Book Review: We Are All Weird

We Are All Weird: The Myth of Mass and the End of Compliance by Seth Godin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Weird is a word in need of a new brand, and Seth Godin is endeavoring to make one for it.  Weird means "not normal" in Godin's world, but that does not connote bad or defective.  Unusual. Different. Not run of the mill.  You get the picture.  Godin's thesis is that on nearly every indicator, more and more of us are farther from the center than we used to be. Further, we are increasing our ability to express that uniqueness.  That, in turn, is influencing more people to leave the center. And so on.

Imagine the bell curve your high school science teacher drew to explain how the grades were distributed.  There were a few A's, a few more B's, a large bump of C's, then down the other side.  The same curve could be drawn for political leanings, eagerness to buy an iPhone, preference in wine, interest in gardening, and the likelihood of following instructions from the doctor.  Now imagine that a giant pregnant elephant from Antwerp (yes, that's how he writes) has just stepped on the center of the curve, squishing all the normal individuals out to the edges.  That is what Godin contends has happened to our society in recent decades. 

His main purpose in pointing this out to us is to focus our attention on some important implications for marketing and other forms of persuasion efforts. Marketers and other business people whose bread and butter has always been in appealing to the mass in the center are increasingly wasting their time and money.  Persuasion efforts must now be targeted to specific audiences. He says, "humanity and connection are trumping the desire for corporate scale." That's a pretty big shift in how we've been doing business.

I combined my short summary of this one with a 2008 book by Godin called Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us. It's about how people with shared interests find each other, collect together, and make change happen. We Are All Weird expands on some of the same themes.  My two-page summary of both books is available for free download by clicking here, but neither bok takes much time to read and I recommend them both.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Buy In

Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down by John P. Kotter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fear Mongering. Delay. Confusion. Ridicule.  According to John Kotter, these are the four primary ways people use to kill other people's ideas.  Seems about right.

The pace of change is picking up in our world.  So is the volume of resistance.  Any suggestion of doing something differently will generate a response from those who either like the status quo or who don't see the need for the change.  That's why every effort at change management has to include a plan to communicate for buy-in.  This is Step Four in Kotter's Eight Stage Change Process, and it important enough to merit its own book.

Written fable-style, Buy In takes us through a community library meeting where a group of leaders must convince others of the need to install computers.  Seems easy enough, right?  Well... all four tactics are used by the opponents: "We don't want the kind of people who use computers hanging around in the library." "What's the rush? Let's do this later." "I don't understand the data you have here, I've done some research of my own and...." "The people who are proposing this have a personal agenda."  We've heard them all.

What's the solution? Don't avoid confronting the opponents.  Make sure they are at the meeting and voicing their concerns so they can be addressed. Keep your arguments simple and clear. Be respectful and courteous. Focus your presentation to people who truly are undecided or can be influenced, not on the hard-core opponents. Prepare in advance and hold yourself with confidence.  That's always persuasive!
 
This will make a good reference manual for anyone preparing a presentation for others on something they would like to try.  Change management is always a leadership issue, and John Kotter is one of the best guides we have.  Click here to download a free two-page summary of the book.



View all my reviews