What Richard Sherman reminds us about high performers

If you are a sports fan, or perhaps even if you are not, you probably heard or saw coverage of Sunday's NFC Championship game, (that is American football for the non-USA readers), and particularly of the epic post-game rant/interview from the Seattle Seahawks' Richard Sherman, a member of the winning team.

To set a little context, in the final stages of the game, the opposition San Francisco 49ers attempted a pass into the end zone that had it been completed would have won their side the game. The Seahawk's Sherman was able to deflect the pass attempt from the 49ers Michael Crabtree and the ball was then intercepted Sherman's teammate, sealing the victory for Seattle.

Check the video of the interview then some comments from me (Email and RSS subscribers will need to click through)

I love this guy. Let's break it down for what is reminds us about people and performance.

1. Some people just want to be a little better than the worst performer in their peer group

You know this guy, he is pretty easy to spot. Never stands out at all, is definitely not anywhere close to being a great performer, but usually does just enough to nose in front of the office's weakest link. He is the antelope that realizes that he doesn't need to outrun the cheetah, he only needs to outrun the slowest other antelope in order to survive. Eventually, he becomes the slowest antelope himself, but that can take some time. They are usually pretty fun to be around though.

2. Some people want to perform at their highest/most productive/most efficient level

This is actually most people I think. They want to learn, want to get better, want to challenge themselves (most of the time). They usually are good to very good performers. They are your 'B' students, slightly above the curve. They are also generally pretty fun to have on the team. They do some really good work and most notably, they rarely make waves. Some part of them sees being the best version of themselves as being a good team player. A team full of 'B' students, in a mature or slower moving market might be perfectly fine for long term stability and performance.

3. Some people want to perform at their highest level, actively seek out who they perceive to be the best performers in their peer group, and do what is necessary to outperform them.

This is our friend Richard Sherman I think. Really driven, consumed with not only becoming the best they can be but also consumed with the measurements that validate they are the best, (and desirous of the accolades that come with being the best). These types stay up at night working, planning, and scheming on how to beat the other guy and are not going to rest until they do. And once they do, they are not shy about telling you about it. We sometimes don't like these kind of guys because, like in the Sherman video, they come off as arrogant, cocky, and kind of unlikable. We chastise them for their hubris and lament that they are not 'team players.' But make no mistake, these are the types that drive progress, at least until they flame out, stop producing the results that led to their arrogance, (while remaining arrogant), and alienate that core group of 'B' students that everyone likes.

Richard Sherman is clearly a '3' on my little scale. Note that in his 25 second rant he hits the two main elements necessary for this kind of mindset approach. He talks about being the best there is at what he does, AND, calls out his competition, reminding everyone that he is aware of who he has to be better than, and that he is not just using some kind of internal measuring stick to judge his own progress.

Not everyone can be a Richard Sherman, but I think every organization needs at least some of that type in order to win. Because in life and in business we like to forget sometimes that winning is not only a matter of being the best that we can be, but also involves beating the other team.

Happy Tuesday. 

COMIC: Automation's slippery slope

Last week I had a take on The downside of measuring everything, for today, (kind of a slow, is it a day off of work or not a day off of work day, at least here in the USA), I wanted to share a really funny comic from XKCD on the topic of the downside of automation:

Pretty amusing, and also kind of accurate. Reminds me of the old line, maybe it was from Seinfeld?, 'It's funny because it's true.'

Anyway, it seems like as long as I have been around technology in the workplace folks like me have been promising HR and other business leaders lots and lots of free time and space to be able to focus on 'strategic things' once we've come in an automated everything else and beaten the old, manual, and inefficient processes into submission.

That has been at least partially true, but not completely. Primarily I think because there continues to be more and more processes that the technologists can and want to automate. The low-hanging fruit has all been picked, but the technologists are not stopping there.

But that is a subject for another day.

Happy MLK Day in the USA, and Happy Monday everywhere else!

