Laurent Courtines Free Online

I work at a big honking company (or at least a company that used to be
big and acts like a big company) Things here are odd and we work in
silos.  I don't know what is going on at the company at a micro-level
For instance,  there is a Facebook fan page for every one of the 100
brands and I don't know who runs them.  There are people doing awesome
viral work,  but no one is sharing the knowledge and it just goes on
and on.
Every once in a while we get an email from the OFFICIAL marketing team
telling us - "we're making a concerted effort to have Facebook fan
pages" And I am thinking?  I've had a fan page since Facebook
introduced them?  Why don't you ask your employees what they are up to
- find out what successes and failures they've had.

This is why big companies suck - duplication of work,  lack of
institutional knowledge sharing and a sad amount of mandates for
things people are already doing.  All this is absurd and sad.  There
are great people here doing great work and think they are alone in
their great work.  We're all reading the same blogs, and trying the
same things but on our own.  Its as though all the advantage of having
all these employees is lost because we're pushed to work on our own
things.

How do we deal with it?  To me there are a few things -
1. Empower employees to share information.
Have all employees enter their social network information into the
Enterprise phone book.  I mean,  who really cares about phones anyway.
2. Call out those who are doing good work.
Instead of the silly marketing team mandates call out the people doing
good work already. There experts here and you insult them with new
mandates. Not only that you make it seem like you don't know what you
are doing.
3. Give us the keys to the car.
At big companies there is access to great tools or contacts that will
help all of us move forward. Instead of locking all this up for
special projects let folks know what is going on. We need information
and tools to make things happen. Give us the tools and we'll make it
happen.

What do you think? What else do you see at big companies that don't work?

I am not a perfectionist.  I'm sloppy, I make mistakes and I break things all the time.  For the longest time I thought that this was a flaw in my personality.  I was always in awe of the perfect.  My whole life I chased the perfect. It was and still is exhausting and it doesn't work. 
In the last few years I have begun to change.  The agent of change - a few perfectionists that I work with. They lack important qualities that strangely I have.  I fail they never do.  I crank out imperfect ideas that aren't always thought through. I question processes that are "perfect the way they are".  I am the antagonist of perfection.  I'm messy and ready for the next mistake on the horizon. All my flaws make me a great asset! Who knew!
 
I found out that perfection has major problems.  Perfectionisms problems are:
Speed
Vision
Change
New ideas

Speed:
Perfection takes a helluva long time.  You've got to test, you've get to edit and when you are done? You have to test and edit some more.  Speed in the age of the internet is the most important thing in world.  From the speed of your pages to the speed of your releases - speed is the constant that moves the internet forward.  Speed and perfection do not go together.  You can have one or the other but not both.

Vision:
Perfection has a hard time with vision.  Here is why? There is nothing to compare vision to.  Perfection wants to be compared to something so it can be perfect when compared to it.  Sure that's a little convoluted but think of it this way - if you had never had a Chips Ahoy chocolate cookie and you ate one, it would be perfect. Crunchy, dry and chocolaty - it would be heavenly.  Let's say you then had an awesome homemade fresh chocolate cookie that was just right. Warm and slightly melted chocolate.  That Chips Ahoy cookie wouldn't be so perfect anymore. 
Perfect needs a benchmark.  Vision requires that you see past what exists and move into the messy world of new, innovative and sloppy.  Vision means mistakes and perfection, by definition, means no mistakes allowed.

Change:
Physics tells us that bodies in motion want to stay in motion.  To get something that is moving to stop or change direction you need a force of equal or higher energy.  Change is that force. Change is a collision of higher force in your process that causes your companies motion go in a different direction.  Does all that sound like it could be perfect or neatly done?  Hell no.  When a change comes, pieces break off, things are smashed and there can be injuries.  Is a perfectionist going to sign up for change?   You tell me?

New Ideas:
We're all quick to point out bad ideas.  We're all ready to see flaws in peoples ideas.  Its in our nature.  Bad ideas are not perfect - but without bad ideas how do you get to new ideas?  Perfectionism stiffles the new idea or worse yet prevents the perfectionist from telling folks their ideas.  All of our other items - speed, vision and change are components of new ideas.  Pefection is the enemy of the new.  New ideas require acceptance of the the unknown and messy.  The unknown isn't is the realm of the new.  A perfectionist will work on a new idea until it is perfect - the problem is they will never ship their idea because new and perfect don't exist.

There is a lot of duplication in my little argument but it is important to shed like on all the issues with perfection.  To the messy, sloppy, troublesome do'ers this one is for you.  Don't be perfect, don't give up and get getting your terrible bad ideas out in the world.  Embrace your messyness.

Today was about admiration.  Admiration for what some people are capable of and admiration for for the things I can't do.

I work with people who can grind.  Grind though daily repeatative tasks like those crazy giant bulldozers on Pandora (first Avatar reference of the day). Its a special skill to have and I think takes practice.  Its unreal to me that some folks can sit, focus and annialate their to-do lists like a lion eats.  Anyway enough with my bad annologies.  Here's to you folks, because it is not something that comes easily to me or do I enjoy. 

I would say if you hired me to grind, you are wasting my talents.  Give me chaos, give me things going wrong or let me analyze quickly and I'll come up with some hot shit. I have a quick scattershot brain with lots of ideas and cacamaimi thoughts in it.  Thoughts need to be freed!  
You need a grinder?  I am not your man.  Don't get me wrong, I am capable of a good grind now and again when I am grinding with purpose - to grind for the sake of the grind?  Blech.
Here's to you grinders! Huzzah!