Magic, Management, and Logistics
Magic, Management, and Logistics When I spoke at the National Logistics and Distribution Conference earlier this year, I was interviewed by Bob Bowman of SupplyChainBrain.com for an Executive Briefing video. The interview was recently published and they gave me permission to share it with my viewers on my YouTube channel. If you’ve ever wondered why and how I connect my performances with speaking on the concepts of leadership, management, branding, and corporate communication, you’ll enjoy this interview. You might want to pay close attention to the questions surrounding the issues of deception and “lying” to the audience, and how I can still use my kinds of performances to communicate meaningful messages to an audience. Enjoy!
The Atlanta Braves, Cobb County, Leadership, and Unforced Errors
The Atlanta Braves, Cobb County, Leadership, and Unforced Errors Leadership is a risky business. Leadership is a risky business. Sometimes you march through a rain of opposition, only to come out stronger and more connected to those you lead and your former opponents for having led with honor and grace. And sometimes, just as you are about to cross the finish line, you step in a hole, twist your ankle, and end up walking with a cane for the foreseeable future. Every subsequent appearance before your group carries a visual reminder of your misstep. Something along those lines happened this week in Cobb County, where, as you’ve no doubt heard by now, the Atlanta Braves will be moving to a new stadium in 2017. While I am heavily involved in the entrepreneurial and business networking circles within Cobb County, I am not a resident. I love Cobb and think of it as a generally successful example of good leadership at the county level. While I may have disagreements with issues here or there, overall I tend to think of Cobb as the kind of county that many other metro counties could learn from. I leave my encounters with Cobb’s business, political, and social leaders thinking, “These folks get it.” But even the best sometimes stumble. Even the best sometimes stumble. This week, the Cobb County Commission voted 5-0 to approve multiple agreements that form a 30-year partnership with the Braves. As is the usual case with Cobb County commission meetings, they allow citizens to speak on issues before the commissioners by allowing people to sign up for a number of open speaking slots. The supporters of the Braves’ move organized themselves to arrive five hours before the meeting and sign up for all twelve slots. This ensured that no opposition voice was heard at the meeting. I’m sure that the creators of this strategy thought it was a master stroke. “Nobody else will get to speak and put any kind of a damper on the festivities.” “No negative thoughts or visuals will impede the progress of this project.” “We will present a unified view to those who are watching.” It’s not that there aren’t admirable elements to the idea of showing unity and keeping things positive. But it didn’t turn out that way. Opposing voices were led away by authorities. The meeting has made the news all over the country. The commissioners and the advocates of the deal have come off looking really bad. I don’t support the opposition’s attempt to disrupt the meeting, either, but that pales in comparison to the mistake of not reserving a slot or two for the opposing view. Avoid unforced errors. The sad part is that it was completely unnecessary. Even if some of the opponents had received speaking slots, the vote was a fait accompli. This deal was already done and everyone knew it. Despite some reasonable arguments from the opposition, I actually support the Braves’ move to Cobb and am looking forward to the new entertainment venues and development in the area. I personally think the pluses outweigh the minuses in the long run. Others disagree. Fair enough. The commissioners and the community business leaders who supported this outcome got what they wanted. They got their vision, they got their stadium, they got their vote, and they got their speaking spots filled. But what they failed to remember was that they actually have to lead the whole county from this point forward, including those who were escorted out of that meeting and the other people whose views they represent. This episode, spread across media far and wide, is going to make it more difficult than it should have been to lead effectively through the days to come. It will invite ugly comparisons to past mistakes; even when such comparisons are unfounded, the fact that this happened will give credibility to future complaints. In controlling the environment of this meeting and strategically excluding the opposing voices, the advocates have unwittingly strengthened their opponents’ voices. The advocates didn’t need all twelve slots. The commissioners didn’t need to retreat into a “we didn’t pick who got to speak” dodge. They could have reserved 6 slots pro and con, or 10 slots pro and 2 slots con. Almost any other way of handling it would have been preferable to letting absolutely no opposing voice have a speaking slot on the agenda. In leadership, as in baseball, few things are as frustrating as unforced errors. The way this meeting was handled may not change much about the outcome of the game, but it’s going to make it significantly harder for all of these leaders to regain the trust of many talented people whom they will want on their team going forward.
