S2 L1 What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 (Tina Seelig)

'Tina Seelig is one of the most creative and inspiring teachers at Stanford* Her book ought to be required reading.
" Robert Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule
W hat I W ish I Knew When I Was 20

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A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World
TIN A
S E E L IG
What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20

A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World
Tina Seelig
t HarperCollins e-books
For Josh, Happy 20th Birthday
CONTENTS
1 Buy One, Get Two Free 2 The Upside-Down Circus 3 Bikini or Die 4 Please Take Out Your W allets 5 The Secret Sauce of Silicon Valley 6 No Way . . . Engineering Is for Girls 7 Turn Lemonade into Helicopters 8 Paint the Target around the Arrow 9 W ill This Be on the Exam? 10 Experimental Artifacts A ck n ow led gm en ts N otes A bout th e A uthor C redits C o v er C o p y r ig h t A bout th e P u b lish er 1 15 33 55 71 99 117 137 159 175 185 191
Chapter 1
BUY ONE, GET TWO FREE
W hat would you do to earn money if all you had was five dol lars and two hours? This is the assignment I gave students in one of my classes at Stanford University Each of fourteen teams received an envelope with five dollars of seed funding and was told they could spend as much time as they wanted planning. However, once they cracked open the envelope, they had two hours to generate as much money as possible. I gave them from Wednesday afternoon until Sunday evening to complete the assignment. Then, on Sunday evening, each team had to send me one slide describing what they had done, and on Monday afternoon each team had three minutes to present their project to the class. They were encouraged to be entrepreneurial by identifying opportunities, challenging assumptions, leveraging the limited resources they had, and by being creative. W hat would you do if you were given this challenge? W hen I ask this question to most groups, someone usually shouts out, Go to Las Vegas, or Buy a lottery ticket. This gets a big
W hat I W ish I Knew W hen I W as 20
laugh. These folks would take a significant risk in return for a small chance at earning a big reward. The next most common suggestion is to set up a car wash or lemonade stand, using the five dollars to purchase the starting materials. This is a fine option for those interested in earning a few extra dollars of spending money in two hours. But most of my students even tually found a way to move far beyond the standard responses. They took seriously the challenge to question traditional assumptionsexposing a wealth of possibilitiesin order to create as much value as possible. How did they do this? Heres a clue: the teams that made the most money didnt use the five dollars at all. They real ized that focusing on the money actually framed the problem way too tightly. They understood that five dollars is essentially nothing and decided to reinterpret the problem more broadly: W hat can we do to make money if we start with absolutely nothing? They ramped up their observation skills, tapped into their talents, and unlocked their creativity to identify problems in their midstproblems they experienced or noticed others experiencingproblems they might have seen before but had never thought to solve. These problems were nagging but not necessarily at the forefront of anyones mind. By unearthing these problems and then working to solve them, the w inning teams brought in over $600, and the average return on the five dollar investment was 4,000 percent! If you take into account that many of the teams didnt use the funds at all, then their financial returns were infinite.
Buy One, Get Two Free
So what did they do? All of the teams were remarkably inventive. One group identified a problem common in a lot of college townsthe frustratingly long lines at popular res taurants on Saturday night. The team decided to help those people who didnt want to wait in line. They paired off and booked reservations at several restaurants. As the times for their reservations approached, they sold each reservation for up to twenty dollars to customers who were happy to avoid a long wait. As the evening wore on, they made several interesting obser vations. First, they realized that the female students were better at selling the reservations than the m ale students, probably because customers were more comfortable being approached by the young women. They adjusted their plan so that the male students ran around town m aking reservations at differ ent restaurants while the female students sold those places in line. They also learned that the entire operation worked best at restaurants that use vibrating pagers to alert customers when their table is ready. Physically swapping pagers made custom ers feel as though they were receiving something tangible for their money. They were more comfortable handing over their money and pager in exchange for the new pager. This had an additional bonusteams could then sell the newly acquired pager as the later reservation time grew nearer. Another team took an even simpler approach. They set up a stand in front of the student union where they offered to measure bicycle tire pressure for free. If the tires needed filling,
they added air for one dollar. At first they thought they were taking advantage of their fellow students, who could easily go to a nearby gas station to have their tires filled. But after their first few customers, the students realized that the bicyclists were incredibly grateful. Even though the cyclists could get their tires filled for free nearby, and the task was easy for the students to perform, they soon realized that they were providing a con venient and valuable service. In fact, halfway through the twohour period, the team stopped asking for a specific payment and requested donations instead. Their income soared. They made much more when their customers were reciprocating for a free service than when asked to pay a fixed price. For this team, as well as for the team m aking restaurant reservations, experimenting along the way paid off. The iterative process, where small changes are made in response to customer feed back, allowed them to optimize their strategy on the fly. Each of these projects brought in a few hundred dollars, and their fellow classmates were duly impressed. However, the team that generated the greatest profit looked at the resources at their disposal through completely different lenses, and made $650. These students determined that the most valuable asset they had was neither the five dollars nor the two hours. In stead, their insight was that their most precious resource was their three-minute presentation tim e on Monday. They de cided to sell it to a company that wanted to recruit the students in the class. The team created a three-minute com m ercial for that company and showed it to the students during the time
they would have presented what they had done the prior week. This was brilliant. They recognized that they had a fabulously valuable assetthat others didnt even noticejust waiting to be mined. Each of the other eleven teams found clever ways to earn money, including running a photo booth at the annual V i ennese Ball, selling maps that highlighted local restaurants during Parents Weekend, and designing and selling a custom T-shirt to the students in the class. One team actually lost money when the students purchased umbrellas to sell in San Francisco on a rainy day, only to have the weather clear up shortly after they launched their effort. And, yes, one team ran a car wash and another started a lemonade stand, but their returns were much lower than average. I count the Five-Dollar C hallenge as a success in teaching students about having an entrepreneurial mind-set. But it left me feeling a bit uncomfortable. I didnt want to communicate that value is always measured in terms of financial rewards. So, I added a twist the next tim e I assigned the project. Instead of five dollars, I gave each team an envelope containing ten paper clips. Teams were told they had four hours over the next few days to generate as much value as possible using the paper clips, where value could be measured in any way they wanted. The inspiration for this was the story of Kyle M acDonald, who started with one red paper clip and traded up until he had a house.1 He set up a blog to document his progress and to solicit trades. It took a year, but step-by-step he reached his goal. He
traded the red paper clip for a fish-shaped pen. He then traded the pen for a doorknob and the doorknob for a Colem an stove, and so on. The value of the items increased slowly but surely over the year until he had his dream house. Considering what Kyle did with one paper clip, I felt quite generous giving the students ten paper clips. The assignment began on a Thursday morning and presentations were scheduled for the following Tuesday. By the time Saturday rolled around, however, I was anxious. Perhaps Id gone too far this time. I worried the assignment would be a bust and was ready to chalk it up to experience. These concerns couldnt have been further from the mark. The seven student teams each chose to measure value in different ways. One decided that paper clips were the new cur rency and went about collecting as many as possible. Another team learned that the current world record for the longest paper clip chain was over twenty-two miles and set out to break that record. They rallied their friends and roommates, pitched local stores and businesses on their plan, and showed up in class with a mountain of paper clips linked together. Appar ently the students in their dorm were so moved by the chal lenge that they committed themselves to breaking the world record even after the assignment was over. (Im pretty sure they didnt break the record, but its a good measure of the energy the team was able to generate.) The most entertaining and provocative team came to class with a short video, with the song Bad Boys blaring in the
background, that showed them using the paper clips to pick locks and break into dorm rooms to steal tens of thousands of dollars worth of sunglasses, cell phones, and computers. Just before I fainted, they announced that they were joking and showed another video docum enting what they really had done. They traded the paper clips for some poster board and set up a stand at a nearby shopping center with a sign that read, Stanford Students For Sale: Buy One, Get Two Free. They were am azed by the offers they received. They started out carrying heavy bags for shoppers, moved on to taking out the recycling from a clothing store, and eventually did an ad hoc brainstorming session for a woman who needed help solving a business problem. She paid them with three computer moni tors she didnt need. Over the years, Ive continued to give groups sim ilar as signments, changing the starting material from paper clips to Post-it notes, or rubber bands, or water bottles. Each time the students surprise me, and themselves, by what they accomplish with lim ited tim e and resources. For example, using one small package of Post-it notes, students created a collaborative music project, a cam paign to educate people about heart disease, and a public service com m ercialcalled U nplug-It about saving energy. This exercise ultim ately evolved into what has become known as the Innovation Tournament, with hundreds of teams from all over the world participating.2 In each case, par ticipants use the competition as a means to look at the world around them with fresh eyes, identifying opportunities in their
own backyard. They challenge traditional assumptions, and in doing so generate enormous value from practically nothing. The entire adventure with Post-it notes was captured on film and became the foundation for a professional documentary called I m a gin e It? The exercises described above highlight several counterin tuitive points. First, opportunities are abundant. At any place and time you can look around and identify problems that need solving. Some are mundane, such as scoring a table at a popular restaurant or pumping up bike tires. Many, as we well know, are much larger, relating to major world issues. As Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and a successful venture capitalist, says so clearly, The bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. Nobody w ill pay you to solve a non-problem.4 Second, regardless of the size of the problem, there are usu ally creative ways to use the resources already at your disposal to solve them. This is actually the definition many of my col leagues use for entrepreneurship: an entrepreneur is someone who is always on the lookout for problems that can be turned into opportunities and finds creative ways to leverage limited resources to reach their goals. Most people approach problems as though they cant be solved and, therefore, dont see the creative solutions sitting right in front of them. Third, we so often frame problems too tightly. W hen given a simple challenge, such as earning money in two hours,
most people quickly jump to standard responses. They dont step back and look at the problem more broadly. Taking off the blinders opens up a world of possibilities. Students who participated in these projects took this lesson to heart. M any reflected afterward that they would never have an excuse for being broke, since there is always a nearby problem begging to be solved. These assignments grew out of a course I teach on entrepre neurship and innovation at Stanford University. The overarch ing goal is to demonstrate that all problems can be viewed as opportunities for creative solutions. I focus first on individual creativity, then move on to creativity in teams, and finally dive into creativity and innovation in large organizations. I give my students small challenges and slowly make them more dif ficult. As the course progresses, the students grow increasingly comfortable seeing problems through the lens of possibility and are eventually w illing to take on just about anything that comes their way. Ive been at Stanford for ten years as the executive direc tor of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STV P),5 which is located in the School of Engineering. Our mission is to teach scientists and engineers about entrepreneurship and to provide them with the tools they need to be entrepre neurial in whatever role they play. We believe, along with a growing number of universities around the world, that it isnt good enough for students to come out of school with a purely technical education. To be successful, they need to understand
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how to be entrepreneurial leaders in all working environments and in all parts of their lives. STVP focuses on teaching, scholarly research, and outreach to students, faculty, and entrepreneurs around the world. We strive to create T-shaped people, those with a depth of knowl edge in at least one discipline and a breadth of knowledge about innovation and entrepreneurship that allows them to work effectively with professionals in other disciplines to bring their ideas to life.6 No matter what their role, having an en trepreneurial mind-set is key to solving problems, from small challenges that face each of us every day to looming world crises that require the attention and efforts of the entire planet. In fact, entrepreneurship cultivates a range of important life skills, from leadership and team building to negotiation, inno vation, and decision making. Im also on the faculty of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, affectionately called the d.school.7 This cross-disciplinary program draws upon educators from across the entire university, including the Schools of Engineering, M edi cine, Business, and Education. The institute was envisioned and launched by Stanford mechanical engineering professor David Kelley, who is also the founder of the design firm IDEO, known for creating wildly inventive products and experiences. All d.school courses are taught by at least two professors from differ ent disciplines, and cover an endless array of topics, from design for extreme affordability to creating infectious action to design for agile aging. As part of the d.school teaching team, Ive experi
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enced the thrill of radical collaboration, extreme brainstorming, and rapid prototyping as we give our students and ourselves big, messy problems with more than one right answer. This book draws upon the stories that come out of the class rooms at Stanford as well as from my prior experiences as a scientist, entrepreneur, managem ent consultant, educator, and author. Other stories come from those who have taken a wide range of paths, including entrepreneurs, inventors, artists, and academics. Im fortunate to be surrounded by those who have done remarkable things by challenging assumptions and are eager to share their tales of success and failure. M any of the ideas presented here are the polar opposite of the lessons we are taught in a traditional education system. In fact, the rules that apply in school are often completely dif ferent from those in the outside world. This disparity causes incredible stress when we leave school and attempt to find our way. Gracefully bridging that gap to tackle real-world chal lenges can be extremely difficult, but its doable with the right tools and mind-set. In school, students are usually evaluated as individuals and graded on a curve. In short, when they win someone else loses. Not only is this stressful, but it isnt how most organizations work. Outside of school, people usually work on a team with a shared goal, and when they win so does everyone else. In fact, in the business world there are usually small teams embedded inside larger teams, and at every level the goal is to make ev eryone successful.
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The typical classroom has a teacher who views his or her job as pouring information into the students brains. The door to the room is closed and the chairs are bolted to the floor, facing the teacher. Students take careful notes, knowing they w ill be tested on the material later. For homework they are asked to read assigned material from a textbook and quietly absorb it on their own. This couldnt be any more different from life after college, where you are your own teacher, charged with figur ing out what you need to know, where to find the information, and how to absorb it. In fact, real life is the ultimate open book exam. The doors are thrown wide open, allowing you to draw on endless resources around you as you tackle open-ended problems related to work, family, friends, and the world at large. Carlos Vignolo, a masterful professor at the University of Chile, told me that he provocatively suggests that students take classes from the worst teachers in their school because this will prepare them for life, where they wont have talented educators leading the way. Additionally, in large classes, students are typically given multiple-choice tests with one right answer for every question, and the bubbles must be carefully filled in with number two pencils to make for easy grading. In sharp contrast, in most situations outside of school there are a multitude of answers to every question, m any of which are correct in some way. And, even more important, it is acceptable to fail. In fact, failure is an important part of lifes learning process. Just as evolution is a series of trial-and-error experiments, life is full of false starts
Buy One, G et Two Free
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and inevitable stum bling. T h e key to succcss is the ab ility to cxtract the lessons out of each of these experiences and to move on w ith that new knowledge. For most people, the world is quite different than a typical classroom . T h ere isnt one right answer that leads to a clear rew ard, and facing the w all of choices in front of cach of us can be q uite overw helm ing. Although fam ily, friends, and neighbors w ill happily give us pointed advice about what to
d o , it is e s s e n t i a l l y o u r r e s p o n s ib ility to p ic k o u r o w n d ir e c t io n .
But it is helpful to know that \vc dont have to be right the first tim e. Life presents everyone w ith m any opportunities to experim ent and recom bine our skills and passions in new and surprising ways. T h e concepts presented in this book turn m any well-worn ideas on their heads. M y hope is to ch allen ge you to sec your self and the world in a fresh light. T h e ideas arc straightfor ward, but not necessarily intuitive. As an educator focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship, I have seen firsthand that these ideas arc relevant to those w orking in dynam ic en vironm ents, w here situations change rapidly, req u irin g those involved to know how to identify opportunities, b alan ce priori ties, an d learn from failure. Additionally, the concepts arc valu able to anyone who wants to squeeze the most ju ice out of life. In the com in g chapters I w ill tell stories that com e from a w ide variety of sources, from recent co llege graduates to sea soned professionals. I lop efully, some o f their cxpcricnccs w ill resonate w ith you, providing insights and inspiration as you
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consider the choices you face throughout your life. Essentially, the goal o f this book is to provide a new lens through which to view the obstacles you encounter every day w h ile chart ng your course into the future. It is designed to give you perm is sion to question conventional wisdom and to revisit the rules around you. T h ere w ill alw ays be u n certain ty at each turn, but arm ed w ith the confidence that com es from seeing how others have coped w ith sim ilar am biguities, the stress w ill m oiph into excitem ent, and the ch allen ges you face w ill becom e opportunities.
C hap ter 2
THE U P S ID E -D O W N CIRCU S
W hy dont most of us view problem s as opportunities in our everyday lives? W h y did the team s described previously have to wait for a class assignm ent to stretch the lim its o f their im ag inations? E ssentially, w c aren't taught to em brace problems. W ere taught that problems arc to be avoided, or som ething to com plain about. In fact, w h ile speaking at a conference for business executives, I presented video clips from the Innovation T ournam ent as part of m y talk. Later th at afternoon the CKO of a com pany approached m e and lam ented that lie wished he could go back to school, w here he would be given openended problem s anti be ch allen ged to be creative. I looked at h im w ith confusion. Im pretty confident that even - d a y he faces re a l-life c h a lle n g e s th at w ou ld b en efit from creative
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thin kin g. U nfortunately, he didnt see that the concepts easily relate to his life and business. He viewed m y assignm ents as som ething that could only happen in a controlled, academ ic environm ent. O f course, that isn't and shouldn't be the ease at all. W e can ch allen ge ourselves every single day. T h at is, we can choose to view the world through different lenseslenses that allo w us to see problem s in a new light. T h e m ore w e take on problems, the more confident and proficient w e becom e at solving them . And the better able w e arc to sec them as opportunities. A ttitude is perhaps the biggest determ inant of w hat w e can accom plish. T rue innovators face problems directly and turn traditional assum ptions on their head. A wonderful exam ple is Jeff I law kins, who revolutionized the w ay people organize their lives w ith the Palm Pilot. Jeff was drawn to the problem of creatin g sm all personal computers that were easily accessi ble lu the g cu cial public. rI liis was a g iau d goal, and along lliu w ay he faccd an endless array of additional challenges. In fact, he adm its that being an entrepreneur m eans constantly facing big problem s and finding creative ways to tam e them . Jeffs problem s began at the very b egin n in g. W h en Palm re leased its first product, the Zoomer, it failed m iserably. Instead of w alk in g aw ay in defeat, Jeff and his team called the custom ers who had purchased the Zoomer, as well as those who had purchased its rival, the Apple Newton, and asked what they had hoped it would do. T h e custom ers said they had cxpcctcd
T/ie U pside-D ow n Circus
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the product to organize their com plicated schedules, helping them integrate several calendars into one. T hat's w hen Jeff realized the Zoom er w as com peting m uch more w ith paper calendars than w ith other com puter products. This surpris ing fccdback, w hich contradictcd his original assumptions, prov.ded useful input for the design of the ncxt-generation product, the fabulously successful Palm Pilot. Along the way, Jeff and his team tacklcd the daunting prob lem of determ ining how users would enter information into the new, sm all device. Jeff felt it was critically important to allow people to use a pen to enter information, in addition to a tiny keyboard, to m ake this proccss more natural. But handwritingrccognition programs of the day werent up to the task. So Jeff and his team crcatcd a new written lan gu age, Graffiti, which was easier for the computer to recognize. T here was consider able resistance inside the com pany to m andatin g the use of a new language, but Jeff was confident customers would spend a
s m a ll a m o u n t o f l i m e u p f io n l in l e l u m foi s a v in g lo ls u f lim e
going forward. Graffiti was a radical innovation that challenged all the rules and solved a real problem. Jeff I law kins is a perfect exam ple of a problem solver who is w illin g to look at the world with a fresh eye. I lis most rcccnt company, N um cnta, is built around his own theories about how the brain works. Jeff spent years teach ing h im self ncuroscicr.cc in an attem pt to understand how w e th in k, and cam e up with a com p elling and provocative theory about how the neocortex processes inform ation, w hich he describes in his
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book O n In telligen ce. W ith these theories in hand, Jeff cleciclecl to use his ideas as the foundation for a sm arter" com puter that processes inform ation like the hum an brain. O f course, one could argue that Jeff I lavvkins is one-of-a-kind, and that we c an t all develop revolutionary theories and groundbreaking in ventions. But it is m uch more productive to sec Jeff as a source of inspiration, as som eone who dem onstrates that problems can be solved if w e give ourselves perm ission to look a t them differently.
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W h y dont w e a ll focus on the opportunities that surround us each day and take full advantage of them ? O ne projcct that cam e out o f the second Innovation T ournam ent sheds some light on this idea. D uring the tournam ent, participants were ch allen ged to create as m uch value as possible w ith rubber bands. O ne team cam e up with the idea for Do Bands, bracelets that give people a sim ple incentive to do the things they often put off doing. Do Bands is a clever idea, inspired by the now -fam iliar rubber bracelets worn to show solidarity with j a cause, such as L an cc Armstrongs Live Strong bracelets. Do Bands have a few gu id in g principles:
Put one around your wrist v ith a prom ise to do som ething.
l ake it off w hen you have completed th e task.
T/ie U pside-Dow n Circus
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Record yo u r success on line at the Do Bands W eb site. Each Do Band com es w ith a num ber printed on it so you can look up all the actions it has inspired. Pass the Do Band along to someone else.
Do Bands give individuals an incentive to do w hat they w anted to do all along. In reality, a Do Band is just a rubber band. But som etim es som ething as sim ple as a rubber band is a ll th ats needed to m obilize people to actu ally do som ething, to bridge the gap betw een inaction and action. T h e Do Bands cam paign only lasted a few days, but in that short tim e it in spired a long list of actions: Som e people called their mothers, some showed their appreciation to others by sending thank-you notes, and one began a new cxcrcisc program . O ne participant used the Do Band as an im petus to start a sum m er cam p, one w as inspired to reach out to long-lost friends, and some do nated m oney to charities of their choice. Its fascinating that a rubber band was all that was needed to move people to act. Its also a clear rem inder that there is just a tin y switch betw een d oing nothing and doing som ething, but that the two options have w ild ly different outcomes. I assign a sim ple ch allen ge in m y class, usin g a related concept, th ats designed to give students experience looking at obstacles in their lives from a new perspective. I ask them to identify a problem , and then pick a random objcct in their environm ent. T h ey then need to figure out how that objcct w ill help them solve the problem. O f course, I have no notion
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about their personal challenges, w hat objects they w ill select, or whether they w ill successfully solve their problem. I lowcvcr, in most eases th ey m an age to find a w ay to use random objects in their environm ent to tackle a seem in gly unrelated problem. M y favorite exam ple is a young wom an who was mo\ing frorr one apartm ent to another. She had to transport some large furniture an d had no idea how to m ake it happen. If she couldn't move the furniture, she would have to leave it in her uld ap ailm en l. She looked aio iu id hci a p ailm eiit and sa>v a ease of w in e that was left over from a party a few weeks car.icr. Aha! She went to craigslist*, an on line com m un ity bulletin board, anti offered to trade the case of w in e for a ride across the Bay Bridge with her furniture. W ith in a few hours, all of her furniture was moved. T h e leftover w in e co llectin g dust in the corncr had been transform ed into valuable currcncv. / T he assignm ent didn't turn the w ine into currency, but it did give this wom an the ab ility j and m otivation to see it that wav. / T here is no lim it to the size of the problem s you can tacklc. In fact, most of the Innovation T ournam ent projects were craftcd to crcatc social value. That is, students used the com petition as an opportunity to address a significant social problem , s.ich as saving energy, en co uragin g people to stay healthy, or provid in g com m unity support for disabled children. T he first step to solving big problem s is to identify them. In the world of product design, this is callcd need finding." T his is a skill that can be learned. In fact, its a key com porcnt
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of the cu rricu lu m for the BioDesign Fellows at Stanford.1 Postgraduates who have studied en g in eerin g, m ed icin e, and business com e together for a yea: to identify significant needs in m edicine and then design products to address them . Paul Yock, a cardiologist, inventor, and entrepreneur, runs the BioDesign Program .: Paul believes that "a w ell-characterized need is the DNA of an invention." In other words, if w e clearly define a problem , the solution w ill logically present itself. T h e BioDesign Fellows spend three m onths shadow ing doctors in action and identifying problems they appear to be facing. T h ey watch carefu lly; talk with a ll o f the stakeholders, in clu d in g physicians, nurses, patients, and adm inistrators; and figure out w here things can be improved. T h ey w hittle a list of hundreds of needs to just a handful, w ith the goal of picking the biggest problems they can find. After they settle on the ch allen ge, they design and quickly build prototypes for a vari ety of solutions. After a focuscd, iterative proccss, they present
l l i e i i new p i o d u e l co ncept:* to l h k e y s t a k e h o l d e r to fin d o u t
if they have successfully m et the need. Interestingly, in m any eases those who arc on the front lines arc so used to the problems they experience every day that they dont even sec them , or can t im agine radical approaches to solving them . Paul Yock shared a story about the developm ent of balloon angioplasty, a technique that involves in sertin g a balloon into an artery and expanding it so that it opens up the blocked artery. Before this breakthrough invention, most cardiologists felt that the only way to deal with elogged arteries
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was to do bypass surgery to rem ove the dam aged blood vessels. T his procedure requires opcn-hcart surgery, w hich carries sub stantial risks. W h en the balloon angioplasty procedure, which is much less dangerous and invasive, was first introduced, it was met w ith trem endous skepticism and resistance am ong physicians, esp ecially surgeons who understood best" how to treat the disease. S ign ifican t roadblocks appeared in front of pioneers of the procedure. For exam ple. John Sim pson, one of the inventors of balloon angioplasty, wound up having to leave the university to do his research at a private hospital. However, over tim e, the efficacy of balloon angioplasty was firm ly estab lished and becam e the standard of care for most patients with clogged arteries. T his is a great exam ple of a case w here the status quo is so entrenched that those closest to the situation c an t im agin e an yth in g different. Problem blindness applies to consum er product develop ment as w ell. For exam ple, it is w ell docum ented that auto m atic teller m achines (AT M s) failed in focus groups where potential custom ers were asked if they would use a m achine to deposit and withdraw' m oney from their accounts, as opposed to going into a local bank to com plete the transaction with a teller. T hese custom ers couldnt im agin e ch an gin g their behavior so dram atically. But, in retrospect, A TM m achines represented a
r a d i c a l l y n r w a n d r f f r r H v r im p r n v r m r n t for p e r s o n a l h a n k in g ,
one that few of us can now im agin e living without. I\e experienced problem blindness myself. About fifteen years ago m y husband, M ike, gave m e a cell phone. This
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was long before cell phones were ubiquitous, and I had no idea I needed one. In fact, I got som ew hat annoyed, flunk in g it was one more electronic gadget that would sit around unused. M ike urged m e to try it for a week. It took m e only two clays to figure out I couldnt live w ithout it. I w as com m u ting at least two hours cach day and was able to catch up with friends and colleagues during the drive. I cam e back to M ike with sincere appreciation for the gift, and now always try to keep this story in m ind when I look at new, potentially breakthrough, ideas. T h e key to need finding is identifying and fillin g gapsthat is, gaps in the w ay people use products, gaps in the scrviccs available, and gaps in the stories they tell w hen interviewed about their behavior. I got a chance to talk w ith M ich ael Barry, an expert in need finding at Point Forward, and he told a tcrrific story about his work with K im berly-Clark, the com pany that m akes K leen ex ', Scott'- paper towels, and H uggics' d ia p e r . I .SM'ulialh, K iiubcily-C laik was disappointed w illi llit.ii diaper sales relative to diaper giants such as Procter & G am ble (m akers of Pam pers), and brought in M ichael s team to help figure out how they could improve their business. By m aking detailed observations on how diapers arc sold, assessing the m essaging on the diaper packages, and conducting interviews w ith parents, M ichacl realized that K im berly-C lark was miss in g the point: they w ere sellin g diapers as though they were hazardous waste disposal devices But parents dont view them that way. To a parent, a diaper is a way to keep their children
24
com fortable. D ealin g w ith diapers is part of the n u rtu rin g process. A diaper is also view ed as a piece of clothing. T h ese observations provided a great starting point for im proving how K im berly-Clark packaged and positioned I luggics. T hen, upon closer scrutiny, M ich ael identified an even b i g g e r opportunity. He noticed that parents becom e terribly em barrassed when asked if their child is still in diapers. Bingo! T his was a huge pain point for parents and for kids on the cusp of toilet train ing. T here had to be a w ay to turn this around. I low could a diaper becom e a sym bol of success as opposed to failure? M ichael cam e up w ith the idea for Pull-U ps*, a cross betw een a diaper anti underw ear. Sw itching trom diapers to Pull-Ups served as a big m ilestone for both children and parents. A child can put on a Pull-U p w ithout help, and can feel proud of this accom plishm ent. T h is insight led to a billion-dollar increase in an n u al revenue for K im berly-Clark an d allow ed them to leapfrog ahead of their com petition. T h is new product grew out of focuscd need finding, identification of a clcar problem, and then tu rn in g it a n opportunity. In m y course, I use a case study about C irq u e du SolciP that gives students a chance to hone their skills at ch allen g in g assum ptions. T h e backdrop is the 1980s, w hen the circus industry was in trouble. Performances w ere predictable and stale, the num ber of custom ers was dim in ish in g, and an im al treatm ent was under attack. It cid n t seem like a good tim e to start a new circus, but that is cxactly what G uy Lalibcrte, a
25
street perform er in C an ad a, decided to do. G uy started C irq u e du Soleil by ch allen g in g every assum ption about w hat a circus could be and in doing so transformed a problem a dying industryinto an opportunity. After show ing video clips from the 1939 M arx Brothers movie, At th e C ircus, I ask the students to uncover all the as sum ptions of a traditional circus: a big tent, an im als, chcap tickcts, barkers sellin g souvenirs, several acts perform ing at once, playful m usic, clowns, popcorn, strong m en, flam ing hoops, ctc. I then ask them to turn these things upside dow n to im agin e the cxact opposite of each one. I*or exam ple, the new list would in clu d e a sm all tent, no an im als, expensive scats, no barkers, one act perform ing at a tim e, sophisticated m usic, and no clowns or popcorn. T h e y then pick the things th ey w ant to keep from the traditional circus and the things they w ant to change. T h e result is a brand-new type of circus, a la C irq u e du Soleil. I then show them video clips from rcccnt C irq u e du Soleil perform ances so they can see the im pact of these changcs. O ncc w e do this cxcrcisc w ith the circus industry, its easy to apply to other industries and institutions, in clu d in g fast-food restaurants, hotels, airlin es, sporting events, education, and even courtship and m arriage. O ncc you get the hang of it, this is an easy, back-of-thccnvclopc cxcrcisc you can use to reevaluate all aspccts of your life an d carccr. T h e key is to take the tim e to clcarly identify every assum ption. T his is usually the hardest part, sincc, as described in the ease about balloon angioplasty, assum ptions
26
arc som etim es so integrated into our view of the world that its hard to sec them . I lowcvcr, w ith a little practice, it becom es a useful w ay to look at your options in a fresh light. So m e people arc p articu larly good at id en tifyin g and c h a l len g in g assum ptions. In th eir qi:cst to find creative solutions to seem in g ly im possible problem s, th ey question the lim its of w hat is reasonable and possible. T hey start th eir lives over in exotic locations, they take on projects that have a grand scopc, th ey m ake choiccs that srem rad ical, and they carve out a new path that leads them into u n ch artcd territory. W e often watch in aw e, preventing ourselves from tak in g the sam e leaps. C onsider Sandra C ook, who has successfully strctchcd the boundaries and ch allen ged all traditional assum ptions as she crafted am az in g adventures for herself. T h e b eg in n in g of San dras carccr snapped into placc like clockwork. She earned a PhD in m athem atical logic, went off to the London School of Kconomics to study and then teach, cam c back to the U nited States to work at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), took a job as a consultant at Booz A llen I lam ilto n , an d eventu a lly headed up strategy for the com m unications businesses for Motorola. She could have co n tiru cd on this path for the rest of her carccr, but dccidcd to jump out of this perfectly good airp lan e because it was h ead in g in the w rong direction. San dras passion has alw ays been adventurous travel to w ild and remote placcs, and she m anaged to squeeze exotic trips to India, T ibet, M ongolia, and Nepal into two-week stints during
27
her busy work schedule. But she eventually decided this w asnt enough, an d so flipped her world on its head by q u ittin g her prestigious job at Motorola in 2002 in order to travel in Af gh anistan m ore extensively. T h e country was in sham bles after the w ar b egan , and she wanted to help in an y w ay she could. She got a visa, purchased an a ir inc ticket, and went, hoping to find some w ay to m ake a difference. W h en she got off the plane in Kabul, there were no taxis and little infrastructure in place. W ith some effort, she found her w ay to a hotel fre quented by reporters from around the world, and got to work contacting everyone she could to find out how she could get involved with the effort to rebuild the country. S h e offered to write grants, to prepare business plans, or even to sweep floorswhatever w ould be helpful. Sandra even tu ally connected w ith N ancy D upree, the di rector of the A fghanistan C enter at Kabul University. N ancy was w orking tirelessly to rebuild the university lib rary and to
g e l books iu lo ih e h a n d s o f people llu o u g h o u l ih e e o u n li y
through their Box Library Extension. After they got to know each other a little better, Sandra wrote a business plan for the ccntcr and was even tually asked to serve on the organiza tions board of directors. She is now co-prcsidcnt of the board and spends most of her tim e building awareness of and rais in g m oney for this organization. Besides her official duties, Sandra also takes on grassroots projects in A fghanistan, such as d istributing pom egranate trees throughout the city o f Kabul. She personally purchased tw enty thousand barc-root trees and
28
handed them out to fam ilies so they could start replacing trees destroyed during the war. Most people do not leave com fortable lives to tackle enor mous problems in far-flung lands. But, in m an y eases, much sm aller challenges seem just as daunting. For m any, changing jobs D r m oving across town feels just as risky as traveling to an exotic location to perform relief work. It is m uch m ore com fortable to stay loeked in a role that's good enough" than to reach for an alternative that has a higher degree of uncertainty. M as! o f us arc content taking sm all, reliable steps. W e dont get very far, but wc dont rock the boat either. Venture capital firms that invest in early stage businesses pride them selves on identifying big problems and takin g significant risks with the goal of tacklin g them . T h ey arc alw ays scanning the horizon for the next big opportunity, as opposed to looking for sm all problems w ith increm ental solutions. T h ey attempt to look into the future for ch allen ges that arc just beyond the next hill so they can invest in rad ically innovative approaches to m eeting them head-on. A great exam ple is K leiner Perkins Canfield & Byers (K PC B ), a firm with a rem arkable trick
i c c u i d fui p i c d i c l i n g f u l m c c h a l l e n g e s a n d i n v e s t in g in Ilicit
solutions. T h ey invested in biotechnology, Internet com m cice, and alternative cncrgv long before these were household topics, and :hey anticipated the future im pact of businesses such as G cnentcch, Sun M icrosystem s, A m azon, G oogle, Netscape, Intuit, and E lectronic Arts. As R andy Komisar, a partner at
T/ie U pside-D ow n Circus
29
KPCB, notes, b ein g entrepreneurial m eans seeing the world as opportunity rich. He and his colleagues have found that iden tifying and solving big problems leads to significant rewards for everyone involved. Despite the fact that one can m ake a profit by solving big problems, Randy stresses in his book, T h e M onk a n d th e
Riddle, the im portance of having the zeal to solve a grand

