Feedback, change & reimagination
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not." Andre Gide
Secrets of high quality feedback
My sage and witty friend Sean is a film-maker who is now head of school at a tertiary institution that teaches film making. I asked him what his measure of success was for his school, and he surprised me by not saying, “Number of students”, or “Completion rates” or, “Revenue growth”, but “Quality of output”. He explained that he takes immense pleasure in seeing the highest quality work produced, years later, by his graduates.
And, the critical element, while they’re studying, is, “Get the highest quality feedback you can, so you can iterate”. Be taught by people with the chops, the craft, who are capable of raising the bar for you, so you can produce beyond what you thought was possible.
Iterative improvement, according to Sean, builds belief in the student and, even more powerfully, when feedback is applied, other people start noticing the quality of the work. This becomes a “conscious convincer” to the budding film-maker that their work is good, and the surrounding talent also provides iterative feedback. And, thus, a virtuous cycle of feedback is built, and amazing results are obtained.
Question: “Whose performance are you improving through high quality feedback?”
Career change
I was recently invited to join an Alumni Panel at the University of Melbourne, specifically to talk about career change. Whether it’s COVID, or just the nature of human dissatisfaction, mid-stream career change is a hot topic right now, with several hundred participants joining us.
My fellow panellists were a lawyer turned Age journalist, and an engineer turned Silicon Valley tech marketer, while I was a psych grad turned consultant. We fielded questions as diverse as, “How do you calculate downside risks of making a serious change?”, “Is it ever too late to change?” as well as “Is mid-life career change easier for men than for women?”.
The significant takeaways were three gold-plated pieces of advice, if you’re thinking about a change:
Be clear about the why. Like our other panellists, I have four criteria for any project, which are the same as for career change: (i) Like the people (ii) Be stimulated; (iii) Do useful work; (iv) Be well paid. If you can’t meet those four stick to your current job.
Fear is normal. One of my mantras is: “Believe nothing, test everything”, another is “Chaos precedes clarity”. In other words, welcome the fear.
Use your networks. Learn from those who’ve gone before you. I took people out for lunch / drinks who were a generation older than me, and asked them what I shouldn’t do. That’s a better question, I found, than what I should do, because the pain points don’t change, whereas the success factors do, over a generation.
Question: “How do you know when you should consider a job, or career, change?”
Reimagining products
Well, it was bound to happen. Elon Musk is officially second wealthiest person on the planet. Am I a fan? Not blindly, but I’ve long been intrigued by his ability to re-conceptualise things we take for granted. Take some of the sacred cows he’s killed when it comes to reimagining car design. He didn’t just create a vision, he systematically recognised the conditions that have to be met in order for the desired change to happen.
Here are a few examples.
For internal combustion to shift to widespread adoption of electric, he knew three things had to happen: (i) the driving experience had to be distinctly better; (ii) the cost-performance ratio had to fall dramatically; and (iii) regulatory pressure had to exist.
For the economics of an entirely new manufacturing system to work, another two factors: (i) assembling discrete modules to allow design agility; and (ii) separation of the lower chassis 'skateboard' (containing the battery and motors) and the upper body.
Finally, for the distribution, ownership and service experience to alter, we needed: (i) online purchasing; (ii) negligible maintenance and, in future (iii) shared ownership.
Question: “What conditions have to be met in order for you to reimagine a traditional product or service?