Category: Proactive Stories

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Strike Up the Band

Jazz superstar Wynton Marsalis’ is a virtuoso musician, educator, philanthropist, composer, author, producer, and jazz evangelist. His drive and talent have yielded nine Grammies, 30 honorary degrees, a Pulizer Prize, a Nation Medal of the Arts, and many other honors.

It’s tempting to think of these individual accolades as individual feats. But that’s not so.

It’s more appropriate to think about these kinds of accomplishments as the result of visionary leadership we normally ascribe to great politicians and Fortune 500 CEO’s.

Mr. Marsalis leads a troupe of creatives with a participatory, egalitarian, style. He is the unquestioned leader of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, but if you have ever seen them perfom he does little to stand out from the group — until you hear him play.

He’s not a mercurial, egomaniacal bandleader in the mold of Miles Davis or Charles Mingus. Marsalis empowers others to assert leadership on the bandstand. Note, this is quite distinct from the perjoritive ‘leading from the rear,’ which describes ‘leaders’ who follow the herd, and claim to be leading people where they want to go.

Clearly a secure leader, Marsalis encourages those he leads to take a star turn. The upside is that every member of the band, who is virtuosic in their own right, has the creative room to give their best effort to achieve individual and group success. This simply doesn’t happen in the vast majority of organizations.

This is different from other bands, jazz or otherwise that may tolerate outliers. As Mr. Marsalis has been know to say, those who do not measure up, on and off the bandstand, get “sent home” because tolerating outliers and poor performers is bad for group morale.

For the unititiated, leading creatives can seem a nightmare scenario akin to herding kittens. For Marsalis it is harmony, musical and otherwise, that has kept the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra the world’s premier jazz ensemble.

He obviously has the bona fides to command the respect and loyalty of the orchestra. He has created a safe space where everyone has room to be emotionally invested in the creative process. Also, he is confident enough to accept that his are not the only good ideas, but that good ideas are where you find them.

Photo Credit: Windelbo

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How to Have a 3 Hour Work Day! Lessons from Eugene Schwartz

(Above Picture: A Sample of Eugene Schwartz’s Work)

Eugene Schwartz, one of advertising’s greatest copywriters, only worked three hours a day for five days week.

Yet he called himself “the world’s hardest-working copywriter.”

How to Work for Three Hours a Day

Schwartz accomplished this feat by breaking up his day into small chunks. He’d set a timer for 33.33 minutes and force himself to write, read, and think without any coffee breaks, thumb-twiddling, or vacant staring. When his timer buzzed, he’d stop what he was doing, take a 10 minute break, and repeat the process until he finished his three-hour-day.

The routine paid dividends for Schwartz and he managed to write successful direct mail copy while authoring 10 books.

But Schwartz’s legacy has been hijacked by the people in his own field. If you Google Schwartz you get a slew of sites trying to sell his interviews, ideas, and writing strategies and they all employ the same sensationalist, ‘act-now’, language Schwartz helped pioneer. We don’t get to know Schwartz, we’re just told to spend $297 to learn how you to can become a “master copywriter.”

Still, it’s worth exploring Schwartz’s work ethic to see how we can learn from it. He was, after all, the best in his field.

Copywriting is a mix of writing, analysis, and design and Schwartz believed the only way to master all of these elements was to be prepared. He put it simply, “the person who is more prepared…makes the most money.”

Schwartz’s Work Strategy

Schwartz would get five weeks to write copy for a product. Here’s how he did it:

1. He’d take two weeks and get to know the product better than it’s creator. Schwartz routinely got manuscripts that were over 1,000 pages long explaining the product or service he was charged with selling. Schwartz would read through the manuscripts and underline any and all statements that made significant claims. He read every word and skipped the table of contents. He wanted to read every sentence without knowing what might come next. He said, “I’d get the guts, the heart, the meat, and the gist of [any] manuscript.”

2. He would type all of the important claims into one document and organize them for two weeks. Usually, this document would be around 60 pages. He’d take great care to separate what statements moved him the most.

3. Finally, Schwartz would begin writing copy–leaving the title and subtitles for last. He’d also begin his search for the right illustrations for the ad.

4. During the last few days Schwartz would edit and re-edit all of his copy to make sure it was perfect. He said, “I want to be more accurate and more knowledgeable than anyone I come up against.” Schwartz reasoned that if he took the extra time, he’d always do better than his younger, brighter, counterparts.

Conclusion

When you glance at Schwartz’s old direct mail ads, you don’t think they took five weeks of labor. They look crammed, busy, and ripped out of a cheap comic-book. But on closer inspection, you can tell each word is there for a reason and there aren’t any extraneous phrases sticking around to fill space. It’s all good, lean, prose that informs.

It’s hard to see the beauty of Schwartz’s work when we have websites with vibrant colors, video, and pictures–but if you look close enough you can see it. Schwartz’s ads were proven to consistently get people to buy and it was because he worked hard to understand what he was talking about, instead of splashing together catch-phrases and intriguing pictures.

And he did this all without working “impossible hours.”

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Make Decisions Like a PI

A Leadership Discussion With Skipp Porteous: President & Founder of Sherlock Investigations

Skipp Porteous is the founder and president of Sherlock Investigations–a New York City-based private investigating business that has been around since 1995. He’s also the author of the book Into the Blast: The True Story of D.B. Cooper that explores the events behind the infamous in-flight hijacking of Northwest Flight 305.

Porteous got his start at the Los Angeles’ Department of Water & Power’s Special Collections Unit. He was a ‘skip-tracer’ and his job was to find people who skipped out on their bills. After his tenure in LA he became an undercover investigator with the Columbia County Sheriff’s Department in upstate New York. While he was there he specialized in narcotics investigations.