problem, as opposed to bein g m otivated to m ake money.4 To explain the difference, he com pares a m issionary w ho passion ately pursues an im portant cause to a m ercen ary whose drive is only to serve his or her own interests. By focusing on finding solutions to significant challenges w ith m issionary-like energy, successful com panies arc born. T his m essage is echoed by author G uy Kawasaki, who says it is better to m ake m eaning th an to m ake money. If your goal is to m ake m ean in g by trying to solve a big problem in innovative ways, you arc more likely to m ake m oney than if you start w ith the goal of m aking money, in w hich case you w ill probably not m ake money or m eaning. W hat do the entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and inventors described above have to do with the students who started with five dollars, paper clips, or water bottles and were challenged to creatc as m uch value as possible? A trem endous am ount. All of these exam ples reinforce the idea that there is great benefit to identifying problem s in your m idst and then relentlessly working to solve them by ch allen g in g traditional assumptions.
30
Problems arc abundant, just w aitin g for those w illin g to find inventive solutions. T his takes acute observation, coordinated teamwork, the ab ility to execute a plan, a w illingness to learn from failure, and creative problem solving. But the lirst re quirem ent is havin g the attitude that the problem can be solved. I have found, for m yself and m y students, that the more experience you have tacklin g problem s, the more confident you becom e that you can find a solution. I was recently in Scotland teaching in a w ceklong entre preneurship boot cam p, run by Jam es Barlow at the Scobish Institute for Enterprise, for fifty collcgc students from across the country who were studying a w ide range of disciplines, from crim inology to cosmetics. Most of them had no exposure to en trepreneurship at all. At the beginn ing of the week, m any were completely overwhelmed by the first assignm ent, which required them to com e up with and then sell a new product or scrvicc. Each team was given fifty British pounds of starting capital at 6 :0 0 p.m. and had a total of eighteen hours to complete the proj ect. T he goal was to get them out of their comfort zone and into the real world. M an y of the students told m e they were on the verge of going home. (T hey didnt need to tell m e this, because the panicked looks on their faces said it all.) But they all st ick with it and were pleasantly shockcd by what they accomplished. O ne group becam e um brella walkers," assisting those who got caught in the unexpected rain; one group set up an impromptu speed-dating station at a local bar; and one started a makeshift shocihinc stand on a busy downtown street.
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Bui this assignm ent was just the b egin n in g o f their experi ence. By the end of a w eek s worth of ch allen g in g activities, in clu d in g scouring newspapers to identify problem s, brain storm ing to com e up w ith creative solutions, d esign in g new ventures, m eetin g w ith potential custom ers, film in g com m er cials, an d pitching their ideas to a panel of successful execu tives, they w ere ready to take on just about any challenge. O ne team that stands out in m y m ind was com posed of three young wom en, for whom all of this w as brand-new. T h ey w ere sh akin g in their shoes when the first assignm ent was given. By the end of the w eek, however, they had com e up w ith a fabulous idea that earned high praise from the panel of judges as well as seed fu ndin g from investors. T h ey developed a m obile, at-hom e service for bra fitting, based on their obser vation that most women arc em barrassed by the process and often end up w ith ill-fitting bras. T h eir video com m ercial was tasteful and convinced everyone that this was an interesting
u p p u ilu n ily .
O n the last day o f the workshop, one of the young women said to m e, I now know that there isnt an yth in g I can t do. She, along w ith all the other students, already had the bulk of the skills they needed to accom plish am az in g things. A ll we offered them w as tangible proof, alo ng w ith a healthy dose of perm ission, that they could turn the problem s around them into opportunities.
C hap ter 3
BIKINI O R DIE
T h e famous psychologist B. F. Skin ner once wrote that all hum an behavior can be view ed as b ein g adaptive to cither the individual, the gene pool, or to society at large.1 I lowever, these three forces are often at odds, cau sin g significant tension. T h e rules m ade by society are a huge presence in our li'c s, created by the governm ent, religious groups, our employers, our schools, our neighbors, and our fam ilies. B ecause these social groups craft the explicit rules around us, w e often find ourselves in situations w here w e arc driven to break them to satisfy' our personal desires or the drives of our spccics. These social rules and norm s arc designed to m ake the world around us more organized and predictable, and to prevent us from hurting one another. But w hen is a ru le really just a suggestion? And w hen do suggestions morph into rules? Every day, physical signs tell all of us what to do, written instructions direct us how to behave, and social gu id elin es urge us to act w ithin specific param eters.
In fart, w e also m ake lots o f rules for ourselves, in large part encouraged by others. T h ese rules becom e woven into our individual fabric as wc go through life. W e draw im aginary lines around what w e th in k w e can do lin es that otten lim it us much more than the rules imposed by society at large. Wc define ourselves by our professions, our incom e, w here we live, the car w e drive, our education, and even bv our horoscope. Each definition locks us into specific assum ptions about who w c are and w hat wc can do. Im rem inded of a famous line from the m ovie M y D in n er w ith Andre, that states that New Yorkers arc both guards anti prisoners and as a result they no Icnger have . . . the cap acity to leave the prison they have m ade, or even see it as a prison." W e alw ays m ake our own prisons, w ith rules that w c each crcatc for ourselves, locking us into specific roles and out of an endless array of possibili ties. W hat if you ch allen g e the u n d erlyin g assum ptions? W hat arc the consequencesgood and b adof gettin g off the pre scribed path? W h at happens to those who break the rules? L srry Page, co-founder of G oogle, gave a lecture in which he encouraged the audience to break free from established guidelines by having a healthy disregard for the impossible.: T h a t is, to th in k as big as possible. I Ic noted that it is often easier to have big goals than to have sm all goals. W ith sn ail goals, there arc very specific ways to reach them and more w ays they can go wrong. W ith big goals, you arc u su ally allo cated more resources and there arc more ways to achieve them. T h is is an interesting insight. Im agine that you arc tryin g to get
Bikini or Die
35
from S an Francisco to Kabul. T here arc lots of different routes, you w ill likely give yourself the tim e and resources to get there, and you w ill be flexible if things don t unfold as planned. But if your goal is to go across town, then the path is pretty d e a r and you cxpcct it to be a quick trip. If the road is blockcd for som e reason, you arc stuck and frustrated. O ne of the reasons G oogle has been so successful s their w illin gn ess to tackle hard problems with an undefined path to com pletion. L inda Rottenberg is a prim e exam ple of a person who sees no problem as too big to tackle and readily breaks free of expec tations in order to get w here she wants to go. She believes that if others think your ideas arc crazy, then you m ust be on the right track. Eleven years ago Linda starred a rem arkable organization called Endeavor.' 1'hcir goal is to foster entrepreneurship in the developing world. She launched Endeavor just after graduat ing from Yale Law School, w ith little m ore than a passion to stim ulate econom ic developm ent in disadvantaged regions. She flopped a l nothing lu teach l.ci goals, in clu d in g stalkin g influential business leaders whose support she needed. Endeavor began its efforts in Latin A m erica and has since expanded to other regions of the world, in clu d in g Turkey and South A frica. They go through a rigorous proccss to identify high-potential entrepreneurs and, after selectin g those with great ideas and the drive to execute their plan, give them the resources they need to be successful. The entrepreneurs arc not handed m oney, but instead arc introduced to those in their environm ent who can guide them . They arc also provided
36
w ith intense educational programs, and get an opportunity to m eet w ith other entrepreneurs ir. their region who have navi gated the circuitous path before. O ncc successful, they serve as positive role m odels, create jobs in their local com m unities, and, eventually, give back to Endeavor, helping future genera tions of entrepreneurs. An inspirin g exam ple o f an Endeavor entrepreneur is L eila V elez in Brazil. L eila lived in the slum s in the h ills overlook in g Rio dc jan icro , known as favelas. C le a n in g houses, she survived on a subsistence incom e. However, she had an idea: there arc m an y wom en in Brazil vho w ant desperately to have softer, less kinky hair. L eila, along w ith her sister-in-law I Icloisa Assis, invented a product that transforms knotty h air into curly hair. It took years of trial-and-crror experim entation, resulting in m an y extrem e failures alo ng :hc way, but oncc she found a solution, she opened a salon ir Rio. I Icr business was brisk and L eila had the fantasy o f creating a franchise. A long cam c
E n d e a v o r , w h i c h h e lp e d h e r r e a liz e h e r d r e a m . T h is b u s in e s s ,
callcd Bclcza N atural, now employs a thousand people and earns m illion s in an n u al revenue T his is but one of hundreds of success stories from En deavor. I w as at Endeavors biannual sum m it two years ago and was overwhelm ed w ith the energy and enthusiasm in the room. Each entrepreneur w as indebted to Endeavor for provid in g the tools they needed, as well as the inspiration to succeed. T h is would never have happened if L inda had listened to those who told her that her ideas were crazv.
J
Bikini or Die
O ne of the biggest obstacles to taking on impossible tasks is that others arc often q uick to tell you they can t be accom plished. It is arguably tough to address a grand problem. But oncc you decide to take it on, it is e q u a lly hard to break out of traditional approaches to solving it. T h is is another placc w here it is helpful to break a few rules. T h e next cxcrcisc forces people to do this in a surprising way. First, com c up w ith a problem that is relevant for the particular group. For exam ple, if it is a group of executives in the u tility business, the topic m ight be gettin g com panies to save en ergy; if it is a theater group, the problem m ight be how to attract a larger au d ien ce; and if it is a group of business students, the challenge m ight be to com c up w ith a cool, new business idea. Break the group into sm all team s and ask cach one to com c up w ith the best idea and the worst idea for solving the stated problem .' T h e best idea is som ething that cach team thinks w ill solve the problem brilliantly. T h e worst idea w ill be incffcctivc, unprof itable, or w ill m ake the problem worse. O ncc they arc done, they w rite cach of their ideas on a separate piece of paper, one labeled BES T and one labeled W O R S T. W h en I do this cxcrcisc, I ask participants to pass both to m e, and I procccd to shred the BES T ideas. After the tim e they spent gen eratin g these great ideas, they arc both surprised and not too happy. I then redistribute the W O RST ideas. Each team now has an idea that another team thought was terrible. T h ey arc in structed to turn this bad idea into a fabulous idea. T h ey look
38
at the horrible idea that was passed their w ay and quickly sec that it really isnt so bad after all. In fact, they often think t is terrific. W ith in a few scconds som eone alw ays says, Hey, this is a great id e a ! W hen doing this cxcrcisc w ith a u tility com pany, one of the worst ideas for saving en ergy was to give cach em ployee a quota for how m uch energy he or she used and to charge extra for exceeding the allotm ent. T h e y thought this was a pretty silly idea. T h e team that received this idea turned it into an idea that is really worth considering, in w hich em ployees d o have a quota for how m uch energy they use. If they use less they get m oney back, and if they use more they arc charged for it. They could even sell energy credits to their co-workcrs, givin g them an even larger incentive to save electricity. I did this cxcrcisc w ith the staff responsible for p u tting on arts events at Stanford. O ne of the team s charged w ith finding ways to bring in a larger audience cam e up w ith the bad i:lca
o f p u t t i n g o n a s t a f f t a le n t show . T h i s is s e e m i n g l y th e opposite
of what they do nowb rin gin g in top-notch talent from around the world. T h e next team turned this idea upside down. T .icy interpreted this m uch m ore broadly and proposed a big fund raiser, w here the faculty and staff across the university would showcase their diverse talents. T h is would very lik ely bring in lots of people who dont norm ally go to perform ing arts events and would help build awareness for their other programs. W hen the ch allen ge was to com e up with the worst busi ness id ea, the suggestions were boundless. O ne group sug-
Bikini or Die
39
gcstcd sellin g bikinis in A ntarctica, one recom m ended starting a restaurant that sells cockroach sushi, and one group proposed starting a heart attack m useum . In each of these eases, these bad ideas w ere transform ed into pretty interesting ideas that deserved some real consideration. For exam ple, the group that was tasked with sellin g bikinis in A ntarctica cam e up with the slogan "Bikini or D ie. T heir idea was to take people who w anted to get into shape on a trip to A ntarctica. By the end of the hard journey, they w ould be able to fit into their bikinis. T h e group that needed to sell cockroach sushi cam e up with a restaurant called La C ucaracha that m ade all sorts o f exotic sushi usin g nontraditional but nutritious ingredients and tar geted adventurous diners. T h e group given the ch allen ge of starting a heart attack m useum .iscd this idea as the starting point for a m useum devoted entirely to health and preventa tive m edicinc. A ll groups cam e up w ith com p elling business nam es, slogans, and com m ercials for these ventures. T h is cxcrcisc is a great way to open your m ind to solutions to problem s b ecause it demonstrates that most ideas, even if they look silly or stupid on the surface, often have at least a seed o f potential. It helps to challenge the assum ption that ideas arc cither good or bad, and dem onstrates that, w ith the right fram e of m ind, you can look at most ideas or situations and find som ething valuable. For exam ple, even if you dont start the B ikini or D ie excursion to A ntarctica, this is an in teresting starting point for ideas that m ight be more practical.
40
M y old buddy John Stiggelbout used the idea of turning a good idea on its head w hen applyin g to graduate school. 1le did som ething that an y norm al person would think w as a ter ribly bad idea, and it turned out to be inspired. 1le decided at the last m inute that he w anted to go to business school. I laving missed all the deadlines, he chose to m ake his application stand out am ong the others in a n unconventional way. Instead of touting his impressive accom plishm ents, as most applicants do, lie augm ented his liad ilio n al application with a le i lei of rcfcrencc w ritten by a past professor c laim in g to be Johns best friend and ccll m ate in prison. T h e letter described John in the most u nusual term s that any adm issions com m ittee had ever seen, in clu d in g his ab ility to open a mason jar w ith his belch. Instead of knocking John out of the ru n n in g, those in the adm issions office w ere incredibly curious to m eet h im and invited John to visit the school. John was nice enough to dig up the letter so you can see it, too.
1 m et John Stiggelbo ut as a fellow G reyhound bus passenger. He m ust have passed out on the floor at the back. I found h im next to a Styrofoam cu p and a can d y w rapper, covered w ith cig arctte butts, holding an em p ty M D 20/20 bottle. I am his best friend. W c w ere ccll m ates after w e got caught robbing the 7/11. After a hearty m eal at the Salvation Army, w c oncc went to a revival m eetin g where w e were both
Bikini or Die
tryin g to pick up the sam e girl. (H e takes defeat and hum iliatio n w ell; he is obviously a practiced loser.) 11c has im pressive qualities that an y struggling Junior A chievem ent C om pany or sm all fam ily lau n d ry could put to good use. 11c covers his brown and yellow teeth w hen he yawns, and opens the w indow w hen lie spits. H e can w histle loud usin g his fingers, an d can crack a m ascn jar w ith his burp. 1Ic showers once a m onth. 11c uses soap when he can. I Ic needs a placc so he doesnt have to sleep in the bus station restroom. I Ic needs to find a position with a large com pany where his heavy drinking and sexual preference for exotic birds will not get him fired the first day on the job. Anyone w ith a sexual preference for cxotic birds is both o rigin al an d independent of thought. In fact, he is so indep enden t of thought that lie is utterly devoid of it. 'I'his gu y w ill do a n yth in g for a drink. I Ic mayeven work. Now that Stiggs is out of jail, Im sure his parole officer would not m ind if sonic graduate school looked after him for a bit. I Ic is a great leader in the I lells A ngels, and a ll the boys I talked to thought he w ould m ake a hell of a white collar crim inal. O f all the people I have found on the floor, passed out in the back of a bus, this gu y is the best.
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M y overall impression is that he is not as good as 1 m ake him out to be. G et m e out of jail so that I can go to C h icago instead of him .
Buford T M orton, Inm ate #335342 W alla W alla Federal Penitentiary W alla W alla, W ashington O nce John arrived for the interview, everyone in the office was pecking out of his or her doors, hoping to get a look at the fellow who subm itted the w ild application. 11c w as polite and poisctl d u rin g his interview, and was adm itted.
T h e conccpt that there arc no bad ideas is a hallm ark of good brainstorm ing. D uring a brainstorm ing session it is important to explicitly state that there arc no bad ideas. You need to break w ith the assum ption that ideas need to be feasible in order to be valuable. By enco uragin g people to conic up w ith wild ideas vou diffuse th e tendency to edit vour ideas before you
j J j
share them . Som etim es the craziest ideas, w hich seem imprac tical w hen they arc in itia lly proposed, turn out to be the most interesting in the long run. T h ey m ight not work in their first iteration, but with a bit of m assaging, they m ight turn out tc be b rillian t solutions that arc feasible to im plem ent. R unning a successful brainstorm ing session actu ally takes a lot of skill and practice. T h e key is to set the ground rules at the beginning and to reinforce them . Tom Kelley, general m anager
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of the design firm IDEO and David Kelley s brother, wrote a book called T h e Art o f Innovation, in w hich he describes the rules of brainstorm ing at their firm. O ne of the most impor tant rules is to expand upon the ideas of others. W ith this ap proach, at th e end of a good brainstorm ing session, m ultiple people feel that they created or contributed to the best ideas to com c out of the session. And, since everyone in the room had a chance to participate and witnessed the em ergen ce and evo lution of all llie ideas, llie ie ib usually sh aied suppoit foi the ideas that go forward toward im plem entation. If you have participated in brainstorm ing sessions, you know that they dont always work like that. It is hard to elim inate the natural tendency for each person to feel personal ownership for their ideas, and it can be tough to get participants to build on others suggestions. Patricia Ryan M adson, who wrote b n p rov
W isdom, designed a great warm-up cxcrcisc that brings to life

