exemplar is about changing lives ... one by one ... until we're all done!" He plans to have 24 people in the firm by year's end.

(This article first appeared as the introduction to the inaugural issue of Innovaction, an online journal celebrating innovation in the practice of law published by the College of Law Practice Management.)

* * *

In the second article, An Entrepreneurial Journey, software services engineer Geoff Considine retraces his career, reflecting on how he built "Woodisms" into building his own successful firm. Geoff feels these are the most important guidelines that he has learned -- often inspired, he says, by my work:

• Be worthy of trust.
• Everyone knows that you are smart -- don't try to prove it.
• You are there to help, not to be right.
• Be a concierge -- if it needs doing, do it.
• Develop services and products that are worth paying a premium price for.
• Do business as if you were working with a good friend --

(An Entrepreneurial Journey was first published as a feature article at PSVillage.com)

If you would like to be emailed automatically when I add future full-length articles to the site (or know of anyone else that would benefit), I invite you (or them) to sign up for my (free) article email list.

Integrity Impugned

This happened ten years ago.

I had been hired to assist the executive committee of a major consulting firm to discuss their strategy. There were 8 or ten senior officers of the firm around the table, including the CEO, who was due to retire in 12 months.

As I was generating various options for them to consider, the CEO suddenly said to me (in front of everyone else): "You just want to see us change so you can get consulting fees."

I had no idea what to say, and said nothing. I was hugely offended. It's one thing to dislike my ideas, but to question my ethics? Impugn my integrity?

On the other hand, don't all clients and customers distrust the motives of all professional provides (and all other businesspeople?)

The air hung heavy and silent until one of the other executives picked up the conversation and moved on.

I carried on working with that firm, through the term of my contract, and no-one ever referred to the CEO's remarks again.

I have often thought about what I SHOULD have done or said.

What would you have done?

What are you going to say or do when someone accuses you of only being in it for yourself?

Assessing the Risks of the Next Step

You'll read in lots of places that, in business, the right strategy is to "fail often, fail fast, fail cheap." That way, you learn, innovate, and develop.

It's good advice for an organisation, but not necessarily for an individual. While I like to be encouraging, urging people to stretch to fulfill their capabilities and dreams, the truth is that the world can be an unforgiving place, and you do have to choose your "next challenge" with care.

For example, if you are aiming for a big promotion, you had better make sure you want that responsibility before you try to move up. If it turns out not to work out well (for any reason), a company will most likely NOT put you back where you came from, but move you out. (It’s happened to me.)

Actually, the same is true when companies take on new client work and deals: take one on that runs into trouble, and you don't go back to the market reputation you had before, but to one with a big black mark. (That's happened to me, too.)

Be sure to think through what it means to move up in an organisation, because it is hard to go back. The higher you climb, the more responsibilities you get that you simply didn't know existed when you were a naive junior. With promotion comes incredible responsibility and narrow career choices.

Life doesn't get any easier as you move up the ladder. All you ever do as you progress is trade one set of problems for another, hopefully higher class, set of problems. One set of stresses for another.

Am I counselling anyone to not be ambitious? No, what I'm saying is that you don't accept or pursue "promotions" or "challenges" "or "glamorous client assignments" just because they are there. They've got to be the right ones for you.

You've got to go through life recognising that, if you fail at new challenges, you'll have rebuilding to do. You have to weigh both the benefits of succeeding and the risks of failing before you decide.

As you progress, life does get more interesting, but it doesn't get easier.

The Trusted Brain Surgeon Advisor

Duncan Bucknell, who is a "lawyer, patent attorney and intellectual property strategy consultant" -- and a regular participant in these discussions -- writes in to ask:

To use an analogy I picked up from you, it seems to me that the trusted adviser is the local doctor -- the person you first turn to for assistance.

The Brain Surgeon gets the most challenging and difficult work. However, they are too expensive to call all the time. You want them on your team when there is something really important, but you don't need them all the time. So, is it actually possible for the brain surgeon to be anyone's trusted advisor? The business model for the trusted advisor is clearly very different. (You have previously discussed hourly rate and lower leverage etc.)

It also affects things such as conflicts of interest policies. A true trusted advisor will work for fewer clients, because he or she is busy looking after each one more fully. He or she will also see conflicts where other advisors may not -- simply to be genuinely looking after his or her client's best interests. The brain surgeon can not afford such a tight conflict policy. He or she has a larger pool of clients who call for help less frequently, but when it is REALLY needed.

Richard, can you please shed some light how it is possible to stay a trusted advisor and a brain surgeon at the same time?

Duncan, let me both agree and disagree with your propositions. Your analysis seems to be position the "Trusted Advisor" as a particular role or "positioning", rather than as a set of behaviours and skills.

