Tag: strengths and weaknesses

Olsen’s Little Things

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Greg Olsen is a former NFL player and current NFL broadcaster. He also coaches a middle school football team. What’s nice about Olsen’s perspective is that he’s played at the highest levels (“The U”, The NFL) and still says it’s the little things that matter. (Apple Podcast) ““The shit that Luke and I are yelling at the kids when we’re trying to coach seventh and eighth grade defense is the exact same coaching points the good coaches are trying to give pro bowlers. It’s all the same.”

What are those things? It’s not the highlights, flash, plays, or scheme. It’s “little technique, fundamental habits. How do we do pat and go in football? Like no one spends any time on that. And I think if people realized how much that would move the needle, they’d be shocked.”

Okay. So it’s the little things that matter. How do you coach them? Specific solutions

“But what I’ve learned is like you can be loud and you can be boisterous, but you have to give them solutions. You have to give them, it can’t just be, we got to tackle better.

“You missed that tackle, tackle them. Like, you know, go get them, go get them. Yeah, what?

“I don’t know, coach, I’m trying, but like, I don’t know what that means. So to your point, what I’ve learned is like, when you are yelling instruction, it’s got to be very specific. Alex, Alex, you’re tackling the wrong hip.”

The wrong hip. That’s specific. That’s fundamental. That’s helpful. It’s the little things.

Amazon WAS A SAW

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”I think Amazon may have made a mistake about the choice architecture of Amazon marketplace,” begins Rory Sutherland

”They have assumed everyone wants maximum choice. And actually, one of the great values of a physical retailer is curation. We won’t stock this, unless it is reasonably repeatedly shopped for.”

Was a saw: Weaknesses are strengths and strengths are weaknesses. Amazon is THE EVERYTHING STORE and what’s a drawback of that? It’s hard to find things.

Amazon addresses this well, but Rory points out the contrast and we can use that. Things are un/helpful, better/worse, un/necessary depending on the context.

Brands succeed, Rory writes, not because they are good but because they certainly aren’t bad. New entrants compete on a new angle – upside, new jobs, etc.

So, what’s really a strength, what’s really a weakness?

The Swiss Cheese Approach

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“Testing, tracing, vaccination…We will arrive at more of a Swiss cheese approach. Every single thing we’re doing: mask wearing, vaccinations, testing, therapy. Every one is imperfect, like a slice of Swiss cheese. But if we do a dozen of these and lay one over another all the holes are gone. That’s what it’s going to take.”

Larry Brilliant on the Tim Harford podcast

We’ve addressed this idea before, to always fix your weaknesses, but the pandemic response is another opportunity to think roughly about cost-benefit actions.

Most of the time, s-curves, there’s a great return whereas the same fixed effort later is like squeezing the remnants from a tube of toothpaste. The iPhone is a clear example where for many years it was an amazing improvement but each iteration is more novel.

However, the slew of Apple products is like Brilliant’s block of Swiss cheese. Each iPhone, iPad, AirPods, etc. has ‘holes’ but overall the company has few.

Framing the Replacement (WWDC)

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Great creative ideas are rare but when they do occur they offer a chance for Alchemy. 

One way to be more creative is to think about the strengths and weaknesses of a current situation, the opposition, and the contingencies. The CoronaVirus offers an opportunity to see how certain businesses are doing just that. First is Apple’s statement, then John Gruber’s comment: 

“Now in its 31st year, WWDC 2020 will take on an entirely new online format packed with content for consumers, press and developers alike. The online event will be an opportunity for millions of creative and innovative developers to get early access to the future of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS, and engage with Apple engineers as they work to build app experiences that enrich the lives of Apple customers around the globe.” 

“Very Apple way to put it — not as a cancellation of the in-person conference but as an all-new online format equally accessible to all developers.” 

So good. 

The advantages of an in-person conference are many. It’s an event, and Apple has always been great at events. There’s buzz with people there. There’s also a sunk-cost-ness to it. If a publication is going to send a journalist, there’s going to be something written about it. 

However, in-person events are exclusive. They’re also limited in scale and scope. There’s different coordinations between a stream and a session. 

The CoronaVirus situation forced Apple to get creative. They had to find the strengths in “an entirely new online format.” 

Napoleon was doomed when he had to fight a defensive campaign. Clayton Christensen warns that capabilities become disabilities when disruption is afoot. Chuck Akre said that he doesn’t compete much with Wall Street because “Wall Street has a different business model than we do.” 

Without effort we all default to ‘the way we’ve always done things.’ Often this works fine. Sometimes outside forces force us to be creative. One path is to consider how strengths might be weaknesses and how weaknesses might be strengths.