Pascal Laliberté

Perfectionism, Patience, Resourcefulness

Conformity or uniformity?

You have to sacrifice a little in conformity if you want to achieve uniformity.

It pays off that everyone use the same system in a shop. One way to share people’s files, let’s say. You might think that reduces choice, that it constrains creative thinking, and in some sense it might. But in there is the fear of conformity, whereas what you’re really trying to get are the added benefits of uniformity. Uniformity, without the constraining force of conformity.

Apple understands something about the subtle difference between conformity and uniformity. You might say there’s an irony between their current dominance of iOS in the mobile space and their 1984 Super Bowl commercial that heralded them as anti-conformist. But somehow they managed to create in iOS a platform that added morechoice and more freedom of expression. Like everything else in life, the subtleties of excellence lie in how you slice the pie, where you make your choices. Standard screen sizes matter, for example, and imposing that constraint has a liberating factor on other design choices.

You might look at the file-sharing example as too simplistic. Surely, there’s no harm in requiring everyone to store their files in one spot. What’s the big deal, after all? The harm isn’t in requiring where people put their files. The harm is in not going deep enough in the user experience analysis of the system. You’ve put the system in place but there’s no sharing of files. Maybe people hesitate with your solution because the folders aren’t named intuitively. Maybe there’s no sharing being done because team members don’t communicate the new files they put up. Maybe those are the details that affect the adoption of your system. But if you don’t know those things, you throw your arms up, lose patience, and declare that standards don’t work unless they’re imposed.

Adoption is a tough thing to foster. It’s touchy because you’re transforming people’s day-to-day routines, their reference points. You’re asking people to switch train tracks, to go on a new route. You could impose it. Maybe there’s a way to get everyone to choose that new way, instead.

The trick, to me, has always been to sit in as the user and imagine the experience. It’s always a worthwhile experience, mostly because you learn that there aren’t that many variables to change into constants — the mountain of variables is never as huge as we fear. You just have to bathe into their experience and you’ll see there are a few, key things that make all of their experiences the same. Once you demystify those, once you find the few things to nail down, then you can be an agent of change. 

To get uniformity, step back a little, resist those urges to require conformity. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes and in the end, you’ll find you’ll all be further ahead.

Like what you do

Cory Watilo remembers this memorable day at work.

Steve Jobs came out and the whole theater burst into applause, and the clapping went on for minutes, with people standing and cheering.  The success of the iMac was just becoming evident – the first act of Steve’s big return, leading from there to what Apple is now.

Steve let the applause go on for a little bit, then, with much effort, settled down the crowd. When things got quiet, the first thing he said was: “That’s an awful lot of applause considering that you guys are the ones who do all the work.”

Everyone leapt to their feet and applauded again for several minutes more, this time with Steve egging them on, applauding each other as a team.

That moment has since defined what I think about as leadership.

Michael Grothaus commemorates another such day. 

For Tim Cook there are no dumb questions. When he answered me he spoke to me as if I were the most important person at Apple.

His look, his tone, the long pause was evidence enough that he genuinely gave thought to the concern I brought up.

Cheering your boss, getting cheered back. Taking a chance to ask a question. Being listened to.

We can all get there.

Take a seat, partner

Boxes. They’re all over the place in big organizations. This is my box, that’s your box. Our relationship isn’t clear enough, let’s define it. Let’s make it clear. Let’s draw some lines. Boxes.

The newcomers, the enthusiastic, the open, the brave, they see these boxes and they don’t understand. So much red-tape, they say. Boulders to get around. Barriers to go over. Just let us do our job!

Eventually, these brave newcomers either leave or relinquish the battle. And you see their passion die off.

Clarity

John’s a manager. His team provides services to other sectors in the company. He’s discerning how to clarify his sector’s responsibilities (yes, we’re in the business of this, no we’re not in that business). He’s also a believer in community values, in collaboration, and you could tell he found the balance difficult to attain. Not too strict, but not too closed off. Some doors are opened to some, while some doors are better left closed for most.

He wants clear-cut agreements with some people, but he’d like to engage in more collaborative relationships with some other people, because his team can’t do all this alone.

In these big organizations, though, you do need agreements. Lines have to be drawn sometimes. Then you just got to give a name to your relationship.

Those are my clients, and these are my partners.

Clients are far. Partners are close.

Clients want more than you can offer, and you close the case at some point. You define the scope. Win-win, for a time. You got more clients to serve.

Partners, though, they help you as much as you help them. There’s give and take. Win-win, at a deeper level, and for longer. 

Partners partly own your problems and you partly own theirs, and that’s okay because you communicate more openly, and you feed off of each other’s strengths.

Actually, you feed off of each other’s enthusiasm, too. And every chance you get to work together, you both feel like newcomers again, and that much more is possible. As if there were no boxes in the first place.

Got enthusiasm and openness? Take a seat, partner.

A New Kind of App Market

This is a great time to be building apps.

You can get your app on a store-front and tons of people can buy your app without thinking twice about it. Customers can find you, and your fans can spread the word for you. Your app is findable and spreadable. Your product will sell on its merits. That kind of market favours the smart, human-connected and small over the slow, impersonal and large.

If you’re in it for the long-term and you iterate your app, you can build a nice business. You can be like that baker on the street corner. People will drop by, you’ll know their favourite kind of loaf. You’ll chat up and they’ll take an extra pastry or two before they go. You can be the baker by hanging out at the virtual storefront: respond to people on twitter, answer comments on your blog, chat up your true fans and fold into your apps the stuff you both like. You’re building your business with your customers. There’s a relationship. People value what you do, and you value your people.

You’re close to your people, but you’re also close to yourself and your craft. There are many places you can take your app, but you know what you like and what you don’t like. You developed a sort of palate for how your app is designed. You’re not solving every problem, you’re only solving the stuff that you care for. You can let others figure out how to make apps solve other problems, because there’s plenty of space for all sorts of apps, like there’s plenty of space for another baker in town. You got your breads, the other baker specializes in different breads.

In fact, your app can solve a pretty specific problem, because the app market is a lot larger than a village. Your app is findable and spreadable, and so you can focus on a pretty slim slice of customers. You want a way to track your personal journal, but you don’t like the experience of using the other competitors? Build your own. Yours will be just the way you like it. It’ll be easy to use for the tasks you do most. It’ll be a delight to use for the types of journal entries you like to write up. You’ll make all these small design choices, suited to your own taste and to your own palate, and chances are tons of people will be craving the same qualities. You’re into crusty sourdough with lots of big bubbles. So is someone else. And both of you can connect in a seller-client relationship like never before.

Used to be that apps were tough to sell, and so companies who sold software needed to be big and well structured. The software needed to hit the middle of the road to be successful. The apps were built for the lowest common denominator, because that was the only way to get noticed, to get the right kind of volume to make some revenue. The apps needed to be incredibly clever, and companies valued engineering prowesses over delightful user experiences.

No more. You don’t need a big company or complicated algorithms to create a product that creates a difference, an app that is remarkable. You can count on just solving small annoyances, delighting people with a simple app that does a few things remarkably well, and in a different way than anyone else.

It’s a hyper-niche-user-experience market.

It’s a new kind of App market.

Magnets and Culture

Do you know the difference between a magnet and a chunk of iron? The magnet has all of its atoms spinning in the same direction.

Changing a culture is hard. You’ll say you need more people, but maybe there’s a way to do all the stuff you’re doing (and more) with the same amount of people.

You want more chunks of iron. I say find a way to change the iron you have into a magnet.

Funny how the word “contract” means to reduce. Contracts serve to clarify the slices of a pie, not to find ways to increase its size.