7 Magical Lessons You Should Have Learned In Business School
7 Magical Lessons You Should Have Learned In Business School Over the past few weeks we’ve discussed several principles from the world of magic and illusion that have meaningful application to the business world. Now that we’ve finished, here’s a handy summary of what we’ve learned. (You can click each item to go to the detailed write-up for that principle.) Audiences will gladly pay to be amazed. Mystery is valuable. If it doesn’t look like magic, it still needs work. The audience need not know the details of the process. Smoother is better than faster. Props should be in good condition, but not the star of the show. It’s not “misdirection,” it’s “direction.” Those are just a handful of excellent principles that magicians have to think about on a regular basis, but which can affect the way you manage your branding, marketing, sales, leadership, management, or other business processes. Think about it – as kids, most of us went through a magic phase. If only we’d had the right insights about it, we might have come away as business prodigies! Now that you’ve read this article, though, you can enjoy your brand new MBA – Master of Business Astonishment!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #7
#7 – It’s not really misdirection – it’s direction. It’s often been said that “magic is simply misdirection.” One important lesson of magic that high-achieving performers learn is that the term “misdirection” is a misnomer. Yes, it’s sometimes important for the overall illusion to ensure that audience doesn’t see something happen. Having them look away is “misdirection,” but you could “misdirect” someone by any number of clumsy means that would not enhance the experience. Saying “Hey, look, is that your dad?” might get someone to look away for a moment and miss a move, but any illusion would be immediately spoiled by suspicion of the manipulation. Instead of “misdirection” of attention, the real secret is “direction.” The late, great Tommy Wonder was one of the magicians who voiced this idea most strongly. To artfully misdirect means that you purposely direct attention to something else that is just as interesting and important. Skillful misdirection requires the performer to consider what should be interesting to the spectator at every moment and to create a script and blocking to put that story at the forefront of the audience’s attention. With the narrative clearly identified and illuminated both visually and verbally, the method can now be poured into the background shadows. If you want your audience to be amazed with your business story and your overall business effect, make sure that you are giving them something meaningful to which they can pay attention, especially during the times that you need to execute actions that hinder or clutter your narrative. What about you? Can you think of a time when a brand awkwardly attempted a “look over here” moment? How did you feel when they tried to dodge the issue at hand? What is your “look over here” story? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #6
#6 – Your props should be in great condition, but they shouldn’t be the star of the show, either onstage or in business. Unless you’re performing a theme act set in a junkyard, there’s not really an excuse for performing with props that are in disrepair. The poor impression they make will be a psychological barrier between you and the effect you’d like to have on your audience. Audiences don’t care to understand the economics of purchasing unusual materials, nor the particulars of trying to fit multiple performances into a day. All they know is what they experience during the show that they have paid to see. If you are giving them wrinkled silk scarves, peeling paint, or badly-fitting costumes, then even the best illusion you perform will have less impact than it should because part of the audience’s attention is being spent on noticing those flaws. While the props shouldn’t be in bad shape, they should also not steal focus from the performance. Some performers – usually those of little experience – have a tendency to think that enough paint, prism tape, or varnish will make a prop so attractive that it will do all the work of sustaining an audience’s interest. But the props can never do that job, because props are not the star of the show. Whether you’re on a stage or in a retail environment, an office, or some other business, your audience wants your tools to be in good shape, but they are far less interested in the tools than they are in what you will build with them. You certainly can’t build a quality product without using tools, but you can’t sell a shoddy product because you built it using a great tool. What about you? Can you think of an experience where the tools or environment were great, but the delivery of the service or product was still lousy? What is your “lipstick on a pig” story? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #5
#5 – When it comes to polishing your secret move, in magic or in business, smoother is usually better than faster. “The hand is quicker than the eye” is a useful misconception. One of the great myths of magic – and business – is that it’s all about speed. The very word “prestidigitation” means “fast fingers,” and many people think that the magic is produced because magicians can move their hands too quickly for you to follow. The truth is that the hands don’t have to move at superhuman speed in order to create magic. In 1902, a man using the nom de plume “S. W. Erdnase” wrote about secret actions in his classic book The Expert at the Card Table. His discussion of cheating included a segment on palming cards in which he wrote, “It is very simple to to place one or several cards in the palm and conceal them by partly closing and turning the palm downward, or inward; but it is entirely another matter to palm them from the deck in such a manner that the most critical observer would not even suspect, let alone detect, the action.” When executing the critical action, Erdnase knew that the goal was to do the move smoothly and within the natural experience of the situation so as not to arouse any notice or suspicion that an action was happening at all. Smoother is better than faster. Sure, a secret move shouldn’t be executed without the speed that comes with competence and expertise, but once that is achieved, the truly polished performer looks at smoothness as the goal. Why? Because a fast, jerky movement jars the spectator out of the experience of the effect. Even if the sudden movement doesn’t generate suspicion or an attempt to decipher the method, at the very least it has reminded them that there *is* a method at work, and that undermines the experience of magic. What about you? Have you interacted with a brand or a business whose process had so many stops and starts that you lost the experience of service? Have you gone around and around with a business as they explained their internal business processes to you for no apparent reason? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #4
