The Envelope, Please

I Had Fun

Earlier this month at Wimbledon, I noticed something in the champions’ speeches. Two of them led with the same phrase.

Not “I’m so happy I won.”

Instead: “I had fun.”

Sport carries two meanings at once: to compete and to play. We assume the first crowds out the second as the stakes rise.

But the people holding the trophies at Wimbledon suggest otherwise.

There’s even a clue in the word. “Sport” comes from the Old French, desporter, meaning “carried away”. The word for the most competitive thing humans do began as the word for delight.

I see the same pattern in strategy work. The teams that produce the boldest thinking are the ones laughing in the room. Play, it turns out, is a performance strategy.

I’ll confess something here.

About five years ago, I awoke with an epiphany. I asked myself, “I already enjoy my work. Mostly. What if I made a conscious decision to enjoy every conversation, every interaction, every meeting, every person?”

And, you know what?

It transformed my day. And, since then, every day. But also my energy levels. And, the energy levels of the people I speak with.

It especially made a difference to the most challenging meetings. The difficult issues. The tricky people.

Question: What if you decided to enjoy your work more, starting with the most serious thing on your desk?

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The Second Invoice

My local council opened a new public toilet.

The community had asked. Busy parklands, lots of dog-walkers, bike-riders and frisbee throwers. So Council listened. There was even a ribbon, photos, a modest speech.

I looked at what it cost. The first invoice is about a third of a million dollars: to plan, design, build.

But then the second invoice starts arriving. Cleaning, restocking, repairs, the occasional creative act of vandalism. It comes every week, forever, and over the asset’s life it runs to several times the first.

And, the same arithmetic scales.

This week I found myself in a forum with American veterans who were debating their disability system or, more specifically, the enormity of its cost. The US now spends about a trillion dollars a year on its current military.

And $445 billion on its past one.

That second figure pays for pensions, for healthcare, for toxic exposure care, and it jumped 21 per cent this year alone. One veteran had spent nine of his 25 years deployed; his cohort is only now retiring. America is only now beginning to open the envelope that second invoice comes in.

I've noticed what the strongest boards do with strategic initiatives. Before they sign anything, they ask to see both invoices. The conversation gets harder for an hour, and easier for a decade.

Question: If the second invoice arrived with the first, would you still make that choice?

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The Returned Invoice

I was at a convenience store this week buying milk. The guy in front of me was buying cigarettes.

He was given a drab olive-brown package. On it was a horrific photograph of a diseased mouth. A brand name in small apologetic type.

“That’ll be fifty-five dollars, sir. Thanks”

For decades, smoking’s real cost landed on the health ledger, years after the sale. Then we did something rare: the Australian government decided to return the invoice to the sender. Plain packaging, tax at the till.

Daily smoking has more than halved since. (The prevention programs behind that returned about forty-nine dollars for every dollar spent).

I work with many organisations that address harms that are externalised, and never paid for. Childhood trauma is billed to the justice portfolio fifteen years later. Family violence lands on health and housing. Industrial pollution lands on local governments to clean up.

The agency that could prevent the harm never sees its cost. The agencies that do see it, up close, every day, are the ones cleaning up.

Question: Every organisation sees a cost the rest of the system can't. What's yours, who needs to see the number, and have you ever presented it?

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In the work you do, notice the costs that nobody prices in, the invoices that should be sent. Ask, “Where should they go?”

I’m not sending you an invoice, and I never will (unless we do work together!), but all I ask is that you click the heart.

Until next Friday, practise enjoying everything around you.

Just remember:

Andrew