Talentism

First Ask Why

You start a new project. The team sits down together and the narrative begins. The leader asks:

What, when, who, how and maybe why.

The leader is responsible for results. He wants action. The team wants approval. So everyone starts with what. What is tangible and deceptively easy to describe. No messy language, no feelings. Just rough descriptions punctuated with waving hands. The team is following the leader, the leader is fulfilled. The project starts.

The leader asks when?  When are you going to give me what?

The team agrees, and the deadline is set. The people who are results focused start fantasizing about implementation details and heroic rescues. But some intrepid souls venture further.

“Who are our customers?” someone asks. Or maybe “Who will use this?”

The leader acknowledges the question. The brave soul is rescued. A quick answer ensues.

The critical project questions have now been answered. The experts are ready to deliver on how. They hope that how is delayed to another meeting.

And finally, drinking lattes and looking smugly at their new Volvo’s, a few tweed wearing bearded philosophical masochists ponder “Why?” But silently and with great confidence.

What, when, who, how, why. It’s the way it works. Except for one thing: it doesn’t work that well. Things are changing too fast. The project fails.

The new project team sits down. The new narrative begins.

Why, how, who, when, what…

Why would anyone start on a project without knowing the problem to be solved, or the opportunity that needs to be created? Why would anyone want to begin work without naming and considering the system? Why is purpose. Without purpose there can be no alignment. Without alignment there can be no success.

Purpose leads to potential. How is potential. Not how to get what done. How are we going to work with each other? How can I make you successful? How will we know when we are done? How will we let the insurgents in so we create the future, instead of repeating the past?

From purpose to potential to people. People are who. Who has the problem we are trying to solve? Or... who will be helped if we create this opportunity? Who are they? Do we know their stories? Are their stories heroic, desperate, banal or romantic? Who will our work matter to?

Purpose, potential, people and then place. When is place. Is this the right time to do this? Are stars in the system aligned? Is the environment right? Can we afford to wait? When would be better?

Purpose, potential, people, place and then finally, product. Product means what. If we know why we are here, and we know how we will work with each other, and we know who our work will matter to, and we believe that when is now… then what are we creating together? Only now should we focus on what. What is last. Because while what is what who will touch, why and how are how what has meaning when everything changes.

When time moves slowly, and there are powerful people and weak people, and the powerful can predict the future… then submit to “what first?”.

But when the clock spins faster, and the weak make your market and only the enlightened can tell you what tomorrow brings… then first ask why.

See You at ERE

Just confirmed that I will be at ERE for the awards dinner next week (April 17 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.). Something I worked on is up for an award, so it gives me a great excuse to see a lot of old friends (some older than others) as well as hear the dulcet tones of Neal's voice as he follows up on his Billy Crystal performance at last year's award ceremony (it's gonna be great Neal).

I don't get in until 5:00 p.m.  that day (Tuesday) and leave by 9:00 a.m. the next morning but was hoping that any of you who are attending will leave a comment or shoot me an email so that we can get together and catch-up.

I look forward to seeing everyone next week!

Dashnote Launches: Common Cold Cured

... well, maybe not the common cold. But this is cool all the same.

You may remember me mentioning Dashnote a few times (here and here). Some of you were even included in the beta program (thanks for your feedback). Well Dashnote is ready for prime time and people are starting to use it in many interesting ways. For instance:

Sean Rehder is using Dashnote for distributed web-based support. He distributes a bookmarklet to users of his client’s Salesforce solutions and they use Dashnote to give him feedback on his apps, as well as request support for bugs and enhancement requests.

I have started using Dashnote for group Knowledge Management. I have set up different topics around areas I write about or am interested in, and then distribute the URL for the bookmarklet to people whom I want to include in my “Knowledge Group.” They find cool stuff for me to read on the web and provide their comments (Dashnote calls them “annotations”) through Dashnote.

Here is one that I think will really take off: recruiters have started using Dashnote to streamline their online sourcing. They set up an account, get the bookmarklet, and as they find resumes on the web they can quickly provide their comments about the resume, as well as store all the resumes they find in one convenient place. Some recruiters are even using the Dashnote “Snapper” functionality to clip resumes and forward them to hiring managers with their comments.

It’s all very exciting. I remember sitting down with Dashnote founder Ranjit Padmanabhan back in January envisioning a way to capture and annotate web content (we coined the term "3d Web" to describe it), and now it is a reality (due to the incredible efforts of Ranjit and David  and Dawn).

If you think of other cool ways to use Dashnote, or are using Dashnote for your business, let us know! You can comment on this post, send email to jjhunter at gmail dot com or, even better, drop a comment off at the Dashnote Blog.

Random for September 20 2006

1 - Wrote about Sean Rehder over at TuSK. Yes, TuSK is still alive. Actually, a fair number of people on TuSK have moved on to bigger and better things. Michele Macready is now over at Q with Lance, and Tom Cullen is now CIO of Peet's.  Michele and Tom couldn't be happier, and when I see somebody get the job of their dreams, it puts a smile on my face.

2 - Ever start a writing project and have it turn into Godzilla? This was one of those experiences. Started out as a little post about Brand Talent and turned into this monster about the "New World of Recruiting." I was hesitant to start the series because everybody who is in the midst of change believes that their experience is unique, but I do believe that recruiting is structurally changing.

3 - Having a really great time writing with the people at SimplyHired. One of the really fun parts about it is finding people who haven't written before and dragging them kicking and screaming to the page. Working with Mike Bacher was a warm-up for Phil Gee - the guy is almost allergic to the fame that his intelligence and experience should bring to him. Maybe I'll do a TuSK post on Phil and really bum him out.

4 - I really liked C.M.'s post on the SimplyHired blog. Quick, to the point, actionable. Nicely done.

5 - Still getting my start-up fix on the side.  The team tell me that Dashnote will be launching soon (yeah, sure - I said here that we would be announcing in February!). We have one super-genius working on it full-time and assorted other smart people burning the midnight oil once their day jobs are done. Showing VCs and angels, and the response is pretty exciting. The whole Dashnote experience reminds me of that Gary Larson panel where the two spiders have woven a web at the bottom of a children's playground slide. The caption reads "If we pull this off we are going to eat like kings!"

6 - In addition to TuSK, Talentism and SimplyHired, I have been doing some blogging inside of EA. For one of my posts on the EA blog I took the "10 Rules for Innovators" piece and reprinted. It is getting some of the same numbers inside that it did outside. This has consistently been my most popular post (now translated into several languages if you can believe it). Funny. Maybe I should give up everything else and become an "Innovation Guru". Hello Hawaiian shirts, goodbye personal hygiene!

7 - Mentioned the global launch of our "Universal Sourcing Platform" back in May. It launched, was successful, and now we are on to our Next Gen solution. It is a real thrill to work with masters like Kristi and Sean. All that stuff that you hear about that you think "Yeah, sure, it would be nice, but who is really doing it?" Kristi and Sean are. Really. I'd tell you more but then I would have to... (you know the rest).