Jeremie Averous | The Fourth Revolution Blog

Why the Law of Financial Viability is Important

When starting a new pursuit or a new venture, it is important to remember ‘The Law of Financial Viability’: “When deciding whether to follow an appealing pursuit that will introduce more control into your work life, seek evidence of whether people are willing to pay for it. If you find this evidence, continue. If not, move on” – writes Cal Newport in his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You.

Hence it is essential to determine as quickly as possible (based on a demonstrator or Minimum Viable Product as they say in the Lean Startup movement) whether people are really ready to pay for what you want to offer. That is also applicable to a career change – are people willing to hire you?

And there is a significant distance between people saying that that they’s be interested and they would be happy to pay – and people really, actually paying.

One of the interesting consequences of this observation is that it is far better to have the first customers pay a little something rather than giving for free: it will prove that people are happy to reach their wallet, which is a significant psychological hurdle; and as an associated benefit it will force you to get your payment and invoicing processes up and running.

To summarize, Cal quotes Derek Sivers as saying: “When it comes to decisions affecting your core career, money remains an effective judge of value. If you’re struggling to raise money for an idea, or are thinking that you will support your idea with unrelated work, then you need to rethink the idea”

Demonstrate the value of your idea by effectively getting money for it.

How Age Changes our Outlook on What We Can Achieve

I’d like to thank Mary Cravets for an insightful comment on my post ‘How We Underestimate What We Can Do in Ten Years‘. In this post we comment the statement that ‘People always underestimate what they can do in ten years and overestimate what they can do in a week’. Mary commented that our perspective on this timeline will probably change considerably between our 20’s and our 40’s.

too-late-to-start? — It is never too late to start something awesome and different! Here in the case of entrepreneurs

For sure when we reach 40 or 50 we will have grown consciously through a few decades, and in hindsight most of us can measure how much change we have introduced in our lives in the space of a typical decade. When we are 20, our experience in the matter is more limited. Hence we might believe more in the statement with maturity.

On the other hand, when we are 20 we think we can take the world by storm; at 40 or 50 most people are a bit more prudent. If they have met significant hardship or disappointment on the way they might even be pessimistic about how much they can change the world around them and this might prevent them to take initiative. Our level of energy and endurance might also have sagged on average (it is not true for everyone!).

Age and experience does change our outlook on what we can achieve. There will be, depending on the person, positive and negative tensions that will or not lead to take initiative.

Personally, I try to reinvent myself about every 7-8 years, professionally at least. That is what I have done in the past. Those changes are a bit tough sometimes, but they can be managed. And it is fun! The more I age, the more I want to continue to do that, because it is fun and I like to discover new things. And right now I am quite sure that what I will be doing in a decade will be quite different from what I think today. What about you?

Why You Need to Kindle Your Internal Light

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within” – Elizabeth Kübler-Ross.

I find this is a great quote that triggers a lot of thoughts and helps us put in perspective what happens in our lives. It is relatively easy to sparkle in society when we are recognized by our peers, through our social status and other external ways of being recognized.

But what about that little light within us? Will it shine in the shadows beyond our fears? When the everything that makes us sparkle in broad daylight is gone?

It is difficult to foster that small light and make it large. Only a few people manage to grow it so that it illuminates others. It requires a lot of work on ourselves and to create a real difference in the world.

Still at the end it is what matters.

Go right now to kindle your internal light!

Why True Leaders Know How to Handle Their Fear

Over time I found that the main difference between good and bad leaders is how they manage their fear and anxiety.

Leaders that try to change things or create something new are always submitted to huge quantities of stress and of fear – personal fear as well as organizational fear.

Bad leaders transmit fear and stress to their team. It cascades down, creating negative feelings throughout the organization, hampering true work, destroying creativity and innovation. People just wait for the next outburst of stress and try to avoid being in the way. That occupies most of their time.

Good leaders on the contrary, still faced with the same situation, know how to tame their fear and most importantly, act as a filter for their team, making sure people remain in a situation where they can do their best work. At the end, there will be a tremendous difference in the outcome from the organization.

Above all, don’t think that transmitting fear to your team is a good personal solution that would avoid yourself facing it. Because the final outcome will be bad, it will only reinforce your anxiety and that can easily be very destructive.

If you want to become a better leader, you need to learn to manage your fears and anxiety by yourself.

Hat tip to Gapingvoid for the inspiration

How Quick Bureaucracy Can Creep In… and How to Prevent It

I have had some experiences lately where I have seen bureaucracy creep in projects in a very significant and quick manner, creating a serious impediment to progress and success. Although I know that it is the fate of many organizations, I was astonished by the mere speed at which bureaucracy can be created and imposed, even in project organizations that had been newly set-up only weeks or months ago.

Bureaucracy is not the same as developing and implementing effective processes. Bureaucracy is about creating processes of little effectiveness (even if very efficient!).

In the instances I observed, bureaucracy developed quickly in situations where the scope of work was not very well defined. Thus, significant initiative and cognitive work were required to move things forward. In this situation many contributors, maybe not keen to do the effort, will seek to look busy doing ‘stuff’. And this ‘stuff’ generally turns out to be the seed of bureaucracy. It is easy to look busy writing endless reports and participating to endless meetings!

So, one way to avoid this situation is to be extremely clear on the scope of work and on the tangible deliverables that need to be produced. It also explains why in phases of innovation, it is better to keep the team small, so as to avoid the temptation by those that might not be at the core of the creative process to develop bureaucracy (to look and keep busy).

Bureaucracy can truly stifle a project. Make sure it does not develop beyond the minimum necessary – in particular as in modern times the mechanical data management should be automatized.

