#482 - Vision, Sounds, Hijinx

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Strategy and Planning
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Strategy and Planning

• Separate your strategy from your planning. They are two different exercises. Strategy is deciding on a direction. Planning is how you'll get there. 
• Nick Faldo, the six-time major-winning golfer, said, “You have to be very calculating in selecting the right shot. You have to make a decision based upon a realistic assessment of your own weaknesses and the scope for failure. But once you have committed to your decision, you have to flick the mental switch and execute the shot as if there was never any doubt that you would nail it.”
• The best strategic visions are just out of reach, a little out of focus. You should be able to describe the future world you are aiming at. Describe what your customers are dealing with in that future world. Then describe how your firm will provide value to your customers at that time. With that framework, your team can make plans and decisions. 
• A clear strategic vision gives your people the power to say, "no, that's not a fit." This differentiates you in the market. We don’t walk into KFC thinking we'll get a burger because their chef du cuisine, no matter how much he loves a good burger, says no to putting it on the menu. 

Being Human - Sounds good

“We just live in a weird moment, evolutionarily speaking, right now, where the sounds of our voices to other people are not controlled just by our vocal anatomy, but by all these intervening layers of technology that our minds never evolved to deal with."

I have a series of meetings with clients on web conference platforms. I don't think about their home office setups very often, but on the occasions there is a third person in the meeting, I am highly sensitive to how they sound. One audibly clicks his keyboard taking notes, one leans in to their laptop like they can't see the screen, and all of their microphones sound tinny. It doesn't bother me because I'm used to it, but I get embarrassed for them in front of the other person. 

This week I read this, "Speaking into a microphone? Your audio quality can impact the way people view you." It's a story about how we sound being an important element to how we're perceived in online meetings. 

Back in the dark ages when I worked in a call center, we invested a lot in high-end noise-canceling headsets for the salespeople. There were a few who wanted to use their phone's handset. We'd play their recording to them, point out how awful the handset was for communication, and they'd switch. The fancy headsets just made them sound better. 

Now there's research proof! If you want to lift how others perceive you, invest in a nice microphone setup. I have a noise-canceling headset, but for important events I use a "premium" USB mic attached to a boom arm. It's a pain to set up, I look incredibly nerdy using it, but I guess it's worth the effort. I'll be using the nicer set up later today. The meeting will be recorded. I'll let you know if I can tell the difference. 

Random Stuff

“The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” ― Dorothy Nevill

Now that I'm thinking about phone headsets, it reminds me of my days in the "bullpen." Sitting side-by-side with a couple dozen other twenty-somethings, selling list software. When I started, the call center was primitive. We worked off IBM AS400 green screen terminals and sat right next to each other. Maybe 4 feet apart? My little desk had 3 side drawers, one of which could be locked, but never was. There were no separators between the reps on my right or left, and the person sitting across from me was behind a divider that we could see over. 

As young people tend to do, there was a lot of hijinx on the sales floor. Someone might pencil up your headphones' ear pieces, so your ears turn black. Another might shake their head "no" at you in wide-eyed horror while you were talking, making you wonder if what you just said was wrong. Others would slip you distracting notes while you did your demos. Harmless fun to get through the day. 

Once we upgraded to PCs running Windows, the world changed. Some of my co-workers were computer-literate, others only knew the old mainframe system. The tricks escalated. Heaven forbid you walked away from your PC without locking the screen. You might return to the volume turned up, and a crazy chimp sound blasting with every wrong click of the mouse.

Those of us that knew how to use Windows found the primitive network messaging system, Winpopup. If you knew your friend's computer name on the network, you could send a short note. It wasn't like a chat, each note replaced the last one. Very primitive. They started as helpful notes to one another, or scheduling lunch, but quickly devolved into a gossip tool. "Did you see Brian's hat?" kind of thing. 

One morning, I send a rant to a co-worker. A screed that rips my manager up one side and down the other over some perceived slight. It is cathartic. And funny. But mean. I pick a few choice physical details and nasty rumors to spice it up, then send it. 

Then I wait. And wait. No confirmation. No reply. No piling on. Nothing. 

I walk through our cubicle farm to my co-worker's station and stand there until he pulls his headset off one ear and looks at me. "Well?!?" I say. He just looks at me. "Well, what?"

My stomach falls into my shoes. Where did that message go? Which PC did I sent it to? There's no way it went to. . .my boss?

I am frozen. Lead in my feet. But I know what I have to do. My parents taught me well. Get the poison out immediately.  I trudge over to his office, ready to be reamed. Maybe fired. Who knows? 

He isn't there. I look at his PC and can see he has a Winpopup message waiting. His PC is locked. I hit the CTRL-ALT-DEL and it prompts for a password. I have one shot and go with a series of early go-to passwords for mid-1990s Omaha: BIGRED, GOBIGRED, HUSKERS123 - It works! I'm in!  

There is my Winpop. My terrible, ugly, mean, Winpop.

Click. Gone.

Better to be lucky than good, or something like that.