How Ideal Clients can Accelerate your Business and Personal Developments

In the professional services business, we generally underestimate the importance of the Clients in our development and our success – both as a business and as professionals. Ideal Clients are those that have sufficient confidence to entrust you with challenging issues, pushing you slightly out of your confort zone.

In general, Clients are important for the success of any business endeavor. This can be observed for any project, whether internal or external clients. Incompetent clients or clients that don’t care do not entice for success and development.

Ideal Clients are not the same as Dream Clients. Dream clients may be those for which work will be easy and incredibly well compensated. Ideal clients are challenging while establishing sufficient confidence that you can be creative, stretch yourself and experiment (within certain bounds).

As Pamela Slim remarks, it is also essential to recognize the person in the Client. We need to be able to establish a strong personal relationship. This is quite necessary to allow the confidence level necessary. Also, our intervention should also seek to advance the person of the Client as a person and within its organization. Therefore, the ideal client is someone we can relate to professionally on a personal level too.

Choosing your Clients as a professional services business is not a luxury. It is absolutely essential for sustainability to have challenging yet trusting clients that will develop yourselves and your business. I have made it an essential decision factor when considering the possibility to take on, or continue an assignment.

This post is a follow-up from the post ‘Useful Lessons Learnt for the Professional Services Business‘ based on Pamela Slim’s post ‘23 Lessons from 23 years in business‘.

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How we Should not Use Software to Compensate for Systems that are not Properly Designed

The now famous crisis of the Boeing 737 Max shows us that there are limits to what software can compensate when a system it not properly designed. This post ‘Boeing 737 Max: Software patches can only do so much‘ is worth reading.

It actually boils down to a system-engineering issue. Adding layers upon layers of fixes to try to compensate functionalities on legacy systems only work up to a certain point. The author “cautioned his customers against using software as a patch for systems that for economic reasons or reasons of expediency, were not purpose-built. This applies not just to the most complex heterogeneous networks of systems but also small devices.”. This leads to “spaghetti architecture, or architecture by committee“, missing the important step of first listing all requirements and making sure there is consistency in the overall system and no systemic flaws.

More generally, “the old stuff just doesn’t migrate well; it needs to be redesigned from scratch“. In the next few years we can expect that many platforms used in many industries will indeed need to be redesigned to overcome their obsolescence and take advantage of the benefits of modern technology.

Existing platforms can only be upgraded to a certain point of complexity and layering, before we lose control. Then they need to be redesigned from scratch.

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How the Relative Increase of Cost for Education or Health Care Can be Explained

In a very interesting series, Alex Tabarrok explores the ‘Baumol effect‘ – the rise of salaries in jobs that have experienced no or low increase of labor productivity, in response to rising salaries in other jobs that have experienced higher labor productivity growth. Read for example ‘Why Are the Prices So D*MN High?‘ or ‘The Baumol Effect‘.

This effect explains in particular the relative rise in the cost of education and health care, and may also explain the relative rise of the cost of housing among other factors. Sectors with the most productivity increase will drive an increase in the cost of sectors will little increase of productivity. Alex Tabarrok’s post ‘The Baumol Effect‘ gives a deep insight and excellent examples of the reasons behind this effect.

Thus as we enter a new age where the relative cost of certain services will decrease substantially, we will observe the value of other services to increase relatively, changing substantially the balance of our personal budgets. It has already occurred during the industrial revolution: the relative cost of foodstuff and the share in our budgets has decreased substantially. It will now happen similarly for other aspects. Just because we can’t quite improve the productivity of certain activities.

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How to Avoid Burn-Out – a Proven Approach

Burn-out is now recognized as an occupational condition in many countries and is observed to become increasingly prevalent. In this post ‘A simple strategy helps doctors fight burnout. Could it work for the rest of us?‘ a simple method is described that appears effective in hospitals, where it is a major concern.

This method is simply to get a conversation going about difficult workplace situations, with minimum framing and facilitation. “Wherever they are, the structure is the same. Organizers choose a topic: dealing with patients’ families, for example, or a deep dive into a particularly wrenching recent case. A pre-selected panel of volunteers shares their perspective to get the conversation started. Then it opens for discussion. Moderators gently steer away from efforts to diagnosis or solve problems—no small feat in a room of people who diagnosis and solve all day, every day. The normal hospital hierarchies do not apply. The only thing participants are allowed to do during rounds is talk about how they feel. No judging. No fixing. Just talking.“

The emotional connection thus created seems sufficient to recreate a sense of purpose and get rid of the strains that are at the source of burn-out. It has been observed that burn-out is not just physical (lack of sleep for example) but is also psychological such as loss of the sense of purpose. This method addresses directly the psychology and just creating a location for emotional sharing appears effective.

