We want the shiny; but we need the boring.
Why your best work is the stuff you never talk about.
This is my first-generation Kindle Scribe.
It was expensive. I hardly ever used it.
I don’t like the “pen.” It’s clunky. I’m not a pen-and-paper sort of person. I’m a keyboard-and-mouse sort of person. I took typing lessons in high school, on proper typewriters. I was 1 of 2 boys in a class of 30. (It was soooo scary). It was also one of the most useful classes I took.
So the Kindle just sat there. Unused.
BUT THEN … last week Amazon announced the newest, latest Kindle Scribe. Holly Carp ... it looks so cool. There’s a colour model. You can highlight things in colour! I desperately wanted one.
Then I remembered I’m not good with pens.
AND THEN SOMETHING WEIRD HAPPENED.
I went and found my old Kindle Scribe.
And did the weirdest thing.
I read a book on it.
Turns out it’s a fantastic reading device!
Who knew?
The screen lights up so you can read it in the dark. It’s big, so you can turn it sideways, and read it in landscape mode, with 2 columns. So good! And, for my 56-year-old-eyes, it’s so much easier to read, and to hold.
So, I’ve gone and done something weird: I’ve removed the pen, and the cover, and I’ve hidden them in a drawer.
I neutered it.
I’m going to use it at the thing it’s best at: reading books.
THIS POST ISN’T ABOUT THE KINDLE SCRIBE.
Did you notice how the shiny-new-thing blinded me to the boring-old-thing?
I thought I was old enough that I didn’t fall for that kind of stuff.
I’ve been thinking about this all week, because it’s exactly what happens in my kind of work.
And probably yours too.
We want the shiny.
But we need the boring.
People come to us with big problems.
So they - naturally - want big solutions.
Ten consultants.
A war room.
Lots of bling on the walls.
Change you can see happening in front of your eyes!
That’s one kind of change, and it is real change.
It’s loud, it’s impressive, and it does genuinely change things.
But then, eventually, the consultants leave.
And the change just kinda sits there.
…
…
…
Unused.
Like my Kindle in a drawer.
The posters stay up.
The habits fade away.
I used to think that was how you changed things.
Because that was all I ever saw.
(This is an important aside - Why did I only ever see the loud shiny changes? It’s because I couldn’t see or hear the quiet ones. How could I?)
But then, one day, something extra weird happened.
I decided that I was an introvert, and I embraced it.
(My pronoun is shhhhh...)
I stopped doing loud change.
I started having quiet chats.
I didn’t have to sell new ideas by shouting and over-promising.
I just had to sit with people who were stuck.
Chat.
Draw a few diagrams.
Help them solve the real problem, bit by bit.
I pretend this kind of way is boring, but it’s not.
It’s like being a detective. All of my work is like working a crime, or investigating a mystery. It’s like untangling a riddle, or solving a puzzle. Sometimes I’m Sherlock, sometimes my clients are Sherlock and I play Watson.
DAFT RIGHT?
Yup, it took a shiny new Kindle to make me notice how good the old one was at the plain, boring job of being a book.
So here are 2 questions worth pondering, for your good self:
What are you known for?
And what are you actually good at?
They might not be the same thing.
And that would be good to know.
Ask Claude, or ChatGPT, or whatever robot you talk to.
Hey robot, what am I known for and what am I actually good at? Are they the same thing or different?
Or, if you still have real friends, ask one of them.
For me, the answer came back like this:
I’m known for the “where” - bottlenecks and brains.
But I’m best at the “how” - quietly causing change that sticks.
Which was an eye opener - I’d never thought about myself that way before.
But I can think of a few clients who have fancy job titles, and are defined by their “where” and “what” but the thing they’re really good at is something boring like caring or teaching or uplifting other people.
Let me know how you get on.
Clarke
p.s. And … most importantly … If your team is drowning in work, and you’d like some help digging your way out of the hole, email me at clarke@clarkeching.com.