What is the Opposite of Remarkable?
From the Strategic Project Management Blog
by Ty Kiisel
I admit it.
I am a big Seth Godin fan. The first Seth Godin book i read was Permission Marketing. I think he was still at Yahoo! as Vice-President, Direct Marketing at the time. This would have been been somewhere around 1999, I think. I've come to appreciate that Seth's ideas are pretty fresh and really seem to be worth paying attention to.
A couple of weeks ago, on the heals of reading Linchpin: Are You Indispensable, I finished reading Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. I think he actually wrote Purple Cow first, and it felt like the business version of Linchpin to me. It was definitely a great read and reinforced much of what I had read in the previous book. If you haven't read it, it's a book I'd recommend. (One of these days maybe I'll publish my reading list, I'm reading Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink right now.)
I am a firm believer that we need to become indispensable within our organizations. However, what struck me while reading Purple Cow was Godin's definition of the opposite of remarkable. "The opposite of remarkable is very good," he says. "Ideas that are remarkable are much more likely to spread than ideas that aren't. Yet so few brave people make remarkable stuff. Why? I think it's because they think that the opposite of 'remarkable' is 'bad' or 'mediocre' or 'poorly done.'"
He suggests that making something very good isn't good enough to be remarkable. For example, "If you travel on an airline and they get you there safely, you don't tell anyone," he says. "That's what's supposed to happen. What makes it remarkable is if it's horrible beyond belief or if the service is so unexpected (they were an hour early! they comped my ticket because I was cute! they served flaming crêpes suzette in first class!) that you need to share it."
I don't think it matters whether or not we work on a project team as the project manager or an individual contributor, I think this applies to whatever we're doing. Doing a good job is what's expected of us—it's not being indispensible.
Godin suggests, "Factories set quality requirements and try to meet them. That's boring. Very good is everyday occurrence and hardly worth mentioning." He then asks, "Are you making very good stuff? How fast can you stop?"
I agree. Are you very good at what you do? How fast can you stop?
Posted on: June 03, 2011 11:21 AM |
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Josh Nankivel
Engineering Project Manager| Apple
Sioux Falls, Sd, United States
I read Purple Cow probably around the time it came out....In projects, I see it as the choice to deliver versus make the customer go "Wow! That's awesome!"
The reality, especially in software development, is that it often it's no difference in scope/schedule/cost to produce results which are "WOW!" versus "met requirements".
It's about allowing your project team and stakeholders be creative and use their talents. I've often seen this blocked by doing silly things like putting a ton of constraints into implementation details at the start of a project, be it in requirements or elsewhere.
In my experience, you enable the remarkable results by sticking to defining WHAT is needed, HOW much you can afford, and WHEN it's needed. Leave the HOW up to the team working closely with customers and other stakeholders.
That's how you enable the remarkable to flourish.
Josh Nankivel,
Project Management Coach
If you are untrue to your commitments to your job/role, reading the statement "Doing a good job is what's expected of us-its not being indispensable" will surely give you chills. And should give you the opportunity for a second thought on how you play or move in a project.
We don't need to be untouchable but rather doing what we have committed in a project or its deliverable may be more than enough to give us a remarkable appraisal in the end
Ty Kiisel
Manager Social Outreach| AtTask
Lehi, Ut, United States
Thanks for the comments. Edwin, although I expect that doing a good job won't get you fired (and may even get you a decent performance appraisal), Godin is right when he suggests that it's "...what's expected of us—it's not being indispensable."
In today's economy, organizations need people who are willing to step it up a notch, and we (as project leaders) need to facilitate an environment where the members of our project teams are allowed to become indispensable. Now, I'm not suggesting that we need to work 70 or 80 hours a week, but I am suggesting that showing up and doing your job is NOT the way to advance your career.
When Gartner is suggesting that spending for what we call traditional projects is going to drop by 30 percent in the next four or five years, that statistic should give us pause. I think it's safe to say, when 50 percent of PMOs fail within the first 18 months and other statistics (the Chaos Survey for one example) cite an embarrassing project failure rate, showing up with a commitment to do what we've agreed to just doesn't seem to be working.
If we are unable (or unwilling) to create an environment where our project teams are empowered to create and invent something incredible, I fear that we run the risk of becoming irrelevant. Project leaders who insist on clinging to the tired and arcane notions of managing projects that are 50 to 100 years old will eventually be replaced by people willing to think outside of the box and come up with something better. Industry cannot afford to accept "showing up" as behavior worthy of promotion or "doing what was asked" as praiseworthy.
