Mark Sigal's Blog - The Network Garden

On Doing Better

‘Betterment is a perpetual labor.  The world is chaotic, disoriented and vexing.’

Sage words from Atul Gawande, in “Better, A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance.” 

(Disclaimer: Gawande’s previous book, “Complications,” was one of my favorites, so I am pre-disposed to want to hear what he has to say.)

This book of stories takes place where the practice of medicine occurs – in hospitals; and out in the field treating those wounded in war and fighting against 'preventable' diseases in under-developed countries.

What it prescribes is very tangible and practical, since we all can appreciate how serious it is to be sick enough to have to be hospitalized. Intellectually, we can also appreciate the rigors that must come with carrying the mantle of treating sick people.

But such truths aren’t limited to the field of medicine.  What Gawande is providing is a framework for continual improvement in any endeavor that involves risk and responsibility.

He cites three core requirements for success in these realms – diligence, doing right and applying ingenuity, each of which is deceptive in the way the way it combines the ‘DUH’ with the ‘DEPTH.’

Diligence is the simple assertion that it is necessary to give sufficient attention to detail to avoid error and prevail against obstacles.  As Atul underscores, ‘diligence is both central to performance and fiendishly hard.’

The second challenge is to do right. This just recognizes the reality of the human element and how it manifests on a bunch of levels.

The third requirement for success is ingenuity—thinking anew. 
I think that Gawande’s articulation of ingenuity is plenty rich so let me just quote it verbatim:

‘Ingenuity is not a matter of superior intelligence but of character.  It demands more than anything a willingness to recognize failure, to not paper over the cracks, and to change.  It arises from deliberate, even obsessive reflection on failure and a constant searching for new solutions.’

In Tibetan Buddhism, they talk of things being 'workable,' which is very pragmatic, but at the same time they recognize the role that Crazy Wisdom plays in actually forging the path.

To a better place.

Metamorphosis: Change your Life

As I spoke to Charlie O., our largest client, who owned five large shopping centers comprising over one million square feet of real estate, I know that what he was most interested in hearing about was our strategy to lease his current vacancies.  But I couldn't help myself. 

“Charlie,” I said, “The internet is going to change a lot of industries. It is this generation’s steam engine and it is destined to give rise to pseudo trains, railroads and a host of entrepreneurial engines that we cannot yet imagine.”

“Interesting,” he offered.  What else could he say?  It was 1993.  “Now about my vacancies…” 

I didn't know it at that moment, but the credits had officially started to roll on my career as a real estate entrepreneur.

Five months later, on the fortnight of starting my third real estate company with my long time business partner, I had the epiphany that lead me to essentially start over in the very nascent internet space.

When I say nascent, let me set the time.  The web browser had not yet been created.  As such, Netscape had not yet been born, there wasn’t the VC-driven plethora of riches that we have come to know and love.  Heck, my dream gig was in multimedia. Dot com wasn't even a twinkle. The term didn't exist.  I knew literally no one in a VC-funded startup.

In terms of specific job prospects, I had none. What I did have was faith. Faith that if I was true to myself, I would accomplish my goals. Faith that, maybe not tomorrow, but soon enough, the cream would rise to the top.

And my personal truth was telling me that no matter how successful I was becoming in real estate, the bottom line was that I was in the wrong body of water for me personally and no amount of snooze buttoning this reality would make it less so.

Lest I paint a false picture, the transition was not seamless. Overnight, I went from running a company with hundreds of clients and offices spread across the bay area to a junior sales person.

I went from six figures to about $30k but I knew that taking the plunge would not be easier tomorrow when I was locked into a lifestyle and my ego was even more intertwined with my then-current professional velocity.

The irony is that within six months I was promoted from junior sales to a regional sales manager, and within three years I had started my first high teach start up.

Two years after that I had my first real liquidity event, and two years after that, I had my first breakout liquidity event.

