When answers are needed to a situation you often hear the advice to join or connect the dots.
The thinking is that if you take a good look you will see clues that relate that can put together the puzzle you face. Random occurrences are then pieced into one bigger picture to make sense. You often see this in crime detection or academic studies on specialist subjects.
It effectively says, ‘this has been what’s going on the in the background of X that resulted in Y’.
It appears a well thought of argument and system.
Well, not for some who took a 360 degree approach.
Step forwards Steve Jobs. The co-founder of Apple and pioneer of the personal and home computer revolution.
And he was also revolutionary in his thinking, Thinking that chose not to connect the dots, but connect the people. Why? Because he knew that we can’t connect the dots looking forwards. You can only connect looking back which means you’ve made mistakes, got stuck, gone in the wrong direction, or plain misunderstood something. But what you can do, and he did in a big way, is connect the people.
When designing the layout for the Pixar HQ (the company he bought from George Lucas in 1986), he built in only one set of toilets in the atrium (the large open aired front of a building). This required all employees to have to walk from all floors and areas across the building to use the facility. This seemed time consuming and thus would effective output. It didn’t. Jobs knew most workers remained in set smaller sized offices in their teams and departments which resulted in restrictive creativity, a ceiling on inspiration, and a block on outside ideas. By making everyone travel about the building they would begin to talk to others in various roles more often, share what projects they were engaged in, and fuse new relationships and cross creative suggestions. Of course, it worked.
The dots joined themselves after, they were connected in the people to begin with. Success could be assembled at the outset rather than from the ruins of failure later.
Cracking the code.
During World War 2 connecting the dots was apparently badly needed.
The Germans used an encryption device to share secret messages and manoeuvres which changed each day with special code books operators used to reconfigure the words and numbers into fresh message keys. The Enigma Machine. Despite the best efforts the Allies could not crack it. Connecting the dots was yielding blanks.
The British needed to break it or face losing the war. They asked mathematician and early computer scientist Alan Turing to help. He knew that one brain, no matter how specialist, could not break the code. Connecting the dots on the mass information available was too vast a task and would not work. He chose to connect a team instead to act as one bigger mind.
And that team was not simply more Alan Turing’s. He needed variety of thought and an ability to look at it from other angles. Therefore into the famous Hut 8 at Bletchley Park came crossword solvers, linguistics, translators, a chess champion, an Army Intelligence Officer, a historian, and a papyrology expert (study of ancient manuscripts and texts).
He connected the people into a team with one critical task – decoding Enigma. Each brought a skill and ideas and insights and shared them with their colleagues so that all minds had a collaborative expansion of what they knew and therefore could consider, focus on, and of course solve. Which they famously did in January 1940. It’s true to say that without it the Germans would have won WW2 in the end.
Connecting minds.
That is the power of people connection. Minds coming together in unison to float questions, points, problems, ideas, creativity, stories, discoveries, and concepts into one major result. A result that started BEFORE it was too late, not after. It picks at their individual mentality rather than picking up the pieces at the end when it’s all fallen apart.
A team or network of different and diverse minds acting as one mind is a massive creative force. It CREATES the dots themselves. Whether by the water cooler next to the company toilets or in a cold barren hut in wartime.
Next time you need to build something memorable or beat something blocking the way, connect the people so you can connect yourself to amazing outcomes.
References: Steve Job – ‘Rebel Ideas’ by Matthew Syed.
Enigma machine – widely available online. See www.bletchleypark.org.uk.
You’ve got a problem. A pretty sizeable one.
Regular wisdom would teach the answers lie in tried and tested approaches. Time honoured proven routes to turning things around. Stay sensible, play safe, look at the pros and cons, work out the bottom line and start there, that kind of thing.
Now these no risk trouble shooters may indeed get you out of trouble. The flip side is that they keep the wolf from the door in the short term, but longer term gains are never usually found in that strategy.
What is needed is a braver approach. A more radical game plan. A counterintuitive one.
Take the video rental business Blockbuster. In the 1980’s as the video business boomed their profits rocketed. But as the decade wore on profits began to reduce as the business stalled. A fresh promotional campaign was required. And that’s exactly what they came up with which seemed like they were shooting themselves in the foot.
