January 3rd, 2009 Posted in Influencers, Outliers, The Dip | 1 Comment »
Imagine if you could take lessons from the studies of genius, business and influence and apply these to your own life? How could this radically change what you do in 2009? Through some Christmas reading, coupled with one of my top books of 2007, I’ve made a major shift in my thinking.
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Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” book presents research and analysis on what makes certain people outstanding. Through a wide range of examples and his conversational writing style, it becomes apparent that being an “outlier” is not really about raw genetic talent and iron willpower. Instead it has a lot to do with your environment, being in the right place and time, and then having the right skills and predisposition to take advantage of this.
It is no surprise that some commentators have found this conclusion hard to take. We like to think that our success and good fortune is ‘all about us’ – our self-made talents, hard work and skills.
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Another book, read almost concurrently is
“Influencer: The Power to Change Anything”, which illuminates why people change or don’t. The book goes through how to setup the right combination of personal, team and peer, and systems/policy/reward changes as well as why these work.
What makes it stand apart is the wide range of real success and failure stories that build the framework, that is at its heart based on identifying a small number of crucial behaviour changes that need to happen to tip the balance toward the desired outcome.
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So far, it seems like the books are quite different. However in terms of people achieving excellence, the two books intersect over the need to practice your craft. Outliers talks about the 10,000 hours of practice needed and Influencers discusses the quality and form of this “deliberate practice”. Deliberate practice is all about identifying the key behaviours needed and then, by getting targeted and quick feedback at conscious and subconscious levels, the body and mind determines what needs to change.
Expertise arises as you do this more often and better than the other guy…
Now add to the mix Seth Godin’s “The Dip”. Godin talks about how to be “best in the world” to your audience. Going through an improvement cycle can be hard going - causing you to feel like you are going backwards until you master the skill or new process. Godin argues that the harder this is (ie the deeper the dip you need to climb out of) the better, as it makes it hard to catch you, your team, organisation or country if you can achieve it.
So that led me to think about:
What am I good and successful at? and What combination of “Outliers”, “Influencers” and “Dip” thinking and action has been in play in creating this sustainable success? As I think about new possibilities for 2009/10 and beyond, what deliberate action should I be taking to move towards “best in the world”? I’ve picked out some themes, described these and added examples:
| Theme |
What this is |
Example for me |
| Talent x Passion |
Experience, honed skills and interest I have |
Creating compelling narratives, visual synthesis of ideas, startup to very successful small consulting business, knowledge and information sharing, being an agent of change, reading situations and people |
| Trends |
What is valued and needed now and in the next decade - locally, nationally and globally |
“More for less”, sustainability, bringing fresh ideas grounded in inconvenient fact to reality, medical advances and retarding aging, what New Zealanders need to do to retain their quality of life and have unique and valued contributions on a world stage… |
| Predisposition |
Cultural background and base behaviour style and therefore predisposition |
kiwi “can do” attitude, a healthy diregard for conventional wisdom and power structures, self starter, high levels of self responsibility and “shaper” |
| Relationships |
Network of friends, colleagues and customers |
a wide range of talented individuals - you know who you are |
| Opportunities |
Stepping up when opportunities arise to use or stretch your craft |
attending TED, assignments in knowledge and information sharing, who you meet on planes… |
One way of thinking about this is having a helping hand “Blip” that helps me get through the “Dip” – ie what are the natural advantages I should play on? This is important as the combination of advantages is so unique to me, that if I can line them up then I can achieve and be more (ie “thrive”) than others. This isn’t just about competing and ego (though for some it could be). It’s about being able to go further in a field of endeavour just as some of the masters of craft we look up to have done in their time – be it Albert Einstein, Claude Monet, Edmond Hillary, Barak Obama plus the writers of the three books above.

This is sort of weird in that if you take it to its natural conclusion, there will always be an Einstein, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs – there are more than enough humans with very different experiences to go around and fill in all the corners of possibility. It’s like Darwinism for memes – i.e. ideas and craft find ways of flourishing through human diversity.
Being a visual beast, I came up with the model below to represent the memes and their interconnection…
This is now a useful model (for me anyway) to start to explore what changes will play to my strengths and passion, and do good for others for 2009 and beyond…

The model centers on three crucial questions to ask yourself:
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What do I bring to the table?
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What journey do I choose?
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What do I do on my journey?
For each of these questions, the model gives key themes to consider that can help build a robust way forward…
Tags: craft, goals, life_portfolio