It goes to show that the modern workplace does not allow sufficiently deep emotional sharing and engagement, and that may be something that needs to be addressed more consistently.

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How Innovation is Actually Behavior Change

In her post ‘Innovation is About Behavior Change‘, Valeria Maltoni makes, I believe, and excellent point. Innovation or invention is not about the tangible product, it is about how it changes habits and behavior.

This explains why there are so many inventions which seem quite a breakthrough but that never spread: it is because the associated behavior change did not happen. Maybe because there was a force of inertia, maybe because something else happened at the same time that pulled behavior change in the opposite direction.

It is a lesson for all inventors and innovators: don’t just focus on how marvelous your product is. Spend most of your effort working on the behavior that needs to change for its adoption. Work on the habits, on the social aspect of behavior, and anything that will make your innovation unavoidable on a day-to-day basis.

Innovation that would not consider behavior change is doomed. And as a Business Angel I will recognize that as a major criteria when judging the adequacy of the development plan of startups.

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How We Need to Learn to Say ‘No’ – and Get Others to Say ‘No’ Too

Following up on some highlights of the excellent book ‘Never split the difference: negotiating as if your life depended on it‘ by Chris Voss, he has a quite convincing development on the need to be able to say ‘no’ and get your counterpart in a negotiation say ‘no’ too.

It “is difficult for many people because they go directly against one of society’s biggest social dictums. That is, “ Be nice” We’ve instrumentalized niceness as a way of greasing the social wheels, yet it’s often a ruse. We’re polite and we don’t disagree to get through daily existence with the least degree of friction. But by turning niceness into a lubricant , we’ve leeched it of meaning.” As a result it becomes quite impossible to know exactly what the person is feeling.

““ No ” is the start of the negotiation, not the end of it. We’ve been conditioned to fear the word “ No” But it is a statement of perception far more often than of fact. It seldom means, “ I have considered all the facts and made a rational choice” Instead, “ No ” is often a decision, frequently temporary, to maintain the status quo. Change is scary, and “ No ” provides a little protection from that scariness.”

Chris Voss goes on presenting a number of techniques aimed at provoking a clear ‘no’ as a starting point for earnest negotiation. He even mentions that if it is not possible to get a ‘no’ there is probably something hidden that is worth uncovering.

Let’s give ourselves and our counterpart the permission to say ‘no’. It is an excellent foundation for further discussion and negotiation.

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How the Trump Campaign Already Brings Serious Lessons About Social Segmentation Capabilities

In this excellent post ‘Trump’s Digital Campaign for 2020 Is Already Soaring‘, Frederic Filloux explains how the Trump 2020 campaign is already extremely active, focusing on voter segmentation so as to serve the most effective targeted propaganda through social networks. And it seems that the scale is quite unprecedented.

Trump digital campaign has started almost just after the election and has already spent much more money than any other campaign: “we’re doing top-level funnel marketing and what that is, is we need to find every person that’s going to vote for the president and would vote for the president and go find them now. It’s a lot cheaper to go find them now, not when the media gets all and the advertising is more expensive and we have to rush to find them. Why not find them three years out?“

The important thing is that now targeting is not any more at the group level – it is at the individual level and extremely fine. Messages can be adapted to address individual concerns and worldview. Therefore the potential for influence is extreme, because potentially people will be engaged individually with messages that are deemed adequate for them.

The power of this approach remains to be seen in the next elections, but it is of course quite worrying to observe how this is becoming an influence machine that borders on manipulation.

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How We Increasingly Use Avatars on Social Internet

In this excellent Quartz obsession piece ‘Avatars‘, the issue of the increasing usage of multiple avatars for ourselves in the cyberworld is explored at length. This is something we had identified early (think about how many email addresses you possess!) but it has now spread to full contextual persona and avatars.