Originally offering overnight video rental for £4.99 on average, they decided to offer THREE films for £10.00. A saving of nearly £5 or 33% for the customer on the top titles. Surely it was crazy as now customers could effectively watch an extra film for the same price as before. That would kill their income. But they knew differently, and knew a little but more about psychology it seems.
Give Them What They Want.
Blockbusters were convinced that the offer would encourage people to get together as friends, couples, and families and ‘make a night of it’. Where someone had previously intended to grab the latest hit movie, they never really got round to it. Now the offer was too good to miss. Gather the gang and celebrate over a video. Or three.
But what about the lost revenue from the extra giveaway video?
They had that covered too. Their counterintuitive reasoning was spot on. By turning it into a big night in folks also ordered in food and drinks and enjoyed home style party nights. And when that happens you watch a film, then you get the food and eat that, washed down with some soda or Coke, and you getting chatting and enjoying each other’s company.
And guess what that means? You never actually watch that third video. So what do you do? You take out the offer another time and start all over again. You pay the same £10 and by the way while you are at the store you see offers on snacks and chocolate and drinks, so you heave them all into your basket too as hell, easier to get it all in one go in one place, right?
The chief approach was to give the public what it wants, but in a way it sits up and takes notice on how it gets it. This counterintuitive idea to grow the Blockbusters brand worked a treat as one video rental had turned into 5 or 6.
Why? Because it wasn’t just the regular weekly customers who jumped at the chance to see 3 titles for a smaller charge. Added to that the infrequent customers became more active and wanted a slice of the pie too upping their rental activity. And finally new customers, not really movie watchers at home, were also drawn into participating as they had heard about the buzz and the bargains and got curious.
Zag while others Zig.
To gain big dividends means thinking what others aren’t. Others who are following the normal formulas. The ‘stay-in-the-box’ believers’
In 1982 Levi’s ran a highly lucrative advertising campaign about being different. When jeans were being synonymously associated with being blue, they brought out jeans that were black. In a serious of ads featuring this new look to denim they added the famous strapline, ‘When the world zigs, zag’. It created roaring trade for what had been a slowly dying brand. The ads eventually had to be taken off air as they could no longer meet the sky high demand.
Levi’s like Blockbusters took the counterintuitive road to glory.
They did the very opposite to what was seen as sensible or sane or even realistic.
If you have a similar challenge in your life or business, group or sports club, then why don’t you zag a little bit more with your thinking and ideas.
Because who ever said jeans have to be blue and that videos have to be rented one at a time?
Only those who never reaped the big dividends!
Have you ever said that famous phrase about chance and luck?
You know the one when you hear about a big lottery jackpot going begging this week? Or that some downright gorgeous celebrity is single again and looking for a partner?
As soon as you hear about either you say the immortal words, ‘Chance would be a fine thing’. A kind of spell wishing it could happen to you because, well chances are, it won’t. Nor ever will.
Or will it???
Alistair from Bishopbriggs near Glasgow was elated to welcome his new baby and first child with his wife Sally-Anne on what was a very special day. It was special because that day was Christmas Day. And what made it even more super special was that the couple’s surname WAS Christmas. What are the chances of that? A baby for Mr and Mrs Christmas on Christmas Day itself?
Well, the odds of that happening were calculated at over 3 million to one and as such the story made the BBC national Christmas night news that evening in the UK in 1993.
That’s how chance works. It exists everywhere all the time but we are so focused on the odds of some random or amazing event even existing at all, we dismiss it as weird, a freak, or unrepeatable. Yet chance turns up again and again if you start looking for it.
Getting in the swing.
Fancy a round of golf? If you do, like most golfers you would dream of hitting a hole in one. The chances of that are around 12,500 to 1. Or in other terms, you would have to play every single day for over 34 years to be in with a chance of sinking one. The odds seem stacked against you. So just imagine being a pro and competing against the toughest courses and opponents each week.
Not a problem for English golfer Dale Whitnell who this February hit not just one, but two, hole in ones in the SAME round at The South African Open in Durban. He had never previously achieved a single hole in one in all his life until that point.
The combined odds of this feat according to the National Hole-In-One Registry? Wait for it! 67Million to One. And yet it happened. Chance would be a fine thing hey!!
Call it serendipity. Call it a fluke. Call it a stroke of luck. Call it the law of averages that it would happen one day. Call it what you like but the chances of anything happening increases because there are those who are prepared to believe and try. And that’s where most of ALL of the inventions ever created by humans on this planet from the motor car to the mobile phone to cures for disease have originated from.
