Month: May 2011

Seth: Caring

Duh. But not so much. Seth Godin:

No organization cares about you. Organizations aren’t capable of this.

Your bank, certainly, doesn’t care. Neither does your HMO or even your car dealer. It’s amazing to me that people are surprised to discover this fact.

People, on the other hand, are perfectly capable of caring. It’s part of being a human. It’s only when organizational demands and regulations get in the way that the caring fades.

If you want to build a caring organization, you need to fill it with caring people and then get out of their way. When your organization punishes people for caring, don’t be surprised when people stop caring.

When you free your employees to act like people (as opposed to cogs in a profit-maximizing efficient machine) then the caring can’t help but happen.

Just finished reading this. Peter Pronovost has done the most for advancing patient safety since Semmelweis. I can’t qualify that statement, but it’s probably true. Anyway, the book is good and very readable. It’s disgusting how difficult progress comes in the patient safety world. Disgusting. But Pronovost is hope.

My favorite is “Sacred Cows Make The Best Hamburger.” Here’s the explain:

Although he lives in a world where he is shunned by pop song lyricists, grandmothers, big-box shoppers, house cats, classic rock radio programmers, and all left-brain-thinking people, Doubt continues to throw dynamite at history and use his outlaw thinking to move us all forward. Some love him. Others hate him. But nobody ignores him.

12 Examples Of Why Doubt Is Innovation’s Secret Ally

“Think about NOT waiting your turn.”

Robert Krulwich (of Radiolab fame) gave an amazing commencement speech earlier this month. Liberally excerpted here, go read it there. Awesome:

When you talk or write or film, you work with the music inside you, the music that formed you. Different generations have different musics in them, so whatever they do, it’s going to come out differently and it will speak in beats of their own generation.

The people in charge, of course, don’t want to change. They like the music they’ve got.  To the newcomers, they say, “Wait your turn”.

But in a world like this… rampant with new technologies, and new ways to do things, the newcomers… that means you… you here today, you have to trust your music… It’s how you talk to people your age, your generation. This is how we change.

…

So for this age, for your time, I want you to just think about this: Think about NOT waiting your turn.

Instead, think about getting together with friends that you admire, or envy.  Think about entrepeneuring. Think about NOT waiting for a company to call you up. Think about not giving your heart to a bunch of adults you don’t know. Think about horizontal loyalty. Think about turning to people you already know, who are your friends, or friends of their friends and making something that makes sense to you together, that is as beautiful or as true as you can make it.

…

If you can… fall in love, with the work, with people you work with, with your dreams and their dreams. Whatever it was that got you to this school, don’t let it go. Whatever kept you here, don’t let that go. Believe in your friends. Believe that what you and your friends have to say… that the way you’re saying it – is something new in the world.

And don’t stop. Just hold on… and keep loving what you love… and you’ll see. In the end, they’ll let you stay.