Challenging norms

Making the impossible possible

A changing climate brings with it greater rainfall in some places, which means flooding. Traditionally, people ‘sandbagged’ their houses, to prevent rising water getting in.

But, have you ever lifted, or moved, even a dry sandbag? They’re 20kg each (about 40lbs). In many flood-prone places, governments give them out, but you still have to fill them with sand yourself. It’s back-breaking work, and you have to then store them for when they’re actually needed.

So, here’s an invention that ended up on Shark Tank recently. It’s a ‘just add water’ sandbag, called a Stormbag. They weigh less than half a kilogram, and absorb 30kg of water. Then, after use, you dry them out, and they return to 500g of dry weight.

Now, this is a niche product, but remarkable nonetheless. Something that people said was impossible (a weightless sandbag) isn’t.

And, think about the myriad products that have come along in the past decades that defy belief.

One that I use daily, for hours at a time, is something that I fantasised about in my 20s: “Imagine having access to every piece of music!”

Today, Apple Music and Spotify can’t offer me every piece of music, but they do claim an incredible 100 million tracks each, and they’re not even the largest. The two services I happen to use turn out to offer the biggest variety: Deezer (120m) and Soundcloud (an incredible 320m tracks).

Now Apple didn’t invent streaming. Nor did Spotify, or Deezer, or Soundcloud. It two teenagers, Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, back in 1999. Anyone remember Napster?

What they were able to do was intelligently ask, “Why can’t we digitise our MP3 files and create software to distribute them in real time?” Just as the inventors of the Stormbag asked, “Why can’t a sandbag weigh as much as a tin of beans?”

Q: How can you apply “Why can’t we ________?” thinking to something that is presumed to be impossible? 

And, because I called my last book “From Impossible to Possible”, as a reader of 5MSM, you can click the link below to get a free digital copy. Check it out if you’d like to learn how ‘for purpose’ organisations can deliver seemingly impossible societal changes.

---

The rightful place of anger 

This week, a friend who runs her own business received this communication from her IT consultant: “You are the most passive-aggressive person I have ever encountered. Your behaviour is beyond outrageous . . .”

You’d be right in assuming that this isn’t unprovoked. Both contributed to a mutual failure of expectations.

But, is this level of anger in a professional context ever OK? And, where does it originate?

Just this month, Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer claimed that children who are shouted at, and called ‘stupid’ by their parents end up with far higher risks of drug-taking and ending up in jail. He referenced an academic journal (Child Abuse and Neglect) in which a paper claimed that as many as 40% of children experience denigration, shouting and verbal threats.

One of the authors, Professor Peter Fonagy, says: “Using words to intimidate, shame and control may appear less obviously harmful than bodily threat but the same risks accompany this misuse of language: low self-esteem, increased nicotine, alcohol and substance use, increased risk of anxiety, depression and even psychotic disorders.”

He goes on to the point I was most interested in, that these children go on to “recreate abusive situations in their lives, for example finding a partner who is abusive to them, as well as finding themselves repeating the abuse with others.”

So, is this the IT consultant’s experience?

I have no idea of course, but I do question whether such heightened emotion is ever useful in a work context. What I do know is that he’s lost a client.

Question: What is the impact of high emotion on your organisation’s leadership and decision-making? 

---

What happened to eye contact? 

I frequent two cafes in my street, and have bought a coffee from each of them pretty much daily for years.

Each used to just take my order, scribble it on a slip of paper, hand that to the barista, and shout my name when my order was ready. Simple, and effective.

But, each has recently installed modern point-of-sale technology. This translates to an touchscreen, linked to the payment system, and the barista station. But, it involves pecking at the screen for an inordinately long time: first, select my coffee type, then size, then variant (yes, I’m one of those people). Finally, they type my name into the system, so they know who ordered what.

It doesn’t take long, but it completely removes eye contact from the transaction.

Have you noticed other occupations doing the same thing? Doctors, for instance? Unless they’re examining you physically, they’re mostly glued to a screen, either looking something up, or typing something in.

I don’t know if you feel the same way, but it makes me feel depersonalised, as if their device is more important than me.

After all, humans evolved sclera (the whites of our eyes) to communicate emotion (“I’m scared”), to signal (“Quick, look over there”) and to make social gestures (“Did you hear that?”).

One of my clients even told me recently, “I want this meeting face-to-face. It’s vital I see the whites of their eyes”.

What she meant was that, for this mission-critical strategic discussion we were planning, she had to accurately gauge reactions. Why? Because her ability to deliver depended on the buy-in she could gain from her senior people. And, if there was reluctance, even subtly, she needed to discern it, and understand its cause.

Question: How can you build (or rebuild) eye contact in your customer interactions, or your critical decision-making dialogues? 

---

It’s far from impossible to simply click the heart below to let me know you’ve enjoyed today’s 5MSM. I really do appreciate it when you do.

Observe the world this week for impossibilities, and find ways to restore eye contact to human interactions.

I look forward to being with you again next Friday,

Andrew