I have often looked back on those times, the path that I chose and the seemingly little data that drove me to take the plunge, and one thing stands out.  Amazingly, once I took the plunge, I never looked back.

So if you are a would-be entrepreneur or someone just trying to make a material change in your personal life, what is the moral of the story from My story?  It is this:

1. You are one year from being able to manifest great change in your life. Take the plunge today, and twelve months from today you will truly be 'in the game.'
2. You are just three years from feeling truly competent and unquestionably 'belonging' in whatever body of water you choose to swim in.
3. You are just five years from being on 'top of your game,' an expert and a role model that others look up to.

This premise is liberating because it means that real, life-changing change is in your hands, it is workable so long as your are patient but dedicated to working towards clear, tangible and achievable milestones that are harmonious with your personal truth, whatever it is.

Commit and ye shall find your path.  Honest.

The tyranny of the ‘All or None’

(Just in case you were wondering, Mother Theresa makes a special guest appearance later in this post.)

Why can’t we get along?  Why do we define ourselves in terms of blue states and red states, as liberals or conservatives, as anti-war or pro military, as if these things were mutually exclusive?

Why do so many New Years resolutions to accomplish specific professional or personal goals fall by the wayside only days and weeks into the New Year? 

Plans to lose weight, to exercise more, to move ahead in one’s career, to spend more quality time with loved ones, to get organized, and on and on it goes.  Why can’t we get it done? 

It’s the ‘All or None’ syndrome at work. 

We fall into the trap of defining ourselves and others in terms of absolutes.  We make black/white decisions about whether a given situation is failing or succeeding.  And depending on how we view the world this particular day, we either cope or we quit. 

Other times, we fall prey to too forcefully asserting ourselves, grabbing real or emotional territory and refusing to consider other perspectives whether such ground is rightfully ours or not.

In an intellectually honest place, we have to see that from this behavior we end up closing doors, missing opportunities and creating dead-ends.

We also end up missing the opportunity to connect with others on a human level.  When multiplied day after day, week after week over time, this casts real karmic gravity.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  We don’t have to be victims of impatience, malfeasance or intellectual laziness.  We don’t need to isolate ourselves. 

Metaphorically speaking, we are building steps. If we can figure out steps ‘to what,’ then we can write it down.  That is step one. It will be iterative in nature.   

From there, we can start moving forward.  By ‘moving forward,’ I mean that we can start being proactive, and formally map out where we want to journey and how we want to get there. 

Then we can start building a boat to navigate those particular seas.

Mother Theresa once said, “If I look at the mass, I will never act.  If I look at the one, I will.” 

The one is you.  Change begins within you but once you commit to taking that step (and externally communicating your mission with consistency and clarity to others), your path is destined to be golden and landscaped with many rich and interesting connections. 

Can you think of a reason to wait?  I can't.

On Intellectual Honesty...

Platitudes don’t equal practice.  Saying is not the same as doing – no matter how emphatically or loudly you say it. 

Communication and coordination is hard but necessary when working with others towards larger goals.  This is where formulating an agreed upon “definition of the situation” is integral. 

This entails having a (preferably) short document that is:

• Visible to others
• Specific in its objectives
• Backed by clear dates and milestones that are meaningful and understandable by others

And finally, track-able by metrics that are readily measurable.

No amount of documentation or data can overcome a lack of intellectual curiousness, an unwillingness to challenge one’s assumptions and/or re-assess the definition of the situation when the situation merits.

That said, avoidance or distrust of hard data is akin to flying a plane without navigation controls. It can be done but unquestionably place both the pilot and his/her passengers at great and unnecessary peril.

Reason AND Faith

Reason and faith find a welcome home when you pursue your life's passion. 

I have always known just how much luck is involved in success.  Perhaps the path is more straightforward for others, but for me it takes daily work, intense focus and a sometimes lonely leap of faith that my truth is destined to be realized. 