these two ideas: there arc no bad ideas a n d build on others ideas. You break a group into pairs. O ne person tries to plan a party and m akes suggestions to the other person. T h e other person has to say no to every idea anti m ust give a reason why it wont work. For exam ple, the first person m ight say, Lets plan a party for Saturday night, and the second person would say, No, I have to wash m y hair. T his goes on for a few m inutes, as the first person continues to get more and more frustrated trying to com e up with any idea t ic second person w ill accept. O nce this runs its course, the roles switch and the sccond person takes on the job of planning a party. T h e first person
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has to say yes to everything and m ust build on the idea. For exam ple, Lets have a party on Saturday night. T h e response m ight be, Yes, and I'll bring a cake. T h is goes on for a w hile and the ideas can get wilder. In some cases the parties end up under water or on another planet, and involve all sorts of exotic food and entertainm ent. T h e energy in the room increases, spirits arc high, and a huge num ber of ideas arc generated. T h is is the type o f energy that should be present d u rin g a great brainstorm ing session. O f course, at some point you have to decidc w hat is feasible, but that shouldnt happen d u rin g the idea generation phase. Brainstorm ing is about breaking out of conventional approaches to solving a problem . You should feel free to flip ideas upside down, to turn them inside out, and to cut loose from the chains of normalcy. At the end of a brain storm ing session you should be surprised by the range of ideas that w ere generated. In alm ost a ll eases, at least a few w ill serve as seeds for really great opportunities that arc ripe for further cxpluialiou. If is im portant to rem em ber lliat idea generation involves exploration of the landscape of possibilities. It doesnt cost any m oney to generate wild ideas, and there is no need to com m it to an y o f them . T h e goal is to break the rules by im ag in in g a world w here the law s of nature ar? different and all constraints arc removed. O nce this phase is com plete, it is appropriate to move on to the exploitation phase, w here you sclcct some of the ideas to explore further. At that tim e you can view the ideas with a m ore critical eve.
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Rule breaking can happen throughout every organization and in all processes. A great exam p.e can be found at C ooliris, a young com pany that crcatcs an im m ersive W eb browsing cxpcricncc. E ssentially, C ooliris turns the standard flat W eb pages w c view on line into a three-dim ensional w all that m akes browsing a faster and m ore intu tive cxpcricncc. T he im ages stretch out in front of you, m aking you feel as though youre navigatin g through a gallery. Two Stanford students, Josh Schw arzapcl and A ustin Shoem aker, started C o o liris w i:h a seasoned entrepreneur, Sou yan ja Bhum kar. T h e y received a sm all am ount of fund in g for th eir ven ture, but w ere h avin g a very d ifficu lt tim e recru itin g people to work at the com pany. T h is was a big problem . T h e y w ere never going to reach th eir aggressive product developm ent goals unless th ey brought in dozens of talen ted people. And to m ake that happen, th ey w ere go ing lu have lu do things difTcicnlly. Josh, w ho was in charge o f recruiting, started w ith all the traditional approaches to recruiting, in clu d in g posting posi tions on job boards and craigslist, advertising on social net w orking sites such as L in ked ln and Facebook, and even h irin g professional recruiters. But nothing was working. So the team decided to look at the entire recruiting situation differently, and to break w ith these standard approaches. Instead of trying to convince young, talented people to join the com pany, they decided to focus on m akin g C o cliris such an ap p ealin g placc
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to work that students would be begging to join. T h ey wanted it to be the coolest party in town. T h e)- hosted special events for students, m ade sure to have the most dram atic booth at the job fairs, com plete w ith eyc-popp ng dem os of their product on big plasm a screens; an d handed out hip sunglasses to everyone who visited their booth. T h ey also hired two Stanford students, Jonah G reenberg and M att W ah l, as interns. Their job was to spread the word about C ooliris across the Stanford cam pus, and to identify the best students they could, independent of their age or field of study. Jonah and M att arc popular and w ell connccted, and tapped into their social circlcs to spread the word about C ool iris. They helped m ake it cool to work at C ooliris, and eventu a lly C o oliris becam e t h e placc to be. Now that C ooliris was inundated w ith resum es, how did they decide w hich students to hire? Instead of go ing through a rigorous screen ing proccss, they decided to n o t dccidc, and h iic d alm ost cvciyo n cas interns. "This gave them the chance to sec each individual in action, and for the students to get a taste of the company. Not only did C o oliris get an opportunity to take the interns for a test drive, but the interns got so cxcitcd about the products that they bccam e evangelists both for the product an d the com pany, bringing in their friends as interns and as custom ers. This helped with recru itin g and b u ilt m o m entum for the business. Now that they were on a roll, C ooliris continued to break rules. T hcv abolished the hierarchy betw een interns and fu ll
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tim e em ployees, giving interns significant projects w ith full accountability for their results. Each intern was given a project w ith a big goal and was allow ed to do whatever he or she felt would work to rcach it. O f course, there was oversight, but Tic interns were clearly em powered to m ake key decisions. Forexam ple, the goal m ight be to increase the num b er of W eb sites that arc C ooliris enabled. T he interns w erent told w hat to do, but each was encouraged to run with his or her projcct. In this way, they could easily sec what each person could accom plish and reward those w ho did an outstanding job. But they didnt stop there. T h ey also figured out that :hc best way to identify those who were a good fit for the com pany is to sec them in action. To do that, they brought in hundreds of students for user-testing of their product. T his is, of course, standard practice to evaluate new project features. But Cool iris also used product testing as a recru itin g tool. D uring the interaction w ith each tester, they could see how cach person thought and how passionate he or she was about the prod.ict and, ultim ately, w hether he or she would be a good fit w ith :he company. At the very least they got useful custom er feedback and at best they found a new em ployee.
You m ight th in k its easier to c h a lle n g e conventions and break rules as an in d iv id ual or a sm all start-up firm , but you can also break the rules that get in the w ay from w ithin a large com pany. I learn ed about the lau n ch of Z u n e at M icrosoft from a form er student, T ricia Lee. T his product.
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designed to com pete w ith the A pple iPod, was on a tight developm ent sch ed ule. A bout halfw ay through the projcct, it w as clear th ey w erent go in g to m eet th eir aggressive goals. T h e software w asnt elose to halfw ay com plete, an d on the cu rren t co u rsew ith the u su al ch ecks and b alan ces, feed back loops, and b u reau cracyit w as go ing to take m uch longer th an cxpcctcd to com plete. To address this problem , one of the subgroups on the pro cct isolated them selves from the test o f th e team and woiked intensely. T h ey com pleted an essen tial p iece of the software code, w hich got the projcct back on track, boosted m oral, and allow ed the product to be com pleted on tim e. C o m panies such as M icrosoft put processes in placc that arc scalable; that is, they have to work for large groups across a big organization. But som etim es scalable processes arc not neces sarily efficient. W h en there is a fire drill and things have to get done quickly, like w ith I ricia anc the Z un e team at Microsoft, com panies need to break free of the bureaucracy. In fact, m any com panies dccidc to set up Skunk Works projects to do just this: they pull a team out of the norm al workflow, giving them perm ission to break the rules, to free them to think and work differently. Rules arc often m eant to be bioken. T h is idea is captured in the oft-used phrase Dont ask for perm ission, but beg for forgiveness." Most rules arc in place as the lowest com m on de nom inator, m akin g sure that those who dont have a clu e what
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to do stay w ithin the boundaries. If you ask som eone how to go about m akin g a movie, starting a com pany, getting into gradu ate school, or ru n n in g for political office, you w ill u su ally get a long recipe that involves getting increm en tally more support from those w ho arc already in these fields. It involves agents and seed fu ndin g and exam s and approvals. The m ajority of people choosc to follow those rules . . . and others dont. It is im portant to keep in m ind that there arc often creative ways to work around the rules, to jum p over the traditional hurdles, and to get to your goal by taking a side route, just as most people w ait in a never-ending lin e of traffic on th e m ain route to the highw ay, others who arc n.orc adventurous try to find a side road to get to their destination more quickly. O f course, some rules arc in place to protect our safety, to keep order, and to crcatc a process that works for a large num ber of people. But it is worth questioning rules along the way. Som etim es side roads around the rules can get you to your goal even w hen the traditional paths appear blocked. L inda Rottenberg, of Endeavor, shared a relevant story that had been passed on to her bv one o f her advisors, about two student fighter pilots who got together to share what they had learn ed from their respective instructors. T h e first pilot said, "I was given a thousand rules for flying m y plane. T h e second pilot said, I was only given three rules." T h e first pilot gloated, th in kin g he was given m any more options, u n til his friend said, M y instructor told m e the three things I should n e v e r do. All else is up to m e. T h is story captures the idea that it is better
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to know the few tilings that arc really again st the rules than to focus on the m any things you think you should do. T h is is also a rem inder o f the big difference between rules and recom m endations. O nce you w hittle aw ay the recom m endations, there arc often m any fewer rules thar. you im agined. T h is is how L inda leads Endeavor: each franchise is given three things th ey can t d o the rest is com pletely up to them . A nother way to break the rules is to break free of expectations you have for yourself and that others have for you. Arm en Bcrjikly, a com puter scientist, always cxpcctcd that he would spend his carcer w orking for a high technology com pany. He studied com puter scicncc as an undergraduate and m an age m ent scicncc as a graduate student. After com pleting school, he took a job as a product m anager at a com pany called Echelon. E verything was going smoothly, he was w ell rcspected in the com pany, and his path was set. I lowcvcr, a elose friend developed m ultiple sclerosis. lie was so moved by her condition that he wanted to do whatever h e could to help. In his free tim e after work and on weekends, he built a W eb site callcd T h is Is M S. T h e site offered useful inform ation about M S and its treatm ents, and provided a confidential forum for people with M S to share their experiences. T h e site quickly gained traction because visitors were hungry for the chance to tell their stories. A rm en realized lie had struck a nerve. He decided to build an even bigger Web site that allow ed anyone to share his or her experiences anonymously. T h is new site,
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callcd The E xperience P ro ject gained avid users quickly. A rm en had to m ake a tough decision: Should he stay in the secure job w ith a reliable salarv and a d e a r career path, or jum p into the unknow n by deciding to run T h e E xperience Project full-tim e? After serious consideration, A rm en dccidcd to break free from the expectations that both he and his fam ily had for him in order to pursue this venture. It was a terribly hard choicc, but it has been several years now and A rm en doesnt regret bis decision for a m inute. T h e business is hard work, but the most ch allen g in g part was d ecid in g to com pletely reinvent him self.
So, le ts step out of the high technology business world and sec how you can break ru les in order to crcatc som ethin g of great valu e in a com pletely different aren a. T h e past few years have seen grow ing interest in restaurants that look at food, coo kin g, and d in in g in a brand-new way. Instead of u sin g traditio nal coo kin g tcchn iqucs, a h an dful of clicfs arc ex p erim en tin g w ith m o lecu lar gastronom y, w hich involves stretch ing the lim its o f coo kin g in a ll sorts of u n u su al d irec tions. T h ese restaurants use equipm ent and m aterials straight out of a laboratory and plav with vour senses in w ild wavs.
/ l
At M oto, in C hicago/' the kitchen is stockcd w ith balloons, syrin ges, and dry ice, and the goal is to crcatc food that is shocking yet tasty. T h ey have a tasting m en u , w here you a c tu a lly cat the m en u , w hich m ight, for exam p le, taste like an Italian pan ini sandw ich. Moto strives to break the rules
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w ith c acli dish they serve, from d eliv erin g food that looks like packing peanuts to the tabic in FedEx boxes to m aking a dessert that looks like nachos but is re a lly m ade up of chocolate, frozen shredded m ango, and chccsccake. Each dish is designed to push the boundary of how you im agin e food should look and taste as they transm ogrify" your food into surp risin g shapes and forms. O ne of th eir chefs, Ben Roche, says th eir goal is to create a circus for your senses. T h ey question every assum ption about food preparation and presentation, develop brand-new coo kin g tech n iq u es, and even design custom utensils that arc used to con su m c the food T h is is a great rem in d er that in a n y aren a, from your kitchen to your carccr, you can break free o f th e constraints that m ight be com fortable but arc often lim itin g .
I met with a dozen current an d former students, and asked then, to share their stories about breakin g free from expecta tions. After listen ing to a ll their talcs about gettin g around obstacles in school, in the workplace, and w hen traveling, M ike Rothenberg, who graduated two years ago, sum m arized a ll he heard by stating, A ll the cool stuff happens w hen you do things that arc not the autom atic next step. T h e well-worn path is there for everyone to tram ple. But the interesting things often occur w hen you arc open to taking an unexpected turn, to trying som ething different, and w hen you arc w illin g to question the rules others have m ade for you. All agreed that it is easy to stay on the prescribed path, but it is often much
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more interesting to discover the world of surprises lurking just around the corner. Knowing that you can question the rules is terrifically cinpDwcring. It is a rem inder that the traditional path is only one option available to you. You can alw ays follow a recipe, drive on the m ajor thoroughfares, and w alk in the footsteps of those before you. But there are boundless additional optians to explore if you arc w illin g to identify and ch allen g e assum p tions, an d to break free of the expectations that you and others project onto you. Dont be afraid to get out of your comfort zone, to have a healthy disregard for the im possible, anc to turn well-worn ideas on their heads. As the students described above learn ed , it takes practice to do things that arc not the autom atic next step." The m ore you experim ent, the nxirc you sec that the spectrum of options is m uch broader than im agined. The sole ru le is that you arc lim ited o n ly by p u r energy and im agination.
C h a p te r 4
P L E A SE TAKE OUT YOUR WALLETS
Before retiring, m y father was successful corporate execu tive. He rose up through the ranks, from young en gin eer to m anager to executive, an d had senior roles at several large m u ltin atio n al com panies. G rowing up, I got used to learn in g that he had received promotions, from vice president to execu tive vice president to senior executive vice president, and so on. It happened like clockwork every two years or so. I w as alw ays im pressed by m y fathers accom plishm ents and view ed him as a wonderful role m odel. T h a t said, I co u ld n t have been more surprised w hen my father got annoyed w ith m e after I showed h im one of m y n ew business cards. T h e y read T in a L . S cc lig , President. I had started m y own ven ture and printed m y own business cards. M y father looked at the cards an d then at m e and said, You c an t just c a ll yo u rself president. In his exp erien ce, you
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had :o w ait for som eone else to prom ote you to a leadership role. You co u ld n t appoint yourself. He w as so steeped in a world w here others promote you to positions w ith greater re sponsibility that the thought of m y an o in tin g m yself w ith that title perturbed him . I have com e across this m entality tim e and again. 1'or ex am ple, tw enty years ago w hen I told a friend I was going to write a book, she asked, W h at m akes you think you can write a book? " S h e co u ld n t im agin e takin g on such a projcct with out the blessing of som eone in a position of greater authority. 1, on the other hand, felt confident I could do it. T h e task nas ccrtainlv am bitious, but whv not try? At th e tim e there werent a n y popular books on the chem istry of cooking. I wanted to read such a book, and since there wasnt one available, I de cided to w rite one m yself. I wasnt an expert on the topic, but as a scientist, figured I could learn the m aterial alo ng the way. I put together a detailed proposal, wrote som e sam ple chapters, shopped it around, an d landed a contract. After m y first book cam e out, I was surprised by how little promotion m y publisher d id, and decided to start a business to help authors get more exposure for their work and to help read ers learn about books that m ight interest them . A gain , quite a num ber of people asked m e w hat m ade m e think I could start a company. T h is was clearly a stretch for m e, but I assum ed I could figure it out. I started BookBrowser in 1991, several years before the W eb was born. T h e idea was to crcatc a kiosk-based system for bookstore custom ers that would M atch Books
Please Take O u t Your Wallets
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w ith Buys. I b u ilt the prototype on m y M ae com puter using 1lyp crC ard , a program that allow ed users to put links from one card" to another card," just like 1lo t Links on the Web today. T h e software allow ed users to follow links for a par ticular author, title, or genre. I also m et w ith local bookstore m anagers, who agreed to put the kiosks in their stores, ai d I talked with dozens of publishers who were enthusiastic about including th eir books in the system . Satisfied that the idea was sound, I h iie d a team uf p iu giam m eis lu im plem ent the pioduct. Nobody told m e I could or should do this . . . I just did it. Over tim e, I've becam e increasin gly aw are that the world is d i vided into people who w ait for others to give them perm ission to do the things they want to do and people who grant them selves perm ission. Som e look inside them selves for motivation and others w ait to be pushed forward by outside forccs. From m y cxpcricncc, theres a lot to be said for seizin g opportunities instead of w aitin g for som eone to hand them to you. T h ere arc always w hite spaccs ready to be filled and golden nuggets of opportunities lyin g on the ground w aitin g for someone to pick them up. Som etim es it m eans looking beyond your own desk, outside your b u ild in g, across the street, or around the corner. But the nuggets arc there for the takin g by anyone w illin g to gather them up. T his is exactly what Paul Yock discovered. Paul, as previ ously introduced, is th e director of Stanfords BioD esign Pro gram . 1 lis hom e base is the m edical school, w hich is literally
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across the street from the en g in eerin g school. About ten years ago, Paul realized that Stanford w as m issing a huge oppor tunity by not finding w ays for the m edical school students and faculty to work with the en gin eerin g school students 2 nd faculty to invent new m edical technologies. T h e m edical folks, including doctors, students, and research scientists, needed engineers to design new products and processes to improve patient care; and the engineers across the street w ere look ng for com pelling problem s to solve usin g their skills. Over the course of m onths, the various stakeholders m et to discuss ways that they could work together. It was a com plicated proccss sincc the two groups work so differently and have quite dif ferent vocabularies. E ventually, they ham m ered out a p a n and the BioDesign Program was born. D uring the sam e titne pcricxl, other colleagues in different m edical and technical disciplines developed sim ilar partnerships and the groups were gathered under one large um brella, known as BioX. T h e idea was so big that it took several years to im plem ent and resulted in productive cross-disciplinary collaboration and a stunning new b u ild in g that now stands betw een the m ed ical school and the en gin eerin g school. This story illustrates the fact that som etim es opportunities can be found right across the street you just have to look up from your desk to see them . Nobody told Paul to do this. But he saw the need and filled it. Ive talked with m an y other people w ho have found con structive w ays to bridge gaps and fill holes that others merely w alk around, and in the proccss have anointed themselves
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to roles others m ight not have cnosen for them . A wonderful exam ple is Debra D u n n ,1 who spent a good part of her career at 1lew lett-Packard. 1 Icr first job with 1IP was in the corporate headquarters. After several years she was strongly cncouragcd to take on a role w ithin one of the operating units of the com pany, w hich would give her a better understanding of the inn er workings of the organization. A position in hum an rcsourccs opened up in the test and m easurem ent group. A lthough Debra d id n 't sec herself as a career hum an rcsourccs m anager, she dccidcd to take the job because it would give her a chancc to get an in-dcpth look at the functioning of an operating unit of the company. After a couplc o f years, 1IP offered early retirem ent across the entire com pany as a w ay to avoid layoffs. W ith this incen tive, the entire m an agem en t team of her group dccidcd to leave. T h e charter of the group changcd com pletely, and a new general m anager was brought in. T h ere were som e big holes to fill. Debra looked at the voids in the organization and dccidcd to seize that opportunity She volunteered to run all of m an u factu rin g for the new ly configured division. Sh ed never run a m an u factu rin g group before, but having spent so m uch tim e w orking with the prior m anufacturing directors, she was confident she could do it, and knew she could fill in her gaps of knowledge along the way. She was ccrtain ly not the typical can didate for the position, but she successfully convinced her new boss she could retool. In the end, Debra brought in a fresh perspective and was able to m ake m any positive changes in the
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group. After only two years, she used the sam e strategy to move into a senior m arketing job at I IP. A gain, Debra didnt wait for someone to tap her for the post; she sim ply figured out how to repackage her skills for the new position. As dem onstrated by Debras story, one o f the best ways to move from one field to another is to figure out how your skills can be translated into different settings. O thers m ight not see the paiallels
uii
the
mu face,
so its yum job lo expose (hem . Som e
times the vocabulary in two disparate fields is com pletely dif ferent, but the job functions arc rem arkably sim ilar. Consider th e sim ilarities betw een b ein g a scientist and a m anagem ent consultant: soon after earn in g m y PhD in neuroscience, my sights w ere set on w orking in a startup biotechnology com pany. T h e only problem ? I wanted a job in m arketing and strategy, not in the lab. T h is seem ed nearly impossible without a n y relevant cxpcricncc. T h e startup com panies w ith whom I interviewed w ere looking for individuals who could hit the ground runn in g. I interview ed for m onths and months and often got close to a job offer, but nothing cam e through. Eventually, I got an introduction to the m an ag in g director of the San Francisco branch of Booz A llen H am ilton, an international consulting com pany. M y goal w as to impress h im enough that he w ould introduce m e to som e of the com panys life scien ce clients. I walked into the m eetin g and he asked m e why someone with a PhD in neuroscience wculd be a good m anagem ent consultant. I could have told h im the
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truththat I actu ally hadn t considered that option. But on the spot, with nothing to lose, I outlined the sim ilarities between brair. research and m anagem ent consulting. For exam ple, in both eases you need to identify the b u rn in g questions, collect relevant data, an alyze it, sclcct the most interesting results, craft a com p elling presentation, and determ ine the next set of burning questions. I Ie arranged other interviews for later that day, and I w alked out that evening with a job offer. O f course, I look il. In fact, il Inn ltd oul lo be an am az in g way lo Ieam about business and a w ide range of industries, and I certainly did leverage m y prior train in g as a scientist. O ut of necessity and curiosity. Ive done this again and again , constantly re fraining m y skills to crcatc new opportunities. W h en people ask me how a neuroscientist ended up teach ing entrepreneur ship to engineers, I have to say, Its a long story." All of these eases illustrate that in an y com plex organiza tion, there arc alw ays opportunities around you. Even if tack lin g them doesnt seem like a natural fit for you, with a little bit of creativity, you can u su ally find a way that your skills arc rclcvant to the ch allen ge. Paul Yock identified a m issed opportu n ity n a university settin g and designed a brand-new program to fil the need; Debra D unn saw holes in her organization and found a w ay to leverage w hat she knew to take on roles otl crs would not necessarily have choscn for her; anti I figured out a creative w ay to refram e m y skills so I could move betw een two fields that on the surface looked com pletely disparate.
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Another w ay to anoint yourself is to look at things others have discarded and find ways to turn them into som ething useful. T here is often trem endous value in the projects others have carelessly abandoned. As discussed previously, sometimes people jettison ideas because th ey dont fu lly appreciate their value, or b ecause they dont have tim e to fu lly explore them. Often these discarded ideas hold a lot o f promise. M ichael H earin g started his carccr in strategy at Disney, went on to launch a retail venture that failed, and then landed at eBay, a lead in g on line auction W eb site. M ichael was nitially assigned to a job he wasnt thrilled about. He dccidcd to use his free tim e to look at features that had been designed but then ignored or abandoned, ideas just w aitin g for someone to exploit them . It was the year 2000, and M ichael saw that tlicrc was a new feature that let custom ers add a photo to their stan dard listin g for an additional twenty-five cents. O nly 10 percent of eBay custom ers were usin g this feature. M ichacl spent some tim e an alyzin g the benefits of this scivicc and was able lu dem onstrate that products with accom panying photos sold faster and at a higher price than products w ithout photos. Armed w ith this com p elling data, he started m arketing the photo ser vice more heavily and ended up increasing the adoption rate of this feature by custom ers from 10 percent to 60 percent. Ibis resulted in $300 m illion in additional an n u al revenue for cBav. W ithout any instructions from others, M ichacl found a n un tapped gold m in e and exploited it w ith great results. The cost to the com pany was m in im al an d the profits w ere profound
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T h is wasnt the first tim e M ichael found a w ay to tap into resources around h im . Even as a kid he wrote letters to famous people and was pleased to see that most of the tim e they wrote back. 11c still continues that habit, sending unsolicited e-m ails to people he adm ires. In alm ost ever)' instance they respond, and in m any eases the correspondence results in long-term relationships and interesting opportunities. He never asks the folks he writes for anyth in g. I Iis in itial contact is all about th an kin g them for som ething theyve done, acknow ledging som ething th eyve accom plished, asking a sim ple question, or offering to help them in some way. I Ie doesnt w ait for an invitation to contact these people, but takes it upon h im self to m ake the first move. T h ere is considerable research showing that those w illin g to stretch the boundaries of their current skills and w illin g to risk trying som ething new, like Debra D unn and M ichael D caring, arc m uch more likclv to be successful than those who believe they have a fixed skill set and innate abilities that lock them into specific roles. C arol Dweck, at Stanfords psychology departm ent, has written extensively about this, dem onstrating that those of us with a fixed m ind-set about w hat w ere good at arc m uch less likely to be successful in the long run th an those with a growth m ind-set. I Icr work focuses on our attitude about ourselves. 1hosc with a fixed im age about w hat they can do arc m uch less likclv to take risks that m ight shake that im age. But those with a growth m ind-set arc typically open
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to taking risks and tend to work harder to reach their o b ectives T h e y re w illin g to try new things that push their abilities, o p e rin g up entirely new arenas alo ng the way. So Iwnv do vou find holes that need to be filled? Its actually quite sim ple. T h e first step is learn in g how to pay attention. M y colleagues at the d.school developed the following cx crcisc, w hich gets at the heart of identifying opportunities. Participants arc asked to take out their w allets. T h ey then break up into pairs and interview one another about their wal lets. T h ey discuss what they love and hate about their wallets, paying p articu lar attention to how they use them for purchas in g and storage. O ne of the most interesting insights com es from watching each person pull out his or her w allet at the beginn ing. Sam e of the w allets arc trim and neat, some arc practically explod in g with papers, som e arc fashion statem ents, some carry the individuals entire library' of photos and rcccipts, and some consist of little m ore th an a paper clip. C learly, a w allet plays a different role for each of us. T h e interview proccss exposes how each person uses his or her w allet, w hat it represents, and the strange behaviors each has developed to get around the w allets lim itations. Ive never seen a person w ho is completely satisfied with his or her w allet: there is alw ays som ething that can be fixed. In fact, most people are w alk in g around with w allets that drive them crazy j in som e wav. ; T hev / discuss their frustrations with the size of their w allets, their in ab ility to find
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tilings easily, or their desire to have different types of wallets for different occasions. After the interview proccss, each person designs and builds a new w allet for the other personhis or her customer. T h e design m aterials include no thin g m ore th an paper, tape, markers, scissors, paper clips, and the like. T h ey can also use whatever else they find in the room. 1'his takes about thirty m inutes. After theyve com pleted th e prototype, they sell" it
lu tlieii e u s t o i u e i . A lm os t u n iv e i s a l ly , the n e w w al le t solves
the biggest problems with which the custom er was struggling. T heyre thrilled with the concept and say that if that wallet were available, they would buy it. Som e of the features arc based on scicncc fiction, such as a w allet that prints m oney on dem and, but some require little more than a good designer to make them feasible right away. M any lessons fall out of this cxcrcisc. First, the w allet is sym bolic of the fact that problems arc everyw here, even in your back pockct. Second, it doesnt take m uch effort to un cover these problem s. In fact, people arc generally happ\ to tell you about their problems. T h ird , by experim en ting, you get quick and d irty feedback on the solutions you propose. It doesnt take m uch work, m any resources, or m uch tim e. And, final.y, if you arent on the right track w ith a solution, the sunk cost s really low. A ll you have to do is start over.2 Ive run this cxcrcisc w ith sm all groups, w ith large groups, w ith kids, with doctors, and with business executives. In all eases theyre surprised by the sim plicity of realiz in g that tlicrc
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arc alw ays things that can he improvedfrom w allets and shoelaces to backpacks, software, restaurants, gas stations, cars, clothes, coffcc shops . . . the list is endless. You dont need som eone else to give you this assignm ent. In fact, a ll suc cessful entrepreneurs do this naturally. T h ey pay attention at hom e, at work, at the grocery store, in airplan es, at the beach, at the doctors officc, or on the baseball field, and find an array of opportunities to fix tilin gs that arc broken. T h e w allet design exeieise focuses uu p iu du cl design. But you can use the sam e approach to rethink services, cxpcricnccs, and organization structures. At the d.school, the teach ing team crafts projects that charge the students with com pletely reth in kin g an am azingly w id e range o f experi ences, from p rim ary school education in the United States to irrigation of crops in rural India and m anagem ent of innova tive organizations. If you study cach situation w ith an eye for im provem ent, you w ill find countless opportunities. It is then up to you to decide if you w ill put yourself in the position to take on that challenge. Som e people arc masters at taking on challenges and seizin g leadership roles. I learned a lot about this from David Rothkopf, author and CKO of Garten Rothkopf, a W ashington, D C -b ased international advisorv firm , whose book S u p ercla ss focuses on those people in the .vorld who have more power and influence than the rest of u s.' David studied leaders whove m ade it to the inn er circic, interacting w ith one another in the
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elite W orld E conom ic Forum that m eets an n u ally in Davos, Sw itzerland. I asked David w hat sets these people apart from the rest of us. I Ie echoed m any of the things that others in this book m entioned: people w ho get to the top work harder than those around th em , they have more energy that propels them forward, and they're m arkedly more driven to get there. He notes that in the past people in the inner circle inherited their wealth an d access. But today that isnt the ease. 1he m ajority of people who claim great success have m ade it happen on their own. 'I bis m eans that the prim ary barriers to success arc self-imposed. T h e corollary to this is, as David says, T h e big gest ally o f superachievers is the inertia of others. David actu ally em bodies these characteristics him self, natu rally seizin g opportunities, as opposed to w aitin g for others to hand them to him . His first com pany was called International M edia Partners, and one of their activities was organ izin g c o n fcrcnccs for top CKOs. T h e loom ing question for this s ta m p was how to get all those exclusive and elusive executives in the same room. D avid and his partners needed a tem pting hook, and decided that gettin g I Icnry Kissinger to speak would do the trick. But how would they get 1Icnry Kissinger to par ticipate? David found out how to reach Kissingers officc and asked Kissingers staff if he was available to speak at the
cd u-
fcrcncc. No problem . . . but it would cost $50,000, require a private airp lan e w ith two pilots, and a chauffeured lim ousine. David and his team d id n t have anv monev, so anv am ount was too much . . . but he said, Yes, w ell do it. I Ic assum ed that if
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lie could get I len ry Kissinger in the room, then the rest would fall neatly into p laceand it did! O n ce Kissinger accepted, they were able to secu re Alexander H aig, Secretary of State under President R eagan; then E dm und M uskic, Secretary of State under Jim m y C arter; followed by a long list of other w ell-known speakers. W ith this ist of lu m in aries, the CKOs showed up in droves and the com pany was able to get sponsors who m ore th an paid for a ll the speaking fees. T h e fact that David didnt know 1le n ry Kissinger and had no m oney didnt get in his way. I le succeeded by creatively leveragin g what lie did haveh is energy, his w illingness to work hard, and his drive to m ake it happen. T h e story goes on from here. D avids co lleagu e at Inter national M edia Partners, Jeffrey G arten, w ent on to becom e U ndersecretary of C om m erce during the first C linton ad m in istration. He invited David to becom e D eputy U ndersecretary of C o m m erce for International Trade. It seem ed like a pretty plum position. I le hud a huge office and a big staff. Bui aflei two weeks David walked into Jeffs office and quit. I le couldnt stand the bureaucratic environm ent. E verything was pain fully slow and David was im patient to m ake things happen. Jeff took David outside for a w alk and told h im th e following joke: T h ere was oncc a m an nam ed G oldberg who wanted no thin g m ore th an to be rich. So each day he went the synagogue an d prayed to God to w in the lottery. T his w ent on for days, weeks, months, and years, but G oldberg
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never won. E ventually, G oldberg w as at bis w its end. Praying to G od, he said, You have really let m e dow n.' Suddenly the silence was broken and G od responded in a boom ing voice, G oldberg, youve got to help m e out here. You could at least buy a ticket!"
Jeff rem inded David of som ething he already knew he wasnt go ing to w in the lottery" in W ashington if he didnt engage. Nobody was going lo hand h im the tools lo be suc cessful. So David w ent back to his office and tapped into his natural instincts to m ake things happen, as opposed to waiting for someone to show up w ith a gam e plan. 1Ic quickly real ized that there were endless holes to be filled and tremendous resources at his disposal. In a wonderful finale, several years after David left the D epartm ent o f C o m m erce he b ecam e the m anaging director of Kissinger Associates, Inc. He w ent from being a new com er who dream ed of b ein g in the sam e rcom w ith H enry Kissinger to jo in in g h im as a business partner. David has seen this story play out again and again in his own life and in the lives of those he has studied w hile researching his book. T hose who arc successful find wavs to m ake themj selves successful. There is no recipe, no sccrct handshake, and no m agic potion. Each person he studied has a story as unique as a fingerprint. The consistent them e is that they each pay at tention to current trends and leverage their own skills to build thcii influence. T h ey find ways to sway history, as opposed to w aiting for history to sway them .
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If you w ant a leadership role, then take on leadership roles, ju st give yourself perm ission to do so. Look around for holes in your organization, ask for what you w ant, find ways to lever age your skills and experiences, be w illin g to m ake the first move, and stretch bcvond w hat youve done before. There arc / j always opportunities w aitin g to be exploited. Instead of wait in g to be asked and tiptoeing around an opportunity, seize it. It takes hard work, energy, and drivebut these arc the assets that set leaders apart from those who wait for others to anoint them .
C h a p te r 5
THE SEC R ET S A U C E O F SIL IC O N VALLEY
I require m y students to w rite a failure resum e. T h a t is, to craft a resum e that sum m arizes all their biggest screw upspersonal, professional, and academ ic. I'or every failure, each student m ust dcscribc w hat he or she learned from that cxpcricncc. Just im agin e the looks o f surprise this assignm ent inspires in students who arc so used to showcasing their succcsscs. How ever, after they finish their resum e, th ey realize that view ing cxpcricnccs through the lens o f failure forccd them to com e to term s w ith the m istakes th ey have m ade along the way. In fact, as the years go by, m any former students continue to keep their failure resum e up-to-date, in parallel with their traditional resum e of succcsscs. I borrowed this assignm ent from L iz Kiscnw ether at Penn State University. W h en I first heard the idea I thought it was terrific. Its a q u ick w ay to dem onstrate that failure is an
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im portant part o f our learn in g proccss, esp ecially w hen youre stretching your ab ilities, doing things the first tim e, or taking risks. W e hire people who have cxpcricncc not just because of their succcsscs but also because of their failures. Failures offer learn in g opportunities and increase the chance that you wont m ake the sam e m istake again . Failures are also a sign that you have taken on challenges that expand your skills. In fact, m an y successful people believe that if you aren t failing sometimes then you aren t takin g enough risks. Prodded by a former student, I dccidcd to in clu d e here m y own abbrevi ated failure resum e, show casing some of m y biggest mistakes. I wish I had kept this resum e up-to-date for the past thirty years. It would have been fascinating to revisit and learn from a ll the m istakes Ive conveniently put out of m y m ind.
TINA L. SEELIG
Professional Failures
N ot p a yin g a tten tio n : E arly in m y carccr I naively thought I knew how organizations worked. I m ade judgm ents about corporate cu ltu rc that w ere incorrcct. I wish I had spent m ore tim e paying attention a id less tim e m akin g assum ptions. Q u ittin g too early : W h ile ru n n in g m y own busi ness I hit the w all. It got incredibly hard both tech nically and organizationally, and was go ing to take trem endous am ount of effort to find m y way to a
T /ie S e c re t Sauce
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solution. I wish I had been confident enough to fully com m it to finding a solution.
A c a d e m ic Failures
N ot d o in g m y best: T h e first two years of college I d id n t put m y focused effort into all m y courses. I missed the chance to cxtract the most value from the classesa chance I can t get back. R elatio n sh ip m an ag em en t: I had a ch allen g in g relationship w ith m y PhD advisor. I wanted to spend lot o f tim e teach ing and she felt I should spend most of m y tim e in the lab. I wish I had found a w ay to better a lig n our goals.
Personal Failures
A voiding co n flicts: I had a boyfriend in collcgc, a id as w c elosed in on graduation w e were both stressed about w here w e w ere going next. Instead of dealing w ith the questions directly, I blew up the rela tionship. I wish I had been able to talk honestly about what was go ing on. Not listen in g to m y gu t: M y uncle died in New York. I lived in C alifornia and several people urged m e not to travel to the funeral. I have always regretted it. I barncd that there arc some things you cant undo, and that in situations such as these I should do what is right for m e, not necessarily what others want m e to do.
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W illin gn ess to take risks and reactions to failure differ dra m atically around the world. In some cultures the downside for failure is so high that individuals arc allerg ic to takin g any risks at all. T hese cultures associate shame w ith any type of failure, and from a young age people arc taught to follow a prcscribcd path w ith a w cll-dcfm cd chance o f success, as opposed to tryin g an yth in g that m ight lead to disappointm ent. In some places., such as I h ailau d , suiueuue who has failed lep ealedly m ight even choosc to take on a brand-new nam e in an attempt to reboot his or her entire life. In fact, in the 2008 O lym pics, a T h a i w eight lifter attributed her victor)' to ch an g in g her nam e before the gam es. T h e G lobal E ntrepreneurship Monitor (G E M ),1 which pub lishes a detailed an n u al report on startup activity around the world, looks at cu ltu ral differences in risk takin g and comfort w ith failure. T h e G EM team found that im portant factors con tribute to a societys risk profile. For exam ple, in some coun tries, such as Sw eden, the bankruptcy laws arc designed such that once your com pany goes out of business you c an never get out of debt. K nowing that failure has drastic, long-term consequences for you and your fam ily is a huge disincentive to try to start a com pany in the first placc. T h e cu ltu re in other countries is eq u ally unforgiving. O ncc you fail, your friends, neighbors, an d colleagues w ill always view you as a failure. A recent issue of the W all S treet jo u r n a l dcscribcs h u m iliatin g tactics currcntlv used bv debt collcctors in several countries,
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in clu d in g Spain." T h e collcctors literally show up at individu als houses in bizarre costum es, with the goal o f draw in g atten tion from the neighbors an d sham ing the debtors. W h y would anyone in these com m un ities risk public rid icu le by taking on a n y unnecessary risk? T his is in sharp contrast to Silicon V alley, where failure is acknow ledged as a natural part Df the proccss of innovation. Steve jurvctson,' a partner at the ven ture firm D raper Fisher Jurvctson, describes failure as the secret sauce of Silicon V alley, w hile R andy Komisar of KPCB notes that bein g able to view failure as an asset is th e hallm ark of an entrepreneurial environm ent. R andy also says that when he secs people who have never had a failure, he wonders what th ey have really learn ed from their cxpcricnccs.
O n the most basic level, a ll learn ing com es from failure. T h in k of a baby learn in g to walk. 1Ic or she starts out craw lin g and then fallin g before fin ally m astering the skill that as an adult w c take for granted. As a child gets older, each newr feat, from catch in g a baseball to doing algebra, is learned the sam e way, by experim en ting u n til you arc fin ally successful. W e dont cxpcct a child to do everything perfectly the first tim e, nor should w e cxpcct adults who :akc on com plex tasks to get it a ll right the first tim e, either. Ive conic to believe that the most powerful learn in g com es from exp erien cin g failures as well as succcsscs. It is also nearly im possible to learn an yth in g without doing it yourself, by
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exp erim en tin g alo n g the way, and by recovering from th e in evitable failures. You c an t learn to play soccer by read in g the rulcbook, you c an t learn to play the piano by stu d yin g sheets of m usic, an d you can 't learn to cook by read in g recipes. I'm rem inded o f m y tim e as a grad u ate student in neuroscience. I had taken several courses in w hich wc le a rn e d the prin ciples of neurophysiology. A lthough I could pass a written test on the m aterial, it w asnt u n til I was in the lab, dissccting nerves u n d er a m icroscopc, im p alin g them w ith tin y cicctrodcs, an d m a n u a lly tu rn in g the d ials on the oscillosccpc, that I fu lly understood the concepts. L ikew ise, you can read as m any books on leadership as you w an t, but u n til you expe rience the ch allen g es that facc real leaders, you w ill ncvci be prepared to take charge. T i e M ayfield Fellows Program , w hich I co-dircct with Iom Byers, a professor in M anagem ent Scicn cc and E ngineering at Stanford, gives students this opportunity.4 After one quarter of classroom work, d u rin g w hich w c offer an in-dcpth intro duction to entrepreneurship through ease studies, the twelve students in this nine-m onth program spend the sum m er working in startup com panies. T h e y take on key roles in cach business and arc closclv mentored bv senior leaders in the company. T h ey experience firsthand w hat it is like to identify and address the white-hot risks that facc cach organization, the stresses o f m akin g decisions w ith incom plete inform ation, and the challenge of lead in g in an ever-changing environm ent. After the intense sum m er experien ce, the students com e back
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to class for ten weeks of debriefing about what happened in th eir respective com panies. Each student leads a class on an important issue that evolved d u rin g their internship. T he students in the M ayfield Fellows Program have profound insights about what it m eans to run a fast-paccd business in a d y nam ic environm ent. T h ey watch these com panies struggle with issues such as ru n n in g out of cash, retooling after a change in the senior m anagem ent team , the ch allen g e o f gettin g cuttinged ge technology to work, and the dau n tin g task of com peting against giants in the industry. By th e end of the sum m er, the students realize that only a handful of the com panies for which th ey worked w ill be in business in a year or two. Despite all of the efforts of talented team s, m any of them w ill fail. T h e en tire ven ture cap ital in du stry essen tially invests in failures, since the m ajority of the com p an ies th ey fund even tually go under. O ther industries have a sim ila r success rate, in clu d in g the toy industry, the m ovie business, and the publ sh in g industry. C o n sid er book publishin g: A ccording to N ielsen Bookscan, of the approxim ately 1.2 m illio n dif ferent books in print in 2004, o n ly 25,000, or 2 percen t, sold more th an 5,000 copics, and the average book in the U.S., sells less th an 500 copics. However, it is n early im possible to prcd.ct w hich ones w ill be th e b ig hits. As a result, publishers cont nuc to produce m an y different books, ho pin g that each w ill be a success but know ing that only a tin y fraction will m ake it onto the bestseller list. Publishers, toy m akers, m ovie
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producers, and ven ture cap italists u nderstand that th e path to success is littered w ith failures. M ir Im ran, a serial entrepreneur, has started dozens of com panies, m any in parallel." His success rate has been re m arkable, considering that in alm ost every environm ent most startups fail. W h en asked about his success rate, M ir admits that the key is k illin g projects early. He uses a brutal proccss to weed out projects w ith a low likelihood of success and puts increased energy into those with a high likelihood of m aking it to the finish line. I Ic uses considerable discip line and analysis in the early stages, prior to lau n ch in g a ncwr venture, to in crease the chances that it w ill thrive in the long run.
Even though it is alw ays difficult to abandon a projcct, it is m uch easier in th e early stages of a venture, before there is an enorm ous escalation of com m itted tim e and energy. T h is hap pens in all parts of our lives, in clu d in g jobs, stock investments, and any type o f iclalio iisliip . L couaido da V inci once staled, It if easier to resist at the b eg in n in g th an at the end. Bob Sutton, an expert on organizational behavior, describes T he D a V inci Rule" in detail in his book. T h e No A sshole R ile, where lie talks about leaving jobs that arc not a good m atch as soon as you discover they are untenable.6 I Icrc he generalizes this much more broadlv:
A lthough most people know that sunk costs shouldnt be considered in m akin g a decision, the too-much-
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invcstcd-to-quit syndrom e" is a powerful driver of hum an behavior. W e justify a ll the tim e, effort, suffering, and years and years that w e devote to som ething by tellin g ourselves an d others that there m ust be som ething worth w h ile and im portant about il or w e never would have sunk so m uch of our lives into it.
Q u ittin g is a ctu ally incredibly em pow ering. Its a rem inder that you control the situation and can leave w henever you like. You dont have to be your own prison guard, keeping yourself locked up in a place that isnt working. But that doesnt m ean q u ittin g is easy. Ive quit jobs th a: were a bad m atch and aban doned failin g projects, and in c a d i case it was terribly difficult. W ere taught that q u ittin g is a s.gn of w eakness, although in m any circum stances, its just the opposite. Som etim es q uitting is the bravest alternative, because it requires you to facc your failures and an n o un ce them publicly. T h e great new s is that q u ittin g allows you to start over with a clcan slate. A nd, if you take the tim e to evaluate w hat happened, q uittin g c an be an invaluable learn in g experience. W h en R andy Komisar left his vice president position at C laris, a com puter software com pany that spun out of Apple C om puter, he felt he had failed. Randy, who had a clcar vision of what he wanted to accom plish, left C laris w hen he realized he was never go ing to ach ieve his goals. R andys failure was very public, an d it stun g badly. However, w ithin a short tim e R andy realized that being released from this job provided him
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w ith an opportunity to reevaluate his passions and determ ine how he could best use his skills. For instance, it b ecam e d e ar that one reason lie felt so dissatisfied at C laris was that he was neither passionate about the product nor about w hat he was doing. I Ic loved th in kin g about the com panys big picture and scoping out its vision, but he w as hardly inspired by the day-today m anagem ent issues. W hen Randy was asked to becom e C F O of a new company, he suggested instead that he work w ith the CF.O to set the direction for the com pany. In this way h e crafted a brand-new role for h im selfV irtu al C E O an d w as subsequently able to becom e involved with dozens of com panies, m any at the sam e tim e. I le served as a coach, sounding board, and advi sor far CKOs, but didnt have the day-to-day responsibilities. T h is suited h im and the com panies w ell. T h e failure allowed m e to better alig n m y passions w ith the opportunities around m e, says Randy. T h is is a poignant rem inder that learning when to call it quits is cru cial. You need to know w hen to stop pounding on a n idea that isnt working and w hen to m ove on to som ething new.
T h ere arc actu ally m any ways to turn a failure into a success. O ne m em orable story about transform ing a big disappoint ment into a big w in cam e out of the Innovation Tournament in which students had to create value from rubber bands in five days. O ne team decided to crcatc a W ish in g Tree. 'They identified a tree in the center of cam pus, across from
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the university bookstore, and wrapped the trunk w ith chicken w ire. T h ey then used rubber bands to attach m essages to the chicken w ire. T h e idea was that anyone passing by could post a wish on the tree. 1hc team promoted it w idely, usin g online networking sites, e-m ail lists, an d by literally standin g in front of the tree, inviting passcrsbv to post a wish. Unfortunately, people just w erent interested. In an attem pt to build m om entum , the team started seeding the tree with wishes. T h is had little affect. T h ey then becam e more aggressive in their promotion and more actively invited passcrsbv to contribute. A gain, this had little im pact. But the students disappointm ent w as am plified by the fact that not more th an fifty feet aw ay a sim ilar project was gettin g lots of at tention. A nother team had created a huge w eb of large rubber bands from w hich they invited students to suspend their sccrcts T h e rubbcr-band web was b rim m in g w ith hundreds of brightly colored papers, each with a different secret. T h ey flut tered in the light brcc/.c, in sharp contrast to the nearly naked W ishin g Tree next door. T h e W ish in g free team dccidcd to chalk this one up as a fai.ure. However, they didnt stop there. T h ey extracted as m uch as they could from this cxpcricncc by m akin g a provoca tive :hrcc-m inutc video docum entin g the failure. The team described all o f their attem pts to m ake the W ish in g Tree suc cessful and com pared their failure to the success of the Web of Secrets. 1hey very publicly celebrated their failure and shared what they had learned about the stickiness of w ishes
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W hat I W ish I Knev. W hen I W as 20
versus secrets. (Stories, products, and W ei) sites arc stickv" w hen they hold your attention and dont let go.) T h ey also m ade it clear that this was just cne step along th e patli to the next idea, and the next, and the next. B ecause even great ideas require a trem endous am ount of work to reach a successful outcome, its incredibly hard to know w hen to keep pushing on z problem , hoping for a break through, and w hen to w alk away. W e all know that persistence is to be adm ired, but w hen docs it becom e foolish to continue w orking on som ething thats never going to fly? G il Penchina, CKO of W ik ia, describes the dilem m a w onderfully: If you throw gasoline on a log, all you get is a wet log. But if you throw gasoline on a sm all flame, you get an inferno.7 T hat is, its im portant to know w hether youre pu ttin g energy into som ething that lias the potential to pay off. This is one o f lifes biggest challenges. W e often stay in dead-end situations way too long. T h is occurs w hen com panies com m it to a doom ed product or projcct, or w hen individuals stay w ith jobs or in relationships that m ake them m iserable, hoping the situation w ill improve. So how do you know w hen to cuit? T h is is a huge philosophi cal question. It's always a m am im th challenge to separate your desire to m ake som ething work from the reality o f the probabil ity that it w ill work. O f course, the more you put into a project, the more likely it is to succeed. But some efforts w ill never pan out, no m atter how m uch tim e, money, or sweat is injected. T h e most scientific answer I've found is, listen to your gut and look
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at your alternatives. Essentially, you have to negotiate honestly with yourself. Do you have the fortitude to push through the problems in front of you to reach a successful outcom e, or arc you better off taking another path' So q u ittin g is h ard but its even harder to do it w ell. Ive seen people quit graccfu lly and others q u it so clu m sily that th ey leave a huge crater in their w ake. As tliscusscd in detail in chaptcr 8, you arc likely to bump into the sam e people again and again in life, often in unexpected ways. T h is alone is reason enough to m ake sure that w hen you quit, you do so w ith carefu l thought about the consequences for those around you. Besides th e im pact that quitting graccfu lly m ight have on you later, it is just the right thing to do. You can never ra tionalize q u ittin g in such a w ay that you hurt your colleagues, friends, or former business. A colleague told m e about his assistant, who was doing a tcri ific job. I Ic gave hci gical levkrws and spent a lot of lim e talk ing with her about her carccr path w ithin his group. She m ade it clcar that ultim ately she hoped to move into a different field, and m y colleague was supportive of this. In fact, he told her he would be delighted to serve as a reference for her anytim e. W ith this as a backdrop, m y colleague couldnt have been more surprised when his assistant cam c in one day and gave two weeks' notice. T h e team was in the midst of a huge project, the deadline three weeks away. She was going to leave one week before the proj ect was com pleted, putting the entire team in a very difficult
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position. M y colleague asked her several tim es if she would consider staying one m ore week to help him get to the end of the project, which involved dozens o f people directly and several thousands indirectly. She refused, saying, "I know you're going to be unhappy that Im leaving no m atter when I go, so I decided to dc what I want. M y colleague felt as though hed been kickcd in tlic stomach. It was nearly impossible to fill in the holes she left during the last w eek of the project, and everyone worked around the clock to trv / to fill the void. All those who worked with her w ill rem em ber that decision. Despite the fact that she did a terrific job w hile she was with them , the dam age she did to her reputation during the last weeks of her em ploym ent dwaifed all the positive things she had done in prior years. In sharp contrast, Ive seen others quit jobs with rem arkable style Even if th ey were leav in g because the job wasnt a good m atch, the grace w ith w hich they left m ade such a posi:ivc impression that everyone involved would be pleased to give lliem a glow ing leco m m ciid alio ii at any lim e in llie fu lu ie. T h ey provided enough notice to fill any gaps, they took the tim e to put their work in order so that som eone else could pick up where they left off, and they even offered to help with the transition. T h ese folks arc heroes. T hev m astered the art of j quitting w ell, and used th eir skill to turn a bad situation into som ething positive.
So how do you prepare yourself for inevitable failures? Pccplc who spend their tim e on creative endeavors know that failure
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is a natural part o f the creative process and arc ready when it happens. Jeff Hawkins gets worried w hen things go too smoothly, know ing that failure m ust be lurking around the corner. W h en he was ru n n in g 1landspring, everyth in g was going sw im m ingly for the release of the original Visor a new personal digital assistant. But Jeff kept w arn in g his team that som ething would happen. And it did. W ith in the first few days of the release of their first product they shipped about 100,000 units. This was rem arkable. But the entire b illin g and ship ping system broke down. Som e custom ers didnt receive the p red icts they paid for, an d others received three or four times as m any units as th ey ordered. T h is w as a disaster, especially for a new business that was tryin g to build its reputation. So w hat did they do? T h e entire team , in clu d in g Jeff, buckled down and callcd each and every custom er. T h ey asked cach person w hat he or she had ordered, if they had received it, and whether they had been billed correctly. If an yth in g wasnt pcrfcct, the com pany corrcctcd it on th e spot. T h e key point is that jeff knew som ething would go wrong. I Ic w asnt sure what it would be, but was prepared to deal w ith an yth in g that cam e their way. I lis experien ce has taught h im that failure is inevi table, and that the key to success is not dodging every bullet but being able to recover quickly. T his them e com es up again and again w hen listening to those who have been successful. T h ey arc w illin g to try lots of things, and arc confident that some of th eir experim ents will lead to great outcomes. But they also recognize that there will
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be potholes alo ng the way. T h is approach can be used for big and sm all challenges. C onsider the following story, told to m e by a friend: T h ere was a m an who appeared to have endless luck with wom en. 1Ic w asn't particularly ch arm in g, funny, sm art, or attractive, so it was quite a mystery. O ne day my friend asked h im how he m anaged to have such a steady flow of women in his life. 1 Ic confided that it was sim plehe asked every attractive w om an he m et for a date, and some of them said yes. I Ic was w illin g to take his share of rejections in return for a handful of succcsscs. This wrings the lesson to its basest level. If you get out there and try lots of things, youre m uch more likclv to find success than someone who waits around for the phone to ring. T h is story is consistent with advice m y father always gave m e: being a squeaky w heel rarely changes the outcome, but it tloes allow you to get to the conclusion sooner. Dont sit around wait ing for a yes that w ill never conic Its better to get to no sooner la llie i than lalei, so you eau pul \oui eu eigy into oppoi(unities w ith a higher likelihood of success. I bis applies to job hunting, finding business funding, dating, and most other endeavors. T h at is, if you continue to push tlic lim its, and arc w illin g to fail along the way, you w ill very likclv find succcss. T h ese stories h ig h lig h t a n im portant point: a successful career is not a straight lin e but a wave w ith ups an d downs. M ich ael D carin g describes this w o n derfu lly w ith a sim ple graph that m aps a typ ical carccr, w ith t im e on the x-axis
The Secret Sauce o f Silicon Valley
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an d s u c c e s s on the y-axis. M ost people feel as though they should be con stantly progressing up an d to the righ t, m oving along a straight succcss lin e. But this is both u n rea listic and lim itin g . In reality, w hen you look closely at the graph for most successful people, there arc alw ays ups and downs. W h en view ed over a lon ger period of tim e, however, the lin e gen erally m oves up and to the right. W h en you re in a down cycle, its som etim es hard to see th at the tem porary dip i> a ctu ally a setup for the next rise. In fact, the slope of the upward lin e is often steep er after a down cycle, m ean in g youre really ach iev in g m ore th an if you had stayed on a steady, prcdictablc path. Carol Bart/, the former CMC) of Autodesk and new CKO of Yahoo!, uses another great an alo gy to describe a successful carccr path.8 She thinks you should look at the progress of your carccr as m oving around and up a three-dim ensional p y ra n id , as opposed to up a two-dim ensional ladder. Lateral moves along the side of the pyram id often allo w you to build the base of your cxpcricncc. It m ay not look as though youre m oving up quickly, but youre gatherin g a foundation of skills and cxperienccs that w ill prove extrem ely valuable later. O ne o f m y favorite stories about the cyclical and unpredict able nature of careers com es from Steve Jobs. As the founder of Apple and Pixar, his success stories are legendary. However, m any of his finest succcsscs grew out of failures. H e described these stories b eautifully w hen he gave the com m encem ent ad dress at Stanford in 2005. Here is an excerpt of his spccch:
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W e had just released our finest creationthe M acin tosha year earlier, and I had just turned thirty. And then I got fired. I low can you get fired from a com pany you started? W ell, as Apple grew w e hired som eone who I thought was very talented to run the com pany w ith m e, and for the first year or so things w ent w ell. But then our visions of the future began to diverge an d even tually we had a fallin g out. W h en w e did, our Board of Directors sided with him . So at lliiity I was out. A nd veiy publicly out. W h at had been the focus of mv entire adult life was j gone, and it w as devastating. I rcallv didnt know what to do for a few m onths. I felt j that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs dow nthat I had dropped the baton as it w as bein g passed to inc. I m et w ith David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screw ing up so badly. I w as a very public failure, and I even thought about ru n n in g aw ay from the Valley. But som ething slowly began to daw n 011 m eI still loved what I did. T h e turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I dccidcd to start over. I didnt sec it then, but it turned out that gettin g fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever hap pened to m e. T h e heaviness of b ein g successful was replaced by the lightness of being a begin n er again , less sure about everything. It freed m e to enter one of the most creative periods of m y life.
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D uring the next five years, I started a com pany nam ed NeXT, another com pany nam ed Pixar, and fell in love w ith an am azin g woman w ho w ould becom c my wife. Pixar w ent on to create the world's first computcranim ated feature film , Toy Story , and is now the most successful anim ation studio in the world. In a rem arkable turn of events, A pple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at N eX T is at the heart of A pples cu rren t renaissance. And L aurenc and I have a wonderful fam ily together. Im pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn t been fired from Apple. It was aw ful tasting m ed i cin e, but I guess the patient needed it. Som etim es life hits you in the head w ith a brick.
T h is story is cchocd tim e and tim e again . E ssentially, most in d iv id uals paths arc riddled with sm all and enorm ous fail ings. T h e key is being able lu leeuvei fiu n i them . Fui must suc cessful people, the bottom is lined with rubber as opposed to concrete. W h en they hit bottom , they sink in for a bit and then bounce back, tapping into the energy o f the im pact to propel them into another opportunity. A great exam ple is David N eclem an , the founder of JetBlue.' David in itia lly started an a irlin e called M orris Air, w hich grew and prospered, and lie sold it to Southwest A irlines for $130 m illion. I Ic then becam e an em ployee of Southwest. After only five m onths David was fired. He was m iserable w orking for them and, as he says, lie
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was drivin g them crazy. As part of his contract he had a fiveyear noncom pete agreem ent that prevented h im from starting another airlin e. T h a t seem ed like a lifetim e to wait. But after taking tim e to recover from this blow, David dccidcd to spend that tim e p lan n in g for his next airlin e venture. 1Ic thought through all the details of the company, in clu d in g the corporate values, the com plete custom er experience, the type of people thev would hire, as w ell as the details of how they would train and com pensate their em ployees David says that gettin g fired and having to w ait to start another a irlin e was the best thing that ever happened to him . W hen the noncom pete period was over, he w as ready to hit the ground runn in g, ju st like Steve Jobs, he was able to turn what seem ed like a terrible situation into a period o f extrem e productivity and creativity.
Failing, of course, isnt fun. Its m uch more fun to tell the world about our succcsscs. But failures can serve as incredible opportunities in disguise. T h ey force us to reevaluate our goals and priorities, and often propel us forward m uch faster than continued success. G ettin g too com fortable with failure, however, seem s risky. Arc those who celebrate failure doom ed to fail? Imag ine corporate Em ployee o f the M onth" photos showcasing the biggest scrcwups. I lowcvcr, as Bob Sutton points out in
W eird Idea s That Work , rew arding only succcsscs c an stifle

