No new costs, no new machines, no new resources.
Just smarter.
Smarter about the process, about the effects, about planning. Smarter about leadership, about management, about measurement.
How much is smarter worth?
In my experience, smarter is almost always a bargain, something you can buy for a lot less than it's worth.
It scales better than competitiveness, frustration, pettiness, regret, revenge, merit (whatever that means) or apathy.
Kindness ratchets up. It leads to more kindness. It can create trust and openness and truth and enthusiasm and patience and possibility.
Kindness, in one word, is a business model, an approach to strangers and a platform for growth.
It might take more effort than you were hoping it would, but it's worth it.
Luxury goods are built on a foundation of waste. Using the center cut. Extra effort, often unseen. More space, more resources, more energy than is needed.
The front lawn is a luxury good, a sign that you don't need to graze your cows on every square inch, and that you're willing to waste the lawn. And the few bits of leather good enough to go into that luxury handbag sends a message about your ability to walk away from all the other parts of the hide.
There's a new luxury that's occurring, though, one that's based on efficiency. Saving you time, sure, but also the time and resources of the creator. A luxury that's based on investing in renewables, in resources that might be seen as endless, in smart design, in the satisfaction of knowing that others are benefitting, not paying, for the experience or the object you're buying.
This is much better than, "start big, start later."
One advantage is that you don't have to start perfect.
You can merely start.
Amazon has acquired Blink (via Slashgear), a startup founded in 2014 that builds connected Wi-Fi home security cameras, as well as a new video doorbell introduced earlier this week. The company got its start via a crowdfunding campaign that raised over $1 million for its totally wireless home monitoring system. Amazon has already made forays into connected home video cameras and even home… Read More
This or that, one or the other, it doesn't matter.
It's actually possible that it just doesn't matter. A choice, but not a decision.
We have to make choices like this every single day. What color, among three colors which are just fine. Which route, between two routes within a rounding error in time taken. Which flight, which table, which person...
Choices don't have to be decisions.
Decisions come with all sorts of overhead. We put a lot of weight on our ability to make good decisions. We switch frames, put in hard work and even involve emotional wishes about future outcomes. Decisions are fraught. That weight can pay off with a more serious approach, with more diligence, but mostly it weighs us down.
We can save a lot of time and effort by making our meaningless choices effortless. Pick the first one, or the one in alphabetical order or flip a coin. Merely have a rule and make the choice.
I'm serious. Considering ten colleges? Put your favorite five in a hat and randomly pick one. Done. Can't decide among three candidates for a job and you can't find a way to choose? Pick the one with the shortest first name. Why not? If you don't have enough information to make a statistically defensible decision, merely choose.
At the end of the day, you'll have more resources remaining for the decisions that matter.
For a culture that spends so much time and money buying things, you'd think we'd be more excited when someone tries to sell us something.
But we're not.
The semantics are important here. What we really mean is, "are you trying to selfishly persuade me to buy something that will benefit you more than it benefits me?"
We're goal-directed, risk-averse and self-focused. We don't care about the salesperson's commission, of course. We care about our own resources.
The magic happens when the goals are aligned, when the service component of sales kicks in, when long-term satisfaction exceeds short-term urgency.
When someone acts in a way that says, "can I help you buy something?" or, "can I help you achieve your goals?" then we're on our way. And of course, it's the doing, not the saying that matters the most.