Build a great app, destroy 90% of your value proposition

Have you been following the ongoing dispute between satellite TV provider DirectTV and the ubiquitous Weather Channel?

For those not familiar with the story, essentially it boils down to this - when it came time to renew the contract that allows for the Weather Channel to be carried on the satellite service, DirectTV, citing a 20% decline in customer viewership of the Weather Channel, has requested a commensurate decline in the fees it pays to the channel. The Weather Channel, citing, well, things other than actual ratings, is holding out for a (small) increase in carriage fees from DirectTV. While the two sides continue to negotiate and toss barbs at each other, the channel has been taken off DirectTV and has been replaced with an alternate weather information channel.

While these kinds of TV distribution service and content producer disputes kick up from time to time, (there was a pretty widely reported spat between Time Warner Cable and CBS TV a few months ago for example), they have almost always been centered about one thing - costs. Almost invariably, and not surprisingly, the content producers want increased fees from the TV distributors for the right to carry the content/programming. After all they have a compelling argument. No one subscribes to DirectTV for the sheer joy of seeing one of those tiny satellite dishes bolted to the roof of the house. The value is in the content. 

But in the DirectTV/Weather Channel spat, DirectTV has introduced another element to the mix, one that serves as a bit of a warning too - that creating an amazing, relevant, easy to use, and distilled to its most important elements mobile app might actually work against the Weather Channel in the long run. 

What do I mean by this?

That since the Weather Channel has an incredibly popular mobile app, one that millions of people check everyday, and does not typically get deleted once it has been downloaded, it has in effect, reduced the need for the 'full service', i.e., the TV version of the Weather Channel. Nine or maybe even nine and a half times out of ten the weather information that people need can be and is delivered perfectly capably on their mobile device and within a few seconds. Everyone checks the weather on their phones. And unless there is a major storm or natural disaster type event, the information you get on the phone is a perfectly suitable substitute for watching the actual TV version of the Weather Channel.

Step back a second then and think about what this suggests more broadly. Whether it is a media property like the Weather Channel or a technology solution like an HRIS system or even an organizational entity like an HR department - going down the path of mobile deployment or offering a mobile service element usually means a reduction or a distillation of the offering/value proposition such that it actually works on a mobile device.

And the service or solution has to meet the additional demands of the mobile user - simplicity, speed, ease of use, fun, and most importantly, has to deliver value at that moment.

In the Weather Channel example, their mobile app clearly delivers on those requirements. It is one of the most popular apps across all mobile platforms. And it pretty clearly demonstrates and reinforces the long standing and seems to work everywhere 80/20 rule. Except for the hardcore weather nerds, almost all of the value the Weather Channel creates comes from about 20% of what they do.

The problem now, at least according to DirectTV, is that when you give people the choice to consume only the valuable 20%, well, they don't need, want, or care about the rest of what you do.

I don't have a great big insightful takeaway on this, I just thought the story was interesting.

Mobile-first, or mobile only services certainly don't run into this problem, but for the rest of the world that continues to struggle to squeeze years and years of legacy operations onto a 4-inch screen, I think we will see this scenario playing out more often.

Giving people an amazing mobile experience might be all they need and it might make the rest of what you are doing look and feel kind of old, kind of antiquated, and kind of unnecessary.

Have a great weekend! 

Long Robots, Short Human Beings

The below chart from a indeterminate Bank of America report seems to be making the rounds today, interesting not just for the data, (which has two problems, one, it is kind of obvious to anyone watching the American economy over the last 30 years or so that manufacturing has been on the decline; and two, that it attempts to compare US manufacturing employment to Global industrial robot production). 

 

But still it is kind of a fun chart, not the least of which for its title, Long Robots, Short Human Beings. Clever Bank of America!

Except it might not be all the funny, even for the highly educated, well-paid types of folks that are likely working at Bank of America and would have put together a chart like this.

The robots are not just going to be satisfied and content with the boring, industrial, just another machine in the machine type factory jobs that are the main subject of this chart.