innovation because it discourages risk taking. Bob suggests that organizations consider rewarding succcsscs a n d failures,
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and punishin g inaction. D oing so would enco urage people to experim ent, w hich is more likely to lead to interesting and unexpected outcomes.
I am not saying that your com pany should reward people who arc stupid, lazy, or incom petent. I m ean you should reward sm art failures, not dum b failures. If you want a creative organization, inaction is the worst kind of fail ure. . . . C reativity results from action, rather than inac tion, more than an yth in g else. Bob adds that there is strong cvidcncc that the ratio between our individual succcsscs and failures stays the sam e. Therefore, if you w ant more succcsscs, youre going to have to be w illin g to live with more failures. Failure is the flip side of success, and vou c an t have one without the other. At the d.school there is a lot of em phasis on takin g b ig risks to earn big rewards. Students arc encouraged to think really
b ig,
c y 'c u
if theres a significant chancc that a project wont be
successful. To enco urage this, w e reward sp ectacu lar disasters. Students arc told that it is m uch better to have a flam ing fail ure than a so-so success. Jim Plum m er, the dean of Stanfords School of E ngin eering, embrace* this philosophy. He tells his PhD students that th ey should pick a thesis project that has a 20 percent chancc of success. Som e students find this dis couraging, interpreting this to m ean that they w ill have to do five different projects before they reach com pletion. Q uite the
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contrary. T h e experim ents should be designed so that a failure is inform ative and a success leads to a m ajor breakthrough. D oing sm all, increm ental experim ents w ith predictable results is m uch less valuable th an taking a big risk that w ill potentially lead to a m uch bigger reward. T h e flip side of bein g comfortable w ith failure, an d w alkin g away from a project that doesnt work, is the risk of q u ittin g too early. l ake the classic story of 3Ms Post-it notes, w hich began w ith an adhesive that didnt stick and turned into a m u ltib il lion-dollar business. In 1968, Spcnccr Silver invented this low tack adhesive an d promoted it internally at 3M , but in itially no one was interested. It wasnt until 1974 that a colleagu e, Art Fry, realized he could use the substandard glue to keep book m arks in place in his church hym nal and spent his free tim e d esign in g the product we now know as Post-its. It wasnt until six years later that 3M launched the product across the United States. Today they sell more than six hundred Post-it products in more than a hundred countries. Im agine the lost opportu n ity if the engineers at 3\1 hadnt realized the potential in this failed product. T h is m ind-set i captured in the class projcct discussed earlier, w here team s turn bad ideas into great ideas.
W e often live on the edge of success and failure, and it is rarely clear which w ay we w ill land. This u n certain ty is am plified in high-risk ventures such as restaurants, technology startups, and even sports, w here the lin e between success and failure m ay be razor thin . C onsider the T o u rd e France. Even after days of
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cyclin g up and down steep and w inding m ountains, the tim e difference betw een the w inners and the losers boils down to a m atter o f seconds, if not m illiseconds. Som etim es a little extra push is all it takes to flip the switch from failure to success. Som e com panies have mastered the ab ility to coax the valu e from products that others m ig h : d iscard as failu res. M arissa M ayer, who leads product development at G oogle, says it is im portant not to kill projects tco early, but to morph them instead.10T h at is, figure out what part is w orking well and what needs to be improved instead of discarding it. M arissa believes that there is u su ally a way to extract some value from an y proj ect, even one that doesnt seem to be working. G oogle an d other W eb com panies rely upon A-B test ing. That is, they release two versions of the software at the sam e tim e and rcccivc q u ick fccdback on w hat approach is m ore successful. T h ese com panies find that by m ak in g sm all m odifications, such as ch an g in g the color of a button, ad d in g a single word to a m essage, or m o vin g im ages around the page, they can d ram atically a lte ra custom ers response. Som e W cb-bascd businesses release dozens of versions of the sam e product a day, each alterin g the user experien ce in som e sm all w ay so that th ey can evaluate the response. A com pany founded by two former Stanford students, Jeff Seibert and K im ber L ockhart, uses this approach all the tim e. G ctBackboard.com is a W eb sib for co llcctin g fccdback on docum ents. T h ey continue to experim ent w ith different calls J
I
to action on th eir W eb site and keep track of w hich approach
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W h at I W ish I Knew W hen I W as 20
works best. W h en they had a green bubble that said G et an A ccount Today, they had an 8 percent sign-up rate. W hen the m essage was changed to E asy Q uick S ig n u p the response rate increased to 11 percent. And when the text offered a Free 30 D ay T rial, the response jum ped to 14 percent. This type of experim entation turns failures into succcsscs, and m akes suc ccsscs more successful. T rying new th in gs requires a w illingness to take risks. I lowcvcr, risk tak in g is not binary. Id bet that yo u re comfortable taking some types o f risks and find other types quite uncom fortable. You m ight not even see the risks that are comfortable for you to take, discounting their riskiness, but are likely to am plify the risk o f things that m ake you m ore anxious. For exam ple, you m igh t love flying down a ski slope at lightning speed or ju m p in g out of airplanes, and dont view these activi ties as risky. If so, youre blind to the fact th at youre taking on significant physical risk. Others, like m e, w ho arc not physical risk takers, w ould rather sip hot chocolate in the ski lodge or buckle them selves tightly into their airp lan e scats than strap on a pair of ski boots or a parachute. A lternatively, you might feel perfectly com fortable with social risks, such as giving a speech to a large crowd. 'Phis doesnt seem risky at all to me. But others, w ho m ight be perfectly happy jjum ping out of a plane, would never give a toast at a party.
On reflection, there appear to be five p rim ary types o f risks: physical, social, em otional, fin an cial, and in tellectu al. For ex
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am ple, I know that Im comfortable taking social risks but not physical risks. In short, I w ill rcacily start a conversation w ith a stranger, but please dont ask m e to bungee jum p off a bridge. I w ill also happily take intellectu al risks that strctch m y an alyti cal abilities, but Im not a big financial risk taker. O n a trip to Las Vegas I w ould b rin g only a sm all am ount of cash, to m ake sure I didnt lose too m uch. I often ask people to m ap their own risk profile. W ith on ly a little bit of reflection, each person knows w inch types of risks he or she is w illin g to take. T h ey realize pretty quickly that risk taking isnt uniform . Its interesting to note that most entrepre neurs dont see them selves as big risk takers. After an alyzin g the landscape, b u ild in g a great team , and putting together a detailed plan, they feel as though they have squeezed as m uch risk out of the venture as they can. In fact, they spend most of their efforts w orking to reduce ths risks for their business. Elisabeth Pate C ornell, chair of the D epartm ent of M anage ment Scicncc and E ngineering a: Stanford, is an expert in the field of risk m anagem ent. She explains that when analyzing a risky situation, its im portant to define the possible outcomes and attempt to figure out the chances of cach one. O ncc this is done, one needs to develop a full plan for cach eventuality. Elisabeth says it m akes sense to take the high risk/high reward path if youre w illin g to live with all the potential conscqucnccs. You should fully prepare for the downside and have a backup plan in place. I cncouragc you b read the last few scntcnccs several tim es. Experts in risk m anagem ent believe you should
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make decisions based upon the probability of all outcomes, in cluding the best- and worst-casc scenarios, and be w illin g to hike big risks w hen you arc fully prepared for all eventualities. It's also im portant to rem em ber that good decisions, based on an accurate analysis of the risks involved, can still lead to bad outcomes. T h a ts because risk is still involved. 1lere is a sim ple exam ple: soon after I got out of school I was offered a job I wasnt sure was a great fit for m e. A fter several days carcfu lly considering the opportunity, I dccidcd to turn it down, assum ing that soon thereafter I would be able to find another job that was a better m atch. Unfortunately, the economy turned south quite quickly and I spent m onths looking for another job. I kicked m yself for not tak in g that position, which started to look more anti m ore appealing. I had m ade a good decision, based upon a ll the inform ation I had at the tim e, but in the short run it w asnt a great outcom e. As in this situation, under most circum stances you have to m ake decisions with incom plete information. T hat is, you lav e to make a choice and take action in the facc o f considerable uncertainty surrounding cach option. So, how do you fill in the gaps of your know ledge? I suggest looking to Stanley" for inspiration. T h e inner workings of Stanley, the autonomous vehicle designed and built by Stanfords A rtificial Intelligence L.ab and Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory for the DARPA G rand C h allen ge, offer clucs to decision m aking with incomplete information. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Re search Projects Agency, is a government agency chargcd v ith
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the development of cutting-edge technology for the m ilitary. In the DARPA com petition, drivcrlcss cars m ust navigate a 212kilom ctcr off-road racc. Each m ust pass through three narrow tunnels, m ake more than a hundred sharp turns, and navigate m ountain passes with steep cliffs on each side. Despite very low odds, Stanfords car won the racc, due in large part to its ability to m ake quick decisions with incom plete information. S tan ley had a lot of pow erful technology on board, includ ing three-dim ensional maps o f the terrain, G PS, gyroscopcs, accelerom eters, video cam eras, and sensors on the w heels. T he on-board software analyzed an d interpreted all in co m in g data and controlled the v eh icles speed and direction. B ut the key to S tan leys victory was its superior skill at m akin g decisions with incom plete inform ation. T h e designers accom plished this by b u ild in g in the ab ility to learn the w ay hum ans do. T h e y crcatcd a database of h u m an decisions that th e car drew upon w h en m akin g judgm ents about w hat to do. T h is data was incorporated into a learn ing program tied to the c a rs control systems, and greatly reduced errors in judgm ent. T h is story highlights the fact that learn ing from others can significan tly reduce your failure rate. You dont have to figure everyth in g out yourself. Like Stanley, you should gather all the data you can from your environm ent, and then tap into the wisdom o f those w ho have gone before you, in order to make the best possible choicc. A ll you need to do is look around to sec hundreds, if not thousands, of role models for every choicc you plan to make.
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If you do take a risk and happen to fail, rem em ber that you personally arc not a failure. T h e failure is external. T h is per spective w ill allow you to get up and try again and again. Your idea m ight have been poor, the tim in g m ight have been off, or you m ight not have had the necessary' resources to succeed. As Jeff I law kins says, You are not your com pany. You arc not your product. It is real easy to think you arc and it is real easy to get w rapped up in it. . . . But if you fail, or even if you arc succcssful, it is not you. Your com pany m ay fail, your product m ay fail, but you arent the failuic. Keep in m ind that failure is a natural part of the learn in g proccss. If you arent failing som etim es, then you probably arent taking enough risks.
C h a p te r 6
N O WAY . . . E N G IN E E R IN G IS FOR GIRLS
I low m any people have told you that the key to success is to follow your passions? Id bet its a lot. G iving that advice to som eone w hos struggling to figure out w hat to do w ith his or her life is easy. I lowcvcr, that advice is actu ally sim plistic and m isleading. Dont get m e wrong, Im a huge fan of passions and th in k its incredibly im porUnt to know what drives you. But it certain ly isn't enough. Passions arc just a starting point. You also need to know your talents anti how the world values them . If youre passionate about som ethin g but not particularly good at it, then its going to be pretty frustrating to try to craft a carccr in that area. Say you love basketball but arent tall enough to com pctc, or youre enth ralled by jazz but can t carry a tune. In both cases you can be a tcrrific fan, go ing to gam es and concerts, without b ein g a professional.
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'Faking this a step further, perhaps youre passionate abaut som ething and are q uite talented in the field, but theres no market for those skills. For exam ple, you m ight be a skilled artist and love to paint, or crave surfing and can ride any wave. But we a ll know that the m arket for these skills is sm all. T rying to craft a carccr around such passions is often a recipe for frus tration. T h in k of them instead as wonderful h o b b ies.1 Alternatively, if you have talent in an area and theres a big market for your skills, then that is a great area to find a ,ob. For exam ple, if you arc an accom plished accountant, theres always a position for som eone who can build a b alan ce sheet. For most people in the world, this is where they live. T hey have a job that uses their skills, but they c an t w ait to get home to focus on the activities they lovetheir hobbies. T h ey count the cays u n til th e w eekend, until vacation, or u n til retirement. T h e worst-casc scenario is finding yourself in a position where you have no passion for your work, no skills in the field,
a n d .lic ic s no u ia ik c t foi w h a t y o u i e d o in g . la k e th e classic
joke about try ing to sell snow to Eskimos. Now im agin e doing that if you hate snow and arc a terrible salesperson. T h is s a bad situation all the wav J around. T h e sw eet spot is where your passions overlap w ith your skills an d the m arket. If you can find that spot, then youre in the wonderful position in w hich your job cnrichcs your life in stead of just providing th e fin an cial resources that allow you to enjoy your life a ft e r the workday is over. T h e goal should be a
ca reer in w hich you can t believe people actu ally pay you to do
N o W a y . . . Engineering Is for Girls
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your job. A quote attrib uted to th e C h in ese Taoist philosopher Lao-Tzu su m s this up:
T h e m aster o f the art o f liv in g m akes little d istin ctio n b etw een his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his m in d and his body, his ed u catio n an d his recreation, his love an d h is religio n. 1 Ic sim p ly pursues his vision of cx ccllcn cc in w hatever he docs, leav in g others to d ecid e w h eth er h e is w orking or p layin g . To h im , he is alw ays d o in g both.
T h e w isdom o f this is reflected in the observation that hard work plays a h u ge part in m a k in g you successful. A nd, the truth is, w e sim ply tend to work harder a t th in gs w e re passion ate about. T h is is easy to see in ch ild ren w ho spend endless hours w orking at the th in gs th ey love to do. A ch ild passionate about b u ild in g w ill spend hours d esig n in g a m az in g cities w ith L ego s1. A ch ild w ho loves art w ill draw for hours w itho ut a break. And to a ch ild w ho loves sports, shooting hoops or hit tin g baseb alls a ll afternoon w ill seem like fun, not practice. Passion is a big driver. It m akes cach o f us w ant to work hard to pcrfcct our skills and to excel. T h e proccss o f fin d in g the gold m in e w here your skills, interests, an d the m arket co llid c can take some tim e. C o n sider N athan Furr, w ho started h is a cad em ic carccr as an E nglish m ajor. N athan w as passionate about read in g an d w ritin g , and spent his co llcg c days so ak in g up turn-of-thc-ccn tury literatu re
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W h at I W ish I Knew W h e n I W a s 20
an d w ritin g essays that a n aly z e d the work. But lie soon real ized that the m arket for E nglish professors was im possibly lim ited . And even if he got a job in the field, the com pensation w ould be pretty low. T h is w as go in g to be a tough w ay to sup port the big fam ily he w as p lan n in g . N athan spent som e tim e th in k in g about other w ays he co u ld use his skills an d ch an n el his passions. A fter sc a n n in g the horizon for oth er options, it b ecam e pretty d e a r that he w ould fit w ell in the world of m an ag em en t co n su ltin g, w hich w ould allo w h im to use his research an d w ritin g skills as w ell as his joy of learn in g . T h e on ly problem was th at N ath an d id n t know en o u gh to get that first job in the field. So he gave h im se lf a year to prepare. He join ed organizations on his co llcg c cam p u s that w ould allow h im to learn m ore about co n su ltin g, and he p racticed doing m in i-c a s e stud ies such as those presented d u rin g th e typical job interview . By the tim e th e o n e-year m ark rolled around, N athan w as read y an d lan d ed a p rim e job as a m an agem en t co n su ltan t for a top firm . It w as a great fit in so m an y ways, tapping into his skills an d his passions, and providing h im w ith the fin an cial secu rity h e needed.
N athan pickcd a carccr path after h e d b een exposed to a va riety o f options. But m ost o f us arc cn co uragcd to plan m uch further ah ead. People love to ask kids, W h a t do you w an t to be w h en you grow u p ? T h is forces ch ild ren to n a il down their goals, at least in th eir m in ds, lo n g before th eyve been exposed to th e w id e a rray o f opportunities. W e also ty p ic a lly v isu aliz e
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ourselves d o in g the th in gs w e see others d o in g in our im m ed i ate en viro n m en t, w h ich is a terribly lim ite d view co n siderin g the world of possibilities. Also, m y guess is that you, like m e, w ere h eav ily in fluen ced by people around you w ho liked to tell yo u w hat t h e y thought you should be doing. I clcarlv rem em ber o n e o f m y tcachcrs sayin g, Youre re a lly good at scicn cc. You should con sider b ein g a nurse. A fine suggestio n, but it is on ly one o f an alm ost in fin ite n u m b er o f th in gs one can do w ith a gift for scicncc. D u rin g m y creativity coursc, team s of students e ach pick an o rgan izatio n they th in k is innovative. T h ese team s visit the firm , in terview em ployees, w atch them in actio n, and com e to th eir ow n conclusions about w hat m akes the organ ization creative. T h e y then present this inform ation to the class in an innovative way. O ne team pickcd the S an Jose C h ild re n s Discovcrv M u seu m . T h e y followed the staff an d visitors for davs to sec w hat re a lly m ade it tick. A t one station kids w ere b u ild in g a m in iatu re ro ller coastcr, c h a n g in g different variables to sec th e results, an d an eight-year-old girl was ex p erim en tin g w ith the eq uip m en t. S h e ch an g ed the len g th , the height, an d the an gles o f the various parts an d ran different sim ulatio ns to sec the cffcct. A m em b er o f the m u seu m staff w atched her experi m entation for a w h ile and sim p ly co m m en ted , Youre doing the sam e types o f th in gs that en g in eers do. Later that day m y students asked the girl w hat she had learn ed at the m u seu m . S h e thought for a sccond an d said w ith co n fiden ce, I learn ed th at I could be an engineer.''
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Like the girl in the m u seu m , w e a ll receive explicit and im plicit m essages about the roles w ere cxpcctcd to play. A couplc o f years ago a c o lleag u e o f m in e, a m ec h a n ic a l e n g in e e rin g professor, told a rem arkable story. S h e has several w om en friends from her u n iversity w ho arc also en g in eers in different d iscip lin es. T h e y often carnc over to her house for d in n e r and so cializin g. Her yo u n g son w as u su a lly aro u n d , w atch in g and listen in g to their conversations. As h e got older an d proved to be good at m ath an d scicn cc som eone said to h im , G ee, you should consider stu d yin g en g in eerin g." I le tw isted his facc an d said , A bsolutely not, en g in e e rin g is for girls. M y w om en friends w ho arc physicians have told m e s im ila r stories. T h e ir yo u n g sons c allc d discussions about m ed icin e girl talk." C o n sid er the follow ing riddle: A boy and his father arc in an accid en t and end up in the hospital. T h e surgeon says, I c a n t operate on this boy, h c s m y son." W h a ts go in g o n ? W h e n I told m y very progressive w om en doctor friends this riddle, even th ey co u ld n t figure out th at the surgeon in the rid d le w as the boys m other. T h e y tried to co m e up w ith convoluted answ ers to the riddle, a ll involving a m ale doctor. O n ce they w ere told the an sw er they w ere terribly em barrassed that they, too, had fallen into this traditio nal trap. W h en I th in k back on the m essages I received, its c lc ar that specific in dividuals had a big im p actsom e w ere en co u ragin g an d others w ere not. W h en I w as about fourteen years old wc had a fam ily friend who was a neurosurgeon. I w as fascinated by the brain an d fin ally m ustered the co u rage to ask h im about
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his work. I Ic thought it was cu te and m ade a joke. I w as dis appointed an d d id n t ask again . It w asnt u n til co lleg e that I found a professional in the field w ho exp licitly en co u raged m e to pursue m y interest in the brain. I w as in m y first n eu ro scien ce class d u rin g m y sopho m ore year and the professor gave us an u n u su al assignm en t. I Ic asked us to design a scries o f exp erim en ts to figure out w hat a specific part o f the b rain docs. H e told us that nobody k n ew its role and that it was our job to com e u p w ith a strategy to find out. W h e n I got m y p ap er back a w eek or so later a note w ritten on the top said, ' Iin a, yo u th in k like a scientist." At th at m o m ent I b ecam e a scientist. I was just w aitin g for som e one to ackno w ledge m y en th u siasm an d to give m e p erm is sion to pursue m y interests. W e arc a ll p o w erfu lly in fluen ced by the m essages around us. Som e arc d ire c t, such as a teach er sayin g, You should b e a nurse," or You th in k like a scientist." O thers are em bedded into our en viro n m en t, such as years of seein g o n ly fem ale en g in eers or m a le surgeons.
W h en I w as in m y e arly tw enties, it was su rp risin gly difficult for m e to separate w hat I w anted for m yself anti w hat others w an ted for m e. I know this is tru e for m a n y o f m y students as w ell. T h e y tell m e th eyre g ettin g so m u ch g u id a n c e from others that they have a tough tim e fig u rin g out w hat they w ant to do. I rem em b er c le a rly that I som etim es had the u rge to q u it or to avoid th in gs that others strongly cn co uragcd m e to do, just so I w ould h ave the spacc to figure out w hat I w anted,
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in dep en den t o f w hat th ey w anted for m e. For exam p le, I started gradu ate school at the U niversity o f V irg in ia right after I graduated from the U niversity of Rochester. M y parents w ere th rilled . T h e y w ere so proud o f m e and w ere com forted th at m y path for the next few years w as set. B ut after o n ly one sem ester o f grad u ate school I d ccidcd to take a break an d go to C a lifo rn ia. T h e hardest part of the en tire proccss was te ll in g m y parents I w as tak in g a leave of absence. M y decision w as ex trem ely hard for them . I appreciated th eir support and en co u ragem en t, but it m ad e it difficu lt for m e to tru ly know if b ein g in school w as the righ t decision for inc. 1 drove across the co u n try to San ta C ru z w ith no idea o f w hat 1 was go in g to do next. In retrospect, ta k in g a break from school turned out to be a great cho ice. M y tim e in S an ta C ru z was com p letely u n stru c tured. I felt like a le a f in the w ind, rcadv for anv even tuality. /
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It w as excitin g and scary. It w as the first tim e I d id n t have a specific assign m en t, a focuscd go al, or a c lc ar plan. A lthough often stressful, it w as the pcrfcct w ay to figure out w hat I really w an ted to do. I took odd jobs so I co u ld support m yself and spent a lot o f tim e th in k in g at the b each . A fter a w h ile I started go in g to the U niversity of C alifo rn ia at San ta C r u z s biology lib rary to keep u p on n cu ro scicn cc literature. At first it was m onthly, th en w eekly, then daily. A fter about n in e m onths in S an ta C ru z , I was read y to get back into the lab, but not read y to go back to grad u ate school. W ith that objective, I trackcd dow n a list o f the ncuroscicncc
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facu lty a t Stanford U niversity, w hich w as not far aw ay, and wrote cach one a letter. I told them about m y background an d asked if th ey had a research job for inc. O ver the next few w eeks, I got letters back from a ll o f th em , but no one had an open position. However, one facu lty m em b er passed m y letter o n , an d I received a call from a professor in the anesth esia d ep artm en t. 1 Ic asked if I w ould like to work in the op eratin g room testin g n ew m e d ic al eq u ip m en t on high-risk patients. T h is seem ed in terestin g, so I ju m ped a t the ch an ce. W ith in days I was a t Stanford, g ettin g up at the crack of d aw n , w e arin g scrubs, an d m o n ito rin g su rg ical patients. This cx p cricn cc w as fascin atin g in a m illio n unexp ected ways. O n cc the project w as over, I m an aged to negotiate a job as a research assistant in a neu ro scien ce lab an d ev en tu ally applied to gradu ate school at Stanford. I took detours that m igh t look to others like a waste of tim e. But this w asnt the case at all. Not on ly did the twists in m y path give m e a fresh perspective on m y goals, th ey also gave m e tim e to ex p erim en t w ith op tions th at helped confirm w hat I w anted to do. Also, this tim e I w as go in g to gradu ate school for m yself, not for others.
People w ho arc close to you often ex p ect you to m ake d eci sions about your carccr path an d stick w ith th em . T h e y w ant yo u to be a fire an d forget" m issile that zeros in on a target an d pursues it relentlessly. But this just isnt how th in gs work. M ost people ch an g e course m an y tim es before fin d in g the best m atch for their skills and interests. T h is is sim ila r to the
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proccss of develo pin g a product or d esig n in g n ew softw are its im portant to keep exp erim en tin g , tryin g lots o f th in gs u n til you find out w hat works. B ein g too set on yo u r path too early w ill lik e ly lead you in the w ron g direction . Ive m et m an y students who literally show m e a d etailed m ap o f w hat th ey p lan to do for the next fifty years. Not on ly is this u n realistic, but its sadly lim itin g . T h ere arc so m an y unex pected experien ces ah ead that its best to keep your eyes open instead o f b lin d in g yo u rself to the serendipitous options that m igh t present them selves. P lan n in g a carccr should be like travelin g in a foreign country. Even if you prepare carefu lly, h ave an itin erary an d a p lacc to stay at n igh t, the m ost inter e stin g exp erien ces u su a lly arent p lan n ed . You m igh t end up m e etin g a fascin atin g person who shows you placcs that aren t in the guidebook, or you m ight m iss your train an d end up sp en d in g the d ay exp lo rin g a sm all town you h ad n t p lan n ed to visit. I gu aran tee that the th in gs yo u re likely to rem em ber from th e jo u rn ey arc those that w erent on your o rig in al sched ule. T h e y w ill be the uncxp cctcd th in gs that ju m ped in your path, su rp risin g you alo n g th e way. T h is is tru e in a ll endeavors. I'or exam p le, m ost m ajo r dis coveries in scicn cc co m e from p ayin g atten tion to su rp risin g results and in terp retin g uncxp cctcd findings. Su cccssfu l scien tists q u ic k ly learn n o t to b e afraid o f data that leads them into u n ch arted territory. Instead o f th ro w in g aw ay data that doesnt fit the cxpcctcd results, w ritin g them off as artifacts, the best scientists latch on to an o m alies, know in g this is w h ere true
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breakthroughs are m ad e. In fact, by b ein g alert to inconsisten cies, scientists often open en tirely n ew fields o f research and m ak e rem arkable discoveries. For exam p le, from the e arly days o f m icroscopy, in the m id-1800s, scientists saw that there w ere two gen eral classes o f cclls in the b rain , w h ich th ey c a lle d n eu rons and glia. T h e y assum ed th at a ll the real action happened in the neurons and that the g lia , w h ich literally m ean s glu e in G reek, served o n ly as a kin d o f scaffolding, or structu ral support for neurons. T h is idea held for over 150 years, an d sci entists spent m ost th eir efforts stu d yin g neurons. I lowcvcr, over the past tw en ty years, g lia , w hich arc m ore ab u n d an t in the b rain than neurons by a factor o f ten, have been found to serve an enorm ous n u m b er of im portant roles in the nervous system . B ruce R ansom , the fo un d in g editor o f the scien tific jo u rn al G lia, is a pioneer in this field. He an d other scientists around the world have dem onstrated that g lia l cclls arc active p articip an ts in v irtu a lly every function o f the b rain . Even syn ap tic transm ission, the m ost studied interaction betw een neuron s, involves g lia l cclls. B ruce, who is also a neurologist, believes that g lia h ave not yet given up a ll their secrets and arc c ritic a lly involved in m an y neurologi c a l diseases. T h is is an im portant rem in d er that ideas can be so attrac tive th at they a ctu a lly im p ede progress. People latch onto them an d dont sec the other viable altern atives; they u nconsciously ad ju st co n flictin g observations to fit p rev ailin g theories. In retrospect, it seem s obvious th at g lia serve an im portant role in
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th e brain. B ut those w ho began doin g research in this area two d ecad es ago w ere tak in g a risk by step pin g off a c le a rly defined path to explore u n ch arted territory.
M ost events and findings snap into focus w hen looked a t in retrospect. R andy K om isar c la im s th at his carccr m akes m uch m ore sense w h en view ed through the rearview m irro r than through the w indshield. T h is statem ent is true for m ost o f us. W h en you look back on yo u r carccr path the story m akes per fect sense. T h e road ah ead , however, is alw ays fu zzy an d full o f boundless u n certain ty. Its easy to get frustrated by the lack o f v isib ility ah ead. You can , however, do th in gs to increase the odds that great opportunities w ill co m e your way. R an dy has spent considerable tim e th in k in g about how to craft a carccr, an d his insights arc pow erful. I Ic suggests that yo u build a carccr in such a w ay th at you o p tim ize the q u a lity o f the people w ith whom you work, w hich ends up increas in g the q u a lity o f the opportunities th at flow your way. G reat people support cach other, b u ild v alu ab le netw orks, an d crcatc a steady stream o f n ew opportunities. E ssentially, the ecosys tem in w h ich you live an d work is a h u ge factor in p red ictin g th e ty pes o f op p o rtun ities that w ill present them selves. M a n y seasoned professionals ech o h is ideas. T h e y know its a m istake to try to m an ag e yo u r carccr too closely, and that you should instead work in o rgan ization s that gran t you access to a stream of interesting opportunities. T eresa B riggs, th e m an a g in g p artn er of the Silico n V alley office of D cloittc, a large
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in tern atio n al professional services firm , gave up the notion th at she co u ld plan ev eryth in g in favor o f b ein g m u ch m ore opportunistic. Teresa began her carccr in the au d it practice o f D eloitte an d after eigh teen years reasonably assum ed she w ould be there forever. I lowcvcr, she e v e n tu a lly found h erself in an u n p red ictab le situation. N ew laws req uired auditors to rotate on an d o ff assign m en ts w ith in d iv id ual clicn ts so a fresh set o f auditors could en su re the business was b ein g m an aged legally. Teresa had b een w orking w ith a very large clien t, and w hen she rotated off the team there w erent oth er com parable opportunities. B ut she learn ed that a n ew D eloitte group was form ing that focused on m ergers and acq u isitio n s. W h ile m ergers an d acq u isitio n s w as not her area o f expertise, she was offered the oppo rtun ity to take a key position. S h e found that her skills transferred b eautifully. Even though Teresa w ould not have p lan n ed this path herself, she realized that her ab ility to build relationships w ith clicn ts an d lead team s allo w ed her to excel in this n ew role. A fter a short tim e, Teresa w as transferred to the D eloitte n a tional officc in N ew York, w here her leadersh ip an d m an ag e m ent skills a g a in allo w ed her to sh in e. T eresa w as then asked to head up the Silico n V alle y p ractice for the firm , w here she h ad to learn n ew strategies an d a brand-new vocabulary; this tim e for h igh technology. N one of Teresa's steps could have been predicted, an d yet, by c x ccllin g in an organ ization that presented a con tinuous flow o f new op po rtun ities, m a n y excit in g roles an d ch allen g es m aterialized .
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It is im portant to reassess your life anti career relatively fre quently. T h is self-assessm ent proccss forces you to co m e to terms w ith the fact that som etim es its tim e to m ove on to a new environm ent in order to excel. M ost people dont assess their roles frequently enough and so stay in positions for years longer than they should, settlin g for suboptim al situations. T h ere isnt a m agic n um b er for the am ount of tim e you should stay in one role before evalu atin g w heth er its right or not. B ut it m akes sense to th in k about how often you do so. Som e people readjust their lives d a ily or w eekly, constantly optim izing. O thers wait years before noticing that they've ended up far from where they had hoped to be. T h e m ore frequently you assess your situation, looking for ways to llx problem s, the more likely you are to find yourself in a position w here things are going w ell. Its best to ad dress sm all problems that crop up in your life early and often, as opposed to w aitin g for problems to get so big that they seem intractable. T h at can only happen w hen you pay attention and figure out w hat a ctu a lly needs to change. So m e situations literally forcc you to reevaluate vour life. For instan ce, once you d ecid e to start a fam ily, the en tire gam e ch an ges. Youre su d d en ly faccd w ith the need to figure out how to b alan ce p aren tin g w ith your profession. As everyone know s, c a rin g for yo u n g ch ild ren takes an enorm ous am o u n t o f tim e an d focused energy. Its both p h ysically and em otion a lly d em an d in g , and in cred ib ly tim e co n su m in g. K eeping you on your toes, a c h ild s needs ch an g e d ra m atic ally as they
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get older. E ach y e a r brin gs a brand-new set o f responsibilities an d a fresh set o f ch allen g es. As a result, p aren tin g provides an ever-ch an gin g oppo rtun ity to b e creative an d helps build skills th at arc extrem ely v alu ab le in a n y settin g. It cxcrciscs your ab ility to m u ltitask an d to m ak e decisions u n d er pressure, an d it c e rta in ly helps you m aster the art o f negotiation. W om en esp e c ially facc th e d a u n tin g p u zzle of fig u rin g out how to fit together carccr and fa m ily obligations. From m y cx p cricn cc, this c h a llen g e re a lly is a great opportunity. Instead of co n sid erin g traditio nal jobs th at have lim ited flexibility, b ein g a parent forccs you to be innovative. A dditio nally, as your c h ild s needs ch an g c, you can exp erim en t w ith different jobs w ith different responsibilities. A lth ough it is hard to sec up elose, o n es carccr is long, an d ch ild ren arc sm all for on ly a few years, a llo w in g you to accelerate your carccr as your ch ild ren grow up. T h e follow ing excerpt from a 1997 edition o f S ta n
fo r d M a g a z in e puts a sharp point on this idea.
A 1950 [Stanford] gradu ate earn ed h er law d egree here in 52, an d took five years out o f the paitl workforce after her sccond son w as born, k eep in g h erself busy an d visible in volunteer work for the Phoenix ju n io r L ea g u e and the Salvatio n Arm y. Later, w hen her youngest w ent off to school, she w ent back to work part-tim e in the state at torney g e n e ra ls officc. S tayin g h o m e w ith her ch ild ren d u rin g those years u ltim a te ly d id n t h am p er her carccr. . . . S h e added that
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to d ays yo u n g graduates co u ld fare even better than she d id . O ne help is that now adays w om en live longer, she says. W e spend m ore years in em p lo ym en t and really h ave tim e for a cou ple o f careers. So if a few years arc taken out, all is not lost." T h e w o m an , by the w ay, is Su p rem e C o u rt ju stice S an d ra D ay O C onnor.
From m y exp erien ce, this is absolutely right. M y o n ly rec om m endatio n is that if you intend to stop w orking w h ile your kids arc yo u n g, consider fin d in g a w ay to keep your carccr on a low sim m er. If you h aven t stepped all the w ay out for too long, its m uch easier to get back in. You can do this in an infinite v ariety o f w ays, from w orking part-tim e in traditional jobs to volunteering. Not o n ly docs it keep your skills sh arp en ed, but it provides you w ith the con fiden ce that you can gear up ag ain w hen / vourc readv. J C o n sid er K aren M atth ys, w ho has four yo u n g ch ild ren and is part o f a group o f p art-tim e m ark etin g consultants. Karen takes on projects w h en she can , an d hands them over to her partners w h en shes too busy. O r take Lisa B cnatar, w ho w ith yo u n g th ree daughters tu rn ed her atten tion to her ch ild ren s school. L isa, an exp ert on altern ative energy, started an ed u ca tional program at the school that focuscd on teach in g ch ild ren about conservation. T ak in g on the p u z zle o f b a lan c in g work an d p aren tin g en d ed up b ein g the best carccr decisio n I ever m ad e. I w anted
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to be in te lle c tu ally stim u lated w ithout com p rom ising the tim e I had for m y son. As a result, each y e a r I evaluated how m uch tim e I n eed ed to devote to each an d found ways to take on projects that allo w ed m e the m ost flexibility. I took on assign m ents I probably w o u ld n t h ave considered if I d id n t have a ch ild . I started w ritin g ch ild ren s books, lau n ch ed a W eb site for scicn cc teach ers, an d even taugh t scicn cc in a private el em en tary school. In the lo n g ru n , these exp erien ces proved to be a m a z in g ly helpful w hen I did go back to work fu ll-tim e. I gain ed cred ib ility as a w riter, learn ed how to design W eb sites, an d got v alu ab le exp erien ce teach in g a ll skills 1 use every single d ay in m y cu rren t role. Lxjoking back, I see m an y th in gs 1 w ish I had know n about cra ftin g a carccr that w ere counter to the traditio nal advice I w as given. M ost im po rtan t? The need to find a role in the world that doesnt feel like work. T his on ly happens w hen you id en tify the intersection b etw een yo u r skills, your passions, an d the m arket. Not on ly is this the most fu lfillin g position, but, by tap p in g into your passions in a constructive w ay, your work en rich es your life, as opposed to takin g tim e aw ay from it. F in d in g the right roles req uires ex p erim en tin g alo n g the way, try in g lots o f different altern atives, testin g the m essages you get both exp licitly an d im p licitly from the w orld, an d p u sh in g back on those that just dont feel right. A s you m ove th ro u gh yo u r carccr, you w ill b e w ell served by freq u en tly reassessin g w h ere you arc an d w h ere you w an t to go. D o in g so allo w s yo u to m a k e co u rsc correctio ns
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q u ick ly, e s p e c ia lly w h en th in g s d o n t tu rn out as p lan n ed or excep tio n al n ew o p p o rtu n ities arise . D ont w orry that the path a h e ad appears out of fo cussq u in tin g isnt go in g to m ake it anv clcarcr. T h is is tru e for everyo n e. D ont be in a rush to get to yo u r fin al d e stin atio n the side trips and u n ex p ected detours q u ite often lead to the m ost in terestin g peo ple, p laces, an d o p p o rtu n ities. A n d, fin ally, be w ary o f all c a rcc r ad v ice, in c lu d in g m in e , as you figu re out w h a ts right for vou.
Chapter 7
TURN L E M O N A D E IN T O H E L IC O P T E R S
I c allc d m y son, jo sh , d u rin g his first sem ester at co llcg c to w ish h im luck on his final exam s. His response w as, T h e re s no such th in g as luck. Its a ll hard work.' I Ics a driven kid, who throws h im se lf at the th in gs about w hich he is passionate, espe c ia lly a th le tic com petitions that req u ire a trem endous am ount o f tra in in g an d preparation. At first I thought his response was extrem e. But, on fu rth er reflectio n, I believe h e had it right. Even w hen w e th in k w e re lucky, w eve u su a lly worked rem ark ably hard to put ourselves in that position. Ive w atched Josh w ith ad m iratio n as he has strived to m eet go als others m igh t th in k im possible. At n in eteen , he dccidcd to try his hand at com p etitive pow erlifting. T h is w asnt a n atu ral ch o ice for a form er cyclist an d track sprinter, but he w as determ in ed to break the nation al rccord for dead lifts. Josh identified the best train ers in northern C alifo rn ia and
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drove two hours cach way, several tim es a w eek, to le a rn from th em . I Ic read ev eryth in g he could about the sport, carefu lly crafted a d iet to b u ild m ore m u scle, an d spent hours train in g at the gym . A fter several years of w eight tra in in g followed by m onths o f focused effort, he entered a com p etition to sec how he stacked up again st others. W e arose at 5:00 a.m . an d drove th ree hours to Fresno for a form al m eet. T h e gym w as filled w ith w eight lifters w hod been co m p etin g for years. I w as wor ried he w ould be disappointed w ith his perform ance. B ut josh, w eig h in g in at 190 pounds, blew aw ay both the federations state an d n atio n al rccords by liftin g 589.7 p o un dsthis was 50 pounds m ore th an the previous rccord holder. W as he lu cky? O f cou rse lie w as lucky. A ll the cards alig n ed for h im that day. But he w ould never have su cceed cd u n less h e had put trem en dous effort beh ind h is goals. jo sh s co m m en ts on luck ech o ed the m essage I frequently heard from m v father w hen I was a c h ild the harder vou work, the lu ck ier yo u get. His m antra w as a stark rem inder th at you need to put yo u rself in a position to be lucky. Even if th eres a low probability o f success an d a trem endous am o u n t o f com p etition , you can m ax im ize your ch an ces by b ein g w ell prepared p h ysically, in tellectu ally, an d em otionally. W e often hear in sp irin g stories about people w ho start w ith n o th in g an d by v irtu e of in cred ib ly hard work arc able to draw luck th eir way. 1 lerc arc two q u ick stories that probably sound fam iliar, of people w ho worked in cred ib ly hard to overcom e trem endous hardships.
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O uycn V uong w as born in Saigo n , V ietn am , w here her father worked for the V ietn am ese governm ent an d her m other ran a p h arm acy. As the daugh ter o f professionals, her young life w as verv com fortable. However, w hen the C o m m u n ists overran the co u n try in 1975, Q uvcns world was tu rn ed upside dow n. I ler father w as sent to a reedu cation cam p, her fam ilys p h arm acy w as shuttered, and her m o th er was sent to prison for b ein g a cap italist b ecau se she ran her ow n business. W ith in a few years it w as c lc ar th eir situatio n w asnt im provin g, and her father left for the U nited States w ith two of Q u ycn s sib lin gs. T h e rest o f the fam ily stayed beh ind in V ietn am . T h e follow ing year, 1980, O uycn s m other felt co m p elled to send O m e n , age sixteen, an d her you nger brother, a g e eleven , in search o f a better life. S h e tearfu lly put them on a boat w ith other refugees, ho pin g th ey w ould u ltim ately m ake it to the U nited States. S h e had little co n fid en ce that th ey w ould co m plete th e jo u rn ey or that she w ould ever see her ch ild ren again . F ollo w ing m an y days at sea, d o d g in g pirates who tried to steal the few b elo n gin gs brought by the refugees, the boat fin ally lan ded on an islan d off th e coast of M alaysia. T h e re the b o ats passengers join ed m ore th an forty thousand refugees, cach stru g glin g to survive and tryin g desperately to obtain p erm is sion to im m ig rate to an o th er country. A fter four lo n g m onths, O uycn w as perm itted to join her father in T exas. She spoke no E nglish an d w as sub sequen tly held back in school by several years. I le r fam ily w as so poor th at she and her siblings cach worked at least th irty hours a
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w eek after school. Q u yen often thought about dropping out to better support her fam ily, w h ich w as surv ivin g on a week-tow eck basis, often forccd to c a ll upon relatives for loans. D espite the hardships, Q u yen worked as steadfastly as she could. S h e had n o th in g but her self-m otivation to pu ll h erself out of poverty. S h e finished h igh school n ear the top of her class and went on to Yale w ith a fu ll scholarship. A fter study in g eco n o m ics an d then e a rn in g an M BA , Q u yen now runs ICA N , a not-for-profit co m p an y that serves the V ietn am ese co m m u n ity by h elp in g im m igran ts bridge c u ltu ra l gaps, so they can thrive in their n ew country. S h e now provides the services she w ishes she had av ailab le w hen she m ad e it to her n ew hom eland. As a yo u n g girl, Q u yen had no idea w hat she w an ted to ac com plish as an ad u lt, but she did know w ith c e rta in ty that she w an ted to p u ll h erself out o f poverty. She feels that by settin g the table w ith tim e an d effort you en su re that so m eth in g ap p e a lin g w ill land on your plate. Q u yen s ex p erien ce has taught her that, as she says, You c a n m ake your ow n d estin y by focus in g on your goals an d w orking in cred ib ly hard. I heard a sim ila r story from Q u in c y D elight Jones III, aka O D 3, a succcssful m u sic and film producer w ho h as worked w ith w ell-know n artists such as T u p ac S h aku r, L L C o ol J, an d Ice C u b e .1 As the son o f the m u sic legend Q u in cy Jones, you m igh t th in k Q D 3 had an easy life. I le d id n t. I lis parents divorccd w hen he w as yo u n g an d h is m o th er brought h im to Sw eden, her n ative country, w here th e y lived in n e a r poverty.
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I lis m other h ad an alternative lifestyle an d stru g gled w ith dru g addictio n . S h e d id n t p a rticu la rly carc if Q D 3 w en t to school, an d she often d id n t con ic hom e from p a rty in g u n til 4 :0 0 in the m orning. From the tim e Q D 3 w as exposed to break d a n c in g in his e arly teens he was hooked. He started perform in g on the streets in Stockholm , p u ttin g out a h at to co llect donations from passcrsby. I Ic p racticed h is d a n c e m oves d ay and night, p erfectin g each one. W ith luck" he w as discovered by a scout from L e v is, w ho asked if lie w ould be interested in go in g on a perform ance tour. Q D 3 ju m ped at the ch an ce. O n cc he had his foot in th e door, QD3 co n tin u ed to work as hard as he could. B esides d an cin g , he started developing m usic beats for rap artists. A big break c am e w h en he was asked to w rite the sound track for a m ovie about the rap scen e in Stockholm . O ne o f his songs, N ext T im e," w ritten w hen he w as sixteen, b ecam e his first gold record and sold over fifty thousand copies. Q D 3 w en t on to produce a triple platinu m d o cu m en tary about T upac S h ak u r, w hich sold m ore than th ree h u n dred thousand copics. ju st like Q u yen , Q D 3 was driven to pu ll h im se lf out of poverty, to be self-sufficient a n d , ultim ately, the best in the world. H e taps the fire in his h e a rt to m otivate h im self, and o n cc the flam e spreads, ch arges ah ead w ith in cred ib le com m itm en t an d effort. Both Q u yen an d QD3 throw everyth in g th ey h av eph ysically, in te llectu ally, and em o tio n allyat the problem s confronting th em , dem o n stratin g that hard work and
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d ed icatio n arc key to tem p tin g luck your way. However, hard work is just one lever at your disposal w hen it co n ies to m ak in g vour / ow n luck. T h ere arc m an v other tools in vour toolbox that
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can serve as luck m agn ets. A nd Im confident th at both Q uvcn an d Q D 3 used these, as w ell.
R ichard W ise m an , o f the U niversity o f H ertfordshire in En g la n d , has studied luck an d found that lu ck y people" share traits that tend to m ak e them lu ck ier th an others. First, lucky people take advantage o f ch a n c e o ccu rrcn ccs that con ic their way. Instead o f go in g through life on cru ise control, th ey pay atten tion to w h ats h ap p en in g around them a n d , therefore, arc able to extract greater valu e from cach situation. T h e y re m ore likely to pay atten tion to an an n o u n cem en t for a sp ecial event in th eir co m m u n ity, to n o tice a n ew person in th eir neighbor hood, or even to sec that a c o lleag u e is in need o f som e extra help. L u cky people are also open to novel opportunities and w illin g to try th in gs outside o f th eir u su al cxp cricn ccs. T h e y re m ore in clin ed to pick up a book on an u n fa m ilia r sub jcct, to travel to less fa m ilia r destinations, an d to interact w ith people w ho arc different than them selves. Not surp risin gly, lucky people tend to be cxtravcrtcd. T h e y m ak e m ore e y e contact an d sm ile m ore frequently, lead in g to m ore positive an d extended encounters. T h ese actions, in turn, open the door to m ore opportunities. L u cky people also tend to be optim istic and to cxpcct good th in gs to happ en to them . I bis bccom cs a self-fu lfillin g prophecy, b ecau se even w hen
tilin g s dont go as expected, lucky people find w ays to cxtract positive outcom es from the worst situations. T h e ir attitu d e af fects those around th em , an d helps to turn negative situations into positive experien ces. In short, b e in g observant, o p en -m in d ed , frien d ly, and o p tim istic invites lu ck yo u r way. la k e this sim p le story: sev eral years ago I w as at a sm all lo cal g ro cery store freq u en ted m o stly by those w ho liv e nearby. A m an an d h is yo u n g d au g h ter ap p ro ach ed m e in th e frozcn-food a isle an d po litely asked how to prep are frozen, c a n n e d lem o n ad e. T h e m a n had a n a cc e n t I c o u ld n t id en tify, an d 1 w as p retty sure he m ust b e n ew to the area. I told h im how to p rep are the lem o n ad e an d asked w h ere h e w as from . He said S an tiag o , C h ile . I asked h is n a m e an d w h at brought h im to our tow n. I had no u lterio r m otive. 1 was just cu rio u s. H e told m e his n a m e w as E duardo an d th at he an d h is fa m ily w ere in the area for a y e a r so he co u ld le a rn about en trep ren eu rsh ip in S ilic o n V alley. 1 Ic w as in lin e to ru n h is fam ily's b u sin ess an d w as in search o f tools to m ake it m o re inn ovative. I told h im ab o u t the en trep ren eu rsh ip program at S tan fo rd s S ch o o l o f E n g in e e rin g an d said I'd be h ap p y to do w h at I co u ld to be o f help . O ver th e next few m onths I in tro d u ced E duardo to various p eo p le in the en trep ren eu rsh ip co m m u n ity, an d he expressed his th an k s for m y assistan ce. Fast-forward two years. I was h ea d in g for a con feren ce in S an tiag o an d sent E duardo a m essage ask in g if lie w anted to get together for coffee. At the last m in u te, h e w asnt able to
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m ak e it, but invited m e to go to a specific location in dow n town S an tiag o w ith a few o f m y co lleagu es. W e showed up at the officc b u ild in g an d w ere led to the roof, w here w e w ere picked up by E duardos fam ilys private helico pter for a sim ply sp ectacu lar ride above the city, up to the su rro u n d in g m o un tain s, an d over h is fam ilys ski resort. It w as in cred ib le! A nd to th in k th at it resulted from h elp in g h im figure out how to m ake lem on ade. O f coursc, I d id n t h elp E duardo b ecau se I w anted a helico pter ride. B ut by p u ttin g m yself out there, b ein g open to h elp in g som eone, and follow ing u p years later, I b ecam e q u ite lucky. E arlier I discuss the art of tu rn in g lem ons (prob lem s) into lem on ade (opportunities). But luck goes beyond th isits about tu rn in g lem on ade (good things) into h elico p ters (am az in g th in gs!).
T h e world is fu ll of doors through w hich w c can find a stagger in g a rray o f op p o rtun itiesw e just have to be w illin g to open th em . C arlo s V igno lo, from the U niversity o f C h ile , likes to say th at if you go som ew here an d dont m eet som eone new, yo u have c e rta in ly m issed out on m ak in g a friend as w ell as on the possibility o f m a k in g a m illio n dollars. I Ic tells his students th at every tim e they w alk onto a city bus, a m illio n dollars is w aitin g there for th e m th ey just have to find it. In this case a m illio n dollars is a m etaphor for le a rn in g so m eth in g new, m ak in g a friend, or, in d eed , m a k in g a m illio n dollars. In fact, this book is the direct result of m y talk in g w ith som eone sitting next to m e on an a irp lan e. If w e h ad n t started a conversation,
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I most c e rta in ly w o u ld n t have w ritten this book. But th a ts an o th er story. E ch o in g this po int, 'I'om Kelley, autho r o f T h e Art o f In n o v a
tion, says that every d ay you should act like a foreign traveler
by b ein g a cu te ly aw are of your environm ent. In everyday life w c tend to put on blinders anti c ru ise dow n w ell-w orn paths, rarely stopping to look around. B ut as a traveler in a foreign co u n try, you sec the world w ith fresh eves and d ra m atic ally inj ' j
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crcasc the d en sity o f your exp erien ces. B y tu n in g in, you find fascin atin g th in gs around every turn. Jam es Barlow, the head o f the Scottish Institute for Enter prise, docs a provocative cxcrcisc w ith his students to dem o n strate this point. I le gives jigsaw p u zzles to several team s and sets a tim er to sec w hich group can finish first. The pu zzle pieces h ave been n u m b ered on the back, from 1 to 500, so its easy to put them together if yo u just pay attention to the n u m bers. B ut, even though the num bers arc right in front o f them , it takes m ost team s a lo n g tim e to see th em , an d som e never sec them at a ll. E ssentially, th ey could e asily bolster their luck just by p a yin g closer attention. P ayin g carefu l attention to your environ m ent a ctu a lly takes a lot o f effort. You have to teach yo u rself to do it w e ll, and even w hen yo u re p ayin g atten tio n , you can m iss re a lly in terestin g an d im portant inform ation th a ts righ t in front o f you. A w idely distributed video shows this a ll too clearly. A n a u d ien ce is asked to w atch a group of m en an d w om en tossing around a basketball. T h e y re told to co u n t the n u m b er o f tim es the team
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in w h ite shirts passes the b all. A t the end o f the video, view ers can easily answ er th at q u estio n , but arc oblivious to the fact that som eone in a bear suit m oonw alks right through the g a m e .2 Even w h en w e th in k w e re p a yin g fu ll atten tion , th eres u su a lly so m u ch m ore to see. I do a sim ple cxcrcisc in m y class that illustrates this clearly. I send students to a fam iliar lo catio n , such as the local shop p in g center, an d ask them to com p lete a lab" in w hich they go to several stores an d pay atten tio n to a ll the th in gs that arc n o rm ally invisible. T h e y take the tim e to no tice the sounds, sm ells, textures, an d colors, as w ell as the organ ization o f the m erch an d ise and the w ay th e staff interacts w ith the custom ers. T h e y observe endless th in gs they never saw w hen they previously zipped in an d out o f the sam e environ m ent. T h e y con ic back w ith th eir eyes w id e open, re a liz in g that we a ll tend to w alk through life w ith blinders on.
L u ck y people dont just p ay attention to the world around th em an d m eet in terestin g in d iv id u alsth ey also find un u su al w ays to use an d recom b ine their know ledge an d experiences. M ost people have rem arkab le resources at th eir fingertips, but never figure out how to leverage them . I lowcvcr, lu ck y people appreciate th e v alu e of their know ledge an d th eir network, an d tap into these gold m in es as needed. H eres a powerful exam p le from the 2005 co m m en cem en t address that Steve jobs d elivered at Stanford. In short, h ed dropped out o f col lege after six m onths b ecau se he w asnt sure w h y he w as there.
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an d the tuitio n w as m u ch m ore th an h is parents co u ld afford. I le rc s how Steve tells it:
A fter six m onths, I co u ld n t see the v alu e in [co llcgc). 1 had no idea w hat I w anted to do w ith m v life and no idea
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how co llcg c was go in g to h elp m e figure it out. A nd here I w as sp en d in g a ll of th e m o n ey m y parents had saved th eir en tire life. So I d ccidcd to drop out and trust that it w ould a ll work out OK. It w as pretty s c a n - at the tim e, but lo o kin g back it w as o n e of the best decisions I ever m ad e. T h e m in u te I dropped out I could stop tak in g the required classcs that d id n t interest m e, an d b egin drop p in g in on the ones that looked interesting. It w asnt a ll rom antic. I d id n t have a dorm room , so I slept on the floor in friends room s, I retu rn ed C oke bottles for the five ccnt deposits to b u y food w ith , and I w ould w alk the seven m iles across town cvcrv S u n d ay night to get one good m eal a w eek at the I larc K rishna tem ple. I loved it. A nd m u ch of w hat I stum bled into by fo llo w in g m y cu rio sity and in tu itio n turned out to be priceless later on. Let m e giv e you one exam p le: R eed C o llc g c at that tim e offered perhaps th e best callig rap h y instructio n in the country. T h ro u gh o u t the cam p u s every poster, ev ery label on ev ery draw er, was b e a u tifu lly hand callig rap h cd . B ecau se I had dropped out and d id n t h ave to take the no rm al classcs, I dccidcd to take a c allig rap h y class to learn how to do this. I
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learn ed about se rif an d san serif typefaces, about v aryin g th e am o u n t of space b etw een different letter co m b in a tions, about w hat m akes great typography great. It was b e a u tifu l, h isto rical, a rtistic a lly subtle in a w ay that sci cn cc c a n t cap tu re, an d I found it fascinating. N one o f this had even a hope o f a n y p ractical ap p lica tion in m y life. But ten years later, w hen w e w ere d esign in g the first M acintosh com puter, it a ll c am e back to m e. A nd we d esign ed it a ll into the M ac. It w as the first com puter w ith b eau tifu l typography. If I had never dropped in on that sin gle coursc in co llcgc, th e M ac w ould have never had m u ltip le typ efaces or proportionally spaccd fonts. A nd sincc W in dow s just copicd the M ac, its likely th at no personal com puter w ould have them . If I had never dropped out, I w ould have never dropped in on this c allig rap h y class, and personal com puters m igh t not h ave the w onderful typo graph y that they do. O f coursc it w as im possible to co n n ect the dots lo o kin g forward w hen I w as in collcgc. B ut it w as very, very c lc ar lo o k in g back w ards ten / years later. T h is story em p h asizes th at you n ever know w h en your cx p cricn ccs w ill prove to be v alu ab le. Steve jobs w as openm in d ed an d cu rio u s about the w orld, c o llcctcd diverse ex p erien ces in d ep en d en t o f th eir short-term b en efits, an d was ab le to tap into his know ledge in u n cx p cctcd w ays. T h is is a sharp rem in d er that th e m ore e x p erien ces you have an d the
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broader yo u r base o f kn o w led ge, the m ore rcsourccs you have from w h ich to draw. In m y cou rse on creativ ity I focus a great d eal on the valu e o f reco m b in in g ideas in u n u su al ways. T h e m ore you practice this sk ill, the m ore n atu ral it bccom cs. For exam p le, u sin g sim iles or m etaphors, to describe concepts that on the surfacc seem com p letely u n related offers tools for rev ealin g fresh solu tions to fa m ilia r problem s. W e do a sim p le cxcrcisc to illustrate this point. T eam s arc asked to co m c up w ith as m an y answ ers as possible to the follow ing statem ent:
Ideas arc l i k e ______________________________________ b e c a u s e ___________________________________________ , th erefo re__________________________________________ .
Below is a list o f som e o f the hundreds o f creative answ ers Ive seen. In e ach ease the sim ile u nlocks a n ew w ay o f looking at ideas:
Ideas arc like babies b ecau se everyone thinks theirs is cute, therefore be objcctivc w hen ju d gin g your own ideas. Ideas arc like shoes b ccau sc you need to break them in, therefore take tim e to evalu ate n ew ideas. Ideas arc like m irrors bccausc th ey rcflcct the lo cal e n vironm en t, therefore consider c h a n g in g contexts to get m ore diverse co llectio n s o f ideas.
no
Ideas arc like h iccu p s b ecau se w hen they start th ey dont stop, therefore take ad van tage o f idea streaks. Ideas arc like bubbles b ecau se th ey e asily burst, therefore be gen tle w ith them . Ideas arc like cars bccausc they take you p laccs, th ere fore go alo n g for the ride. Ideas arc like chocolates b ccau sc everyone loves th em , therefore m ak e sure to serve them u p frequently. Ideas arc like the m easles b ccau sc th e y arc contagious, therefore h an g out w ith oth er people w ith ideas if you w an t to get them yourself. Ideas arc like w affles b ccau sc th ey arc best w hen fresh, therefore keep n ew ideas co m in g a ll the tim e. Ideas arc like spider webs b ccau sc th ey arc stronger than th ey appear, therefore dont u n d erestim ate them .
T h is cxcrcisc en co urages you to stretch your im agin atio n by tap p in g into the world around you for inspiration. Som e people m ak e these con nectio ns n atu rally an d find un u su al w ays to cxtract v alu e from th em . L ike Steve Jobs, those people arc alw ays sco u tin g for w ays to b rin g ideas together in interest in g ways an d then m ake the effort to b rin g th eir ideas to life. A great exam ple is Perry K lcbahn, who broke his an k le in 1991. T h e in ju ry was esp ecially disappointing to this avid skier
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who d id n t w ant to m iss a season on the slopes. However, he found a w ay to tu rn his bad fortune into good luck. W h ile re covering from the injury, h e discovered an old pair of wooden snowshocs an d took them out for a spin, hoping this would pro vide an alternative to skiing. T hey didnt work w ell at a ll, w hich w as another disappointm ent. But instead of throw ing them back into his closet an d w aitin g for his an kle to h eal, Pern.- dccidcd to design a new snowshoc. I Ic was a product design student at the tim e and figured he could use these new skills to solve his own problem. O ver the coursc o f ten w eeks, he designed and built eight different versions o f snow shocs. O n weekdays he built pro totypes in the school m ach in e shop, and over w eekends he went to the m o un tains to try them out. By the end o f the tenth w eek he was ready to file patents on his innovations. O n cc the design w as p crfcctcd. Perry han d-b uilt some snowshocs an d set out to sell them to sporting goods stores. T h e buyers took one look at them and asked, W h a t arc th ese?" T h ey w ere u n lik e a n y th in g th ey had seen before and there w as n o m arket for snowshocs. But Perry persevered, k n o w in g there m ust be lots o f people w ho co u ld n t ski for one reason or an o th er but still w anted a w ay to spend tim e in the m o un tain s d u rin g the w inter. In the en d , he d ccidcd to build the m arket him self. Perry person ally took sporting goods salespeople to the snow-covered m o un tain s each w eekend to let them try out his invention. H e told them there was no obligation to promote snowshocs to their custom ers; h e just w anted th em to get a
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taste o f this n ew sport. T h e salespeople loved the exp erien ce an d passed the new s on to the buyers at their stores. As a result, sportin g goods stores started stockin g Perrys n ew product. But the c h a llen g e d id n t stop there. A fter custom ers purchased Perrys new snowshocs, they had no d u e w here to use them . So Pcrrv had to co n vin ce ski j resorts around the U nited States to prom ote snow shoeing. lie en co uraged them to create sp ccial snowshoc trails, to m ake m aps for th eir custom ers, to provide trail passes, an d to m o ni tor the trails to keep them safe. O n ce done, the pieces w ere in place for the snowshoc m arket to balloo n, an d it grew from zero dollars to $50 m illio n . Perrys com pany, A tlas Snow shoc, w as sub seq uen tly sold to K2, an d snow shocs an d w ell-m arked trails for snow shoeing arc now w id ely availab le. Perry tu rn ed a scries o f bad breaksliteral an d figurative into a w in n in g streak by seein g opportunities an d co n n ectin g the dots b etw een h is broken a n k le, h is desire to spend tim e in the snow, his new product design skills, an d h is astute ob servation that others w ould benefit from a better snowshoc. I le u ltim a te ly m ad e out w ell, but only after h u ge investm ents o f tim e, en ergy, an d perseverance. M an y people w ould have given up alo n g the way, b alk in g or even stopping at cach new obstacle. But Perry saw opportunities in every ch allen g e, and as each hurdle w as overcom e anti a ll the picccs w ere put in p lace, his ch an ces o f seein g a positive end result increased. T h is on ly happened bccausc Perry used every skill described by R ichard W isem an . 1 le w as observant, outgoing, adventurous,
an d op tim istic, as w ell as hard-w orking. E ach o f these traits w as im portant in co n trib u tin g to his u ltim ate good. W h ile P ern- worked incrcdiblv hard to overcome obstacles
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in order to create his own luck, there arc m an y exam ples of individuals m ak in g luck by fearlessly loo king for exciting oppor tunities. A co m p ellin g exam ple is found in D ana C alderw oo ds story. D ana loved the theater and spent countlcss hours involved in school plays, starting w hen he was in h igh school. W e were classm atcs at S u m m it H igh School in N ew Jersey, where we w ere both serious d ram a freaks." A ctin g was a hobby for m e, but D ana had dream s of b ein g a director, and started cooking up his own luck in order to op tim ize the ch an ces of m ak in g that happen long before h e left high school. As stated above, D ana w as fearless. He had the gu m p tio n to ask the head o f the d ram a d ep artm en t if h e could d irect the next m ajor school play. No student had ever asked for th at role before, but the teach er agreed. D ana d id n t w ait to be anointed by som eone in autho rity; he sim ply asked for w hat h e w anted. T h a t m om ent lau n ch ed D anas d irectin g carccr. I Ic w ent on to d irect plays a t the lo cal M etrop olitan M u sical T h eater, w here a v isitin g a lu m n i director, w ho h ad sin cc gone on to a success ful carccr in H ollywood, gave h im som e sage advice. He told D ana that the skills he w as u sin g at the theater co m p an y w ere the sam e skills n eed ed in the b ig leag u es. T h is ad vice gave D ana the co n fid en ce to set his sights even higher. D ana w ent on to study at N ew York U niversitys film school, an d w h ile th ere squeezed the ju ic e out o f ev ery opportunity.
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D ana alw ays stayed after classes to m eet gu est speakers, an d he asked them for follow-up m eetin g s an d n am es o f other people he should contact. 1Ic also learn ed to m ake the most o f every film assignm en t. At first, like h is classm ates, he used his friends as actors in his film s (this is how I got m y film debut in D anas version o f the fam ous shower scen e in P sy ch o ). I lowcvcr, D ana soon realized there w as a n oppo rtun ity to invite fam ous actors to star in his picccs. O ne T V production class assign m en t in volved c reatin g a short program for television. M ost o f D anas classm ates con ducted sim ple interview s w ith one an o th er to satisfy the req u irem en t, but D ana asked the A cadem y A w ard w in n in g actress, K stcllc Parsons, who w as in the m idst of perform ing in a T'ony-nom inatcd play, to p articip ateand she agreed . A gain , he m ad e h im se lf lu ck y by p a yin g attention to nonobvious but cx citin g alternatives. He put h im se lf out there by ask in g for w hat he w anted. As tim e w ent on, D ana took on bigger and b igger c h a l lenges, an d ev en tu ally, h e w as asked to be the director for
L a te S i g h t w ith C o n a n O 'B rien , w hich he did for years before

