Dec 20, 2011 Top Ten Learnings About Business. ALWAYS. Anne Ishii
Some of you will have already noticed we’re doing Top Ten Lists here at Imprint Lab, to celebrate the year’s end. I decided to take on the sanctimonious task of proclamation, because it’s been that kind of a year: one full of platitudes. So whenever you’re ready:
TOP TEN LEARNINGS ABOUT BUSINESS
10. There’s always something to learn from our ignorance.
I only just realized that Ray Eames was a woman and the wife of Charles Eames. For all the amazing work that came from the pair, I’d just assumed they were brothers. Brothers, like the Dasslers: Adolf and Rudolf, who famously feuded and created rivaling shoe companies Adidas and Puma–another tidbit I learned this year. This trivia always makes me hunger for more information, so sometimes, ignorance is productive.
9. There’s always something to learn from learning someone is a woman.
I’d be boring to repeat that there is a woman behind every good man or that women are overlooked, because it’s not quite a learning as a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, in 2011, I did learn that something happens when you learn a woman is in control. I derive endless pleasure out of correcting people who refer to my boss as a he.
“Is he cool with your blogging?”
“Yes, she is.”
These micro-epiphanies are priceless.
8. Meals are mightier than the meeting.
More happened over lunch and dinner tables than any conference room or writeboard. This has mostly to do with gaining the trust of collaborators. And trust me, this is not the posturing of a thinly veiled eating disorder. Something magical happens when you let a professional colleague or stranger watch you slurp, chew, stain your shirt with a third serving of meatballs at the company picnic. It’s terribly intimate. You learn a lot about a person through their diet.
7. The same cannot be said of drinking.
Drinking is great. I am its biggest fan. However, not once in my life has drinking yielded good in the name of business. Don’t get me wrong, it takes the same amount of courage to let a colleague watch you put down a fifth of Jim Beam on a dare as it does to share five pizzas, but is it worth losing half the following day to short-term memory and bowel loss? No. Drink, be merry. Don’t try to close any deals over martinis, however. And about beverages…
6. Serve beverages in permanent containers.
The strongest impression I got from a visit to Richard Meier’s office was not the visible presence of greatness. It was, quite seriously, the porcelain cup of coffee the receptionist served me on a saucer as I waited for a bump drive of a presentation for ICL 2011:NYC. I was served a pristine cup of coffee while waiting for a thing. A process that deserves no ceremony. Yet I find myself swearing my life to a thousand deaths for Sir Meier somehow. That’s how special it feels to be respected with a real cup of coffee. I’ll also be the curmudgeon and just point out: serving tea in Japanese boardrooms is totally rudimentary, and the French won’t abide by much less than a real coffeemaker and espresso cups. In the US we’re accustomed to bottled water and Kreug machines with a stack of paper cups. Let’s rebuild America, America. Cups, now.
5. Don’t be late. Don’t be early. Just be on time.
I’m just being passive-agressive now, so I’ll just… be it. When you’re early, it implies your time is more important than mine. When you’re late, it implies my time is not important at all. When you’re on time I know you have the temerity to read a clock/watch/phone/computer/VCR or ask for the time, and stay on it; OR have lived in the wild so long you have no need for a clock as you’re perfectly aware at all times of the Sun’s relation to its meridians. Either of those things is f+++ing awesome.
4. Sometimes a deadline is more important than perfectionism.
This learning stems from a fact in publishing I learned years ago: the best writers write. In other words they aren’t reluctant to finish a publication. Well, in business it’s quite the same. A deliverable–be it copy, design, product or presentation–is as much about being as it is about content. Multi-taskers and Type As pride themselves on their long task lists and dense CVs but the fact of the matter is that if it’s not delivered, it’s a failure.
3. Learn to live with truisms and typecasting.
Prescribed personalities, platitudes and truisms aren’t going away. Beat ’em, join ’em; disprove them or get over them… or use them when role-playing with your rope-bound therapist when she begs to be let back to her children. Fuck what they tell you about yourself. In fact…
2. Believe in yourself.
This is a trick-learning. Of course I already knew the importance of self-confidence, but I’m referring to belief as an act of faith. I learned that what people believe about you, and what you believe about yourself, are inevitably different from what you really are. It’s a belief because it’s intangible. You can’t really pin down anything but your waist size so make it up as you go along.
1. Plug.
Everyone says “unplug.” They say that because they think we’re playing video games and training sperm into genetic autism. They say that because we’re obnoxiously tweeting during dinner and working at parties. You know what though? The agony of being unplugged is sometimes just too much. If you continued to read this blog entry after my rant on serving beverages in porcelain cups, all five of you are probably already a step above the Neanderthal habits of the network-addicted so let me just say, be smarter about being plugged. That’s all.