A Brief Meditation on Rubber Wristbands

I was sitting behind a guy recently who was wearing the obligatory yellow rubber wristband. I noticed that the lettering really “popped,” and then I quickly figured out why: all the dirt caked in the letters contrasted strikingly with the yellow band. Live strong? How about we start with “wash strong”?

Tough Times or Not?

This past weekend I had two strikingly different experiences in the world of retail.

On Saturday evening, at a time when I would typically expect to fight crowds to some degree, I was in a Target store needed to pick up a few essentials. I planned to visit the book area to see what was merchandised where, what kinds of people were browsing, who was buying, and the like. Once I entered the store and walked through a few departments, my plan changed entirely. The quiet was eerie. I know it’s an exaggeration, but it felt like five people were in the store, and four of them were in my family. I have heard all the tough news about the economy and consumer confidence, as I’m sure you have. But there’s nothing like seeing it.

Then, on Sunday, I took my son to see The Dark Knight at a local multiplex. We lined up to see the latest Batman film, and the theater was packed. (Yes, the film lived up to the hype and then some. I never once thought about the fact that Heath Ledger had died, but I was amazed by his performance.) I was reminded that—even in a down market—people are still out there paying good money for products they believe will deliver what they want.

Publishing Brands?

I lead a publishing division called Corporate Brands. We focus our work—publishing, marketing, and brand management—exclusively on ten brands. Having this kind of focus is a rare privilege in the world of publishing. Of course, not everyone is a true believer in our business model; publishing purists don’t typically think of authors as brands. In fact, a colleague at my own publishing house said to me recently, “Come on, we don’t have brands. Procter & Gamble has brands.”

But we really do have brands in publishing, and in many cases the author is the brand. As a consumer, this is probably clear to you on an instinctive level. Here’s a simple example from my life. My wife and I are fans of the films of M. Night Shyamalan. He writes, directs, and produces, so it is his vision up there on the screen. (Believe me, I have already heard all the criticism about Shyamalan. “He’s way too mainstream.” “His dialogue is stilted.” “He’ll never recapture the magic of Sixth Sense.” And so on.)

On a recent Saturday night, Karen and I decided to go see his latest film, The Happening. We had seen the trailer and, frankly, thought it looked hokey. We had read the negative reviews—and there were a bunch of them. We had even seen the movie poster with the ridiculous teaser. Yet we still chose to pay our money and see the movie. Why? We trusted Shyamalan more than we trusted his critics. His name meant something to us; in essence it was a promise about what we would experience. That is the power of a brand.

True Friends

I’ve been watching professional tennis for thirty years now, and the Wimbledon championship between Raphael Nadal and Roger Federer last Sunday was one of the most exciting matches I’ve ever seen. Federer’s comeback from two sets down to force a fifth set was scintillating. Having squandered a chance to win in straight sets, Nadal’s ultimate triumph was a grand display of resilience and willpower. Yet all I could think about the whole time I was watching was, Nadal needs a friend.

A mentor explained to me a long time ago that a true friend is someone who tells you when you have food on your face. In this case, a true friend—heck, maybe even a casual acquaintance with reasonable confidence—would have told Nadal during the rain delay, “This match is being televised to millions of people all around the world, and you’re digging in your seat before every serve. Stop it.”

The Perfect Product

My wife and I spent several weekends recently packing to move out of a house we’d lived in for more than nine years. Despite some aggressive purging, there was a lot to pack. At one point, our cheap sealing tape dispenser broke, so I ran to the nearby home improvement store to replace it. There, alongside the cheap dispensers, was a $9 dispenser: the Scotch H-180. It was bigger and better—clearly intended to be to the premium option. However, it had a big piece of clear plastic on the business end, and—thinking that plastic “blade” was intended to cut the tape—I walked away from the display. It seemed like a cheap part marring an otherwise quality item.

Before I got to my car, I changed my mind. I went back in and bought the H-180. That was the best decision I made that day. The dispenser turns out to be a nearly perfect invention. Using only one hand, you can start taping a box just by pressing the roller against it. It smoothes the tape as it goes. When it’s time to cut the tape, you just put a litter pressure against the box using that plastic piece—which actually “activates” the metal blade. Plus the tape is always ready for the next job, never folding back on itself. I watched as several different friends and relatives tried the dispenser out, and nobody “trusted” it at first. They tended to use two hands, pull the tape with their fingers, and so forth. I guess we’re conditioned to assume tape dispensers are going to be a hassle because “that’s the way it is.” But eventually, when they saw what the H-180 can do, they got a big smile on their face—just like I did.

Call me a tape-dispenser geek if you want, but I love well-designed products in any category, no matter how simple or mundane. They remind me of the goal: to have the customer say to himself, “Wow. That product (or service) really delivered.” Sometimes people in the publishing industry joke that they don’t care if people read the books—just if they buy them. But nothing could be further from the truth. I want our readers to be thrilled with what our books deliver—after the first reading, and after the tenth reading. And, on at least a few books every season, I’d love for them to say, “Wow. That book was perfect.”