d ire c tin g m an y m ore show s, in clu d in g R a c h e l R a y and T h e
Iron C h ef. I lad D ana seen his ad u lt self w hen he w as tw enty,

he w ould have been in aw e o f his good luck. D anas fortune com es from p u ttin g ev eryth in g he knows into ev eryth in g he docs. I Ic is fearless about ask in g for oppo rtun ities to do things he has never done before, an d with each successful leap gains ad d itio n al insights an d know ledge that h elp h im take on the next b igger ch allen g e.
D ana long ago intern alized the idea that directin g on a sm all stage is sim ilar to d irectin g on a big stage, and this gave h im the confidence to jum p to cvcr-largcr stepping-stones as he literally m ade opportunities present them selves. M an y people dont feel com fortable m ak in g such leaps, preferring instead to stay in sm aller venues. And one could argu e that there arc m an y advantages to w orking w ith intim ate team s on sm all projects. O thers dream of a bigger stage, but arc daunted by the perceived distance betw een w here they are an d where they want to go. D an as story shows that by seizin g all the opportunities around us, w e can slowly but surely pull ourselves from stage to stage, cach tim e d raw in g ourselves closcr to our final objective.
As w c have seen , w e can m an u factu re our own luck by work in g in cred ib ly hard and focusing on our goals. B ut w c have m a n y oth er tools at our disposal, in c lu d in g b ein g open to op po rtun ities th at co m c our way, tak in g fu ll advantage o f ch a n c e o ccu rren ces, p ayin g carefu l atten tion to the world around us, in teractin g w ith as m an y people as w e c a n , an d m a k in g those interaction s as positive as possible. M a k in g ones ow n luck is u ltim a te ly about tu rn in g bad situations around and m a k in g good situatio ns m u ch better. W e d ra m atic ally in crease the ch an ces that w c w ill be lucky by expo sin g ourselves to as m an y diverse exp erien ces as possible, bo ldly reco m b in in g these ex p erien ces in u n u su al w ays, and fearlessly strivin g to get to the stage on w hich w c w ant to p lay out our life.
Chapter 8
PAIN T TH E TARGET A R O U N D THE A R R O W
W h o w ould h ave thought that the package o f notccards m y m o th er gave m e for m y tenth b irth d ay w ould have been one o f the m ost v alu ab le gifts I have ever received. T h e y w ere light blue an d said 1ina" in block letters on the top. At that age m y m o th er taugh t m e how to w rite a thank-you note an d how im portant th e y arc. S h e co u ld n t have b een m ore correct. In fact, as I grew up an d u ltim ately entered the work w orld, I often tried to ch a n n e l m y m other, who alw ays seem ed to know w hat to do in social settin gs. B ut the im p o rtan ce o f w ritin g thankvou notes rem ain s one of her most v alu ab le lessons. S h o w in g appreciation for the th in gs others do for you has a profound cffcct on how youre pcrccivcd. Keep in m ind th at ev eryth in g som eone docs for yo u has an opportunity cost. T h a t m ean s if som eone takes tim e out of his or her d ay to attend to you, th eres so m eth in g they havent done for
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them selves or for som eone else. Its easy to fool / vourself into th in k in g your request is sm all. But w h en som eone is busy
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there arc no sm all requests. T h e y have to stop w hat th eyre d o in g, focus on your request, and take the tim e to respond. W ith that in m in d , there is never a tim e w h en you sh o u ld n t th an k som eone for d o in g so m eth in g for you. In fact, assum e a thank-you note is in order, and look at situations w h en you don t send o n e as the exception. B ccausc so few people a ctu a lly do this (u n fo rtun ately), you w ill c e rta in ly stand out from the crowd.
Som e of the other little things that m ake a big diffcrcncc in your life arc sim ple, w h ile others arc more ch allen g in g . Som e arc intuitive an d others surprising. So m e arc taught in schools but most arc not. Over the years Ive stum bled m an y tim es, some tim es irreversibly, by not understanding these little things. First and foremost, rem em b er that there arc only fifty people in the world. O f course, this isnt true literally. But it often feels that w ay b ecau se yo u re likely to b u m p into people you know, or people who know the people you know, a ll over the world. T h e person sittin g next to you m ight bcco m c your boss, your em plo yee, your custom er, or your sister-in-law. O ver the course o f your life, the sam e people w ill q u ite likely p lay m a n y differ ent roles. Ive had m a n y occasions w here in d iv id u als w ho w ere o n cc m y superiors later c am c to m e for help, and Ive found m yself go in g to people w ho w ere o n ce m y subordinates for g u id an c e . T h e roles w c play co n tin u e to ch an gc in su rp risin g
Paint the Target around the A rrow
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w ays over tim e, an d you w ill be am az ed by the people who keep show in g up in your life. B ccau sc w c live in such a sm all world, it re a lly is im portant not to burn bridges, no m atter how tem pted you m igh t be. You aren t go in g to like everyone an d everyone isn t go in g to like you, but th eres no need to m ak e en em ies. For exam p le, w hen yo u look for your next job, its q u ite lik ely th at the person in terview in g you w ill know som eone yo u know. In this w ay your reputation precedes you everyw h ere you go. This is ben eficial w hen you have a great reputatio n, but h arm fu l w hen your reputation is d am aged . Ive seen the follow ing scen ario play out in n u m erab le tim es. Im agin e yo u re in terv iew in g for a job th at has dozens of c a n didates. T h e interview goes w ell an d you ap p ear to be a great m atch for the position. D u rin g th e m eetin g , the interview er looks at your resum e anti realizes th at you u sed to work w ith an old friend o f hers. A fter the interview , she m akes a q u ick c a ll to her friend to ask about vou. A casu al com m en t from her friend about your past perform ance can seal the d eal or cu t yo u off a t the knees. In m an y eases you w ill believe the job w as in th e bag, righ t before you receive a rejection letter. Youll never know w hat hit you. E ssentially, your reputation is your most valuable assetso guard it w ell. But dont be terribly dem oralized if you m ake some m istakes along the way. W ith tim e it is possible to repair a stained reputation. O ver the years Ive con ic up w ith a m etaphor th at has helped m e put this in perspective: every cxpcricncc
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you have w ith som eone else is lik e a drop o f w ater fa llin g into a pool. As your experien ces w ith that person grow, the drops a ccu m u late an d the pool d eep en s. Positive interaction s arc c le ar drops o f w ater and n egative interaction s arc red drops of water. B ut th ey arent e q u a l. T hat is, a n u m b er o f c le ar drops can d ilu te one red drop, an d that n u m b er differs for different people. T hose w ho arc very forgiving on ly need a few positive ex p erien cesc le ar dropsto d ilu te a bad ex p erien ce, w h ile those w ho arc less forgiving need a lot m ore to w ash aw ay the red. Also, for most people the pool d rain s slowly. As a result, w e tend to pay attention to the cxp cricn ccs th at have happened m ost recently, as opposed to those that hap p en ed a lo n g tim e ago. T his m etaphor im plies th at if you have a large reserve of positive cxp cricn ccs w ith som eone, th en one red drop is hardly noticed. Its like p u ttin g a drop of red ink into the o cean . But if you dont know a person w ell, one bad exp erien ce stain s the pool bright red. You c a n w ash aw ay n egative interactions by flooding the pool w ith positive interaction s u n til the red drops fade, but the deep er the red, the m ore work you have to do to clean se the pool. Ive found that som etim es the pool color never clcars; w hen that happens, its tim e to stop in teractin g w ith that p artic u la r person. T h is serves as a rem in d er o f the im p o rtan ce o f every experi en ce we h ave w ith others, w h eth er th ey arc friends, fam ily, co-workers, or service providers. In fact, som e organizations a c tu a lly cap ture inform ation about how yo u treat th em , and th at in flu en ces how th ey treat you. For exam p le, at som e w ell-
Paint the Target around the Arrow
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know n business schools, every interaction a can d id ate has w ith the school or its personnel is noted. If a can d id ate is rude to the receptio nist, this is recorded in his or h er file an d com es into play w hen adm issions decisions arc m ad e. T h is also h ap pens a t com p an ies such as JetB lue. A cco rding to Bob Suttons
T h e S o A ssh ole R ule, if yo u re consistently rude to JetB lu es

staff, you w ill get blacklisted and find it strangely im possible to get a scat on th eir planes.
O bviously, you c a n t m ake everyone happy a ll the tim e, and som e o f yo u r actio n s are go in g to ruffle feathers. O ne w ay to figure out how to h an d le these situations is to im a g in e how you w ill d escrib e w hat happened later, w h en the dust has clcarcd . Im rem in ded o f a ease a few years ago w hen a student c am c to m e for advicc. He was lead in g the cam pus-w ide busi ness plan com p etition an d o n e team d id n t show up for the final round of ju d gin g . Like a ll the team s that reach that stage o f the co m p etitio n , the team had been w orking on the projcct for seven m onths an d had m an aged to m ake it over a lot of hurdles to get to the finish lin e . T h e team h ad n t rcccivcd the m essage about the presentation tim e, in part b ccau sc it was posted late and in part b ccau sc th e y w erent p ayin g attention. T h e student w ho c am e to ask m y op inio n w as torn about w hat to do. I le felt th ere w ere two d e a r choices: h e could hold fast to the ru les an d d isq u alify the team , or he co u ld be flexible an d find an o th er tim e for them to present th eir work. 11 is gut reactio n w as to stick to the rules. E veryone else had m an aged
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to show up, an d it was go in g to be a burden to reschedule. T h e on ly g u id an ce I gave h im w as this: whatever he did, I hoped he w ould b e pleased w ith h is decision at a later date. I urged him to con sider how he w ould describe this c h a llen g e if d u rin g a job interview he w ere asked how he h an d led a n am biguous situation. T h e d elin q u en t team was sub seq uen tly allow ed to present, an d I realized afterw ard th at th in k in g about how you w an t to tell the story in the future is a great w ay to assess your response to d ilem m as in gen eral. C raft the story now so youll be proud to tell it later.
E veryone m akes m istakes, an d flo un d erin g is part o f life, es p e c ia lly w h en youre d o in g th in gs for the first tim e. Ive spent countless hours k ick in g m yself for stupid th in gs Ive done. However, Ive also figured out that le a rn in g how to recover from those m istakes is key. I'or in stan ce, kn o w in g how to apolo gize is in cred ib ly im portant. A sim ple ackno w ledgm en t that you m essed up goes a lo n g way. T h e re s no need for long speeches an d exp lan atio n s; just say, I d id n t h an d le that very w ell. I apologize." T h e sooner you do this after reco g n izin g your m istake, the better. If you w ait a lo n g tim e to apologize, the d am ag e co n tin u es to grow. Ive h ad m an y ch an ces to p ractice recovering from errors. 'I bis story is p a rticu la rly m em o rab le: soon after I got out of school, I read an articlc in the local new spaper about plans to b u ild th e San Jose T echnology M u seu m . It sounded like an a m a z in g p lace to work. Jim A dam s, a Stanford professor
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know n for h is p io n eerin g work on creativity, w ould be the m u seu m s director. I c allc d the m u seu m office d a ily in an at tem pt to reach h im , but e ach tim e was told jim w asnt there. A lth ough I d id n t leave m essages, the receptio nist learn ed to reco gn ize m y voice an d inform ed Jim ev ery tim e I c allcd . By the tim e I re a d ie d h im , Jim had a stack o f m essages from m e th at w as n ea rly an in ch tall. Jim fin a lly a g re e d to m e e t w ith m e. I m a n a g e d to pass th e test w ith h im d u rin g the in terv iew , b u t th e re re a lly w as no fo rm al job to offer m e a n d h e u ltim a te ly su g gested I ta lk w ith th e w o m an w ho had re c e n tly b een h ire d to lead th e e x h ib it d esig n effort. Its not u n lik e ly th a t h er first as sig n m e n t w as to get rid o f m e. S h e in v ited m e to lu n c h for an in terv iew , but before w ed ev en ord ered she said , I just w an t to tell yo u th at y o u re not a good m atch for th is o rg an i zatio n . Y oure ju st too pushy. I felt tears w e llin g u p a n d had to th in k fast to p u ll out o f th e ta ils p in . I a p o lo g iz e d , told h er I a p p re c ia te d the feed b ack , an d said th at m ost p eo p le w o u ld c a ll m e h ig h e n e rg y an d e n th u sia stic . I told h er it w as h elp fu l to knowr I had in a d v e rte n tly m isrep resen ted m yself. C le a rly , m y e n th u sia sm h ad b een m isin terp reted . T h e ten sio n m e lted , w c h ad a fa s c in a tin g co n v ersatio n , an d I w alk ed aw ay w ith a job offer. T h is story dem onstrates that it is im portant to take respon sibility for yo u r actions and be w illin g to learn from your cx pcricn ccs. O n cc that happ ens, you can q u ick ly m ove on. And ech o in g an earlier point, the cou rse I now teach on creativity
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at Stanford, in the School of E n gin eerin g , w as first taugh t by Jim A dam s m an y years ago. It really is a very sm all world! I recen tly learn ed from Jca n n ic K ahwajy, an expert on interpersonal interactions, that her research shows that those w ho dem onstrate th at th ey arc w illin g to learn can turn n ega tive situations around very effectively. Jcan n ic ran experim en ts involving m ock interview s by recruiters o f job can didates. T h e recru iter was prim ed beforehand to have a negative bias toward the can d id ate. O f the th ree groups of can d id ates, one w as in structed to p r o v e they should get the job; o n e was told to lea r n from the in teractio n ; an d the final group, the control, was given no specific instructions. S h e found that the recru iters negative bias w as reinforced for both the control group and the group th at tried to prove th e y should get the job. However, the can d id ates w ho set out to learn from the interaction reversed th e recru iters negative bias.
A noth er essential life skill rarely taugh t in school is the ab il ity to negotiate. M ost o f our interaction s w ith others arc es sen tially a series o f n egotiation s, and w e do ourselves a huge d isservice by not kn o w in g the basic tenets. W e negotiate w ith our friends about w hat to do on S atu rd ay n ig h t, w c negotiate w ith our fam ily about who docs the dishes an d who pays the bills, w e negotiate w ith our co lleag u es about w ho w ill stay late to com p lete an assign m en t, an d w c negotiate w ith salespeople on the p ricc o f a car. W e negotiate a ll day, but most o f us dont even realiz e it, nor do w c have a clu c how to do it w ell.
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I ru n an cxcrcisc in class that on the su rface appears to he a sim p le negotiation b etw een a job can d id ate an d an em ployer.1 T h e re arc eigh t term sin clu d in g salary, vacation tim e, and job assign m en tto n a il dow n, an d e ach person has point values associated w ith cach o f the term s. T h e ir in d iv id u al goal is to cach m ax im ize th eir own points. U sually, the pairs of negotiators go dow n the list in order, tryin g to ag ree on cach item . T h e y q u ic k ly realiz e, however, th at this strategy isnt go in g to work. At the end o f the th irty-m in u te negotiation, som e o f the negotiators h ave co m e to a resolution and others h ave d ccidcd to w alk aw ay w ith o u t a deal. Those w ho have reach ed an agreem en t fall into one o f two categories: those w ho arc eager to work together, and those who feel uncom fort able w ith the outcom e. Som e pairs end up w ith sim ilar point totals at the end, w h ile others have w ild ly different totals. So w hat h ap p en ed ? 'The most com m on m istake in this negotiation is m ak in g in accurate assum ptions, and the m ost com m on assum ption is that the recruiter an d the candidate have opposing goals. 'The can d i date assum es the rccruitcr wants the cxact opposite of everyth ing the candidate wants, w hen in actuality' they have two objectives in com m on, two that arc opposing, two that arc m uch m ore im portant to the candidate, and two that arc m uch m ore im portant to the rccruitcr. Though contrived, this ease m irrors most situa tions in life. Parties often share interests, even w hen they believe theyre on opposite sides o f an issue, and som e issues arc u su ally m ore im portant to one person than to the other.
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T h e k ey to a successful negotiation is to ferret out everyones interests so you can m ax im ize the ou tcom e for everyone. T h is is easier said th an done, sin ce m ost people hold th eir interests elose to th e vest, b eliev in g this gives them a stronger negotiat in g position. B ut oftentim es this strategy is m isg u id ed , b ecau se in a c tu a lity w hat you w an t m igh t be right in lin e w ith w hat the other party w ants. L ets take m y recen t exp erien ce p u rch asin g a car. I assum ed the salesperson w anted m e to spend as m u ch as possible, b e cau se I w an ted to spend as little as possible. B ut I d ccidcd to test this assum ption. W h ile test-driving the car, 1 asked a lot o f questions about th e auto m o b ile industry, in clu d in g how salespeople arc com pensated. I learn ed th at this salespersons com m ission had n o th in g to do w ith th e p ricc I paid. I lis bonus w as based upon g ettin g an ex cellen t evaluatio n from each custom er regardless o f th e pricc o f the car. I told h im that w asnt a problem for m e, an d that I'd be d eligh ted to give him a fabulous review in return for a great pricc. W e found a w inw in situation. I w ould never have know n or im ag in ed that our interests w ere alig n ed u n less I took the tim e to explore them . T h e good new s is that you get opportunities to negotiate every d ay and so have m an y ch an ces to p ractice this skill. I Icrcs a story illu stratin g that negotiations can happ en any w here. A cou ple o f years ago I w as in B eijin g for a confcrcncc an d m y c o llea g u e, Ed R ubesch, m et u p w ith som e o f his stu dents from T h am m asat U niversity in T hailand w ho w ere p lan n in g a sun rise trip to the G reat W all. T hat sounded fantastic,
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an d I b ecam e intent on fin d in g a w ay to see the G reat W all at sun rise, too. I thought such a trip w ould be easy to arran ge, but for som e reason it turned out to be n early im possible. 1 started w ith the concicrgc at the hotel, th en a local professor, and then the taxi drivers n ear m y hotel. No one w as able to h elp m e with m y quest. At the sam e tim e, I w as ta lk in g up this idea with other co lleagu es, m an y o f w hom w an ted to join the excursion. W e agreed to m eet in the lobby of the hotel at 3 :0 0 a.m . for the trip, and it was up to m e to m ake it happen. I w asnt go in g to let them dow n, but 1 had no idea w hat to do. I had used u p all th e obvious solutions. Across the street from m y hotel w as a school that taught E n g lish , an d I th o ugh t that at the very least I'd be ab le to find som eone w ith w hom I co u ld sp eak. T h e rcccptio nist suggested I talk w ith a seventeen -year-o ld stud en t w ho was in the lobby. I in tro d u ced m y se lf an d sat dow n to ch at w ith h im . M y go al w as to n eg o tiate w ith h im so he w ould help m e reach m y go als. A fter a short tim e , I learn ed he w as an acco m p lish ed studen t, m u sic ia n , an d ath lete w ho w as in the m idst o f a p p lyin g to co lleg es. E u rek a! Id found the w ay I co u ld h elp h im . I told h im that if h e w ou ld h elp m e get to the G reat W a ll at su n rise , th en I w ould w rite a letter o f rec o m m en d atio n for h im for co llcg e. It sounded lik e a great d eal to h im , too. W ith a few hours of effort h e solved m y problem , an d I w as o n ly too p leased to w rite a letter that d escrib ed his in itia tiv e, creativ ity, an d generosity. T o geth er w e crcatcd a w o n d erfu l w in -w in situ atio n .
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Stan C h risten sen , w ho teach es a cou rse on negotiation at Stanford, has b u ilt h is carccr around ex tractin g the m ost v alu e from negotiations.2 He has found that m ost people leave a lo t o f v alu e on the table b ecau se th ey m ake assum ptions that aren t correct. Stan recom m en ds loo king for surprises w hen yo u negotiate, bccausc surprises in d icate yo u ve m ade in a c c u rate assum ptions. I Ic also advises yo u to pick your n ego tiatin g approach based on the interests and style o f the person w ith whom youre n ego tiatin g, not on yo u r own interests. D ont w alk into a n y negotiation w ith a clearly defin ed plan, but instead listen to w h a ts said by the other p arty an d figure out w hat drives th em . D oing so w ill help you craft a positive out co m e for both sides. B ein g a parent offers endless oppo rtun ities to hone nego tiatin g skills. For exam p le, several years ago, Josh w anted to purchase a n ew bicycle. He w as interested in co m p etin g as a road cyclist an d n eed ed " a fan cy n ew bike. I Ic c a m e to M ike an d m e and said , Ive done a ll m y research and have found th e pcrfcct bike. Its really im portant to m e. O u r response was, T h at's n ic e .. . T h e re s no w ay w ere go in g to spend th at m uch m o n ey on a bike. W c w ould be w illin g to spend h a lf that am ount. B ut perhaps you c a n find a w ay to m ake p u rch asin g th e bike m ore attractive to u s ? I u rged josh to th in k o f things he co u ld do for M ik e and m e th at w ould be w orth the pricc of th e bike. W h a t co u ld he do to m ake o u r lives easier? I Ic thought for a few days and c a m e back w ith a proposal. I Ic offered to do a ll o f h is ow n lau n d ry an d to both shop for
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food an d cook d in n e r for the fam ily th ree nights a w eek. M ike an d I took this u n der consideration an d d ccidcd it w as a good d eal. By d o in g his lau n d ry and m a k in g d in n er, h e was saving us a lot of tim e, an d he w ould be le a rn in g som e im portant skills. W e agreed to the d eal. Josh got the bike an d took his n ew responsibilities seriously. L ik e a ll parents, w e v c had m an y other opportunities to negotiate future d eals, w hich goes to show that the most im portant outcom e o f a n y negotiation is to get to the next negotiation . T h e first d eal is just the b eg in n in g . If the first negotiation is fair an d b a lan ced , an d both parties follow through on th eir co m m itm en ts, then ch an ccs are the next negotiation w ill go even m ore sm oothly. As m entio ned several tim es, w e live in a very sm all world, w here repeat ap pearan ces arc the norm .
T here arc som e eases that offer no w in-w in solution, and its a ctu ally better to w alk away. Stan gives his students a case in volving a real estate d eal that dem onstrates this point. W h en you uncovcr the interests of the different players, its pretty clear theres no intersection betw een their goals, and w alk in g aw ay is the best choice. Despite this, m ost students strike a deal anyway, even though its suboptim a] for both parties. M an y o f us hold to the m istaken assum ption that a n y d eal is better than w alk in g away. T h is certain ly isnt alw ays the case, and w alking aw ay from a d eal should alw ays be considered a viable option. T he best w av to know w h eth er
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co m p are them to the d eal at h an d. In negotiation lin go this is c allc d a BATNA (Best A lternative to a N egotiated A gree m ent).* A lw ays know your BATNA w h en you start to negotiate. Stan uses a case study involving D isney an d a group o f envi ronm entalists to illustrate this point. D isney w ants to b u ild a n ew th em e park an d the environ m entalists arc opposed. T h e y go around an d around on w hat D isney co u ld do to protcct the en v iro n m en t w h ile still b u ild in g th e park. T h e two sides arc u n ab le to reach a n agreem en t, an d the d eal falls apart. T h e result? T h e n ew park isnt built. I lowcvcr, shortly thereafter, the lan d is sold to a developer who bu ilds tract h o u sin g on the sam e spot. T h e im p act o f the h o u sin g is m u ch w orse th an that o f the th em e park w ould have b een . I lad the en viro n m en tal ists taken th eir BATNA into acco u n t, th ey w ould have realized that reach in g a d eal w ith D isney w as the preferred outcom e. In g en eral, to negotiate effectively yo u should work to u n derstand your ow n go als as w ell as the goals o f the oth er party; attem pt to com c u p w ith a w in -w in outcom e, and know w hen to w alk away. It sounds sim ple, but it takes a lot o f effort to m aster these skills an d to en su re that both p arties arc satisfied.
A noth er v alu ab le skill is the art o f h elp in g others. W h en I was in co llcg e I spoke w ith m y parents about once a w eek. At the end o f every c a ll m y m o th er w ould say, W h a t can I do to be helpful to y o u ? The generosity o f this gesture m ad e a huge im pression on m e. In m ost cases there w as n o th in g she could do to b e h elp fu l, but just know in g she w as w illin g to h elp if
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n eed ed was com forting. As I got older, I have realized that w e can a ll do this for our friends, fam ily, and co lleagu es. W h en yo u ask others if you c a n help, they arc alw ays pleased that yo u offered. A sm all n u m b er w ill a c tu a lly take you up on your offer, and the th in gs they ask for arc u su a lly m odest. O n rare occasions, som eone w ill ask for so m eth in g that you c a n t or don 't w ant to do. Even w hen you tu rn them dow n, they arc grateful that you offered an d graciously acccp t the fact that you aren t able to help. I suggest th at you try this approach som etim e, if yo u dont do it ro u tin ely already. But you m ust be sin cerely w illin g to help if your offer is acccp tcd. As G u y K awasaki says, You should alw ays try to be a m ensch. 1le co n tin u es, A m cnsch helps people w ho c a n t n ecessarily h elp them back. O f course, its easy to be generous to som eone w hom you th in k w ill be able to help you, but b ein g a m cnsch m eans h elp in g others even if yo u re pretty sure they c a n t h elp you. You can c a ll it k arm a if you like, but people w ho arc generous and helpful to others arc those that others w an t to h elp in return. I c lcarly rem em b er w hen I d id n t know how to do this. W h en I w as a freshm an in co llcg c there w as a fellow in m y class who had a physical h an d icap that req uired h im to use cru tch cs to w alk. O ne d ay lie slipped w a lk in g dow n a ram p to class and fell to the ground. As he w as stru g g lin g to get up, I d id n t know w hat to do. I felt uncom fortable w alk in g by w ith out h elp in g, but I was afraid that if I approachcd h im I w ould em barrass h im by d raw in g atten tion to his disability. I felt the
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sam e w ay w hen a classm ate lost his m o th er to a lo n g illness. I d id n t know w hat to say, fearin g I w ould say so m eth in g w rong, an d opted to say no thin g. Years later, I was ru n n in g on cam pus at Stanford. It had rain ed the d ay before and I fell hard in som e m ud. B ruised, hurt, and m uddy, I sat on the cu rb w ith tears stream in g dow n m y face. A t least a dozen people w alked by, an d not one asked m e if I n eed ed an yth in g. At that exact m om ent I k n ew w hat I should have said to the fellow w ho fell in front o f class years e arlie r an d to m y classm ate w ho lost his m other. A ll I n eed ed w as som eone to ask, Arc you a ll right? Is there a n y th in g I c a n do for y o u ? It nowr seem s so sim ple. Its rem arkable that it took m e so m an y years to figure out. T h is lesson is just as relevant w hen d e a lin g w ith strangers as w hen w orking on team s. U nfortunately, m ost of us spend so m u ch tim e in situations w here w ere cn co uragcd to w in at som eone clscs expense that its hard to get p racticc h elp in g others. I rem em b er the first w eek o f co llcgc, w hen I asked a girl in m y dorm to help m e w ith a calc u lu s assignm en t. W ith o u t skipp ing a beat, she said , If I h elp you then you w ill do better th an I w ill and yo u ll get in to m cd ical school and I wont." Im not exaggeratin g. S h e w asnt w illin g to h elp m e because w c m igh t be co m p etin g four years in the fu tu re. Years later, I listen to m y son lam en t that a ll o f h is classcs arc graded on a curve. T h is m ean s that in addition to fo cusing on learn in g the m aterial for a n exam , he an d his classm ates have to th in k about how w ell they w ill perform relative to one another. T h is is a h u ge disin cen tiv e to h elp in g cach other.
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A fter years o f w orking in such an environm ent, I had no idea how to be a good team player. It took m e a long tim e to realize th at this com petitive m ind-set, where you w in at som eone clscs expense, is com pletely counterproductive. A lm ost everyth in g in life is done in team s, an d those who dont know how to m ake others successful arc at a h u ge disadvantage. T h e best team players go to great lengths to m ake others successful. In fact, the higher you reach w ithin an organization, the less im portant your individual contributions becom e. Instead, your job becom es leadin g, inspiring, and m otivating others. M ost of your work is done by colleagues tasked with im p lem en tin g your ideas. T herefore, if you can t work w ell w ith others, then your ability to execute dim inishes. Successful team players understand what drives cach person on the team and look for ways to m ake them successful. A dditionally, great leaders figure out a w ay for every one to play to his or her individual strengths. Ive been on team s in w hich everyo j ne on the team feels as though he or she got the easy job. If you th in k about it, this is the pcrfcct work environ m ent. E ach person is d o in g w hat he or she docs best, an d is extrem ely appreciative o f w hat the other people on the team b rin g to the tabic. E veryone has a job p erfectly tu n ed to his or her skills and interests. Everyone feels great ab o u t h is or her contributions, an d cclcbratcs the contributions o f others. The sayin g p ain t the target around the arrow su m m arizes this w onderfully. I first heard this from m y c o lle a g u e Forrest G lick. It had been a m antra in his group w hen h e worked at I Iarvard University. T h e idea is
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th at you should pick the m ost talen ted person you c a n th e
a r r o w an d then craft the jo b t h e t a r g e t around w hat he