Studies have shown that the calculated chance of landing a man on the Moon back in the early 60’s was a minute 0.0017%. Yet it was achieved in under a decade because President Kennedy believed it was possible. In turn NASA minds, previously convinced it could never be achieved, set about super thinking to make that belief come true. As you know, it sure did. And guess what? They even played golf up there!!!
Chances are, you see, that what we CAN do far outweighs anything we can’t. If you believe enough, and turn your mind to it, YOUR moon is in reach too. If you chance it, that is.
Then chance would be a very fine thing indeed!!
There is a well known wisdom about belief and proof.
It says that ‘For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible’.
That is quite true. Belief and its resulting proof is a personal thing. What one person sees as clear and obvious proof, another can’t recognise or accept at all. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but proof is in the mind of the believer.
A little example to reflect this.
In my years of writing I have read countless books, blogs, social media posts etc and have come across the concept of CANI a number of times. CANI is short for Constant And Neverending Improvement. The ideology behind it is that we can and should always be looking to improve, get better, evolve key areas of our life and self through slight but ongoing measurable steps in advancement. In short, never stop working, trying, pushing to upgrade.
But also on my radar over the years was another concept – IKIGAI. This is a Japanese term which means ‘reason for living’. Its basis is to find a personal passion, often simple in nature, that delivers purpose and joy. It teaches about going within to find the core fundamentals of yourself.
CANI – keep developing and seeking improvement.
IKIGAI – discover what makes you feel alive and just enjoy it.
Two belief systems advocating different directives for living.
Who is right, who is wrong?
Both of the above have fans and devotees. Both could cite, quite rightly, proof that their system by which to live is the way for us all to live. This would be held up by the sheer number of others who agree with the principles and show that they happily/successfully live by them (likes/shares/follows/comments).
Now this is not hard in our modern world. With a 24 hours, 365 days per year, permanent internet available around the globe with social media pages and groups on almost any subject, it’s never difficult to connect with enough others interested in the same subject as you.
I undertook a very brief experiment while writing this blog post – in the space of 10 minutes I came across groups and communities who believed that Elvis Presley is still alive. there is a Loch Ness Monster, the best dogs are Dachshunds, starvation diets are good for health, that NASA are working with aliens, and all manner of religious denominations and conspiracy theories, all with thousands of fans and more. All who could equally argue that this ‘proves’ their belief is correct.
So, who is right and who is wrong?
Well if there is one truth it’s the paradox that there isn’t one truth. There are many. And the ones we each individually believe and live by are personal to us even if a few other humans on the planet get that too. They aren’t right anymore than you are wrong if you believe otherwise.
The real right and wrong would be to believe that finding examples of what you believe anywhere means the proof is out there. It’s right as a human to feel you are not alone in believing what you do. It’s wrong (in my view) to search for so called proof to make yourself feel better about it, or to prove others wrong.
What you believe, you believe, and that’s it. And I believe it’s everyone right to be able to think that way too.
But, you don’t have to believe me, do you???
Do you ever just stop and watch people?
You know, grab a coffee or a bench to sit down on and watch people go by?
This simple activity as the world hurtles by around you will teach you a myriad of things and, most telling of all, reveal amazing insights and ideas on what humans do, what they might need to do or why they are doing what they are, and show you what no-one else has spotted that can lead to huge success.
In the 1930’s famous Hollywood producer Hal Roach, who discovered Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd, began to experience a downfall in his affairs. Times had changed, the old stars were no longer pulling in the big audiences or had retired. He badly needed another hit act or angle to boost his fortunes.
One day while sitting and contemplating his next move he was drawn to a group of young children. He watched in both mirth and admiration at how they conjured up games, pretended to be other people, fought, fell down, rolled over and got right back up again, and played and laughed. They were completely unaware of the world around them as they were so immersed in their own playful version.
He realised that just as he too laughed and got lost in their antics, the public themselves would do the very same. A new brand of entertainment was born as he formed Our Gang, a bunch of young previously non-acting children, who he featured in short films and ten minute storylines. It was a roaring success.
When he was stuck – people watching showed him something that lit a lightbulb in his mind.
Free Lightbulb Moments.
