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Note: This article is long and has several fun video clips. I recommend you get a cocktail, take your time, and prepare to laugh. The Question: I was never very keen on Mrs. Kindt (our high school history teacher), but I also have to admit I wasn’t a particularly good history student. However, she said something one time that really stuck with me. She was discussing two political principles that are commonly presented as polar opposites. (I’ve forgotten the exact topic, unfortunately.) She argued that while the two were, indeed, opposing viewpoints, one could actually become the other if taken to a far enough extreme. Rather than thinking of the two things as a bar magnet, she suggested a clock instead. I thought that was a fascinating idea. Let’s say, for example, we wanted to use the clock model to describe whether something is good or bad. Assume that 12:00 PM represents the absolute best. 3:00 PM would be good, but not great. Things that are perfectly mediocre would be plotted at 6:00 PM. 9:00 PM would be crappy, while things that are horrifically terrible would be found at 11:59 PM. Bad, of course, is diametrically opposed to good, but viewed through the clock model, something could be so bad that it becomes good (The clock would roll over to 12:01 AM and suddenly fall into good territory). That bizarre area would be a counter-intuitive subversion of good and bad: gad-bood. I’ve thought quite a lot about this, and I’m sure people can come up with many examples of gad-boodness. This clip, in my opinion, is a wonderful example of gad-boodness: It’s a promotional video for a neti pot. I’m disappointed to report that it has been edited; the original ended with the creepy non-blinking robot doing stretching exercises to ensure that all of the snot gets out of her head. True story. The video is so bad it is actually good. Importantly, gad-boodness has to be created by accident. Satire, for...
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By Neil Rackham Review by Jennifer Dawson under Melanie’s direction There’s a scene in the critically acclaimed but very nasty 1992 movie Glengarry Glen Ross that sticks in my head. Alec Baldwin, who plays a bad-ass consultant “from downtown” charged with increasing sales in a Chicago-based real estate office, introduces himself to his incredulous sales team with a profanity-peppered monologue. At one point he flips over a blackboard, revealing several chalked words, their first letter highlighted. Against an ominous backdrop of lightning flashes, Baldwin reviews the words. “A-B-C,” he rants. “A, Always, B, Be, C, Closing. Always be closing.” ABC. Always Be Closing. According to Neil Rackham, a psychologist whose substantial research on the sales process has revolutionized sales training around the world, ABC has been a widely repeated sales mantra since the 1920s. But Rackham is a bit of an iconoclast. In his book Spin Selling—which was first published in 1988 and is still earning devoted followers around the world–Rackham asserts that ABC doesn’t work, at least for large sales with higher price tags and longer sales cycles. SPIN stands for Situation, Problem, Implication and Need-payoff. Each word describes a kind of question that a salesperson should ask a prospect in order to strengthen the relationship and increase the perceived value of the product or service that is being sold. Rackham’s model is founded on questions: intelligent, considered in advance, and designed to help the customer see problems as needing to be solved and the salesperson as a problem solver. Traditional sales training emphasizes “show and tell.” Salespeople guess at the needs of the customer and focus their pitch on relaying the features and benefits of what is being sold in order to close the deal. Rackham’s model is fundamentally different. Instead of “show and tell” we have “ask and listen.” Instead of the salesperson providing all the answers, we have the customer filling in the blanks. Instead of high pressure tactics we have solutions to problems. Instead of a one-time meeting and quick buck, we...
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Written by Jen Dawson under Melanie’s direction This is not a new book. Published in hardcover in 2000, the four pages of glowing reviews found inside the front cover, gathered from corporate heavy-hitters like Fed-Ex and anonymous readers from across North America, give a sense that the book has been around long enough to gain quite a following. The concept of self-deception is also not new. “Know Thyself” was inscribed over the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi. More recently, the psychoanalytic theory of Freud and co. could be described as the study of the many ways humans lie to themselves. In fact, the concepts explored in Leadership and Self-Deception are the Arbinger Institute’s take on the psychoanalytic concept of ‘resistance’ as applied to the world of business. The book is engagingly written, following the popular business book format of the likeable but imperfect main character who learns a life-altering lesson from a selection of gentle and inspiring gurus. At 168 pages, it’s a quick read. The concepts are clearly presented, the dialogue believable, and the take-away lesson profound. We journey along with Tom Callum, a fictional new employee at a highly successful company where the secret weapon–being “out of the box” in relations with others–has revolutionized the way business is done. Over the course of two days, Tom learns that all people, including his mentors, have a tendency to see others as objects rather than people. It all starts when we deny an initial impulse to do something for another person. This act of denial is labelled self-betrayal. In order to continue seeing ourselves as good people, even though we didn’t follow through on our own impulse to help another, we have to rationalize our inaction. The other person’s character and behaviour is vilified, while our own deeds and needs are elevated in our perception. Both are distortions of reality. At the fictional company where the book is set, this place of distorted reality is given the label “being in the box”. Simple...
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Dear Diary, Yesterday was a crazy day. And by that, I mean that I made myself a little crazy. I created a world I don’t really want to live in–but only in my head. It has been a tough week. I have been sharing the Crucible with a focus group and I also took some entries to my writing group. Then, one of my kids told me “gay” is a bad word. We talked about it, and then I talked with the vice-principal to try to figure this out and to help the kids understand why they shouldn’t say “you’re gay” but not because “gay” is a bad word. All this has been going on, and then I sent out a page of the Crucible as a way to “come out” to a new friend about our family. I sent the page to her on Friday with a note that said how vulnerable I felt sharing it with her. Mostly I felt vulnerable because she is religious, and I honestly never know how some religious people will respond to our family. I say this, and yet in our little world, we have been extraordinarily safe. We simply haven’t come across many people who don’t like our family because we are queer. That said, I don’t test friendships with religious people very often. But we met some people we really liked and we had them over for drinks. It became clear to me that it was time to tell them. So I sent a page that described The Crucible Bookii and waited to hear back. Five days passed and I heard nothing about what I had sent her. I really couldn’t believe it. I am accustomed to the world surprising me with its acceptance. Could it be that she actually wasn’t going to respond to my coming out at all? I sent her the link on Friday, and by Wednesday I was pretty upset. I decided to send one more note, “Did you read what...
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