or she docs best. If you allo w re a lly talen ted people to do w hat th ey do best, then the results arc aston ish ing. T h e y re fu lfilled an d , therefore, m u ch m ore productive th an if th ey w ere doin g so m eth in g that d id n t fit their talents or interests. T h e key is p u ttin g together a team w ith the right com p lem ent o f skills. As a job can d id ate, your goal is to find out if the job you arc exp lo rin g is right for you. T h a t is, arc yo u the righ t arrow for th e target? I'oo often, w e focus on just g ettin g the job instead o f fig u rin g out if the job is a good m atch for our skills and interests a n d , m ore im portant, w h eth er w e can work w ith the other people on the team . O ne w ay to figure this out is to find a w ay to talk about topics besides the job at hand. A great w ay to do this is to in clu d e vour hobbies and interests at the bottom o f your resum e, a hook for the person in terv iew in g you and an easy w ay to uncover shared interests. I've seen this happen tim e an d a g ain . It m igh t be a com m on interest in Indian c u isin e , a cu rio sity about your co llcctio n o f petrified w ood, the fact that yo u belo ng to th e sam e fraternity, or that you com peted in the sam e sport in school. These kinds of hooks w ill draw your interview er in , and present you as a person rather th an as a col lcctio n o f work cxpcricn ccs. Its also a terrific w ay to find out m ore about yo u r interview er.
T h e re is a big pothole that sm art people often fall in to they ratio n alize doin g th e sm art th in g as opposed to the rig h t
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tilin g. R an dy K omisar, the autho r o f T h e M onk a n d t h e R iddle, em p h asizes that these two concepts arc often confused. Intelli gen t people often overan alyze a problem , co m in g up with a so lution that th e y th in k is in th eir best interest (th e sm art choice) but that isnt the right th in g to do. I Ic told a personal story to illustrate the point. R andy had a contractor w ho had worked on his house. T h e contractor did a terrible job, an d the projcct required a lot o f follow-up work to corrcct the m istakes. Long after the projcct w as com pleted, the contractor c allc d R andy an d told h im that h e h ad n t paid the final b ill. K now ing howdisorganized the contractor w as, R an dy w as fairly confident he w ould never be able to prove this one w ay or another. But loo king back over his own records, R andy found that indeed he had not paid the b ill. It w ould h ave been easy to question the contractor s bookkeep ing an d to ju stify not p ayin g the bill. However, R an dy knew that, despite his frustration w ith the contractors w ork, he owed the contractor the m oney. He wrote a ch cck , kn o w in g he did the right tilin g. W h en I th in k about d o in g the righ t tilin g instead o f the sm art th in g, Im rem in d ed o f a legal case in w hich I served as a juror. It w as a w rongful term in atio n case, in w h ich a w om an accu scd her em ployer o f firing her w ithout cau se just days before her stock options w ere go in g to vest. T his case w ent on for ten very long w eeks, an d I had a lot o f tim e to th in k about the right" outcom c. T h e law w as on the em p lo yers side, b ecau se the p lain tiff was an at w ill em ployee w ho could be fired an ytim e, but it w asnt c lc ar w h eth er the em ployer
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W h a t I W ish I Knew W h e n I W a s 20
had done the rig h t tilin g w ith regard to the tim in g of her dism issal. 1'he ju ry d elib erated for days. In retrospect, the de liberation w as so d ifficu lt b ecau se w c w ere torn b etw een the righ t an d th e sm art decision. U ltim ately, w c ru led in favor of the plaintiff, but w c gave her a m u ch sm aller aw ard than she was requesting. I later learn ed that th e ju d gm en t w as ap p ealed , an d an o th er trial ensu ed. Both the con tracto r story and the trial story h ig h lig h t the fact that there is a sign ifican t d ifferen ce betw een d o in g the right th in g an d ratio n alizin g a decisio n th a ts best for you. Your actions alw ays affcct how others sec you, and, as m entio ned in n u m erab le tim es now, you w ill lik ely bum p into th ese sam e people a g ain . If n o th in g else, you c a n be sure they w ill rem em ber how / y o u h an d led voursclf. / O n e of the biggest th in gs that people do to get in th eir own w ay is to tak e on w ay too m an y responsibilities. T h is ev en tu ally leads to frustration a ll the w ay around, l.ifc is a h u ge buffet o f e n tic in g platters o f possibilities, but p u ttin g too m u ch on your plate just leads to in d igestio n , ju st like a real buffet, in life you c a n do it a ll, just not at the sam e tim e. O ne approach is to pick th ree priorities at a n y o n e tim e , kn o w in g that these w ill ch an g c as your life ch an ges. T h is con cept is not new . In fact, the U .S. M a rin e C o rp s an d other m ilita ry services use the R u le o f T h re e as a g en eral p rin cip le. T h ro u g h years of trial an d error, th eyve found that m ost people c a n o n ly track th ree th in gs at o n cc. As a result, the en tire m ilita ry system is
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d esign ed to reflect this. A squad le ad e r is in ch arge o f th ree fire team leaders, a platoon lead er is in ch arg e o f three squad lead ers, an d each co m p an y consists o f th ree platoons. T h e m ilitary ex p erim en ted w ith a R u le of Four an d effectiveness dropped precipitously. L im itin g ourselves to three core priorities c a n feel frustrat ing. I Iowcvcr, you can avoid th e T yran n y of the O r (h av in g to choose b etw een this or th at). Indeed som e th in gs m ust be done serially. For ex am p le, w h en yo u re a n ew parent you have to le t oth er th in gs slide. A nd w h en you facc a m assive d ead lin e ev eryth in g else falls to the side. I Iowcvcr, there arc m an y ways to satisfy m ore th an one desire a t oncc. For in stan ce, if you love to cook an d w ant to spend tim e w ith frien ds, you can start a co o k in g club. I m et a w o m an several years ago w ho had a group c a lle d C h o p an d C h at." E very S u n d ay six w om en got together to cook at a m em b ers ho m e. E ach m em b er brought the in gred ien ts to m ake a different recip e th at was th en split into six large portions. M em b ers took hom e six different m ain courses for the w eek. C h o p an d C h at w as an inventive w ay for the w om en to cook together, sociali/.c, an d prep are m eals for th eir fam ilies. You too can find innovative wavs to com bine your work and other activ ities about w hich you feel passionate. la k e venture cap italist Fern M an d clb au m , for exam ple. You would assum e that m eetin gs w ith Fern w ould take place in her office. But Fern is also an avid ath lete, so w hen J you w ant to discuss a new ven ture w ith her, be prepared to join her for a strenuous hike.
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E veryone w ho know s Fern know s to w ear w a lk in g shoes and c arry a bottle o f w ater to a m e etin g w ith her. S h e finds that this strategy is a great w ay to really get to know each entrepre n eu r w h ile also g ettin g fresh a ir an d exercise. Also, con sider L in d a G ass, a n aw ard -w in n in g artist w ho sp ecializes in paint in g on silk. In additio n to her carccr as a painter, she is an avid en v iro n m en talist. O ver the years she has found w ays to co m bin e her interests by u sin g her artw ork to c o m m u n ica te about im po rtan t en v iro n m en tal issues.
To su m m arize, w ith a little p ractice its easy to avoid obstacles an d potholes th at people often p lace in th eir ow n path. O ne o f the best w ays is to alw ays show appreciation to those who h elp you. Keep a stack o f thank-you notes on your desk an d use th em frequently. Also, n ev er forget th at the world is very sm all an d you w ill lik ely b u m p into the sam e people tim e and tim e a g a in . Protect an d c n h a n c c your rep u tatio n its your m ost v alu ab le asset an d should be gu ard ed w ell. L earn how to ap o lo gize w ith a sim p le I'm sorry." Keep in m in d that every th in g is n eg o tiab le an d learn to navigate toward an outcom c in w hich a ll parties w in . T ry to play to o th ers strength s, m ak in g sure th eyre d o in g w hat th ey do best. A nd do the righ t th in g, as opposed to the sm art th in g , so youll be proud to tell your story later. F in ally, dont take on too m u ch , lest you disappoint voursclf an d those w ho co u n t on you.
Chapter 9
WIL L TH IS BE O N THE E X A M ?
I never use PowerPoint slides in m y class, except on the first d ay w hen I describe w hat w ell cover over the ten-w eek quarter. T h e fin al slid e lists m y co m m itm en ts an d w hat 1 ex p ect of the students. T h e last b u llet point is, N ever m iss a n oppo rtun ity to be fabulous." I prom ise to d eliv er m y very best in cach class, an d 1 ex p ect the sam e from th em . I also tell the students th at I have no problem g iv in g everyone an A," but that the bar is set very h igh . T h is is the first an d last tim e I m entio n this. So w h at h ap p en s? T h e students consistently d eliv er m ore th an I or th ey ever im ag in ed . T h e y em b race the id ea o f b ein g fabulous w ith rem arkab le en th u siasm , an d th ey raise the bar rep eated ly as the q u arter progresses. In fact, a cou ple o f years ago I arrived at class a few m in u tes e arly an d found one o f m y students sittin g outside listen in g to her n ew iPod nano. I h ad n t
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seen one before an d asked to take a look. S h e h an d ed it to m e an d tu rn ed it over. The back was en graved w ith the words, N ever m iss an oppo rtun ity to be fab u lo u s! A pparently, w hen she ordered it o n lin e, she had the option o f h av in g it engraved. Instead o f ad d in g her n a m e or co n tact inform ation , she chosc this m essage, w hich she w an ted to rem em b er every day. S h e c e rta in ly d id n t do this for m e; she did it for herself. Ive been rem arkably su rp rised b y the stickiness of this m essage. Its as though students a rc just w aitin g to get this in stru ctio n . T h e y re hungry' for perm ission to do th eir verybest, to hit the b all out o f the park an d to sh in e th eir bright est. U nfortunately, in m ost situations this doesnt happen. W ere en co u raged to satisfice. T h a t is, w ere subtly or not so sub tly cn co u ragcd to do the least am o u n t w e c a n to satisfy the requirem en ts. For ex am p le, teach ers giv e assign m en ts and c le a rly state w h a ts req uired to get sp ecific grades. T h e classic question posed to a teach er is, W ill this be on the e x a m ? Teachers h ate this question. However, students have learn ed through years o f rein fo rcem en t that a ll th e y need to do is m eet the m in im u m req u irem en t to get the grad e they w an t. I bis happens at work as w e ll, w h en bosses o u tlin e sp ecific objec tives for th eir staff an d crcatc rubrics an d m etrics for giv in g bonuses an d prom otions. Its easy to m eet exp ectatio n s, kn o w in g cxactly w h at yo u w ill get in return. But a m a z in g th in gs h ap p en w h en you rem ove the cap. In fact, I b eliev e th eres a h u g e pent-up drive in each o f us to blow off the cap . L ik e a soda bottle th a ts b een shaken.
Will This B e on the E x a m ?
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in d iv id u als w ho rem ove perceived lim its ach iev e rem arkable results. C o n sid er A shw ini D o sh i, w ho I first m et several years ago w h en , as a gradu ate student, she ap p lied for a research assis tant job in our d ep artm en t. D espite m y openness, I w as reallytaken aback w hen she w alk ed into m y office for the job inter view. A shw ini is a b ea u tifu l w om an, but she is on ly th ree an d a h a lf feet tall. 1 ler voice is th at o f a little girl, but her ideas arc those of a m atu re adult. Im em barrassed to say that I d id n t h ire her for the position. I bis happens to A shw ini a lot. People arc so surp rised by her ap p caran cc that it u su a lly takes several interaction s before th cv rc com fortable eno ugh to see past her physical differences. Im fo rtunate that she d ecided to take m y coursc, b ccau se it gave m e an o p p o rtun ity to get to know her q u ite w ell. W h e n a n o th er position b ecam e av ailab le in our group, I ju m p ed at the ch a n c e to h ire her. A shw ini s work was exem plary, she w as a tcrrific team player, an d she alw ays w ent w ay beyo nd w hat w as expected. Born in M u m b ai (form erly B om bay), A shw ini grew u p in a household o f n in e te e n h er father, his three brothers, th eir w ives, a ll o f th eir ch ild ren , an d her grandp aren ts. S h e was born n o rm al si/c, but by the tim e she w as a ye ar old, it was c le ar that she w asnt gro w in g properly. T h e doctors in India w eren t able to provide g u id a n c e on her care, so her parents sent X-rays o f her tin y skeleton to specialists in the U nited States. T h e o n ly m e d ic al option w as to put b o ne extensions in e ach o f her extrem ities, a proccss that w ould h ave required
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extensive surgery over six years. S h e also w ould have b een bed ridden for m onths at a tim e , w h ich w as out o f th e q u estio n for this very activ e yo u n g girl. A sh w in i w as fo rtunate that her fam ily w as so open-m inded an d loving. In m an y fam ilies, som eone so different w ould have cau sed great em b arrassm en t a n d , so, b een hid d en aw ay. But they d id n t do this to A shw ini. In fact, she w ent to the best schools in Bom bay an d alw ays excelled . S h e has a rem arkably positive a ttitu d e, a n d from a yo u n g a g e felt stran gely em pow ered b y her differences. A shw ini still th in ks o f h erself as a n o rm al person liv in g a n extrao rd in ary life. A sh w in i sin cerely feels th eres n o th in g she c a n t do an d has dem onstrated this tim e an d a g ain . S h e c a m e to C a lifo rn ia a ll by h erself to attend grad u ate school. In addition to the cu ltu ral differences and her physical lim itatio n s, she didnt know anyone w hen she arrived. M a n y o f her friends en co u raged her to stay p u t, sayin g life w ould be m u ch easier for her in India. But she persisted. O n cc she arrived a t Stanford, the o n ly acco m m o d a tion she received w as a sm all step stool in her ap artm en t that w ould en ab le her to reach the stove. O ut o f necessity, she figures out in gen io us solutions to a ll th e physical obstacles that face her every single day. W h e n I asked A sh w in i ab o u t the problem s she faces, she h ad a hard tim e c o m in g u p w ith any. S h e just d o esn t sec th em . W h e n pressed, she sited th e d iffic u lty of fin d in g a driv in g school w illin g to accep t h er as a studen t. A fter years of d e p e n d in g on rides from friends an d on p u b lic tran sp o rtatio n ,
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she d e c id e d to le a rn to drive an d p u rch ased a set o f p ed al exten ders so she co u ld rea ch th e gas an d brake p ed als. It took d o zen s o f c a lls before she found a d riv in g school that w ould take her. W h a t is m ost im pressive is th at A shw ini alw ays delivers m ore th an 100 percen t o f w hat shes c allc d upon to do. Her o n ly regret? S h e a c tu a lly w ish es she had taken even m ore risks w hen she w as younger. D espite a ll she h as overcom e, A shw ini still th in k s she took the safe path. S h e em b races the idea that life isn t a dress reh earsal, and that you o n ly get one ch a n c e to do the best job. A sh w in i is the id e a l m o del o f som eone who never m isses a n o p p o rtun ity to be fabulous.
B ein g fabulous im plies m a k in g the d ecisio n to go beyond w h ats cxpcctcd a t a ll tim es. O n the flip sid e, if you do the least you c a n to m eet a b aselin e ex p ectatio n , then yo u re c h e a tin g yo u rself of that opportunity. I bis sounds lik e the le c tu rin g o f a school p rin cip a l, but its true. T h e co llectio n o f m issed oppo rtun ities adds up, le a d in g to a h u ge dcficit. Im ag in e the d ifferen ce b etw een in vestin g S100 w ith a 5 percen t return versus in v estin g the sam e $100 w ith a 105 percen t retu rn . T h e d ivcrgcn cc in v alu e co n tin u es to com p ound over tim e. T h is is w hat happens in life. You get out o f life w hat you put in , an d the results arc com p ounded daily. B crn ic R oth, a Stanford m e c h a n ic a l e n g in e e rin g professor, docs a provocative cxcrcisc a t the d.school to h ig h lig h t this point. I le selccts a student to co m e up to the front o f the room
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an d says, Try to take this em p ty w ater b o ttle out o f m y h an d . B ernie holds th e b o ttle tig h tly an d the student tries, an d in ev i tably fails, to take it. B ern ie then ch an g es th e p h rasin g slightly, sayin g , Take th e w ater b o ttle from m y hand." T h e student then m akes a b igger effort, u su a lly w ithout result. Prodding the student further, B ern ie insists th at the student take the bottle from h im . U su ally the student su ccccd s on the third attem pt. T h e lesson? T heres a big d ifferen ce b etw een try in g to do so m eth in g an d a c tu a lly d o in g it. W e often say w e re tryin g to do so m eth in g lo sin g w eigh t, g ettin g m ore cxcrcisc, find in g a job. B ut the truth is, w ere eith er d o in g it or not d o in g it. T ryin g to do it is a cop-out. You have to focus your intention to m ake so m eth in g h ap p en by g iv in g at least 100 percen t co m m itm en t. A n yth in g less an d yo u re the o n ly one to b lam e for fa ilin g to reach your goals. B ern ie also tells students th at excuses arc irrelevant or, to use the tech n ical term b u llsh it. W e use excuses to cover up the fact th at w e d id n t put in the req u ired effort to deliver. T h is lesson is relevan t in a ll parts o f yo u r life. T h e re s no excu se for b ein g late, for not h a n d in g in a n assign m en t, for fa ilin g an ex am , for not sp en d in g tim e w ith your fam ily, for not c a llin g your g irlfrien d , an d so forth. You can m an u factu re an excuse th a ts so cially acccp tab le, such as h a v in g too m u ch work or b ein g sick, but if you re a lly w an ted to d eliver yo u d figu re out a w ay to m ak e it happen. T hese arc harsh words, sin ce w crc a ll so u sed to gen erat in g an d h ea rin g cxcuses. B ern ie acknow ledges that m ak in g
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an d says, Try to take this em p ty w ater b o ttle out o f m y h an d . B ernie holds th e bottle tigh tly an d the student tries, an d in ev i tably fails, to take it. B ern ie then ch an g es th e p h rasin g slightly, sayin g , Take th e w ater bottle from m y hand." T h e student then m akes a b igger effort, u su a lly w ithout result. Prodding the student further, B ern ie insists th at the student take the bottle from h im . U su ally the student su ccccd s on the third attem pt. T h e lesson? T here's a big d ifferen ce b etw een try in g to do so m eth in g an d a c tu a lly d o in g it. W e often say w e re tryin g to do so m eth in g lo sin g w eigh t, g ettin g m ore cxcrcisc, find in g a job. B ut the truth is, w ere eith er d o in g it or not d o in g it. T ryin g to do it is a cop-out. You have to focus your intention to m ake so m eth in g h ap p en by g iv in g at least 100 percen t co m m itm en t. A n yth in g less an d yo u re the o n ly one to b lam e for fa ilin g to reach your goals. B ern ie also tells students th at excuses arc irrelevant or, to use the tech n ical term b u llsh it. W e use excuses to cover up the fact th at w e d id n t put in the req u ired effort to deliver. T h is lesson is relevan t in a ll parts o f yo u r life. T h e re s no excu sc for b ein g late, for not h an d in g in a n assign m en t, for fa ilin g an ex am , for not sp en d in g tim e w ith your fam ily, for not c a llin g your g irlfrien d , an d so forth. You can m an u factu re an excusc th a ts so cially accep tab le, such as h a v in g too m u ch work or b ein g sick, but if you re a lly w an ted to d eliver you'd figu re out a w ay to m ak e it happen. 1hesc arc harsh words, sin ce w crc a ll so u sed to gen erat in g an d h ea rin g excuses. B ern ie acknow ledges that m ak in g
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excuses, or g iv in g reasons for not d eliv erin g , is so cially accep t able b ccau sc it m akes vou sound reasonable. B ut even if von
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feel o b liged to m ake excuses to others, you sh o u ld n t m ake them to J voursclf. You need to co m c to term s w ith the fact that if you re a lly w an t to acco m p lish som ethin g, its u p to you to do so. M ake it a h igh prio rity or drop it from yo u r list. To drive hom e this point, B crn ic asks h is students to w rite dow n th eir biggest goal an d th en to list every im p ed im en t that prevents them from rea ch in g it. It ty p ic a lly takes several m in u tes to com pose the list. I le then c h a llen g es the students to sec that the o n ly item that should be on the list is th eir ow n n am e. W e m ake excuses for not reach in g our goals by b la m in g others an d extern al factors for g ettin g in the w ay or for not e n a b lin g us. A g ain , a ch ie v in g is your responsibility from start to finish. These exercises, an d th e lessons th ey deliver, reinforce the notion that vou arc u ltim a te ly in ch arg e o f vour ow n life. You
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have no excu se for d eliv erin g a n y th in g short o f yo u r best effort at a ll tim es. A w onderful exam p le is C h on g-M o on L ee, a suc cessful Korean A m erican en trep ren eu r.1 I lis story is a terrific ex am p le o f p u sh in g through every b arrier in h is path in order to reach his goals. M r. L ee h ad been train ed in law , business, an d lib rary scicn cc and assum ed he w ou ld pass bis life as a u niversity lib rarian . However, he was p u lled into his fa m ily s p h arm aceu tica l business in Korea. U ltim ately, the tension betw een the fam ily j m em b ers b ecam e so intense that M r. L ee d ccid cd to leave the com pany. I le c am e to S ilic o n V alle y to b eg in a n ew carccr, se llin g A m erican goods to Jap an . I Ic was
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m a k in g a d ecen t liv in g , an d d ecid ed to b u y e ach o f his c h il dren a com puter. I Ic gave his son a n IBM P C an d his daugh ter an A pple He. In h is traditio nal view, lie assu m ed that his son n eed ed a m ore professional com p uter sin cc he w as b ein g groom ed for a business carccr an d that his d au gh ter w ould use her com p uter for school. It tu rn ed out th at both kids sp en t a ll o f th eir tim e on the A pple com puter. M r. L ee saw th e pow er o f the A pple softw are an d grap h ical in terface, an d w as inspired to crcatc a w ay for PC s to run A pple software. I Ic thought the softw are co u ld easily be developed in tw elve m o nthsit ended up tak in g six years. M r. L e e put ev eryth in g h e had into this ven ture. D iam ond M u ltim ed ia , w hich m ad e grap h ics cards for PC s. At tim es he w as so broke h e ate the cab b agc that gro cery stores h ad throw n out. But h e stuck w ith his goal an d after fourteen lo n g years D iam ond M u ltim ed ia b ecam e the top pro d u cer of grap h ics accelerators in the U nited States. H e believes his success com es from b ein g ab le to focus w ith u n relen tin g persisten ce, an d acknow ledges that he put his heart an d soul into ev eryth in g he did. A n o th er ex am p le is Perry K leb ah n , th e snow shoe d e sig n er d escrib ed previously. Perry is a m aster at d eliv e rin g far beyond w h a ts cxp cctcd o f h im . I le re c e n tly b e c a m e th e president o f T im bukZ , a m ak er o f m essen ger bags an d lu g g a g e . T he S an F ra n c isc o -b a se d co m p an y w as fa lte rin g b a d ly before Perry arrived , m a in ly b e c a u se it had outgrow n its c a p a c ity to deliver. T h e in frastru ctu re w as stretch ed to its lim its, em plo y ees w ere w o rk in g in islands o f iso latio n spread a m o n g m a n y
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b u ild in g s, an d m o rale w as low. P erry w as brought in to tu rn aro u n d th e business. H e sc ru tin iz e d th e situ atio n w ith an e y e tow ard m a k in g ev ery asp cct o f it top-notch. 11is first step w as to co n so lid ate em p lo yees u n d er o n e roof, in an effort to b u ild a stro n ger sen se o f c o m m u n ity. I Ic th en took th e m a n a g em en t team on a sev en -d ay w ild ern ess ex p ed itio n , d u rin g w h ich th e y h ad to rely on e ach o th er in th e raw est sense. This m a d e officc issues se em m u n d a n e by co m p ariso n . N ext, Perry d e c id ed to rew ard em p lo yees in a w ay that reflected an d reinforced the co m p an ys goals. E ach m onth a ll em p lo yees fill out a survey ab o u t th eir interests an d a ctiv itie s, an d a n a m e is d raw n v ia a lottery. T h e ch o sen em p lo yee receives a custom m essen ger b ag d esig n ed aro u n d h is or her passions. T h e bags arc w ild ly u n iq u e an d a terrific p h ysical a rtifac t th a t d em o n strates the cre ativ ity an d in n o vatio n that arc the h a llm a rk s of the business. Then, inspired by op en-source design at co m p an ies like M o z illa, w h ere the users arc em pow ered an d en co uraged to im prove the product. P erry o p en ed up T im bukZ s design pro cess to a n o n lin e co m m un ity, in v itin g custom ers to w eigh in on the features for the next w ave o f products. I lu n d red s o f cus tom ers p articip ated in th e proccss the first tim e aro u n d , look in g at d raw in gs an d p ro vidin g great ideas th at stretched the bo un daries o f T im b u kZ s products. T h e result is a co n stan tly refreshed set o f insights an d ideas. T im bukZ w ould lik e ly h ave b e c o m e a su ccessfu l co m p an y even if P e rry s team h ad just tak en steps to fix the broken
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in frastru ctu re , but h e p u sh ed those lim its in h is q u est to m ake the co m p an y fabulous.
Those w ho acco m plish a m a z in g feats, such as C h ong-M oon L ee a n d Perry K leb ah n, arc often assum ed to be com petitive. M a n y guess th ey acco m p lish ed their goals at the exp en se of others. B ut, this c e rta in ly isnt th e case. Theres a sign ifican t differen ce b etw een b ein g com p etitive an d b ein g driven toward an objective. B ein g co m p etitive im p lies a zero-sum g a m e in w h ich you su cceed at som eone c lsc s expense. B ein g driven involves tap p in g into yo u r ow n passion to m ake th in gs happen. But m an y great leaders arc inspired an d m otivated by the suc ccsscs of those around them . I w ould arg u e th at to be successful in a n en trep ren eu rial en viro n m en t, its m ore productive to be d riven th an to be co m p etitive, an d I d esign ed a sim u latio n exercise to h ig h lig h t this point. In the cxcrcisc I divide a group into six team s. I then u n v eil five com pleted jigsaw p u zzles, e ach w ith a hundred p ieces.2 Participants arc allo w ed to sec the p u zzles for a m in u te or so, an d th en a ll th e p icccs from the five puzzles arc dum ped into a p illo w case an d m ixed up. A ll but a few picccs, w h ich I bold back, arc then ran do m ly distrib uted to the six team s. E ach team is also given tw en ty poker ch ip s to use as currency. The team s arc responsible for co m p letin g a p u z zle w ith in an hour. W h e n the tim e is up, points arc c a lc u la te d . E ach team counts the n u m b er of p ieces in th e largest com pleted section o f the p u z zle an d receives one point for cach p iccc. 'T hey th en
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co u n t th e n u m b er o f p icccs in sm all islands o f co n n ected p ieces an d receive h a lf a po int for e ach p iece. E ach team that com pletes an en tire jigsaw p u zzle in a n h o u r earn s a tw entyfive-point bonus. S in cc th ere arc few er p u zzles th an th ere arc team s, p artici pants have to d e cid e if th eyre go in g to com p ctc, collaborate, or both to co llect the n ecessary p u z zle picccs. T his situatio n is m ean t to m im ic the real w orld: p articip an ts know a ll the p ieces exist to com p lete the task, but no one team controls them a ll. T eam s have to find w ays to get the resources th e y need to be succcssful. A d ditio n ally, sin cc th ere aren t eno ugh puzzles for ev ery team , som e team s have to find an altern ativ e w ay to crcatc value. As in the real w orld, th ere arc m an y dif ferent roles to be played w ith in a n ecosystem . Also, th e world is not static. A fter the g a m e b egin s, ev ery ten m in u tes or so so m eth in g happens. I m igh t au ctio n off the p u z zle p icccs that I h eld back, or sell photos o f the com pleted p u zzles, or req u ire one person from e ach team to m ove to an o th er team , tak in g a few p u z zle p icccs w ith h im . T he c h a n g in g environ m ent re q uires both creativ ity an d flexibility. In order to be succcssful, the team s m u st work together. T h e y start the gam e by trad in g an d b arterin g, try in g to figure out how to m a x im iz e th eir ow n benefits w ith o u t g iv in g aw ay too m u ch . T h is req uires b a la n c in g strategy w ith actio n , figur in g out how to d iv id e the labor am o n g team m em b ers, an d how to w alk th e lin e b etw een co m p etitio n an d collaboration, a ll in a n ev er-ch an gin g environ m ent. S in c c th ey know there
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arc few er p u zzles th an th ere arc team s, a t least one team has to d ecid e to n o t b u ild a p u zzle an d to instead take on a different role. So m etim es one team chooscs to divid e up an d join other team s. So m etim es two or th ree team s m erge. At other tim es a team m ay take on th e role o f broker, b u y in g an d se llin g pu zzle p ieces from the oth er team s. And som etim es a ll of the team s m erge into one h u g e team an d work on a ll o f th e puzzles to gether. I like to do this cxcrcisc w ith larger groups that 1 can divide into two or m o re ecosystem s, c ach w ith six team s and five puzzles. D o in g so allo w s differen t strategies to evolve in p arallel, w hich m akes for in terestin g com parisons afterw ard. The vcrv worst outcom c results w hen all o f the team s decide to com pctc again st one another. T h e y hold back pu zzle pieces and refuse to trade pieces n eeded by other team s. T h ese groups beco m e so focused on w in n in g that they a ll lose. Som etim es the team s a ctu a lly acknow ledge that they would do better if they collaborated, but u ltim ately d ecid e to com pctc anyway. C o m petitio n is so built into our cu ltu re that it becom es the natural response. A dditionally, those team s that work hard to m ake other team s lose end up losing them selves. For exam ple, the first tim e I ran this sim ulatio n, one team dccidcd to hold on to a handful o f pieces that other team s needed. Toward the end of the hour they p lan n ed to sell them to the other team s. T h is backfired. W h e n the tim e w as up, the team s had spent so m uch tim e com p eting w ith cach other that they w erent even close to co m p letin g a puzzle. T h is m ean t the final p ieces didnt offer any additio nal value.'
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This cxcrcisc offers a strong rem in d er th at in environm ents w here there arc lim ite d rcsourccs, b ein g driven to m ake your se lf an d others successful is often a m u ch m ore productive stratcgv th an b ein g p u rely com petitive. T h o se w ho do this arc better able to leverage the skills an d tools that others b rin g to the tab le, an d to celeb rate other peoples succcsscs a lo n g with th eir ow n. T h is happens in sports as w ell as in business set tings, w h ich arc both often thought to be p u rely com p etitive environ m ents. For exam p le, in I t s \ 'ot a b o u t t h e Bike, L an ce A rm strong provides d etails ab o u t how com petitors in the lo u r dc F ran ce work together over the co u rse o f the racc in order to m ake everyo ne su ccessfu l. A nd m a n y com p etitive co m p an ies, in c lu d in g Y ahoo! an d G o ogle, em b race coopctition" by find in g creative w ays to work together, lev erag in g e ach businesss strengths.
W h e n it com cs to b ein g fabulous, m a n y businesses sclcct one area w here th e y re a lly sh in e. B M W focuses on top-notch e n g in e e rin g ; W ah n art prom ises the low est p riccs; D isneylan d strives to be the happiest p lacc on e a rth ; an d N ordstrom works bard to d eliv er a w orld-class custom er exp erien ce. If you ask people fa m ilia r w ith the store w h at th e y th in k about N ord strom , m ost w ill offer at least one story about th e in cred ib le service th ey have received. I h ad an o p p o rtu n ity to m eet w ith two o f the three N ordstrom brothers, F.rik an d B lake, w ho now run the co m pany, an d learn ed how th e y in still th eir em plo yees w ith
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custom er-cen tric values. S u rp risin gly, th ere arc no specific ru les or secret rccipcs for providin g an o u tstan d in g custom er ex p erien ce at N ordstrom. E ssentially, after o n ly a short o rien ta tion, salespeople arc ch arged w ith u sin g th eir best ju d gm en t in solvin g the problem s that co m e th eir w ay, an d a rc em pow ered to act on th eir custom ers behalf. B ecau se e ach salesperson is d ifferen t, th ey d eal w ith th eir custom ers in u n iq u e w ays, lead in g to a w id e a rray o f approaches to sim ila r ch allen g es. T h e re s also a c u ltu re o f te llin g stories at N ordstrom , an d great custom er service stories serve as lessons an d inspiration. By em p o w erin g em p lo yees to be inventive in solving problem s, the N ordstrom s also give th em the freedom to m ake m istakes. B lake an d Erik both pointed out that if an error is m ad e in an effort to serve the custom er, its q u ick ly forgivenan d the sam e m istake is rarely repeated. At N ordstrom , all incen tives arc a lig n e d to crcatc a tcrrific custom er cxp cricn cc. E ach m an ager w orks to m ake h is or her ow n team succcssful, an d a ll em ployees view th eir custom ers as the u ltim ate boss." T h e senior m an agers o f the com pany, in c lu d in g B lake, E rik, an d th eir brother Pete, spend h a lf th eir tim e v isitin g stores, w h ere th e y w alk the sales floor, interact w ith custom ers, an d talk w ith the sales personnel. T h eyre veryfa m iliar w ith this en viro n m en t, each h a v in g started his carccr w orking in the N ordstrom stockroom , se llin g shoes, m a n a g in g shoe departm ents, servin g as buyers, m a n a g in g in d iv id u al stores, an d th en as regio n al m an agers. Now, as leaders o f this m u ltib illio n -d o llar business, th eyre still co n stan tly loo king for