Leadership Is More Than Public Relations

Early in my publishing career, I had to go to the office of one of our senior leaders to report on an issue related to an upcoming book release. While I was there, someone further up the corporate ladder than me interrupted the meeting to tell the leader about some extremely troubling “water cooler” talk he had heard recently. After listening to all the details, the leader paused and then said, “Gee, I’d hate to think we have a morale problem.” That’s it. As a young editor who planned to be with the company for many years, I was confused by the reply, but I assumed a more meaningful response would follow.

No such luck. Over the next few months, it became clear to me and everyone else that hating to think we had a morale problem was pretty much all that the leader was prepared to do about it. Actually, that’s not quite true. Occasionally in meetings he would try to pump the team up by explaining how good things were in this area of concern. It won’t surprise you to hear that this was completely ineffective.

My point is many leaders struggle their entire career because they see every significant challenge as a matter of public relations or “spin.” (Some problems are matters of perspective or attitude, of course, but many others aren’t. Leaders who aren’t able to tell the difference are frequently referred to by followers as “clueless.”) Don’t get me wrong, in general these leaders do work hard. They invest a lot of time and energy trying to convince their team that nothing’s really wrong. The catch is people are generally pretty savvy about such things. They don’t want someone to change their opinion. They want someone to change their reality.

To state the painfully obvious, it is hard to change reality. (That’s why most leaders stay focused on tinkering with spin.) But great leaders work hard—for years, if that’s what it takes—to address difficult issues. They lead their teams in attempting to create a new reality. Sometimes they fail. But when they succeed, the results are amazing.

Dad

This has nothing to do with publishing or business or anything like that. My dad died last month. A friend of mine at work attended the service and encouraged me to post the eulogy I gave. This is what I said...

This is the kind of man my father was.

When my little sister’s dress caught fire one Sunday evening, he beat it out with his bare hand, burning himself in the process. The rest of us thought he was very brave. My sister thought he was spanking her.

When I was eight, he taught me to saddle a pony and ride solo around our mini-farm in Noble, Oklahoma. One perfect snowy evening that year he also used a patio broom to push us one at a time—even my mom—down hill on a sled. Over and over, for hours.

When I was nine, he took me for a ride in the Chevy Impala with the blue vinyl seats on a rainy Saturday to make sure I understood the gospel and had accepted God’s gift of eternal life.

At church he led congregational singing and directed the choir for the sheer joy of it. Ditto for the enthusiastic conducting he did around the house and in the car as the radio played.

He could be very serious—especially singing “Just as I Am” during the altar call at church. But he also played “Do Wacka Do” and “Crabs Walk Sideways but Lobsters Walk Straight” on his electric Silvertone guitar. With gusto, as he would say.

He taught my brother and me that a gentleman can never be overdressed, and he proved it by walking the beaches of North Carolina in an undershirt, swimsuit, black socks, and wingtips.

He was more loyal than anyone else I’ve ever known, loyal to a fault, loyal to his own hurt.

If he knew you, you could be sure that he never said an unkind word about you—not even when you weren’t around. And if—purely hypothetically—another person said something critical about you, he’d counter faithfully, “Oh, but he has a good heart.”

The harshest name I ever heard him call anyone was “Dooferd.” It just meant someone—usually one of us five kids—was acting like a goofball.

A lot of people talk about love; he tutored me through two grueling semesters of calculus at Vanderbilt.

He taught us that when you give money to God and people in need, you will have less money in the bank, not more—and you should give anyway.

He taught us to take advice from people who cared about our souls because what you think about God and eternity shapes how you think about everything.

I know my father wasn’t exactly like that in his final days. But that’s the kind of man he was once, the kind of guy he is again today.

Management Tips That Amuse Me

I love personality tests and strengths assessments. Myers-Briggs, DISC, StrengthsFinders—you name it. But the DISC came back into my life recently, and it got me thinking about the odd management advice that is sometimes dispensed with the test results.

For instance, here are some tips for communicating with team members I’ve seen over the years:

Don’t be dictatorial.

Don’t talk down to her/him.

Don’t be domineering or demanding; don’t threaten with position power.

It’s tempting to invest such information with significance because it is delivered in a long, well-designed print-out. But just once I would love to hear a manager say, “Wait a minute! This is the goofiest stuff I’ve ever read.”

Think about it. The “customized” management advice based on the unique personality type of the team member is “don’t be dictatorial”? I admit I’ve been in my industry for only fifteen years, but I’ve yet to come across someone who produces amazing results whenever I “threaten with position power.” I’ve yet to discover the personality type that generates a formal recommendation urging me, “Do talk down to her/him.”

So these are the things I ponder.