#4 – Just because your process is boring to you doesn’t mean the result will be. The details of the process aren’t important to the audience, who only care about the end result. But the process is critically important to you, the producer of the effect. You have to be judicious about which methods are best for your capabilities. You have to be realistic about what methods are either within your current capabilities, or learnable with the kind of investment that you’re willing to make. What’s more – despite your best research, you may invest time and effort in learning a method that doesn’t produce what you ultimately want, and not know until it’s too late. Yes, it will require some tedious practice to develop the skills to execute the methods so that they feel like magic to the audience. They don’t really care, of course, but you do — because those ten thousand hours of rehearsal of that little movement with your ring finger will elevate the audience’s experience from “process” to “magic.” What about you? Were you in a business that invested in building a given process or implementing a given solution, only to find out afterward that it wasn’t what you really wanted? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #3
#3 – If it doesn’t look like magic, it still needs work. The most important thing to your business audience is not how hard you worked on the technique. The most important thing to your audience is not whether your back-office software is the coolest. The most important thing to your audience is not how many degrees your team has, or where you all worked before, or which group is providing your capital. The most important thing to your audience – at least in the context of creating the sensation of magic – is that you deliver an amazing business experience in a way that makes it look natural and effortless. If they can see you struggle to execute your business process, then they may respect your effort but they will not experience “magic.” If it doesn’t look like magic, then it still needs work. Your goal is for your audience to experience the final effect and have almost no perception of the process or method that got them there. Every bit of method that your audience perceives is a bit of lost impact. What about you? Can you think of a brand who makes it look easy? Apple used to have that mojo, but it seems to have dissipated. Who is the top brand in the world today that makes delivering high value look like a natural gift? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #2
#2 – Mystery is valuable. It’s one of the primary rules of magic: don’t reveal the secret of the illusion. If you tell the audience your secrets, then the wonderful moment you created for them only seconds ago will lose a lot of its impact. Mystery, in the context of magic, is not about lying or deception. Magic is not about “fooling people.” The whole point is to create an experience that doesn’t seem possible. That unexpected mystery is a captivating element that engages interest and it should not be squandered. Mystery is too valuable to be squandered. In business, if you create an experience in working with you and in experiencing your product or service that surpasses expectations of what people generally consider possible, then you will have created a rare and beautiful mystery. Don’t spoil it by letting the process become the narrative. Keep your secrets secret, and let your customer focus on what you made them feel, not how you made them feel it. What about you? Certainly the secret formula to Coca-Cola is a classic example of a valuable business mystery. Can you think of any others? What about your own business – without exposing it, do you have a secret that helps you preserve some mystery for your audience? Let me hear from you in the comments!
7 Things About Magic That You Should Have Learned In Business School – #1
#1 – Audiences will pay to be amazed. What does magic have to do with business? I mean, David Copperfield is nearly a billionaire, but he’s certainly the exception. Why would anyone think magic has any relationship to business principles? The truth is, the art of magic is loaded with important concepts for sales, marketing, customer service, brand engagement, and entrepreneurship. In this series, we’ll discuss seven ideas just to get you thinking about the power of this metaphor! Here’s the first one: Audiences will gladly pay to be amazed. When a person buys a ticket for a magic show, they expect the show to create wonder and amazement. If they don’t leave having experienced the impossible, they will feel shortchanged and dissatisfied. Fortunately, the bar isn’t set quite as high in other industries, but the principle remains the same. The person who buys your product or service may not expect to be amazed with an impossible experience in terms of physics, but they still want it and will react positively if and when you exceed their expectations. Give them an amazing and wondrous experience, and they will become your fan for life. Handle it just right and you may create something even better than a raving fan: a raving and replicating fan! What about you? What product or service have you experienced for which you gladly paid a premium to enjoy? Was it an expensive concert, or a special cruise? Why were you willing to pay the extra cost? Let me hear from you in the comments!
