HBD Fake ID! What we’d vote for if we could
We are celebrating our fake ID’s 18th birthday. There was an odd mix-up at the Secretary of State’s office, and it shows the filing as April of 2006 but I am sure it was 2007. So, as we see it, we get to pass for 18 as long as the bouncer doesn’t ask us any tricky questions about our height or birthday (wink).
That’s pretty cool, because at 18, a young person in this country gets to do some exciting things: namely, vote. When I turned 18 (for real, not via a fake ID), it was also the legal age to use tobacco, so I went down to Iowa State’s campus with some friends, bought a cigar, attempted to smoke it and promptly vomited in a trash can. Voting would have been a more dignified way to celebrate my newfound freedoms, but there wasn’t an election handy at the time and I wasn’t a patient girl.
Of course, the part of voting that makes it dignified is having a point of view and values - knowing what you stand for and what you don’t. And that’s one reason we don’t get to do it until we come of age - we need time to understand the world and learn what matters to us. With, er, 18 (wink, wink) years under our belt, here are 5 things we’d vote for if we could.
Opening Strong and Closing Strong. A thoughtful strategy and design phase sets the project up for maximum impact. A picky polishing phase ensures that the development and design work shines in a special experience at launch. Desire to shave off a couple of days or weeks can push organizations to compress these phases, but doing so imperils the very thing that will ultimately make a project successful - the character of the experience.
Fixed Fee Agreements - Two parties ought to be able to negotiate what solving a given problem is worth, define it well enough to keep themselves out of trouble, and sail off happily into the sunset with the client not worrying about an uncomfortable unknown, and the advisory firm not worrying they’re going to get their hand slapped for going the extra mile. It doesn’t always work out, as some things are hard to define, but if a strategic project is that hard to define, it may be that’s a sign that more clarity is needed before charging forth to the ones and zeros.
Direct Stakeholder Engagement - The United States is a representative democracy meaning we vote for people and those people vote for policies. There’s a layer of abstraction. This is necessary for efficiency, but it’s not always perfect and it’s prone to a bit of mischief at times by the elected representatives who may get a little high on power and stop doing what their constituents want if it doesn’t align with their own personal goals.
If you are a leader, you are likely a visionary, a compelling personality, and someone with a strong force of will who can mold things to your liking. You are in danger of getting high on your own power, too. In order to succeed, you need to cede a little bit of the control to the people whose lives you are trying to impact, by giving them a seat at the table when the problem is being studied. It doesn’t mean you should cede the power to make decisions about how it will be solved (you shouldn’t) but you need to let someone who isn’t you, ideally a truth-obsessed neutral party, ask real stakeholders questions about their lived experience. Then you need to listen to the results, especially when it contradicts what you expected to hear.
Working with those you trust - Don’t hire the cheapest and then watch them like a hawk, don’t hire your friend’s cousin who’s trying to break into the business to do them a favor if you don’t really think they’re up to the task, and for the love of puppies and rainbows and everything good in the world, don’t hire a friend because they feel bad charging you what you should pay and you think you’re getting a steal. At least one of you will chew off their arm to get away from the other by the end, and if you’re in one of these business situationships and you think that’s not true, I have some difficult news for you.
Be selfish. Who do YOU want to work with? Who’s your dream partner? You deserve to work with people you respect. Engage them, sell them on your vision, and then get out of the way and let them do their thing.
Similarly, for advisors, you should be selfish too. Work with people you want to work with, those you trust who trust you in return. The worst start to a business arrangement is the parties who are supposed to collaborate over this beautiful vision beating each other up over an MSA with a swarm of one-sided provisions eating away the goodwill you’ve just started to build. If you think you have to protect yourself from this client (beyond normal rational business practices), this isn’t for you. On the flip side, a client who doesn’t trust you isn’t a challenge to be overcome - it’s a sign to walk away. People say trust is earned – this is a bit of a misconception in my experience. Trust can deepen or erode over time, but if a client doesn’t trust you at least enough to let you work your magic by the time you sign the contract, they didn’t really want to work with you in the first place, or they have some culture issues outside of you, but either way, it’s probably not going to get much better.
Going for it. Find one or two or even five things you can really support wholeheartedly and go for it. Give them the time, heart, money and people power to succeed. Consider not only what checks the box but what gives it life. Provide those key initiatives the runway to absolutely nail it.
The problem is many of us leaders are Type 2 mindset, FOMO-ridden enthusiasts of everything who hate saying no. As leaders we’ve got to have a backbone. If we’re not going to allocate resources to allow it to succeed, admit that it’s not a priority and redirect those resources to something that is. Too many projects languish in a slow death, wasting money and the team’s enthusiasm, because someone at the top doesn’t have the courage to say no. A pro tip for doing this is to consider what conditions would change the thing that’s currently de-prioritized into a priority, and share that information with stakeholders.
These are the things we’ve come to value over the years, and things we think are worth fighting for. We appreciate all of those who’ve cheered us on over the years, and we promise not to turn uncool now that we’re officially (wink, wink) adults.
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