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w ays to im prove. T h e y w atch an d listen carefu lly, w ith great h u m ility, an d then , based on the inform ation th ey have gath ered , 7 act w ith co n fid en ce a n d conviction. T h cv re so intent on
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co n tin u in g to e n h a n c e custom er satisfaction th at they've m ade it rem arkab ly easy for an y custom er to reach e a c li o f th em . A ll three brothers an sw er their ow n phones, read th eir ow n e-m ail, an d respond to m essages personally. T h e idea th at the cu sto m er co n ics first is so em b ed d ed into the cu ltu re o f Nordstrom that the brothers d escrib e the orga n izatio n as a n upside-dow n p yram id , w ith the custom er at the top an d the senior m an ag em en t at the bottom . W h en yo u ad van ce in the com p an y, you literally m ove d o w n the corporate ladder. T h e re s also no c h ic f executive officer a t the bottom . B lake is th e president, E rik is th e president o f stores, an d Pete is president o f m erch an d isin g. T h e y work as a very tigh t team , e ach brother p la yin g to his own strengths. T h e y share a vision for the business an d work in a con certed an d collaborative m anner. M v favorite custom er service story from N ordstrom is of a custom er w ho asked the m en s d ep artm en t for tw o blue button-dow n shirts w ith w h ite collars. T h e salesperson h elp in g h im co u ld n t find these in stock or at a n / y o f the other Nordstrom stores. B ut, instead o f te llin g th e custom er th e y co u ld n t m eet his request, she took two w h ite shirts an d two b lu e shirts to the store tailor an d asked to have the co llars sw itch ed so there w ere two b lu e shirts w ith w h ite co llars an d two w hite shirts w ith b lu e collars. S h e presented the b lu e shirts to the
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custom er an d told h im that if h e w an ted the reverse, that was now av ailab le, too! Both B lake an d E rik po int out that ever)- ex p erien ce w ith c ach custom er is like a fresh ch a n c e at bat. E ach interaction is an o th er o p p o rtun ity to d eliv er a great cx p cricn cc for the custom er an d to e n h a n c e the salespersons reputation. Even if th eir actio n s d o n t lead to a specific sale, the investm ent even tu ally pays off. As you c a n see, b ein g fabulous co n ics in m a n y flavors, but it a ll starts w ith rem o ving th e cap an d b ein g w illin g to reach for yo u r true po tential. 1h is m ean s go in g beyond m in im u m exp ectatio n s an d ack n o w led gin g that you arc u ltim a te ly re sponsible for your actio n s an d the resu ltin g outcom es. Life isnt a dress reh earsal, an d you w ont get a seco nd c h a n c e to do your best.
C h a p t e r 10
EXPERIMENTAL ARTIFACTS
I h ave a confession to m a k e I e asily co u ld have titled a ll of the previous chapters G ive Y ourself Perm ission. By th at I m e a n , give yo u rself perm ission to c h a llen g e assum p tions, to look at the world w ith fresh eyes, to exp erim en t, to fa il, to plot your ow n coursc, an d to test the lim its o f yo u r ab ilities. In fact, th a ts cxactly w hat I wish I had know n w h en I was tw enty, and th irty, an d fortyan d w h at I need to co n stan tly rem in d m vsclf at fiftv.
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Its in cred ib ly easy to get locked into trad itio n al ways of th in k in g an d to block out possible altern atives. I'or m ost of us, there arc crowds o f people stan d in g on the sidelin es, en co u rag in g e ach o f us to stay on the prcscribcd p ath , to color inside the lin es, an d to follow the sam e d irectio n s th ey followed. T h is is com fortin g to them an d to you. It reinforces the ch o ices th ey m ad e an d provides you w ith a recip e th a ts easy to follow. But it c a n also be severely lim itin g .
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In L atin A m erica there is a c tu a lly a phrase that translates into jacket puller" to d escrib e people who try to p u ll others dow np resum ab ly b y the tails of their jacketsto prevent them from rising h igh er th an they have. People in other parts o f the world c a ll this the ta ll poppy syndrom e, w h ere those who stand up taller th an those around them arc cut dow n to size. S tayin g w ith the pack is the norm , an d those w ho get ah ead risk b ein g dragged backw ard by th eir com m un ity. W orse still, there arc also regions o f the world in w hich those w ho do things dif ferently arc literally view ed as crim in als. In B razil, for instan ce, the traditional word for entrep reneur, e m p r esa r io , translates loosely into thief." I listo rically, there arc not m a n y lo cal role m odels for successful entrepreneurs, an d others assum e yo u ve done so m eth in g illeg al if youve successfully broken the m old. T h is was a significan t problem for E ndeavor, the organization whose goal is to en h an ce entrep reneursh ip in the developing world. W h e n th ey lau n ch ed in L atin A m erica, E ndeavor told people th ey w anted to stim u late entrepreneurship and th ey w ere m et w ith great resistance. In response, they literally coined a brand-new word, e m p r e n d ed o r , to cap ture the tru e essen ce of innovation an d en trep ren eu rial spirit. It took several years, but ev en tu ally em prendedor entered the Icxicon. E ndeavor now faccs a sim ilar c h a llen g e in E gypt, w here th e y a g a in intend to create an d prom ote a n ew word for entrepreneur.
At the d.school m u ch o f our work focuses on g iv in g students perm ission to c h a lle n g e assum ptions an d to stretch th eir im ag-
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illatio n s by b reak in g free from trad itio n al w ays o f th in k in g. Every assign m en t requires th em to leave th eir com fort zones an d en g ag e a n e w w ith the world aro u n d th em . T h e facu lty poses the ch a llen g es, but w e dont have the answ ers. A ddition ally, the d.school classroom sp ace invites exp erim en tatio n . A ll o f the fu rn itu re is 011 w heels an d m oves about e asily to crcatc different w orkspaces. E ach tim e students arrive, th e space is literally co n figured differently. Bins o f paper, w ood, plastic, p ap er clips, rubber bands, eolored pens, pipe clean ers, an d tap e invite them to b u ild prototypes to b rin g their ideas to life. T h e room s arc filled w ith m ovable w hite boards covered w ith colored stickics for brainstorm ing. T h e w alls arc peppered w ith photos an d artifacts from past projects th at serve as inspiration for creative th in kin g. O u r students arc given real, o p en-en ded ch allen g es. For exam p le, they m igh t be asked to figure out how to im prove bike safety 011 cam p u s, or to find a w ay to cn ticc kids to cat h ealth ier food. Besides these lo cal projects, d.school students in th e D esign for E xtrem e A ffordability class, taugh t by Jim Patell an d D ave B each , work w ith partners in developing countries to id en tify problem s an d d eterm in e how to solve th em in a costcffcctivc way. T his project has led to a n u m b er o f ex citin g prod ucts that are alread y on the w ay to m arket. For ex am p le, one team d esign ed a brand-new baby incubator, E m brace, after v isitin g hospitals in N epal an d fin d in g that traditio nal W estern baby incubators, whose o rigin al p ricc tag was $2 0,00 0, w ere not w ell suited for the local environm ent. M a n y w ere broken or in
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need o f u n av ailab le parts. The op eratin g instructions an d w arn ing labels w ere in a la n g u a g e foreign to the n u rsin g staff. M ost im portant, the m ajo rity o f births o ccu r in v illages far from city hospitals w ith incubators. T herefore, p rem atu re babies who need to b e kept w arm w ith a n incubator rarely get acccss to the help th e y need. T h e team identified the n eed for a low-cost, low -tcchnology incubator. O ver the cou rse o f a few m onths th e y d esig n ed a tin y sleep in g b ag w ith a po uch -inscrt c o n tain in g a sp e c ial wax. T h e m e ltin g tem p eratu re o f the w ax is 37 degrees cen tig rad e, the tem p eratu re n eed ed to keep a new born baby w arm .1 For just $2 0 , as opposed to $2 0 ,0 0 0 , parents or local c lin ic s can now take carc o f a prem ature baby on site or in transit. 1'hcy rem ove the w ax in sert an d placc it in hot w ater to m elt the w ax. T h e in sert is th en put into the in su lated sleep in g bag, w here it stays w arm for hours. W h e n it ev e n tu a lly cools dow n, the w ax c a n e asily b e w arm ed u p a g ain . No tech n ical tra in in g is n eed ed , no e le c tric ity is req u ired , an d the d esign is inex pensive eno ugh to b e deployed in u ndcrscrvcd co m m u n ities w itho ut acccss to u rb an hospitals. T h e students leave these courscs ch an g cd forever. T h ey have a n ew appreciation for the pow er o f p ayin g atten tion to the problem s in the world around th e m , an d learn that theyre em pow ered to fix th em . As D avid K elley, the fo un d in g d irec tor o f the d.school, w ould say, T h ey arc le av in g w ith creative co n fiden ce.2 T h e y know th ey h ave p erm issio n both explicit an d im p licitto exp erim en t, to fail, an d to try a g ain . W h a t we
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m ust a ll reco g n ize is th at ev ery one o f us has the sam e p erm is sionw c just need to reco gn ize that its ours to grant an d not so m eth in g extended from outside.
T h e m essage th at w e cach d e term in e how w e v iew th e world w as driven h o m e to m e in an u n cxp cctcd way. A few years ago 1 took a creativ e w ritin g class in w h ich the professor asked us to d escrib e the sam e scen e tw ice, the first tim e from the perspective o f som eone w ho has just fallen in love, the second from the po int o f v iew o f som eone w ho has just lost a ch ild at war. You w ere not allo w ed to m entio n fa llin g in love nor the war. 1'his sim ple assign m en t revealed how co m p letely differ ent the world looks d e p e n d in g on yo u r em o tio n al state. W h en I im a g in e d w alk in g through a crow ded c ity in a state of bliss, m y m in d w as focused on the colors an d sounds an d m y view w as expansive. W h en stro llin g thro ugh a sim ila r scen e in a de pressed state, ev eryth in g looked gray an d a ll th e im perfections, such as cracks in the sidew alk, ju m p ed into focus. 1 co u ld n t see beyond m y ow n feet, an d the c ity seem ed d a u n tin g , as op posed to stim u latin g. I d u g up w h at I w rote for that assignm en t n early a dozen years ago:
L in d a lean ed over to a d m ire the bouquet o f peachcolorcd roses she had just bought. H er m in d w an dered fa n c ifu lly from the flowers to the w onderful sm ell of fresh bread co m in g from the b akery next door. S tan d in g to the side o f the en tran ce w as an am ateu r ju ggler. W ith
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liis w ild ly colored co stu m e, h e attracted a n a u d ie n c e o f ch ild ren w ho g ig g led each tim e h e m ad e a m istake. She w atch ed a few m in u tes, an d found h erself g ig g lin g too. I Ic finished his p erfo rm an ce w ith a foppish bow toward L in d a. S h e took a d eep bow in retu rn , an d h an ded h im a rose.
jo e w alk ed w ith his head dow n, p ro tectin g h im se lf from the icy fog, as w ind-w hipped new spapers sailed through the air, slap p in g a g a in st the b u ild in g s before tak in g off a g a in . Step on a crack , break yo u r m o th ers back. Step on a lin e , break yo u r m o th ers spine. T h ese words kept ru n n in g through jo c s m in d as h e passed each crack that disrupted the rh yth m ic pattern o f the sidew alk. T h e ch ild h o o d tau n t b ecam e a low drone in the back of h is b rain as he focused on the u n even path th at stretched in front o f him .
T his w as a v alu ab le assign m en t not just for p racticin g m y w rit in g skills but for life in g en eral, a po ign an t rem in d er th at wr e choose howf w e view the world aro u n d us. T h e environ m ent is filled w ith flaws an d flowers, an d w c c a c li d ecid e w hich to em brace.
I shared som e of the stories from this book w ith m y father, who then d ccid cd to take som e tim e to rcflcct on his m ost im por tant insights, lo o kin g back over the eigh ty-th ree years of his
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life. D espite liis c u rre n tly com fortable position, his path was far from preordained. 1 Ic m oved to th e U nited States w hen he w as eigh t years old. H is fa m ily escaped from G erm an y in th e 1930s, an d th ey arrived w ith essen tially nothing. M y father spoke no E n glish an d his parents d id n t have eno ugh m o n ey to support th eir two ch ild ren , so he lived w ith relatives, w ith w hom he co u ld n t co m m u n icate, u n til his parents could afford to b rin g h im hom e. From th ese h u m b le b eg in n in g s, m y father b u ilt a n im pressive life an d carccr, an d retired as executive v ice president an d c h ie f o p eratin g officer at a large m u ltin atio n al corporation. R eflectin g on h is life, m y father d eterm in ed th at h is m ost im portant in sigh t is that you sh o u ld n t take yo u rself too seri ou sly nor ju d ge others too harshly. H e w ishes h e h ad been m ore tolerant o f m istakes h e m ad e an d those m ad e by others, an d that he co u ld have seen th at failu re is a n o rm al p art of the le a rn in g proccss. I Ic realiz es now th at m ost o f our errors arc not earth -sh atterin g, an d shared the story that brought this hom e for h im . W o rk in g a t RC A e arly in his carccr, he an d his team had a project that w as go in g v ery badly. M y father and his c o llea g u es stayed up for d ays on end tryin g to fix the problem s. W o rkin g to find a solution b e c a m c th eir en tire focus for w eeks. S h o rtly after the project w as su ccessfu lly co m p leted , the en tire program w as c an c e lle d . Even though the project was the ccn tcr o f th eir u n iverse, to others it was exp en d ab le. He learn ed m a n y tim es over that m ost th in gs in life, esp ecially our failures, aren t as im po rtan t as w e th in k th ey arc at the tim e.
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M y father also rem in d ed m e that success is sw eet but transient. W h e n yo u re in a position of in flu en ce, authority, an d pow er, the benefits arc w onderful. B ut oncc the position is gone, the perks evaporate. Your pow er co m es from the position you hold. W h e n yo u re no lo n ger in that position, a ll that goes w ith it q u ic k ly fades aw ay. T h erefo re, you should not defin e yo u rself by your cu rren t position nor b eliev e a ll your ow n press. Savor the spotlight w h en you have it, but b e ready to yield cen ter stage w h en its tim e to go. W h e n yo u leave a job, the o rgan izatio n w ill go on w itho ut yo u , as you arc not in dispensab le. O f course, yo u w ill leave a le g a c y o f a ll you have acco m p lish ed , but th at too fades w ith tim e. Today, m y father is also a cu te ly aw are o f the joy o f b ein g alive. Several years ago h e had a h eart attack, an d his im planted defib rillato r is a con stant rem in d er o f h is m ortality. W e a ll know in te lle c tu a lly that e ach d a y is precio us, but as w e grow older or d eal w ith a life-th reaten in g illn ess, this sen tim en t grows in creasin g ly m ore palpable. M y father works hard to m ake e ach o p p o rtun ity stand out, to ap p reciate every m o m ent, a n d to avoid sq u an d erin g even a sin g le day.
In looking for inspiration for this book, I literally an d figuratively opened every draw er an d looked into every eloset o f m y life. In th e proccss, I stum bled upon a canvas duffel bag Ive b een drag g in g around for th irty years. T h e two-foot-long bag is filled with treasures that seem ed im portant to m e over the years. W h en I was twenty, this bag w as one o f m y few possessions. I carricd
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it w ith m e from co llcgc to graduate school an d everyw here Ive lived sincc. Though I rarely open it, 1 alw ays know w here to find it. T he b ag and its contents arc a tan gib le lin k to m y past. W h e n I o p en ed the bag, I found a sm all co llectio n o f u n rem arkable rocks an d shells from far-off beaches, faded photo IDs d a tin g back through m y years o f h ig h school an d co llcgc, a stack o f old letters, an d som e o f m y early inventions, in clu d in g prototyped L E D jew elry that I craftcd out o f m o d elin g c la y an d w atch batteries. I also found a sm all notebook o f poetry, titled E xp erim en tal A rtifacts. W h e n I w rote the poem s in this book th e y represented the flip side o f the o rgan ized scien tific exp erim en ts I w as perform in g in m y n eu ro scien ce lab w h ile in gradu ate school. O n e of the poem s, c a llc d Entropy, ju m p ed out at m e. T his poem is about the process o f co n stan tly rein v en tin g oneself, o f alw ays c h a n g in g the g a m e p la n , an d o f tak in g risks w ith o u t kn o w in g w hat w ill happen. I wrote that poem in Sep tem b er 1983. At that tim e, the future w as m urky, filled w ith vast u n certain ty b ecau se I c o u ld n t see vcrv far into the future. Twenty-five years later I sec it differently. U n certain ty is the cssen ce of life, an d it fuels opportunity. To be honest, th ere arc still days w hen Im not su re w hich road to take an d a m overw helm ed bv the cho ices u n fo ld in g in front o f in c. But I now know th at u n ce rtain ty is the fire that sparks innovation an d the e n g in e that drives us forward. I lo p efu lly, the stories in this book underscore the idea that boundless possibilities result from ex tractin g yo u rself from
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yo u r com fort zone, b ein g w illin g to fa il, h av in g a h ealth y dis regard for the im possible, an d seiz in g every o p p o rtun ity to be fabulous. Yes, th ese actio n s in jcct chaos into yo u r life an d keep yo u off-balance. But th e y also take you places you co u ld n t even h ave im a g in e d an d provide a lens thro ugh w h ich to see problem s as op po rtun ities. Above a ll, th ey give yo u grow ing co n fid en ce that problem s can b e solved. T h e poem I w rote tw enty-five years ago is a p o ign an t re m in d er o f th e a n x ie ty I exp erien ced in m y tw en ties w h en I looked a h e a d , not k n o w in g w h at la y aro u n d the next curve. I w ish som eone had told m e to em b race that u n certain ty. As the stories in this book dem on strate, the m ost in terestin g th in gs happ en w h en you get off th e p redictab le p ath , w h en you c h a l len ge assum p tions, an d w hen yo u give yo u rself perm ission to see the world as o p p o rtu n ity rich an d fu ll o f possibility.
ACKNOW LEDGM ENTS
Four years ago, w h en h e tu rn ed sixteen, it d aw n ed on m e that jo sli w ould be h ea d in g to co lleg e in o n ly two years. 1 w an ted to share w ith h im w h at 1 w ish ed I h ad know n w h en I left hom e an d w h en 1 started m y carccr. So, I crcatcd a gro w in g list of th in gs I now know arc c ritic a lly im po rtan t in m a k in g ones placc in th e world. T h is d o cu m en t resided on the desktop of m y com p uter an d w hen ever I rem em b ered an o th er lesson, I added it to the list. A few m onths after I started this project, I w as asked to giv e a talk to students in a business leadership program at Stanford an d d ccid cd to use these insigh ts for in spiration. I crafted a talk c allc d W h a t I W ish I K new W h e n I W as T w enty, in w hich 1 wove together these con cepts w ith short video clips o f en trep ren eu rial thought leaders w ho a m p li fied th ese ideas. T h e talk resonated w ith th em , an d soon there after I w as asked to give this le c tu rc in other venues around the world. Buoyed by the en th u siastic response, I crafted a book proposal. But, busy w ith a zillio n other thin gs, I never sent it out to po tential publishers.
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A ckn o w le d gm e n ts
Two years later, I w as sittin g on an a irp la n e on an early m o rn in g flight from S a n Francisco, on m y w ay to E cuador. A fter breakfast was served, I started a conversation w ith the m an sittin g next to m e, M ark T auber. H e is the publisher of H arp erO n e in S an Francisco, an d by th e end o f the flight w c had found several co m m o n interests related to ed u catio n and p u b lish in g. W e stayed in touch and w orked on a few sm all projects together. A ye ar later, after I sent h im a lin k to the In novation T o u rn am en t W eb site, M ark brought several of his c o llea g u es to Stanford to learn m ore ab o u t w h a ts h ap p en in g on cam p u s. B y the end o f lu n ch , G ideon W e il, a senior editor at I larp erO n e, suggested that it m igh t be in terestin g to publish a book th at cap tures the lessons co m in g out o f our classcs. I told h im I had a lrea d y w ritten a book proposal on th at subject. T he good new s w as that w ith in a few w eeks I had a book co n tract. T h e c h a llen g e w as that I h ad on ly four m onths in w hich to w rite th e book. W ith six w eeks o f travel co m in g up an d a fu ll plate o f other com m itm en ts, I n eed ed to draw upon ev eryth in g an d alm o st cvcrvonc I know to get this projcct done. I am in cred ib ly indebted to a l l those people w ho help ed m ake this projcct co m e to life in such a short period o f tim e. T h ey gen erou sly shared th eir suc ccsscs an d th eir failures, th eir disapp oin tm ents an d the lessons th e y learn ed . T h ey gave m e en co u ragem en t an d suggestions, an d they provided m e w ith a w ealth o f provocative stories. First, I w an t to c a ll out a ll those people who talked w ith me about their lives and carccrs, an d shared im portant insights th ey
A ck n o w le d g m e n ts
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gain ed alo n g the way. T h is includes Lisa B cnatar, Soujanya B hum kar, Steve B lank, Teresa Briggs, P eggy Burke, Tom Byers, D ana C alderw oo d, Stan C h risten sen , San dra C ook, M ich ael D caring, A shw ini D oshi, Debra D u n n , A listair Fee, N athan Furr, Steve Garritv, L inda Gass, Jeff H awkins, John Hennessy, Q u in cy Jones III, Jeanne Kahwajv, G uy Kawasaki, Pern Klcbahn, R andy Komisar, C h ong-M oon L ee, Fern M an d elb au m , Karen M atthys, Kevin M cSpaddcn, T ricia L ee, Blake Nordstrom, F rik Nordstrom, E lisabeth Pate C o rn ell, Jim P lum m er, B ruce R ansom , B ern ie Roth, M ich ael Rothcnbcrg, David Rothkopf, L in da Rottcnbcrg, Josh Schw arzcp cl, Jerry S cclig , Jeff Seibert, C a rla Shat/, John Stiggelbo ut, C arlo s V ignolo, Q uyen V uong, and Paul Yock. I also w an t to th an k a ll those en trep ren eu rial thought lead ers w ho co m e to Stanford to sh are th eir exp erien ces. I m in ed the S T V P E ntrepren eurship C o rn e r W eb site for lessons from the fo llow in g speakers: C aro l B art/, M ir Im ran , Steve Jurvctson, D avid K elley, V i nod K hosla, M arissa M ayer, D avid N cclcm an , L arry Page, an d G il P cnch ina. I also ackno w ledge Steve Jobs for h is rem arkab le co m m en cem en t address a t S ta n ford in 2005. M y w o n d erfu l c o lle a g u e s a t the Stan fo rd T ech n o lo g y V en tures Program an d th e S ch o o l o f E n g in e e rin g deserve co n sid erab le crcd it for th eir co n trib u tio n s to th is p ro ject. T h ey provided m e w ith acccss to a lo n g list o f fa sc in a tin g p eo p le an d o p p o rtu n ities, an d h av e cn ric h c d m y life trem endo usly. F irst, let m e th an k T om Byers for in v itin g m e to join h im ten
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years ago. T om lia s b een a terrific role m o d el, a fab u lo u s co l le a g u e , an d a great frien d. S eco n d , 1 w an t to c a ll out m y fan tastic c o lle a g u e s, Forrest C lic k , T h e re sa L in a Steven s, an d Bob S u tto n , w ho provided v alu ab le g u id a n c e on th is book, an d to ack n o w led g e L a u ra B rcyfoglc, K athy E isen h ard t, R iitta K atila, T om K osnik, E lisab eth P ate C o rn e ll, an d jim P lu m m er, w ho m ak e Stan fo rd s Scho ol o f E n g in e e rin g a re m ark ab le p la ce to w ork. F in a lly , sp e c ia l th an k s go to S T V P 's sponsors, w hose gen ero sity allo w s us to e d u ca te the n ext g e n eratio n o f en trep ren eu rs. A lso, I n eed to p ay tribute to m y inspiration al co lleag u es at th e I lasso P lattn cr Institute o f D esign at Stanford, or d.school. Specifically, I w ant to call out M ich acl Barry, C h arlo tte Burgess A ub urn , L iz G erber, Uri G eva, Ju lian G orodsky, N icole K ahn, D avid K elley, G eorge K em bel, Jim P atell, B ern ie R oth, and Terry W in o grad . I also w an t to ackno w ledge a ll th e students w ith w hom 1 have the p leasu re o f w orking, in c lu d in g the M ayfield Fellow s, B ioD csign Fellow s, the d.school B ootcam p an d S u m m er C o l lege students, an d a ll those in m y coursc on C rea tiv ity an d Innovation. 'T heir en trep ren eu rial spirit consistently cxcccds a ll o f m y expectations. There arc also several people w ho read this m an u scrip t in various stages of its evolution an d gave m e v alu ab le fccdback. This in clu d es Jam es Barlow, S ylv in e B cllcr, P eggy Burke, K atherin e E m ery, C aro l E astm an , G regg G arm isa, Jonah
189
G reenb erg, Boris Logvinskiy, P atricia R yan M ad so n , Ju liet R othenbcrg, Jerry S ee lig , L o rrain e S e e lig , Robert S e e lig , and A nand S u b ram an i. T h eir com m en ts an d suggestio ns had a big in flu en ce on the book. Even w ith a ll this inspiration an d support, this projcct w ou ld n ever have m a teria liz ed w itho ut the g u id an ce provided by G ideon W e il at H arperO ne. H e is a rem arkab le co ach , a tcrrific teach er, an d w on derful editor. 1 learn so m eth in g n ew in ev ery one o f our conversations and alw ays look forwartl to
j j
his c alls. A dditio nally, 1 w an t to th an k L isa Z u n ig a for e d itin g the book. S h e w orked w ith m e, at b reakn eck speed, to m ake sure that the n u an ces o f a ll the stories w ere not lost as she pol ished the prose. A nd, sp ecial th an ks goes to M ark T au b er for b efrien d in g m e on that cross-country flight several years ago. T h at story is a pow erful rem in d er that you never know w hat w ill h ap p en w hen you strike up a conversation. O n a personal note, 1 w an t to give a h u ge shout-out to m y parents, w ho laid the foundation o f m y ed u catio n . T h ey have b een w on derful role m o dels an d teach ers m y en tire life. Ad d itio n ally, m y h u sband , M ich ael Tcnncfoss, has b een a tcrrific p artn er an d a v alu ab le advisor w h ile I w as w ritin g this book. He listen ed c a re fu lly as I read cach chapter no m atter w hat tim e o f d ay I fin ish ed w ritin g , w as the first editor of the m a n u script, an d alw ays provided can d id feedback a lo n g the way. I am forever indebted to M ic h a e l for his help fu l suggestions, u n co n d itio n al support, an d u n e n d in g en co u ragem en t.
190
F in ally, I am th an k fu l to josh for in sp irin g m e to m ak e a list o f th in gs I w ish 1 k n ew w h en 1 w as his age. O ver th e past four years, josh has ch im e d in w ith his tho ugh tful responses to the concepts in this book, and 1 co n tin u e to b e aw ed by his w isdom . T h is book is m y tw en tieth b irth d ay present to josh. Happy B irthday . . . an d m an y m ore!
NOTES
C H A P T E R 1 : B U Y O N E , G E T T W O FREE
1. You can find details about the one red paper clip project at http:// www.oneredpaperclip.eom. 2. You can watch winning videos from the Innovation Tourna ments on the STVP Entrepreneurship Corner Web site, at http:// ecorner.stanford.edu. Search for tournament to find them. This Web site contains a growing collection of thousands of video clips and podcasts on entrepreneurship, leadership, and innovation. 3. T he Im agine It movie can be downloaded for free at http://ww w .imagineitproject.com. 4. You can watch video clips of Vinod Khosla at http://eeorner .stanford.edu. 5. T he Stanford Technology Ventures Program is hosted by the Department of M anagement Science and E ngineering within Stanfords School of Engineering. T he program Web site is http://stvp.stanford.edu. T his site includes links to all the STVP courses, research projects, and outreach efforts. 6. I first heard the concept of T-shaped people from my col leagues at IDEO, a premier design consulting firm in Palo Alto, California.
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N otes
7. T he d.school Web site is http://clschool.stanforcl.edu It includes extensive information about the liasso Plattner Institute of Design.
C H A P T E R 2 : T H E U P S ID E -D O W N C IR C U S
1. You can find out more about the BioDesign Program at http:// innovation.stanford.edu. 2. You can watch video clips of Paul Yock at http://ecorner.stanford .edu. 3. T his two-part case study is available through the European Case C learing House. T he titles are: "The Evolution of the Circus Industry and Even a Clown C an Do It: Cirque du Soleil Rec reates Live Entertainment. 4. You can watch video clips of Randy Komisar at http://eeorner .stanford.edu. 5. You can watch video clips of Guy Kawasaki at http://eeorner .stanford.edu.
C H A P T E R 3 : B IK IN I O R D IE
1. Selection by Consequences, S cien ce, vol. 213, 31 July 1981. 2. You can watch video clips of Larry Page at http://eeorner .stanford.edu. 3. You can find details about Endeavor at their W eb site: http:// www.endeavor.org. 4. T h is exercise is a modification of a project used by Terrence Brown, who used to teach at the Royal Institute of Technology (K i ll) in Stockholm, Sweden. 5. You can watch video clips of Armen Berjikly at http://eeorner .stanford.edu. 6. You can watch video clips about Moto Restaurant on Youtube.
N otes
193
C H A P T E R 4 : P LE A S E T A K E O U T Y O U R W A L L E T S
1. You can watch video clips of Debra Dunn at http://eeorner .stanford.edu. 2. You can watch a seven-minute video sum m arizing this exercise at http://ecorncr.stanford.edu. Do a search for w allet to find it. ?. You can watch video clips of David Rothkopf at http://eeorner .stanford.edu.
C H A P T E R 5 : T H E SEC R ET S A U C E O F S IL IC O N V A L L E Y
1. You can find the entire C E M report at: http://www.gem consortium.org. 2. Spain's Showy Debt Collectors W ear a Tux, Collect the Bucks, Wall Street journal, October 11, 2008. ?. You can watch video clips of Steve Jurvetson at http://ecomer .stanford.edu. 4. T he Mayfield Fellows Program Web site is http://mfp.stanford .edu. 5. You can watch video clips of .Mir Imran at http://eeorners .stanford.edu. 6. You can watch video clips of Bob Sutton at http://ecorner .stanford.edu. 7. You can watch video clips of Gil Penehina at http://eeorner .stanford.edu. 8. You can watch video clips of Carol Bartz at http://ecomer .stanford.edu. 9. You can watch video clips of David Neeleman at http://ecomer .stanford.edu. 10. You can watch video clips of Marissa M ayer at http://ecomer .stanford.edu.
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N otes
C H A P T E R 6 : N O W A Y . . . E N G IN E E R IN G IS FO R G IR LS
1. T here is an important caveat here: If youre dedicated enough, its worth trying to build a market around your passions and your skills. T hink of new artists or musicians who have generated public interest in their work. If you're creative and work hard, there is often a way to open up a whole new market. There is a story later in the book about Ferry Klebahn, who docs just this by creating demand for his new snowshocs.
C H A P T E R 7: T U R N L E M O N A D E IN T O H E LIC O P T E R S
1. You can listen to a podcast with QD3 and M C Hammer at http://ecorner.stanford.edu. 2. You can watch the video with the basketball players and the moonwalking bear here: http://www.youtube.com/wateh7vs2p K0BQ9CUI Ik.
C H A P T E R 8 : P A IN T T H E T A R G E T A R O U N D T H E A R R O W
1. I modified this exercise from one done by M aggie Neal at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. 2. You can watch video clips of Stan Christensen at http://ecomer .stanford.edu. 3. T he concept of having a BATNABest Alternative to a Negoti ated Agreementwas first described by Roger Fisher and W illiam Ur)' in the book G etting to Yes. 4. M en sch is Yiddish for someone who is admired and trusted and whose opinion is sought out by others. 5. You can see Linda Gasss paintings at http://www.Iindagass .com. She has a new series of paintings devoted to water issues in California.
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C H A P T E R 9 : W IL L T H IS BE O N T H E E X A M ?
1. You cmi watch video clips of Chong-Moon Lee at http://eeorner .stanford.edu. 2. I was inspired to design this game after hearing about another game using jigsaw puzzles from my colleague Carlos Vignolo from Chile. I Iis game runs forty-eight hours. ?. You can watch a five-minute video that summarizes the twohour exercise by going to http://ecorncr.stanford.edu and doing a search for puzzle.
C H A P T E R 1 0 : E X P E R IM E N T A L A R T IF A C T S
1. W hen they were doing early experiments, the Embrace team used margarine instead of wax. it is inexpensive and easily ob tained, and the temperature at which it melts is very close to body temperature. 2. You can watch video clips of David Kelley at http://eeorner .stanford.edu.
About the Author

