Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

May 2, 2014 · 8:47 am

Confiting Your Business

Foodie Friday and I have duck confit on the brain.

Duck confit with salad

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s one of my favorite foods and as I’m writing this I’m in the process of making a batch after one of my friends gave me a tub of duck fat. Stop making freaked out noises. You’ve probably had lots of stuff fried in duck fat without knowing it. It’s one of the professional kitchen’s secret weapons.

Duck confit is duck legs that are cured, usually in salt and spices, for a day and then the cure is removed and the legs are roasted at a low temperature covered in their own fat.  The resulting product can be kept for months.  You can confit anything but to me duck legs are the absolute pinnacle of the technique.  After all, fat is flavor and what could be more flavorful than food cooked in fat!

I think there is a lot to learn about business from confit.  After all, what is fat but stored energy?  They are also essential in preventing disease.  So much for all you sickly, skinny folks!  Every business person can benefit from the confit treatment when it comes to their business.

Think about it.  Immersing one’s self in the stored energy of the work. Recognizing that this immersion will focus you, letting you pay attention to the important stuff and  that the needs and priorities will change day by day.  Too many of us try to stay aloof in order to see the big picture.  Not a bad idea but getting immersed – letting the stored energy of the business cover you – can be a perspective change too, one that can prove beneficial.  As mentioned above, fat is flavor, and that immersion in the essence of the business can’t help but add to your understanding.

The magic of confit is that is intensifies the flavors, brings out the essences,  and holds them for a long time.  Doesn’t that sound like something from which a business can benefit too?

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April 30, 2014 · 8:27 am

Awesomely Simple

One of my favorite quotes comes from a jazz musician, Charles Mingus, and it concerns one of the things I work on with clients every day: simplification.

Charles Mingus - Bi Centenial, Lower Manhattan...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.”

That doesn’t mean dumbing things down.  It means finding the big idea in everything we’re doing and relating each and every action to that big idea.  If we’re selling air fresheners and someone thinks our cute logo would make great T-shirts, how do those ideas relate?  If they don’t, maybe we need to move on.

Michelangelo captured this notion when he likened sculpture to simplifying the marble.  He said that there was an angel inside a block and it was his job to set it free. There are statues inside every block, he said.  His task was to remove the excess, to make the complex simple.

Many people in business make what they do unnecessarily complicated.  Maybe it’s to prove their worth to themselves or to others.  Maybe it’s because they’re distracted by every new idea or shiny object.  As Mingus said, it’s commonplace.  Take the complexities that surround you in business and make them simple.  Find the big idea – the paragraph that explains the central tenets of whatever you’re doing  – and use it as your roadmap.  That is the tent pole that keeps everything else up and running.  It’s the thing around which you build your business.

Simple enough?

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April 29, 2014 · 9:10 am

Crossroads

This TunesDay, let’s start with a question. Who wrote “Crossroads?”

Robert Johnson

If your immediate answer was “Eric Clapton” or even “Cream,” you fail. If you know your music, you know it was Robert Johnson, a legendary bluesman who died at the ripe old age of 27 (along with Brian Jones, Alan Wilson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison – quite a club).  This is the original:

It was recorded by Cream (along with one of the greatest rock guitar solos in history) live in March of 1968, some 32 years after Johnson.  It’s been recorded many times since by many people including The Doors, Rush, The Allmans, and Phish.  Most of them followed Cream’s interpretation – their version of history.  Their version became our version and that’s the business point made by the song.

You probably have had the experience in your work life of having someone get the credit for another’s hard work.  Sometimes, as in the case of Crossroads, the person getting the credit (Clapton) took a great idea (Johnson’s) and made it better.  The problem with that is it’s rare that the person getting the credit did much of anything other than to present the idea as their own.  In some cases, this version of the big lie gets that person promoted or hired into a job for which they’re totally unqualified while the originator gets barely a nod.  You can count on them having received the blame, however, had things not worked out very well.

I’m hardly ever surprised any more when I read a piece in the press and realize it’s just a regurgitated press release.  That’s fine – I even do it to a certain extent here on the screed.  I try, however, to state it as a quote and I always link to the original.  I like to think I make the press release better by providing context and interpretation.  I certainly don’t take credit for the original research if that’s what’s in the release.

There is nothing wrong with taking a good idea and making it great – just as Amazon, eBay, or Apple.  Clapton always gave credit to Robert Johnson.  It just disturbs me when I see how often I hear reports of someone getting credit for ideas I know first-hand were developed by others.  It would be nice if the reporters would do a little digging and not regurgitate everything they’re given.  What do you think?

 

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