I just read this following passage in Gary Kasparov’s new book, “How Life Imitates Chess.” He has been writing about the phase of a chess game called “nothing to do,” and how greats such as Petrosian and Karpov used this time to eke out small positional advantages.

“In life, there is no such obligation to move. If you can’t find a useful plan, you can watch television, stick with business as usual, and believe that no news is good news. Human beings are brilliantly creative at finding ways to pass time in unconstructive ways. At these times, the true strategist shines by finding the means to make progress, to strengthen his position and prepare for the inevitable conflict. And conflict, we cannot forget, is inevitable.”

Think about these phases in your own business, where you are sitting around, waiting for something else to happen. Could they be used to strategic advantage?

Start here: Answer the question, “What am I trying to accomplish?”

Then, “What are some of the ways that can happen?” This will give you the high order possible strategies.

Next, validate that this is, in some way, possible. Use internal and external market research.

Your research opens up the Gap Analysis, and starts to answer the question, What is needed to get THERE?

Consider, “How different is that from WHERE YOU ARE NOW?” and “What are the ways to close the gaps?”

Prioritize which gaps are most important AND most closable AND Have the biggest payoff.

Now: DO THOSE THINGS FIRST

The decks are finally clear. Here are four ways to make a breakthrough:

1. Figure out what’s working and find a way to do it much more, or much better.
2. Figure out what’s not working and fix it.
3. Figure out something from a different discipline and apply it to your own GAP
4. Invent something new, completely of whole cloth.

It’s been a very distracting few weeks, and I keep telling myself that I have to post, otherwise the blog might get stale. Perhaps it’s a time management problem, but of course, that can be fixed. Perhaps business is just too good, and I certainly don’t want a fix for that!

In any case, I was reading Jerry West writing about… what else, blogs…

He referenced something that I feel should be pasted backwards on my forehead so that I can see it every time I look in a mirror. It’s an old Chinese proverb:

“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is today.”

I watch a lot of movies – all sorts, but in my movie tastes I’m not that evolved. I especially like eighties and nineties action pictures.  I really like movies like the Die Hard series and Lethal Weapon, even the new version of the Bourne Ultimatum.  And what I’ve learned from watching of these kinds of movies is that the hero – the one who kills all the bad guys – does not win by hunkering down, staying in hiding and waiting for them to come to him.  He wins by running right out in front of the villains – charging towards them with everything he’s got and screaming at the top of his lungs.  He lunges towards the competition firing – as they say – with both barrels.   He puts himself at tremendous risk and doesn’t quit until it’s over.  That’s the unreasonable approach.

Yesterday I wrote that “perfection prevents progress,” and that was a mis-statement.  Just as “money” is not the root of all evil, but “love of money” may be, it is “perfectionism” that prevents progress.  Perfectionism is the love, desire and single-minded pursuit of perfection, and that is what truly slows things down. Perfection is great if you can have it.  Just don’t spend too much time going after it.

How many times have you said, “This (fill in the blank) still isn’t perfect…?”

I’m not guiltless – I find myself saying such things and try to stop myself in mid-sentence before the P-word gets out. I find that perfectionitis — as it’s called in the medical profession — is the number one impediment to my writing. I don’t mind speaking “imperfectly” but I struggle with publishing words that aren’t perf…. Argggghhhh, I can’t say it. P-P-P…

It doesn’t just slow writing, but marketing, product development, seminars, new ideas — it slows down everything.  Dedicated perfectionists would say that’s a good thing.  I say it slows down progress.

Perfection prevents progress.

How? The two number one skills (talk about being unreasonable) of an entrepreneur or leader of any kind are 1) coming up with great ideas, and 2) getting someone to carry them out.

And perfection delays execution. You wait and wait and wait and wait while first the idea, and then the execution, are perfected, and only finally do you bring your wares to market much later than otherwise.

There’s a reason why software has bugs when it first comes to market. It’s because it’s just too darn expensive to make it perfect and has much more value in the hands of users — even though it has problems. This is true of all sorts of other products and services as well. Even flawed, they are better in users and consumers hands, than if they were sitting back at the lab made perfect.

Progress comes from trial-and-error.

Get it out there in the world and see how well it works. Find the flaws and fix them in real time. That’s the unreasonable route to progress.

Your number one job as an extraordinary entrepreneur is to have an extraordinary vision.  Your number two task is to execute until that vision comes to life. 

If your vision is important enough you most likely can’t do it all yourself.  That’s why you build an organization in the first place. If you’re more of a lone ranger you have contractors, or outsource relationships, or joint venture partners.  Problem is, once you have these relationships, these people must be in action or you get nothing.

Key question: Does anyone do anything meaningful without someone asking him or her to, and without them promising to it in return?

I call this a request, and making requests is the thing that causes people to get things done.  Want something done? Just ask.  Little requests are easy.  People say yes.

But big requests carry their own little problem.

Most of us, even leaders, hate rejection. So we only ask for small things, easy-to-do things, wimpy things.  It’s rare that we ask for what we really want.

We cut back our expectations. Our scaled-down requests make it easy for others to say yes, but those requests get us results far below what we really want. After a while, we just accept the fact that we can’t ask too much from people, and our expectations drop without our realizing it.

Here’s a little secret that can make things easier for you:

A request is not a demand or an order. When you are “asking” (that’s what makes it a request) people can say “No.” Or they can counter-propose something different.  They can renegotiate.  

In each case, you’ll get something, and that something is always better than nothing. Often it’s a whole lot better.

So go ahead, and be unreasonable. 

Ask for the moon. 

Ask for whatever it is you need and want — no matter what.  

“Ask, and it shall be given you; . . . knock, and it shall be opened unto you,” says the Bible.  If you are going to knock, don’t be meek about it.  