I made the same distinction in an article called "What kind of Provider Are You?" where, like you, I pointed out that the two roles are quite different. In that book, among many other contrasts, I pointed out that the "family doctor role" (I sometimes call it "psychotherapist") is primarily about the skill of diagnosis -- helping the client understand and unbundle the complex symptoms in a situation and decide what needs to be done.

As you say, it is to other people that I may turn (almost always WILL turn) to execute the highly specialist tasks that emerge from the diagnosis. I don't want a surgeon deciding what needs to be done (they will always say "operate") and I don't want my family doctor or "trusted guide" always saying "yes, I can do that, too, let me just get my knife!"

So, I end up concluding that you do have to decide what you want your market positioning to be. The tough part is that we're all capable enough to do it all, but it would be a poor personal or firm strategy to actually do a little of everything and go to market shouting "You want it we got it!" That's no way to build a reputation. (Even though many large firms try to do exactly that.)

If there's a solution for a large firm (not an individual) I could see successfully pulling it off by having clearly organised different teams, staffed with different people (just as a hospital does.) "Here's our diagnosis doctors, and when the time comes, we have specialist surgeons to hand you over to, if you ever need them." It won't be credible if the same doctors keep working in all wards of the hospital!

Of course, even a brain surgeon, who focuses on highly technical tasks, needs to learn interactive skills such as those described. Brain surgeon's don't have to be strong, brooding, sullen, abrupt types. They can and should learn how to interact with clients for the times when they have to. But that's not their role. It's not their positioning.

You had it right first time, Duncan.

Life Could Be Better

You here a lot of people saying things like these:

1. We're too busy doing the wrong things to have time to do the right things
2. We've got so many of the wrong people in the key positions that we can't get the right people appointed
3. We got too may of the bad clients to serve that we don't have the time to get the good clients
4. We've been known as people who do X for so long, that no-one will believe that we now do Y
5. I'm stuck doing stuff I hate but I can't afford to quit
6. He / She's never going to change, so why bother?

When I do hear such phrases, I'm reminded of this:

"The past has a vote, not a veto."

-- Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan, Born in Lithuania in 1880s

Innovation in the Practice of Law

Innovaction, an online journal celebrating innovation in the practice of law, has just been published by the College of Law Practice Management. It contains a number of articles (including one by me), a roundtable panel discussion, and a collection of success stories. Check it out!

Doing It Through A Blanket

A number of my clients have been asking me how you sell to a corporation where you do not have the opportunity to meet the "real" client executive who is going to use your service or product, but have to "sell" though a consultant who has been hired to run the client's buying process. They say they want to use the principles in my article The Trusted Advisor approach in their selling, but don't see how you do that if there is a gatekeeper. (They describe this to me a tryng to make love through a blanket!)

There's probably been a lot of research on this topic about which I am not aware, but I'm fascinated with how much this approach to buying has grown and spread. It happens in corporate purchases of:

• Advertising
• Public relations
• Asset management
• Outsourcing
• Large management consulting projects
• Law firm selection and monitoring
• and many other services.

My curiosity is aroused in trying to explain why this is expanding so much. Why don't corporate officers select and choose their own outside providers? Why do they need the consultants to advise them?

I can see why you would need an advisor if you were a one-time buyer, buying only periodically, or buying something particularly big. Then, you would want to tap into the specialists' expertise and greater knowledge of what's out there, and who's good. It would save you search time. We've all used people to perform that role for us at one time or another.

But what if you buy the product or service all the time? What if it's your JOB? If you are, say, the investment officer for a state pension fund, wouldn't it be your job to know who's out there? Or if you're a marketing manager who's been in place for 5 or 6 years, shouldn't you know who the possible agencies are and what their reputation is?

My guess is that these buyers DO know, and are employing "consultants to the process" to achieve other goals. If we are to successfully "penetrate" this layer between ultimate client and vendor, then we must understand what the buyer is hoping to achieve by putting it in place.

There are a number of possible purposes, including:

1. By using third-party consultants, buyers can make the buying process appear more formal and detached, and give the appearance to their corporate masters (or Wall street Observers) that they are being diligent and responsible in their buying. They are buying affirmation, reassurance and cloud-cover against attacks that they were "soft" or relied too much on things like "relationships."

2. Putting the third party in place allows all sorts of buying games including "Good Cop / Bad Cop" (Client/consultant) The hired-gun gatekeeper plays tough guy, while the client (who has to work with the service provider afterwards) can remain above the negotiating fray and preserve the bases for a good working relationship.

3. Some consultants could offer a lot more than just a "gatekeeper" function. The client may have only an unfocused understanding of his or her own needs, and what the consultant is doing is providing a "strategic navigator" service, so that the client can understand which outside service (a pill, a nurse, a brain surgeon) he or she really needs to buy. By separating the diagnosis from the execution, the client benefits by not having biased people (the vendors) always selling what they have, rather than what the client needs.

