Dez Futak.com: Online Business Solutions » 2010 » August

Do You Want to Change the World? Understand and Implement Tribal Leadership

Dez — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:37:14 +0000

Summary of Video

We all exist in tribes; it’s part of being a human being
A tribe consists of a group of people 20-100 in size, where there is a common culture
The culture (or worldview/paradigm) determines how the world occurs to that tribe, with subsequent actions congruent with the tribe’s values
There are 5 levels of tribe:
- Stage 5: Life is great & we can change the world (~2% of tribes)
- Stage 4: We are great (~22% of tribes)
- Stage 3: I am great, (and you’re not) (~48% of tribes)
- Stage 2: My life sucks (~25% of tribes)
- Stage 1: Life sucks (adversarial gangs) (~2% of tribes)

Stage 5 tribes change the world (eg Truth & Reconciliation Committee)

Stage 4 tribes can do great things, because they recognize the value of each other’s contributions & want to collaborate

Stage 3 tribes are individualistic, each member wanting to fulfill their own, individualisitc goals, resulting in internal political backbiting and lack of real progress

Stage 2 tribes are "dumbed down" by their perception of the world that it’s drab, dull and nothing much good can happen.

Stage 1 tribes exist in gangs and prisons. To move someone forward, into stage 2 (yes, you have to move them just one stage forward at a time), there must be a grafting in to a new tribe, as in Stage 1, the challenge to move the whole tribe forward to Stage 2 as an entity, is probably beyond most (though not impossible).

How Tribal Leadership Can Move Towards Stage 5

Tribes can only hear one level above & below where they are. Leaders’ roles within a tribe are to nudge people to one level above where they are now, but they must use the language of the level where the tribal member is at the moment, and help them reframe the way they see the world through a process of change.

True tribal leaders create "triadic relationships" – they extend the reach of their tribes, introducing new tribes to one another, connecting different people together with the belief that when tribal interconnectivity occurs, the world begins to really change.

What kind of impact does your tribe make on the world? Can you begin to change the culture of your tribe? If you aren’t in a position of leadership yet, you can bring the understanding of tribes to your team (aka tribal!) leader; perhaps share this areticle with them, and point them to David Logan’s website: Culture Sync, where you can find free resources and tools to help move your tribe forward. [Membership signup required, but it's free -and that's not an affiliate link, in case you were wondering!]

When Performance-Related Pay Doesn’t Work

Dez — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:23:06 +0000

Summary of video

Incentivization only improves performance for simple tasks that have a simple series of procedures to reach the desired outcome.
Many of these procedures are increasingly being performed by computers
For high-level activities, when the outcome is incentivized.
Therefore, for businesses (in fact, any institution where there are people working on complex, high-level tasks) performing complex skills and working on creative solutions to challenges, another model is needed, otherwise the business suffers.
Cutting edge companies who realise this are now working on more effective ways to enhance performance, which enhance the following core outcomes:
- Autonomy
- Mastery
- Purpose
Autonomy

is enhanced through creative time-out (eg, Google engineers are allowed 20% of their work-time for working on their own projects, which have produced Google News, Gmail, & Orchid, to name but a few)

So Where Does This Leave Performance-related Pay

In my view: On the scrap heap. Incentivization doesn’t work for the complex decisions and high-level thinking that are now the norm not the exception, for the majority of the workforce in any organisation.

For this large majority, performance-related pay harms the desired-outcome of enhanced productivity.

So why is still the default position for many businesses? Perhaps the answer is because in those organisations, they haven’t heard or realised that the "default" paradigm (expressed or just assumed) doesn’t work any more.

So why does this ‘default’ position exist at all?

At heart, every business, every organisation, every individual, has within them, a belief about how things are, whether or not they have been articulated.

In my next post, I’ll unpack more of why this is the case, and, if you don’t like the way things are, what you can do to change this "default future".

When Performance-Related Pay Doesn’t Work is a post from: Dez Futak's Internet Marketing 101 Blog.

Why are Viral Videos More Effective Than Traditional Advertising?