“People love to see themselves rendered in many forms. Tech companies know this, and they’re not afraid to invest millions of dollars in the hope that this strange quirk of human narcissism can translate into serious cash.” Specific functionalities, and even start-ups, are created around this: proposing the best avatar options, allowing full personalization and allow us to explore various aspects of our personalities.

And it would seem that the rhythm of avatar creation is rather accelerating rather than slowing down, as well as the associated business value, showing that it really corresponds to a need profoundly linked with our identity.

I feel this trend is rather enriching, allowing people to test other parts of themselves in possibly a semi-social online context. In any case I can’t wait to read psychological research associated with this trend!

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How Demanding Freedom Can Be

In the ‘Discourse of voluntary servitude’, La Boetie, a French philosopher of the 16th century, writes a formidable quote: “Man has a preference for voluntary servitude, because servitude is confortable and makes one irresponsible. Freedom on the other hand is very demanding.”

Those words written in the context of a political essay on dictatorship do echo in the modern organization. “Voluntary servitude” in an organization is much easier and much more comfortable than freedom. And that is something that people tend to forget when salaried workers express jealousy with respect to the self-employed or entrepreneur.

As an entrepreneur I do feel sometimes when I am tired or things are difficult that I would be certainly much more comfortable being just another piece of a large organization… although clearly the comfort is just an illusion: just notice how many people report they are stressed in the workplace.

Freedom is extremely demanding. It requires a lot of leadership and a lot of self-leadership and discipline. In the long run it is extremely rewarding too.

Choose freedom. It’s tough, but it’s worth it!

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How the French School System Develops the Feeling of Unworthiness in students

Following up on the previous post ‘How to Respond When You Feel Unworthy‘ I would like to share with my French readers how it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that the French school system specifically develops the feeling of unworthiness in students.

In particular in competitive classes like ‘Preparatory Classes’ for major schools or in elitist high schools, teachers tend to try to motivate students by telling them they are no good, much less clever than the previous class, that they have no change of ever succeeding etc.

This behavior has many consequences: those who survive the treatment self-select themselves, and this fosters the feeling of unworthiness in students which will follow them up all their life.

In many other countries, even in competitive classes, teachers generally seem to tend to be more supportive of students, and encourage their successes.

I would maybe even suggest that this behavior in France has some substantial long-term consequences on the psyche of the elite students which form after some time the country’s elite.

I am not quite sure about the reason for this behavior but it is becoming now quite obvious to me, having been living abroad and having now children than enter those competitive classes. Maybe we should try to change this, in particular in view of the changes in the world surrounding us!

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How to Respond When You Feel Unworthy

I found a lot of personal resonance in this excellent post by Leo Babauta ‘The Universal Narrative: When You Feel Unworthy‘. I recommend the full read. How can we respond when in a certain situation (or more generally), we feel unworthy, we feel that we are not good enough?

The feeling of unworthiness has significant consequences on our life: from procrastination to lack of participation in a group to the quality and genuineness of our relationships.

Of course Leo Babauta reminds us that it is just a story we are telling ourselves. So he proposes two approaches to this issue:

  • write down a mantra that we can use whenever we feel unworthy, to make us believe otherwise over time (his mantra is “The world craves you and your gift“
  • ensure this narrative dissolves by wondering how it would feel if it would not be present

Next time you will feel unworthy, consider speaking out the mantra and dissolve this idea. We should not feel unworthy because we are not.

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How to Use the Ben Franklin Effect to Build Relationships

The Ben Franklin Effect (here on Wikipedia and on Quartz) is an interesting psychological effect: “a person who has already performed a favor for another is more likely to do another favor for the other than if they had received a favor from that person“. And we might use it more often.

As explained in Wikipedia, this effect can be used in commercial relations as well as in mentor-mentee situations. It can be triggered quite easily as in the famous personal example given by Franklin.

What is appalling of course is the reverse effect. “You tend to like the people to whom you are kind and dislike the people to whom you are rude“. The reverse effect might explain vendettas and other inadequate behaviors.

I am particularly interested about the experiment on the reverse effect which was performed in an educational context. “[the students] who received the insults [from the teachers] were rated as less attractive [by the teachers] than the ones who got encouragement”. This shows that not being nice or supportive to students will have a negative impact on the student but also on the teacher, creating a negative spiral.

All in all, we should probably be more aware of the Ben Franklin effect and maybe use it more proactively in the way we develop relationships.

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