I have some additional thoughts, but let me find out if this is a topic of interest to anybody out there. The questions for you (all) are:

1. Are there other reasons companies hire consultants to advise them on their buying?

2. How well do the vendors understand the real reasons?

3. What are the implications for the DIFFERENT rationales for how a vendor should respond. Does the vendor do different things if the client is using consultants for different purposes?

Experts vs. Advisors -- new client videocast & audiocast

In this episode, entitled Experts vs Advisors, we're going to dig deeper into what it feels like to be the buyer of professional services. There are two ways that sellers come across in marketing their profession. They are either seen as being interested in the prospective client, their needs and the best solution for them or they are seen as interested in the transaction itself and the cash that goes with it. It's obvious which would lend the most to creating a trusting relationship, but often convincing the buyer that the care and interest is genuine is the true test. We will look into the best ways for you to think in order to put this care and interest across to your prospective client.

Audio Timeline

00:39 -- Introduction
00:45 -- The seller in the eyes of the buyer: Interested in the buyer vs. interest in the cash
02:28 -- Convincing the buyer that you care about them
03:39 -- Conclusion
04:21 -- Special announcement: Forthcoming Book and DVD offer

You can download Experts vs Advisors or sign up to receive new videos automatically with iTunes or other video players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.

How We Really Make Decisions

Bob Sutton, co-author (with Jeff Pfeffer) of the terrific book Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense, had a fascinating post a few days ago about "Lovaglia’s Law."

Michael Lovaglia, (a professor at the University of Iowa) proposed Lovaglia's Law: The more important the outcome of a decision, the more people will resist using evidence to make it.

Bob discusses this, and agrees that, the more consequential the outcome, the more power, greed, stress and irrationality come into play in influencing how people react and how individual and collective decisions are made.

He offers the idea that it could be a clever strategy to "try to reframe big decisions as small ones -- to fool yourself and others into believing that what seems big is really small!" If the decision seems less critical, logic and reason have a better chance of influencing the outcome.

I think there is something very important here. I have always been fascinated by the fact that (in spite of what they teach us in school) logic, reason, rationality and sensible analysis seem to play so little part in human affairs -- at the office, in our home lives, and elsewhere.

It sometimes seems as if, for all of us, nearly all the time, rhetoric triumphs over reason, personality over substance, politics over merits, neuroses over facts.

I'm not saying this as a complaint. I'm saying that it's a more accurate critique of human affairs than the misleading interpretation we sometimes fool ourselves with -- that our smarts (logic, reason and rationality) are what drive the world.

Tom Davenport (author of Thinking for a Living) recently published an article in the Harvard Business Review arguing that there is a huge competitive advantage to be gained by companies if they were to develop a more analytical approach to business, using advanced analytical abilities. It's a great article, but its truth and its power comes from the fact that so few of us, as individuals or as institutions, in our work lives or in our personal lives, actually do make our decisions primarily through logic and analysis.

That's why it can be a competitive advantage for anyone who can escape Lovaglia's Law.

Can We Copy Our Heroes?

One of the frustrations of life is that we can't always do what our heroes are able to do. In fact, that may be the very reason that why we admire them and pick them out as heroes. They can do (or be) things that we cannot. If we could do it, we might admire it less!

When I was a teenager, my best friend was the natural centre of attention because of his ability to sing and play both guitar and piano. I could do none of these, and every attempt to do them led to embarrassment rather than success. It took me a long time to stop trying to copy my hero (and to develop my own ways of getting attention).

Later in life, I came to admire people who could remain calm and self-composed when dealing with troublesome situations, and also people who could be trusted advisors, truly counselling those they dealt with, rather than lapsing into energised problem-solving ("Oh, I have an idea! Let me tell you about it!")

I wrote an article about being a trusted advisor not because I was or am a natural at that skill, but for the very reason that I wanted to understand it better and try -- try -- to build more of it into my repertoire.

The problem for me is that the very reason I admire such people -- their controlled, interpersonal "emotional balance," is something that I have to work very hard at. By nature, I'm an exuberant, reactive, "wow, look at what just happened" kind of person. It's not a bad thing -- it’s just the base, the raw material, on which I am built -- and it would be foolsh (or impossible) to deny it.

What I've had to do -- what I think all of us have to do -- is kind of a dual approach.

On the one hand, I do work at trying to learn from those I admire, attempting to adapt some of the things they can do into my own terms. I try to take "slices" of what they can do or be, rather than try to copy the whole person, which can be discouragingly impossible.

On the other hand, I've learned that self-acceptance and building on one's own "natural" strengths and aptitudes are important.

Rather than ask "How do I change who I am?" or "How can I be more like those I admire?" I have had more success through a (conscious or unconscious) "self-acceptance" -- This is who I am, so how do I find a way to be that? How do I make it work for me and for others?

The hard part is not just the advice that we should build on our strengths. That's very true, but only part of the story. Another important part is "Know -- and accept -- thyself."