I know I promised last week to write more about the alleged marketing strategy of Urban Outfitters. I really intended to write about that subject, but life got in the way. I can't control the material people feed me. A situation happened to me today that made me really angry. So angry that I am sitting here at a bar in the Mirage in Las Vegas writing this. You might legitimately wonder if five or six beers are clouding my brain and judgment. That is not the case. I am not drinking at the moment. My damn waitress hasn't brought my first Blue Moon yet. A few paragraphs from now, I may be pretty whacked. In any case, I promise to write about Urban Outfitters next week – unless I lie again.
Let's start out with a hypothetical situation and then we will consider what happened to me today. Let's assume that Jim has a big decision to make. He has to make a decision that will negatively affect either Jill or Sam. In other words, Jim has to take a big steaming crap on one of them. How does he decide which one?
Here is some more information that may change the odds, in the spirit of Vegas, on his choice of Jill or Sam. Jill is a stark raving mad pig-faced bitch. Dealing with her is about as much fun as a hammerhead shark in a kiddie pool. Sam is a calm, rational team player, who will certainly understand that Jim has big responsibilities and really doesn't want to take a dump on him but has no other choice. If Jim chooses Jill, he can expect a bitter fight to the death with Darth Vader's daughter. If he chooses Sam, nothing much will happen. Maybe Jim can rationalize that he owes a big favor in the future for Sam.
What are the odds in Vegas now on Jim's choice? The odds on Jim picking Jill are less than the odds of the Redskins winning the all of their games for the next fifty years. Of course Jim is picking Sam. But why on a theoretical level will he make this decision? He will pick Sam, because picking Sam is the path of least resistance. Here is a hint for you, before we go any further. When you see a big steamer coming, don't be in the path of least resistance or learn to wear toilet paper as a fashion accessory.
Now here is my story from today. Today, I was sitting in an exciting class on business valuation. OK, there was nothing exciting about it. I was waiting for 5 PM so that I could start drinking again without feeling morally bankrupt. Just after our lunch break, I got an urgent e-mail message on my I-phone that I needed to print out and sign a document attached to the e-mail and return it before 4 PM eastern time. There are only three things in life I “need” to do. They are, in no particular order, eat, breathe, and go to the bathroom. That is the cleaned up version. My need to explain this concept to my first wife probably played at least a small part in our divorce. My therapist made me realize that.
What was so urgent? This document pertained to a large financial transaction that involves my paying money to someone else. Legally I can't go into it more than that – yes I am really being serious. An attorney had drafted a document related to this transaction that must be signed by me and notarized. My instructions were to print it, sign it, and fax it back to the office. It would be notarized in the office and then forwarded on to the attorney. Here is an obvious flaw in that procedure. The entire purpose of a notarized document is that the notary personally witnesses the signature on the document.
Of course, my past paragraph didn't really explain the urgency part. The fact is that this document wasn't urgent except that the lawyer said it was. I was going to have to re-sign the document personally when I returned, since my faxed copy wouldn't be valid anyway. So why the urgency I ask again? Because this was a genuine step 'n fetchit moment. The asshole said my signature was urgent so “the process can move forward.” Of course that was total bullshit. The process wasn't going anywhere without my legally notarized signature on the original document.
You ask, “Frank, how much do you hate this lawyer?” I hate him enough to build a time machine just to go back and push his parents off a cliff before his birth. If you know of someone with a working time machine, I will gladly empty my kids' college fund to buy it.
My office staff had a choice. Either they could tell the attorney I was out of town, and I would not be signing the document until I returned. Or – they could send me on a futile scavenger hunt for a business center in the Mirage to sign and return a document that was invalid anyway. They decided that I was the path of least resistance. I don't blame them for this decision. Dealing with the asshole isn't high on my list either. However, let me state this as a law of nature. The great Stephen Hawking discovered this law of physics when he was studying the behavior of black holes. I am never the path of least resistance. I am the male version of a stark raving mad pig-faced bitch. You shouldn't be the path of least resistance either. The key to getting your priorities accomplished is not being in the path of the big steamer.
I am not recommending that you become a total asshole. That is my method. Your path to enlightenment may be different, grasshopper. The real purpose of avoiding the big steamer is getting the tasks done that you believe are important. In a business sense, your top priorities should be serving your customers. You should avoid needless tasks that get in the way of that main priority.
I am going to introduce a technical management term, “manufactured drama.” If you took a management course in college, you won't find this term in your textbook. Of course, you probably sold the textbook within thirty seconds of taking the final exam. So I could lie to you, and tell you it is in there, but I am basically an honest guy. Manufactured drama is a situation of no real urgency that acquires urgency only because someone says it is urgent. If that someone is your boss, it is still manufactured urgency, but you probably have to treat it as urgent anyway. That comes under the “Do it because I said so” management principle. However, if the person manufacturing the urgency doesn't have authority over you, I grant you the permission to tell them to go directly to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
Avoiding manufactured drama requires extensive training. Not of you, however. You have to train the manufacturers of the big steamers. They have to be trained to not just respect your time, but to respect your priorities as well. That means reasonable deadlines for tasks. You have probably run into people for whom everything is an emergency. They run from place to place endlessly checking their Blackberries and leaving urgent, must take care of now messages. They also never get anything of importance completed. When everything is urgent, nothing really is. The essence of setting priorities is making choices among tasks competing for your time. These choices should be yours. You own your priorities. Take possession of them. Respond to manufactured drama with the “N” word. That “N” word is “no”. My priority right now is another Blue Moon with a cute little slice of orange, of course.
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