No, Mr. and Ms. Bank of America hotshot. The robots are probably coming for you too. Just a couple of examples to consider.

From the Abnormal Returns blog - 'The rising challenge of robo-advisors'  

It has been my hypothesis for some time now that the rise of the exchange-traded fund, or to be more specific the ultra low-cost, indexed ETF has made possible the growing wave of online, algorithmic asset managers (or robo-advisors).* In short, this abundance of low-cost portfolio building blocks available from a host of fund sponsors makes low-fee online portfolios possible. A couple of years ago I noted that most investors’ portfolio needs are not all that unique. Therefore algorithms could handle the bulk, but not all of their needs.

Or perhaps the disruption to the Bank's models will come from IBM Watson. The below is taken from the 'Watson at Work' section of IBM's site:

Watson is being designed as the ultimate financial services assistant, capable of performing deep content analysis and evidence-based reasoning to accelerate and improve decisions, reduce operational costs, and optimize outcomes.

In a bank, an advisor can use Watson to make better recommendations for financial products to customers based on comprehensive analysis of market conditions, the client's past decisions, recent life events, and available offerings.

The ability to take context into account during the hypothesis generation and scoring phases of the processing pipeline allows Watson to address these complex financial services problems and assist financial services professionals in making better decisions.

The context in which this capability of Watson is one in which Watson is a resource to the financial services professional, simply a tool or resource they can use when advising clients. But it is not hard to envision a time when the clients could simply 'ask Watson' directly questions about their investing strategies and get information on anticipated outcomes. Why would we need, forever, an intermediary between us and the source of knowledge?

These are just a couple of quick examples I found in about 10 minutes of writing this piece this AM, but I bet there are plenty more out there (and more coming).

I guess my point is really that everyone, including bankers in expensive suits should be taking what is happening with robots and automation seriously. It's all fun and games until the algorithm can do your job better than you.

And who knows, maybe the next investment planning chart we will see in a few years will be titled 'Long Automated Advisors, Short Bankers'.

Have a great day!

CHART OF THE DAY: The Labor Force in 2022

...will be older, (relatively smaller), more non-white, and will certainly have more robot participation...

First, here is the chart, courtesy of our friends at the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

And below are the key findings from the aggregate data presented in the chart above, as well as in the details on gender, ethnicity, and sub-age group data (all found from the BLS in a piece titled "Labor force projections to 2022: the labor force participation rate continues to fall").

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that the next 10 years will bring about an aging labor force that is growing slowly, a declining overall labor force participation rate, and more diversity in the racial and ethnic composition of the labor force.

The labor force participation rate increased in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s and reached an all-time high during the 1997–2000 period. The rate declined during and after the 2001 recession before stabilizing from 2004 to 2008. The labor force participation rate fell in 2009 and continued to fall after the 2007–2009 recession ended. As the baby-boom generation ages and begins to retire, BLS projects that the overall labor force participation rate will continue to decline to 2022.

During the 2012–2022 period, the growth of the labor force is anticipated to be due entirely to population growth, as the overall labor force participation rate is expected to decrease from 63.7 percent in 2012 to 61.6 percent in 2022.

There is lots more in the details from the BLS piece, but I think you get the gist. And if you have been following this trend for any amount of time, you are probably not really surprised by the data.

What is surprising, at least to me, is that whenever a new monthly employment report is released by the DOL that the talking heads on the business news continue to lament the low (and declining) labor participation rates, and speculate on the reasons why and the potential policies that could reverse this trend.

If these 2022 projections from the BLS are accurate, or even close, I wonder if it makes more sense to quit trying to bring back the days of 2000 or so, and instead focus on what a smaller, more diverse, and older labor force means to our organizations and our economy.

No fiscal program is going to turn back the clock for all the aging boomers. And hardly any feasible rise in the minimum wage is going to convince more 16 - 24 year olds that they would be better off working more and going to school less.

The only age groups where participation is increasing are 55+.

Keep that in mind this year as you are working on your 5 - 10 year business plans.

Happy Wednesday.