G'day all Struggledorks, Bill the Blogger here ready to rock out with this weeks Blog.
What’s in the mix this week? Feedback and Correction. Well no delay is required let’s get into it.
To cite a well-known quote by THE Entrepreneur of his Time:
"I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work."
Thomas A. Edison
Now in his journey to create the first commercial Incandescent electric light, Mr Thomas Edison experienced failure on the most intimate of levels. 10,000 times he tried to invent the Incandescent electric light; and 10,000 times he failed. Ever the Psychotic-Optimistic our Edison persevered with the tenacity of a true entrepreneur; and proclaimed to the world that he had not failed; not even once. He had simply found ways to not succeed in his goals.
Wow, I'm sure the people of his time said "Thomas, you’re a fool, we've been burning oil in lamps for the last 4,000 years, what makes you think you can change it now? The last thing I need is to spend all my pay making sure people can see my house from the street."
But our Thomas preserved knowing that he had done what no man had done before. He had successfully found 10,000 ways to not make an electrical light.
And I can hear you thinking? What the hell does Thomas Edison making an Incandescent electric light have to do with Feedback and Correction?
When we think of feedback we usually think of the lovely comment boxes restaurants leave out for us to poll there Service and Food quality. We think of people calling us on the phone asking if we can answer a quick survey. We uninstall a program on our computer and it sends us to a link saying "Sorry to see you go; could you tell us why?"
But for Thomas he didn't have a comment box or a tenacious person on the phone asking for our opinion, and most certainly didn't have a direct link from his computer to someone asking why he uninstalled their program.
What Thomas had; was 10,000 ways NOT to make a commercially plausible incandescent electric light. This WAS his feedback!
He realized "Gee wizz, platinum filament works pretty well, but lasts for an hour and cost me more than average mans yearly wage to create. I doubt the market can sustain such a cost. Back to the drawing board.” Over and over.
And one day after countless failures and corrections Edison got his commercially appropriate incandescent electric light; created with a carbon filament strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires, inside of a vacuum, encased in glass. Pretty simple Tom…
So when Norm says to John; “John, you need to learn how to spell” John writes a Lesson; teaching the Lesson Norm gave to him; and Correcting based on Norm’s feedback (and re-arranging his acronym to actually spell FOCUS). This is Johns smaller scale light bulb; he didn’t fail; he just learnt NOT to publish his acronym without checking first that it spells what he intends it to.
One experience that has stayed with me for a long time was I was once at a seminar of about 200 people. It was a Real Estate Company who had brought in speakers to talk to their staff about their experiences in Business and Entrepreneurial ventures. The seminar went very well, two hours of our speakers out front explaining their experiences. The topic moved onto Feedback. Our speaker says “Feedback is in everything we do; the only difference is whether you receive it or not”.
Anyway it gets to the part of the seminar where the crowd asks the speakers questions. A young man jumps up and says “I love public speaking; but don’t know how if I am any good at it”
Our speaker says, “Have you ever spoken publicly?”
Our young man says, “Yes, to a 100 people in a seminar like this”
Our speaker says, “Did they ask you to come back?”
Our young man says “No….”
Our speaker says “That’s your feedback; if you go and speak and they don’t ask you back you know whether or not you need to work on your public speaking.”
Everyone goes silent.. Figures the speaker is John Struggledork.. Now I don’t know if that young man understood what John said to him; but what I do know is the Lesson I received. Feedback is in everything we do; from public speaking to failing to create your invention. We either Correct and move forward; or we don’t.
Now for me how this relates to Johns Lesson is clear. In Johns System Design Structure we have:
- Framework of thought System
- Action taken…. Process right Now
- Reaction………. Process over time
- Resultant ….. Feedback Test and Measured against the Systems Thought Time frames
- Correct and keep testing the System or repeat the same process.
What this means in my experience is :
- Framework of thought System (The Biggest Thought Leads; create the Space)
- Action taken…. Process right Now (How we intend to fill that space with Actions)
- Reaction………. Process over time (How the filling of the space has affected the space)
- Resultant ….. Feedback Test and Measured against the Systems Thought Time frames (Identify the effect of filling the space measured by Feedback)
- Correct and keep testing the System or repeat the same process. (Keep receiving feedback; once you find the right process REPEAT. Golden Rule)
Two weeks ago we talked about the Calibrations through Numbers. The greatest feedback any business can receive is the Feedback measured through numbers.
Correction made based on FACT!
That’s it guys; this week’s Blog.. Ran a bit longer than usual; I hope I have been of service to everyone’s understanding though.
Until next week! Bill the Blogger
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