July 30, 2005

Several Voices in My Head, All Talking At Once …

Posted by Kevin | Print This Article

Whew, what a week. Thank god the heat broke. A few random observations, links, questions and ideas that I’ve been meaning to post this week but haven’t had the chance:

1. Sue Pelletier thinks she’d rather work with someone who’s nice but not-that-skilled than with someone who’s a talented jerk. It’s admittedly a very false dichotomy, but I’ll take the bait and say I disagree.

More representative of my thinking on this subject is the following line I read in Tom Peters’ latest self-important “manifesto”:

They say they favor a “team” that works and lives in “harmony.”
I say, “Give me a raucous brawl among the most creative people imaginable.”

Amen. The list of visionary, brilliant, world-shaking, innovative, creative, dynamic people who are also “nice” is woefully short. Now, as I said, this is a false dichotomy, and just as there are levels of niceness there are levels of “jerkitude.” Are you talking about someone who’s brusque and determined and tends to hurt other people’s feelings, or someone who’s planting lies about you in the ears of upper management, or, you know, slashing the tires of his enemies?

But get a roomful of talented and creative people (who are by definition also opinionated — very, very opinionated) together, and let them fight it out, and in the end you’ll probably wind up with something — something a lot more interesting than you’ll get from a roomful of perfectly pleasant people chatting through things with a professional consultant writing those things down on a flipchart.

Personally, I’d rather spend my weekends with nice people, but my weekdays working with and learning from brilliant, talented people — whether I like them or not is immaterial (as long as they’re not slashing my tires).

(Actually, the tire-slashers can make for some fairly interesting weekends, too.)

2. I’ve added a couple new association-sponsored blogs I found to the blogroll. I like keeping track of them here, so if you know of any other blogs officially sponsored by trade associations or professional societies, let me know and I’ll add them.

3. Saw Murderball. Loved it. Go see it!

4. Bob Bly asks, “Are customer surveys a waste of time?” He points to the fact that the Gap embraced focus groups and customer surveys only to see their sales fall like a stone, so former employees and analysts claim the company has moved away from the “instinct and emotion” that makes clothing companies successful.

I’ve said before that it’s dangerous for associations to overrely on customer surveys. In a lot of organizations you hear about the “annual member survey” as if it’s somehow impressive that once a year the association asks its members for feedback. Your system should, in fact, allow for the capture of member opinions/data on every single interaction between the member and the association (including external partners), and that data should be quantified and measured (not stored in a Word document somewhere).

However, I think it’s a big mistake — and one that companies and organizations make all the time — to base huge, momentous decisions about programs, structure, benefits, etc. on ideas garnered from a focus group or survey. “Instinct and emotion” isn’t just good for the clothing industry. It’s good for any industry, including (perhaps especially) a “knowledge-based” one like the association industry. Customers don’t know what they want until you surprise them with it.

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