Knock on the big doors. Knock loudly.

Someone might just answer.

Speaking of unreasonable requests, I have an unreasonable offer for you.

By now, you’ve probably read your copy of Being Unreasonable.  (If you haven’t, go get a copy at www.be-unreasonable .com, or wherever you buy books.) and you may be thinking about who you know who hasn’t read it yet. 

Go ahead, buy some copies and give them away.  Use Amazon’s free shipping and send them directly, or get a few copies and give them to colleagues, employees, friends.

I want to reward you for your generosity and give you a few gifts for buying multiple copies.

Buy 3 copies, send me a receipt, and I’ll send you an autographed copy of  Faster Than The Speed of Change.

Buy 13 copies and you can be my guest at the Unreasonable Profits teleseminar series.  (You can find out more about his at www.unreasonableprofits.com.)  That’s a great deal; it’s about the same price as the teleseminar, and you get to give the books as gifts besides.

Buy 54 copies, and I’ll spend two hours on the phone with you – all at one time or in several shorter meetings; whatever is worth more to you.  People typically pay $2,000 for a couple of hours for my world-class business advice – the kind that could change the future of your company and as you can imagine, I don’t have a lot of these “blocks” to give away, so act quickly if you’re interested.

Lastly - buy 144 copies of Be Unreasonable, you will be my guest at a closed-door round table that I’m holding for a few special guests.  There is no price tag on this rare event, but my conference room only holds 10, which leaves room for nine people.  This unique meeting will take place in November, and I guarantee you, being there will rocket your business.  And I mean rocket in every dimension.  We will change the way you think about your company, and if you’re like my clients – the ones who pay $15,000 for this kind of meeting – you could solve your most pressing problems and even figure out how to quickly double, triple, or grow your business ten-fold. 

That’s my unreasonable request.  Go out and buy some books.  Lots of them.  And send me the receipts.

A friend just sent me a link to Clark Mitchell’s review of my book. Totally unreasonable. Thank you, Clark

August 21, 2007

Be Unreasonable

Several weeks ago I told you I would share some thoughts from different books I read over my break this year. One of the best is a book called, “Be Unreasonable” by Paul Lemberg. God used this book to really speak to me and confirm some of the things He was saying. The greatest temptation in our life is to be reasonable or to settle for average. The problem is there is nothing average about our God!

I’ll share some thoughts over the next few days, so here we go:

• Expect the best from your team! As unreasonable as it seems, expect the best from those around you. Expect them to be successful! Count on it. Plan for it. Budget for it. Expecting the best give you the highest liklihood of getting it. Begin with the optimal scenario and truly grasp how to ensure it happens. Expecting the worst has a similar, but opposite effect.
• The great thing about being backed into the corner is the only place to go is forward. Don’t be afraid of the corner! Don’t let the corner defeat you!
• A conservative model produces conservative results! That doesn’t mean not to use wisdom, but wisdom isn’t always reasonable!
• Be afraid. If you’re not a little scared, you’re not doing anything worthwhile. All great ventures contain within them an element of risk and the promise of failure as well as success. If your not at least a little afraid, you’re probably not doing anything that will ever be called great! (Ouch!)
• It is only when things to cease to go well that we are forced to switch gears and look for solutions in unreasonable places. If only we could get ahead of the curve instead.

Man, that last statement puts into words my last year! God has done so much in me, but it has probably been more painful than necessary, the problem is I wouldn’t of switched without some of the pain! God wants to do great things in your life, but it takes risk, faith, failure, pain, prospering, etc. Allow God to use all aspects of life to help you become the person He desires for you to become.

http://clarkmitchell.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/08/be-unreasonable.html

Just got back from a trip to the Dalmatian coast in Croatia, and while en-route and in-situ, I made a little distinction about lines. Lines of people, that is. In Germany, lines are quite robust. People get on that at the rear, and they maintain their structure - in other words, the people who get on the line first, get off it first. In America, most people respect lines - but those who don’t - the line cheaters - are often the subject of vocal and occasionally martial conflict. In other words, people who cut the line get yelled at and into fights. “Hey buddy - the line starts back there!” In Croatia, I discovered that lines are simply a suggestion. Line form, and some people follow them, while many others ignore the lines completely and simply push to the front.

So this brings up an interesting question - not just about lines but about rules in general. When should you follow them and when not? In Croatia, I was standing in line while all these people started to cut in front. Since no one seemed to react or even care, after applying a little game theory, I jumped the line as well.

When you consider that playing buy the rules may not be in your best interest, you have to evaluate the consequences of breaking them. In every case, one will outweigh the other. It’s not cut-and-dried.

I heard this while speaking with my friend Mark Levy, who heard it from some branding guy, he couldn’t remember whom. “Positioning is dead,” the guy said. Since both Mark and I are positioning people this was of major interest.

He said that positioning was dead because the people, the users, the community… they were creating the positions of companies by participating in Web 2.0. He believed that companies’ positions were defined by what was being said about them in the infosphere.

This is total nonsense. While Web 2.0 gives people a voice and amplifies the conversation, you have to ask where the conversation comes from in the first place.

Look–most people, bloggers included, want to be lead. They want to be told what to think about and how to think. Then they can react and respond, but not until then. It’s very rare that people initiate the conversation. Those who do are called “thought leaders,” everyone else is part of the crowd.

Positioning is all about framing a context that defines what people need to think about. Positioning is about providing the seeds that ultimately flower into conversation. Reasonable people take the seeds and help them germinate. Unreasonable people create the seeds. Good positioning unreasonably tells people what to think in the first place.

Web 2.0 is a fabulous development in how people and businesses communicate. It’s like going from a one-way street to multi-lane boulevard. Just don’t get deluded into seeing this as creativity. Most of the time it’s just traffic.