The space that I am within, social media, is a vibrant one.  It is all about faith.  Faith that people systematically connecting with like minds in a rich fashion is a good thing. 

Faith that the combination of favorites, related and recommended content will lead to better media and information flows. 

Faith that companies, their customers and their constituencies will take the plunge and embrace as strategic the cultivation and capturing of conversations; that they will take whole the development of never-ending narratives with and between their core base. 

I really believe in the goodness of all this but new markets don't follow familiar paths.  You just can't know what you don't already know.  There is no substitute for actually doing.

Here is where pragmatism enters the equation.  There is a saying that you can not improve what you don't measure. This is a medium that can be measured on so many levels. Brand awareness.  Attention.  Well-defined actions. Completion. Signing up for an email list.  Requesting info.  Buying something.  And on it goes. 

But the workflow-friendly means to make sense of the data in a meaningful fashion are still pretty young. 

And what constitutes the metrics of your success and that of your customers in this medium? It really depends on what your ambition is.  How earnestly you approach something that is not yet fully formed.  Early adopters gain huge market "land grab" advantages.  That said, fast followers are all too often the last man standing. 

Ultimately, you've got to pay the bills.  In the lexicon of "Built to Last," it is not the reason for being but it is certainly the oxygen.

What got me thinking about this is that I am reading Al Gore's book, "The Assault on Reason" and one of the central tenets of the book is how disconnected our society has gotten from owning our own critical reasoning facilities. 

Putting the political and cultural aspects of the book aside, I realized that I do reason very well.  It is the oxygen that I breathe naturally.  What I do less well is faith.  It sounds strange to say that, as I am very spiritual and like I said, I have taken many leaps throughout my life and career to date. 

Somewhere along the line, however, I started to carry a dispassionate self.  Wanting to believe that there is a light a the end of the tunnel. But too much of a chicken shit to take the emotional plunge and put it all out there.  Too much of a chicken and not enough of a pig.  No more.  I am all in.

The seeds of faith have been re-planted.  I must chant it daily.  Shouldn't we all own reason and embrace faith (whatever that means for you) and faith-filled pursuits ?

Lazy Wisdom: On life's pursuits

I once had a friend who prided himself on being lazy.  He did not consider it to be a negative in the least. 

The way he saw it, his laziness forced him to come up with solutions that enabled him to be successful without perennially running around like a chicken without a head.  That wasn't his vision of himself.

His laziness was his wisdom.  What is yours? Is it:

• To work hard or to work smart?
• To run full sprint at all times or to pace yourself for a marathon? 
• To pursue execution speed or to develop strategic decision-making skills? 
• To live it, breathe it 24/7 or to put it in a box and stick it in the drawer when the opportunity presents? 
• To pursue individual greatness or to become a part of the body team?

Share your thoughts, I will share mine and maybe over time this can grow into a wall of wisdom. :-)

Teams and Membership: Don't be a Grouch-O!

Groucho used to quip that he would never want to be a member of a club that would have him as a member. The joke obviously being that Groucho was such a loathsome character that if the club would take him, its standards must be unacceptably low.

Running with this analogy, from time to time we all find ourselves desperately seeking acceptance at a "club" (read: school, job, fraternity, friends, significant other, etc.) that doesn't return our interest. Sometimes, the answer is to just try harder. Other times, there is no choice but to handle the rejection with aplomb.

But more and more, the general sense that I have come to is that I only want to be a member of a club that is thrilled to have me as a member.

That may sound arrogant at first blush but the basic premise is simple. I know my skills and my experience, and as such, when I find something worthy of my efforts, I believe that I will deliver the goods, be a great partner and a dedicated, passionate member of the team.

When that goodness is valued and recognized on the front end, it is a great fit and you can create wonderful magic.

By contrast, when that currency is not recognized on the front end, the price of entry is (generally) not worth it.

Being 100% intellectually honest, what team or group should be thrilled to have you as a member and why?