Since then Porteous has been involved with specialized investigative research and reporting as well as running his business.

I thought it would be interesting to talk to Porteous about leadership, management, and decision making because he not only operates a successful business, but he has to a lead a team through confidential and sometimes dangerous situations. Porteous generously set some time aside for some questions and answered them over email.

Leaders in any context can draw from Porteous’ experience and his methods of dealing with clients, younger team members, and uncertainty.

1. According to your website, you coordinate and direct four private investigators as well as work with outside consultants. Can you explain the process?

Our agenda is answering the questions (problems) that people ask. The clients tell us if we’ve answered their questions/problems correctly. We open case files of every client, ask specifically what they want, and find it for them.

2. In your field there exists a high degree of uncertainty and with that real danger. How do you deal with the prospect of day-in and day-out uncertainty?

We maintain low operating costs. We’ve been in business since 1995. That’s when we went on the Internet, too. People know we’re here. Also, I do bug sweeps for about 12 other private investigators. Bug sweeps are a technical skill, not an investigative one. So, I do about 2 or 3 bug sweeps a week.

3. The decision-making process of a private investigator must be quick. Sometimes, there’s no time to rub your chin and ponder alternatives. Although your private investigators are already trained and licensed, do you try to help them make best-case decisions by giving them defined instructions (ex: if X, do Y) or do you allow them to make ‘gut decisions’?

Almost no decision must be rushed. A plan must be followed. The clients who call at the last minute for a surveillance, or who want rush decisions are avoided. Sometimes we don’t take them as clients.

We work with intelligent people. As such, we allow them to make gut decisions.

4. Can you name a previous boss or role model that has shaped how you lead people and juggle different personalities? If so, can you explain how briefly.

Our heroes are Napoleon Hill, Abraham Lincoln, and Nelson Mandela. They’ve all worked successfully with people because they know themselves.

5. Have you ever made a mistake as a leader? If so, how did you learn from it and adapt?

Of course. I’ve learned to be very honest with myself and not make the same mistake twice.

6. How do you train the younger talent on your team? Do you work closely with rookies or do you let them learn for themselves?

We work very closely with them and teach them everything. Only when they’re ready in our opinion do we let them go on their own. Still, we keep an eye on them.

7. For people who want to know more about your business what book, movie, or website do you recommend they look in to?

I highly recommend The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigation by Steven Kerry Brown. Steve is a retired Special Agent with the FBI. He now has a private investigative agency in Florida.

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How to Tell a Joke Like Mark Twain in 4 Steps

Imagine you are at a small party and the topic of Olympic swimmers comes up. All of a sudden your heart flutters, your palms get wet, and your breath races. You have the perfect Olympic swimmer joke and you are confident that its delivery will make you look like a comic hero.

You clear your throat, everyone’s eyes fall on you, and without your usual restraint you start telling the joke. You wave your arms and raise your eyebrows as the group cautiously listens.

Finally, you let them have the punch line and you laugh nervously–but everyone is silent. The room grows hot, your face flushes, and someone says, “Anyways, like I was saying…”

Jokes have the power to make people laugh, but they also have the ability to make you look …slightly off.

That’s why business leaders have to be especially careful.

But, Mark Twain is here to help.

In his essay How to Tell a Story Mark Twain lays out four basic qualities that make jokes and stories funny.

They are as follows:

1. “String incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities.”

Twain believed that American humor was built on dry delivery. By adopting a distant, aloof, tone a person can get laughs as they “string incongruities and absurdities” together. The key element, for Twain, is the maintenance of the joke teller’s innocence.

2. “Slur… the point.”

Twain believed that detours in jokes are funny. It’s better to add details, tangents, and parenthetical observations to a joke rather than recite its summary. It builds tension and it disguises the joke’s final destination.

3.  “[Drop]… a studied remark apparently without knowing it, as if one were thinking aloud.”

Twain felt that a joke teller should remark to himself “dreamily” and “in a soliloquizing way” in order to get more laughs. Wistful, off-the-cuff, public dialogue with oneself adds humor because it maintains the joke-teller’s innocence while sounding natural an unscripted. Today’s popular stand-up comedians do this all the time. After making a statement, they’ll address themselves in a softer, more confused, tone which adds humor and makes their characters seem honest and human.

4. “The pause.”

Twain writes, “The pause is an exceedingly important feature in any kind of story…It is a dainty thing, and delicate, and also uncertain and treacherous; for it must be exactly the right length–no more and no less–or it fails of its purpose and makes trouble. If the pause is too short the impressive point is passed, and [and if too long] the audience have had time to divine that a surprise is intended–and then you can’t surprise them, of course.”

For Twain the pause is the most important element of a good joke, but it’s also the hardest to master. It takes practice and the ability to study the reactions of the people around you. Twain is most weary of the short pause since it disguises the whole point of a joke. That said, when you’re unsure of how long too pause—it’s probably safer to indulge in a longer one.

Mark Twain believed that the hardest story to tell was the humorous one. He writes, “The humorous story is strictly a work of art–a high and delicate art.”

I’d add that telling a humorous story is also a scary and dangerous art. But after learning Twain’s four ingredients to successful humor the task of telling a joke feels less daunting.

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Three Creative & Productive Partnerships

There are those that say: “I work well with others when they leave me alone.”

The following presentation isn’t for them.

Partnerships can drain, dilute, and deplete creativity and innovation. Ernest efforts to ‘work’ side-by-side, turn into long hours of hanging out, making jokes, and producing little.

Yet some partnerships can energize, enliven, and excite visions and agendas. Just look at the following three examples:

Three Creative & Productive Partnerships on Prezi