Wai Mun Koo
PMO Director| Intergraph PP&M
Singapore, Singapore
Ty, again great article that provokes critical thinking on being 'remarkable'. I am a fan of Godin too. However, in reality, being remarkable as an individual in an environment that does not encourage 'smart', 'creative', 'committed' and 'proactive' etc. is basically useless. Environment plays an important part to foster the growth of 'remarkable' team members. I have seen enthusiastic and passionate employees turned cold and boring after all their suggestions have been turned down by their boss. I am not trying to spread office politics here, but this is a reality in all organizations. Whenever an individual becomes too good (or about to be remarkable), he will attract jealousy which leads to ostracization by people around him or even his boss. This will result in his boss slamming down all his suggestions in an attempt to stop him before he becomes 'remarkable'. There are also other bosses who prefer staying in status quo and hate changes and they are the natural ideas killers. To both type of bosses I have mentioned above, their 'remarkable' employees are those that act like zombies and just take instructions from them and complete their works without any argument or alternative views. They just want the zombies to work and follow their commands. The sad thing is, we have a lot of such bosses around. What can we do? How can we be remarkable then? Should we be remarkable in the way as suggested by Godin or be remarkable according to what those bosses want? I believe this is a tough question. Ideally, the right answer should be the former but that will get you no where if you are in an environment that does not support that.
Ty Kiisel
Manager Social Outreach| AtTask
Lehi, Ut, United States
Wai Mun Koo, you are right. There are far to many organizations that don't want to encourage people to be indispensable. However, that doesn't mean we can't foster that kind of environment within our project teams. It's kind of a twist on the "think globally, act locally" theme. Of course, there are no perfect solutions. It's up to us to determine if we want to stay in an organization that stifles creativity and wants to turn us all into zombies. Those companies will loose a lot of employees when the economy turns around and the job market strengthens. In the mean time, I think it's important for project leaders to create the optimal working environment for the members of our project teams. In the end, those teams will be more efficient, happier and more valuable. And, we might just have a chance to change the way project teams work.
Thanks for your contribution to the discussion. As always, you are spot on.
Wai Mun Koo
PMO Director| Intergraph PP&M
Singapore, Singapore
Ty,
Ha ha... I'm waiting for you to say that. I ditto what you have said. Just like the saying 'lead me follow me or get out of my way', I have seen many talents leaving that kind of organization day by day. Sad, but like you said, as a leader, we have to do our part regardless of what environment we are in - any effort (big or small) is better than none.
On the other hand, I have come across employees that keep asking this question (or something similar) - "If I do this, what will I get in return? What will be my reward? If there is no reward, why should I do it?"
Take note here that these employees are not mediocre, some of them are in fact talented. The only problem is their attitude - they look at the reward and calculate every part of the contributions over gains before they decide if they would want to do more. I am quite sure they will not fly high in their career. Whenever I come across one of them, this is what I will reply - "Hey there, don't be so calculative. Not everything can be put on a weighing machine to weigh for you to judge its value. Some values are hidden. Similarly, not every grain of effort you put in will warrant that same amount of reward you will get. The key is the enjoyment and learning you will get through the process of doing it which is much more valuable than anything else."
So I guess attitude (or mindset) is a key factor to become remarkable.
I LOVE Seth Godin and Daniel Pink! Very right brain for a PM audience...a good antidote to the PMBOK.
Sylvie Edwards
Professor/Program coordinator| Durham College (DC)
Whitby, Ontario, Canada
Very well put... EVERYONE.
Isn''t there a theory around that? Think about cars and options on them... Once, air conditioning was an option now it''s standard. Bluetooth is the new thing... So when does something that was optional become standard? But most importantly what becomes the new norm when everyone is doing a good job? How as PMs and leaders can we make people go beyond?
I am leaving you with these few questions to ponder.
What a good question! When I worked in some large organizations, I found it incredibly demotivating both for me and for my staff that we had to "grade on a curve" in performance evaluations, since what I wanted was for everyone to be in the top category...but if my organization was high performing, all it did was reset the standard within my group. I don't have a good answer for it, but it's tricky. I still think that rewards and recognition are the way to go, but it's tough when you're trying to push the entire organization into the top quartile of performance.
Wai Mun Koo
PMO Director| Intergraph PP&M
Singapore, Singapore
Sylvie, excellent analogy on the cars. Interesting indeed. Now go back to your question - "How as PMs and leaders can we make people go beyond?" What is the 'beyond' (beyond the target) are we talking about here? It seems like the target keeps changing as we improve and get better. We are chasing over a moving target instead. For example if we try to push the team to achieve 10 performance goals in a year, but by the time all of them have achieved them, our 'norm' (target) changes again. This becomes what Patricia has described - chasing over performance KPIs becomes futile when the target keeps shfting up. My suggestion is we should then focus our coaching on attitude rather than aptitude in order to have a longer term capability to 'go beyond'.
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