The Lightbulb moment – the ‘Aha’ realisation of an answer to a problem or a big idea that hasn’t existed before. People watching is THE best cause of this.
Witness the Post-It story.
As of today an estimated 50 billion separate Post-It notes have been sold all around the world. But, when the product first started you would never have guessed in a million years that it was going to become the global can’t-do-without home and office companion.
In 1968 Spencer Silver was working at 3M and was tasked a creating a strong adhesive for the aircraft industry. He managed to develop one but it wasn’t robust or powerful enough for further development as a viable product. Spencer knew it had a use somewhere but had no idea where or what that could be.
One Sunday he was at a service as he was a member of the church choir. He had told some members about his work and the organist asked if he could try some of the adhesive to hold his hymn notes in place. Curious, Spencer looked on as the pieces of paper remained perfectly in place to the organists delight. There and then a lightbulb switched on. He saw the use of the adhesive on a smaller note that everyone from teachers to secretaries, journalists to office workers, could benefit from to write reminders or tasks they could stick up without having to file away.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Become A People Watcher.
As you can see, these two hugely lucrative ideas would never have happened if a) there wasn’t a problem in the first place to solve and b) Hal and Spencer hadn’t engaged in some people watching to follow.
People are the market. We are the clues and the solutions in one. How we live, move, travel, interact, communicate etc etc gives hints to what we need, are missing, could do with help with, would benefit from, and could damn well enjoy for whatever reason.
Flying about at breakneck speeds in cars, trains, and planes will never show you that.
But chill it down and commit to being a people watcher, in time (and maybe a very short time), you are going to be shown EXACTLY what people’s lives are missing that you have just been given the answer to. It’s all right there in front of your eyes.
And the great thing is there is a never ending supply of people to inspire you. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
People watching – the No.1 free success key.
Everyone wants the truth.
We often say we can’t tell what’s true and what isn’t.
I say we can absolutely see the truth, but we’re way too close to it that it makes us blind.
In his superb book, ‘Rebel Ideas’, Matthew Syed narrates the true story of English football’s quest for answers. In 2016 a specialist team was gathered to analyse why one of the most successful nations in the game in England, with all its mega money and skilful players, the very founders of the sport, had not won a major trophy for 50 years.
That team though were only made up of one knowledgeable ex-international football player and pundit. The others were a founder of high-tech start ups, an Olympic administrator, the former head coach of the England Rugby squad, a top level cycling coach, and a female commander at the Royal Ministry Academy Sandhurst. Why then, when they were meeting to study and find an answer to such a huge problem in the national game, did they have only one (no longer playing) football expert?
Simple. The view was if you brought in other managers and football stars, they would provide the ruling FA with the same issues and awarenesses that the current manager and staff were already aware of as they were party to it week in, week out. There would be nothing new.
These football aces were far too close to the situation that they would not have the necessary perspective to work out where the shortcomings were. They would not be able to see the wood for the trees. Or the goal from the corner flag (Ok, bit cheeky that one).
It’s often obvious.
The truth is often in plain sight. It’s like the tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes where the crowd could ‘see’ he was wearing no garments but they would not truly recognise it even though it was right in front of them. It took an innocent young boy onlooker to identify what was glaringly obvious once he spoke up.
The background to the sad crash of Korean Airlines flight 801 in 1997 and the loss of 229 on board is another example. The plane has descended below the minimum safe altitude in mountainous terrain as the captain believed he was nearer the airport than he actually was with devastating consequences. Black box tapes show that neither the first officer nor flight engineer questioned the captain until six seconds before impact. Far too late to make a difference.
The investigation found that they considered the captain had been aware of the wrong height and would make corrections that he didn’t. The other insight was that Korean society made it offensive for subordinates to challenge a high ranked person despite the truth again be right in front of their eyes so they delayed until their own doom was upon them.
And so it goes with all of us. We can quite clearly see the truth most of the time but as we don’t step back enough from it or let others guide us to what we may be missing in our blind spot, we plough on making the same mistakes, errors, or missed opportunities. Or simply don’t smell the roses.
In the movie, ‘A Few Good Men’, Jack Nicholson’s character Colonel Jessep rages in court, ‘You can’t handle the truth’.
I believe we can handle it but as we’re far to close to it that we simply aren’t able to realise it’s right there in front of our eyes. Our own Emperor’s New Clothes.
Maybe it’s time we honestly looked!