For those interested, the best text on bureaucracy ever is from Parkinson in the Economist in 1955 and is accessible at this link: Parkinson’s law. (as known today, Parkinson’s law states that ‘work always expands to fit the time available‘).

Why We Need to Set Boundaries to Practice Compassion

“This research has taught me that if we really want to practice compassion, we have to start by setting boundaries and holding people accountable for their behavior” writes Brene Brown in her book ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’.

She continues, “Setting boundaries and holding people accountable is a lot more work than shaming and blaming. But it’s also much more effective. Shaming and blaming without accountability is toxic“.

What appears initially as very counter-intuitive gets explained in that last sentence. It also illustrates that real compassion is hard work.

What is really compassion? According to Wikipedia it is ‘the act of going out of your way to help physical, spiritual, or emotional hurts or pains of another’. Doing this movement without setting accountability is certainly toxic for ourselves first, and for the other person in need as well on the longer term. We need to set our boundaries and enforce them.

Next time you feel compassionate, ask yourself where your boundary should be, and hold the other accountable.

Why Team Commitment is Better than Any Plan

“The team’s commitment to the plan is key to the successful execution of the plan” writes Clinton Padgett in ‘The Project Success Method‘.

I’d like to go beyond this – a commitment team is better than any plan, because the plan will change during execution, of course.

How do we achieve this level of commitment in particular in projects? I have always defended the need to have a series of workshops at the beginning of a project, with the project core team. Not for just having a chat – working together to design an execution plan is the best teambuilding I know. As Clinton Padgett also mentions, “Teamwork builds the team. Fortunately, the processes of defining and planning the project, which take place in the earliest phase of The Project Success Method, are excellent vehicles for team building.” And I can’t agree more.

Do the plan, but do it together. That is more important than the plan itself!

Why Playing at Work is Not an Option

Brene Brown in her book ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’ quotes a certain Stuart Brown: “The opposite of play is not work—the opposite of play is depression. Respecting our biologically programmed need for play can transform work. It can bring back excitement and newness to our job“.

Playing would then be necessary in all corners or our life. How often are we playing in a professional context? Ask yourself – when that happens, how do you feel about the ongoing effort and work, and about the team of people you work with?

There are many ways to include some playing even in the most serious of our situations. In any case when you observe some kind of collective depression, you now know the remedy!

Why is Deliberate Practice so Powerful?

“This focus on stretching your ability and receiving immediate feedback provides the core of a more universal principle— [deliberate practice] – one that I increasingly came to believe provides the key to successfully acquiring career capital in almost any field” writes Cal Newport’s in his book ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’.

We have already mentioned this concept of deliberate practice in the post where we reviewed the book ‘Talent is overrated’. Practice is not sufficient. It needs to be accompanied by pertinent and frequent feedback and challenge.

The psychologist who came with the concept, Ericsson, is quoted as writing “Most individuals who start as active professionals… change their behavior and increase their performance for a limited time until they reach an acceptable level. Beyond this point, however, further improvements appear to be unpredictable and the number of years of work… is a poor predictor of attained performance“.

Practice that is not deliberate will soon lead to a performance plateau. Get frequent feedback and stretch yourself constantly to reach mastery instead.

Now… how can you develop more deliberate practice in the activities you’d like to become great at?

Why We Need to Set Limits Before Liberating our Creativity

Many authors state that creativity will be enhanced by accepting limitations, such as for example on a physical limitation on the format, size, number of words, or on the method and means.

I certainly believe so, because it enables us to focus without having our mind wandering endlessly into the infinite possibilities to express what we need to bring to the world. It also creates a welcome challenge that is more conductive to put us in a state of Flow.

The best artists (which is a denomination I like to use for all of us engaged in creative endeavors) then manage to transcend the self-imposed limitations to create awesome art.

Let us reverse then the statement. It is essential to set a number of limits before we release our creativity. Going further, creative endeavor won’t work before you’ve set these limits. And it is important then not to change the rules of the game in the midst of creation.

If you find that you have difficulties to be creative, maybe you should first review the limitations you’ve set and check whether you should not add a few.

Why Failure Should be Inevitable but not Destruction

“Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable” is a famous quote by Coco Chanel, recently mentioned by Richard Branson as one of his favorite quotes on failure.

Clearly Coco Chanel was an entrepreneur as well so she must have know what it means to take into look at failure in the eyes, and feel the sting of it.

It is tough to accept that failure will be inevitable, yet it is the only way to advance.

At the same time, successful entrepreneurs know that leaps of faith must be carefully planned and tested so as not to make the rest of their creation stumble – just as share brokers know that failure (gaining money) is inevitable on part of their portfolio but have a portfolio management process that mitigates these risks.

Failure is inevitable, and it should reflect risk taking and creativity. Destruction is not, it is a matter of careful planning and risk management.

How to Get a Great Job and Career

Cal Newport’s advice in his book ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’ is quite clear: “if you want a great job, you need to build up rare and valuable skills— which I call career capital— to offer in return“. And it’s not about following your passion!

A great job or career would thus be a situation where we can find personal satisfaction by creating great value for the world.

This seems relatively straightforward when pondering: if you want a great occupation with relevant independence and time to create great stuff, you need to have rare and valuable skills that are highly in demand. Hence you can exchange these skills against money – of course -, and most importantly also a large number of non-monetary compensation and advantage. In brief, a high value.

Have you figured out what is really unique and valuable in what you are doing? It might be only a very small part of your occupation at the moment, why don’t you get better at it and make it a linchpin of your professional life?

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