Idea Surplus Disorder #72

Welcome to another Idea Surplus Disorder. In this week's edition, you'll find hand grenades, compliments, team-wide vacations, structured procrastination, Easy-Bake Ovens, Buckminster Fuller, Alfred Hitchcock, and more.

I'm Matt Homann, and I'm glad you're here.

Know a Nonprofit?

If you know a STL-region nonprofit, ask them if they've applied for Thinksgiving this year. Applications for nonprofits close this week.

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Ideas + Insights

Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi talked about throwing too many "hand grenades" in meetings?

As a leader, I could be very blunt in my drive to make sure we made all the right decisions. In some meetings, I would comment on plans directly and sometimes point out why I thought a unit’s strategy wouldn’t work. “Your strategy makes no sense,” I’d say. “There’s no way you can deliver the return you have assumed in your financial model.” This wasn’t popular—or effective. At some point, George Fisher, the CEO, noted my style and pulled me aside. “Be careful about throwing hand grenades,” he said. “You may turn people off even though you mean well.” George coached me to take a different tack, by saying, for example, “Help me understand how this comes together. As I see it, this technology platform requires a lot of investment and patience. Is it prudent to factor in a quick return?” Much as I hated this new, softer way of asking questions, I found it got results. I appreciated how George spoke to me—one-on-one, straight, and in a constructive tone.

Are "cameras on" in meetings, a signal of job satisfaction?

The data appears to show a connection between the rate at which employees participated in meetings and their likelihood to stay at the company. Workers who left their organization within one year enabled their cameras in 18.4% of small-group meetings. That number was higher, at 32.5%, for workers who stayed past a year.

Need to motivate someone? Try emphasizing a completed step.

Customers who receive a 12-stamp coffee card with 2 preexisting “bonus” stamps complete the 10 required purchases faster than customers who receive a “regular” 10-stamp card.

Get some practice with compliments.

Your company should be a team and not a family:

• Families are dysfunctional. [H]ow many truly high-functioning families are you aware of? There are always a few weird uncles dragging the average down.
• Families are impossible to get out of. There is a lot of safety in families, because they’re something you’re born into and can never be born out of. However, this is the wrong kind of safety to cultivate. “Unconditional love” means you will put up with quite a bit of nonsense, bad work, and even poor effort. Don’t misunderstand me – you want your employees to feel safe in that they always know where they stand and they always know they can tell you the truth. But you don’t want them feeling safe enough to be content with subpar performance.
• The black sheep gets all the attention. In a family, you often see a disproportionate amount of time and energy spent on getting the black sheep “back on track.” Remember the parable of the prodigal son? The good son gets jealous because his father spends so much energy forgiving the prodigal. And sure, in a religious context, fine. But that’s no way to run a good business. That time spent worrying about your low performers would be better spent coaching up your high performers.
• Families instill too much loyalty. Some amount of loyalty is commendable. But families can often take this to the extreme. You don’t want employees so loyal to you that they’re unwilling to push back when you start making boneheaded decisions. Not that you’d ever do that. You also don’t want employees so loyal to you that they have no drive to improve, thereby stagnating in their roles

If you have time to scroll, you have time to write.

Forget the 2x2 matrix. This 3x3 nine-box matrix includes several nuanced strategy prompts like these:

Box 1 represents the valuable things that we can't work on right now. Box 2 work is valuable AND possible, but only with a lot of unsustainable sacrifice. It's right on the border of can and can’t.

Think you have a great strategy? Think again:

To win in business, you must be either a low-cost provider or differentiated. If you’re neither, competitors can “bully” you and take market share. Two questions can help you figure out whether you’re winning in these ways. First, could you match competitor price decreases and remain more profitable than them? If not, you’re not a low-cost provider. Second, could customers essentially flip a coin between you and a competitor? If so, you’re not differentiated enough

Forty-Two Hours of Buckmister Fuller? Bookmarking this one.

Are we finally back to the office?

At the national level, offices are still feeling a bit empty, with busyness measuring just 61.9% compared to a pre-pandemic 2019 baseline. But usage is on the rise. Busyness is up in 28 of the 41 markets being tracked compared to 2023 levels. Some markets, like Manhattan, Washington D.C., and San Francisco, are seeing double-digit increases in activity compared to this time last year.

Feeling behind? Maybe you need some structured procrastination:

Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this goes contrary to the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be by definition the most important, and the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is a way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.

The trick is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal sorts of things have two characteristics, First, they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don't). Second, they seem awfully important (but really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks.

Mandate time off with team-wide vacation weeks.

Fun Finds

• Our World In Data publishes research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems - specifically to encourage us to believe we can improve people’s lives.
• Odd names for ordinary things.
• Chefs making meals with childhood kitchen toys.
• Yelp's most prolific reviewer.
• Every Hitchcock cameo.
• Listenly is a platform for free audiobooks from the public domain.
• The Top 50 TV Shows of all time.
• The 100 Greatest Posters of Celebrities Urging Kids to Read. The commentary on these is hilarious.

Words of Wisdom

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies. — Groucho Marx

"The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." – Carl Sagan

“The cold water doesn't get warmer if you jump late.”— Unknown

"Assume the reader knows nothing. But don't assume the reader is stupid." – Ann Handley

"And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about." – Haruki Murakami

“The only way to know the future is to create it.” – Margaret Heffernan

"Without passion, all the skill in the world won’t lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life." – Twyla Tharp