TINA S E E L IG has a Ph.D. in neu ro scien ce from the Stanford Scho ol o f M ed icin e and is the ex ecu tiv e director o f the Stanford T ech no logy V entures Program , w hich is the entrepreneurship cen ter at Stanford U n iv ersity s School o f E ngineering. In additio n , S e e lig teach es courses on entrepreneurship and innovation in the D epartm ent o f M anagem ent S c ie n c e and E ngineering and in the H asso P lan ner Institute o f D esign at Stanford U n iv ersity. She frequently speaks and runs w orkshops for ex ecu tiv es in a w id e range o f d iscip lin es and has w ritten several popular scien ce books for ad u lts and children. V isit the author on line at w w w .h arp crco llin s.co m / tin ascclig. V isit w w w .A uth orT rackcr.co m for e x clu siv e inform ation on your favorite H arperC ollins author.
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Copyright
W H A T I W IS H I K N E W W H E N I W A S 20:
A Crash Course on
Making Your Place in the World. Copyright 2009 by Tina

Seelig. A ll rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment o f the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text o f this e-book on-screen. N o part o f this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission o f HarperCollins e-books. Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader March 2009 IS B N 978-0-06-187247-1 109 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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'Tina Seelig is one of the most creative and inspiring teachers at Stanford* Her book ought to be required reading.

" Robert Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule

W hat I W ish I Knew When I Was 20

A Crash Course on Making Your Place in the World

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20

For Josh, Happy 20th Birthday

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Ideas arc l i k e ________________ b e c a u s e _ , th erefo re______________________ .