Dez — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 22:25:24 +0000

Picture this: you’re cooking some food, listening to your favourite music radio station, when suddenly your serene (or maybe excited!) state of mind is interrupted by the jingle of your latest pet-hate and cheesy ad from some local company trying to corner the competitive carpet market.
How do you feel now?
Annoyed. Angry, even.
Or, if you’re the take-action type, you’ll re-tune somewhere else until the yukky ads have gone away.
That is, unless the new radio station is also mid-way through it’s 5-15 minute session of disruptive, annoying and irrelevant ads.
Someday someone is going to create some kind of software which automatically scans for new radio stations when the ads appear.
But that will probably be made illegal.
Or, we’ll have the increasingly familiar scenario of a premium version of your favourite TV channel or radio station which is ad-free.
Now that presents an interesting question:
If people are willing to pay money to have ad-free content, why hasn’t the penny dropped for business owners?
In other words:
Why do businesses still pay for disruptive, non-targetted and annoying ads with a conversion ratio of no better than 0.1%??
That’s an aweful lot of money going into someone else’s bank account…
Maybe one reason is that businesses think that they have to demonstate that they’re a big player now, by splashing out $20k+ on some magazine or radio ads, so that people start thinking they’re worth listening to.
But that’s a dangerous game to play in an uncertain economy.

So what’s the alternative to Interruptive Advertising?

The answer is on your lips I’ll bet:

Social media. Viral video. Blogging, etc.

Now, I’m going to focus on viral video.

I’m not saying that the others aren’t important. Far from it. In fact, you might be getting this content through Facebook, Twitter, a blog post somewhere, or by the time it reaches you, it might even be a video or podcast.

But if I had to pick between all the so-called Web 2.0 (or is it Web 3.0 by now ) properties, I would choose video every time.

Why so?

The simple answer is this: out of all the different ways of communicating remotely, video is the only one which stands the best chance of really engaging the with viewer in a cross-sensory manner.

The day someone invents real-time smell production out of your TV, computer or mobile phone screen is the day I’ll be proved wrong.

Did you know that around 30% of all your brain function is given over to visual processing?

That’s a huge amount. And I haven’t added in audio yet, either.

So video, done in the right way, has the best chance of engaging the viewer with an experience that will produce a lasting and potentially very positive effect.

Ok, you might be saying, everybody knows that already. It’s obvious.

That’s why the title has the word VIRAL in it.

Viral videos are, by definition, almost unstoppable. I say almost, because eventually, if you have a viral video, it might get overrun by someone else’s in the same niche.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

What exactly do I mean by viral video?

As I’ve already said, viral videos are almost unstoppable, and they contain some, or all, of the following 7 features:

7 key ingredients of Viral Videos

Compelling/Emotive
Incredible/Unbelievable
On the edge
Funny
Contemporary
Disturbing
Memorable

..in essence, viral videos tell a story that is disruptive in nature.

They put a new twist in the viewer’s mind by either exposing the shortcomings of their existing pre-suppositions about what should happen next.

And in so doing, they become memorable, and compelling enough so that the viewer just *has* to pass it on to someone else…

But, you might argue, if viral videos are disruptive, surely then they’re just the same as the annoyingly interruptive ads we all hate?

Nope. Reason?

The answer to why viral videos are not annoying, is this: the way they spread isn’t by broadcasting them one-to-many, like traditional advertising does.

Instead, the content is shared in a many-to-many manner.

That’s why, if your video is a good one, it will be unstoppable, because you’ve given up the right to control the distribution.

Ok then, so if viral videos are so powerful, why don’t businesses use them all the time, instead of relying on traditional and expensive advertising methods.

Well, the truth is, is that making a video go viral is not a guaranteed given.

But….

It’s much,much easier to make a video go viral than it used to be.

The main reason is that the internet is so much more interconnected today than it was 10 or even 5 years ago.

Since YouTube, Facebook & Twitter came centre-stage as the de-facto trio of social media services, there has been an incredible explosion of new social networks, micro-blogging platforms, video sharing sites, and media distribution services that, in their totality, are completely revolutionizing the way we communicate, shop, make decisions and form relationships.

This interconnectivity, whilst overwhelming and scary for some, presents the human race with the most amazing opportunity that’s ever been available in our entire history.

But now I’m running ahead of myself.

I’m looking at the role of viral video as a method of connecting businesses with potential customers. But of course, I’m happy to admit that this is only (and perhaps thankfully) a tiny segment of the whole picture as far as viral video is concerned.

Let me finish this exploration by giving you my top strategies for creating viral video.

(By the way, before I go any further. Let me make it clear that I’m not a viral video guru, just someone who is learning the craft and sharing my observations plus the experiences of others).