I loved everything about the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation – from Ron Swanson’s magnificent moustache to the way Rob Lowe’s character Chris Traeger misused the word literally in literally every scene.
Amy Poehler’s portrayal of Leslie Knope, a mid-level bureaucrat in a small town’s parks and recreation department, was a perfect blend of optimism, naivety, cheerfulness, and relentless commitment to public service. It was the greatest television show in history. Literally.
One aspect of the show that stood out was Leslie Knope’s zeal for her profession. While she exhibited over-the-top excitement about all the various committees and task forces she participated in, including “the clean restroom task force, the handicapped restroom task force and the task force to reduce the number of public restrooms”, her most energetic responses occurred when she met the legends of her field.
She was understandably gobsmacked when she came face to face with first lady Michelle Obama, but her gushing enthusiasm for less prominent local government officials is what really caught my eye. The show played her enthusiasm for laughs, but if we look a little closer we can see it is a pretty good example to follow. Maybe not so much the tongue-tied awkwardness of it all, but there is something admirable about her deep appreciation for the people who are doing great work.
It is not just that she got excited to meet these people – it is that she knew who they were in the first place.
In any kind of job, from local government administration to commercial real estate, there are top performers, people whose contributions and achievements stand out. Do you know the names of those individuals for your field? Do you know how they got to where they are? What do they do differently than everyone else? What can you learn from their example? Most importantly, have you ever sent them a note of appreciation, a bit of fan mail to express your admiration?
I heartily recommend taking the time to drop a quick note to someone in your field who you admire, someone whose performance and contributions are noteworthy. To explain why, let me tell you what happened when I did just that.
You may not have heard of Don Norman, but where I come from he is an absolute rock star. An author, speaker, and influential design guru, Norman focuses on user-centric design and is the guy who coined the term “user experience” (UX). Like I said, a rock star.
I read his book The Design Of Everyday Things in 2004 and, at the risk of sounding like Leslie Knope and Chris Traeger combined, it literally changed my life forever. His latest book, Living With Complexity, blew my mind. Ten years ago I wrote him a note to say thanks and to let him know how much he has influenced my work. Then I had my very own Leslie Knope moment when he actually wrote back. That’s right, Don Norman answered my fan mail. I just about fell out of my chair.
We exchanged a few more e-mails over the years and at some point I mentioned a funny little concept I called “the simplicity cycle”. Imagine my surprise when he suggested I should write a book about it, then offered to introduce me to his agent to help get things started. I literally fell out of my chair again. His agent agreed to take me on as a client, one thing led to another and I ended up with a two-book deal with HarperCollins. Don Norman even wrote the forward to my Simplicity Cycle book. I never imagined a fan letter could lead to all this.
I have written several other fan letters over the years and they did not all lead to book deals, but that is not the point. When I wrote that first note to Don I was not looking for a favour or asking for an introduction to his agent. I simply said: “I like your work. Thank you for doing it.” No obligation, no request, nothing more than an expression of gratitude and appreciation. That’s pretty important. But that first note led to a conversation that developed into a relationship that opened some big doors for me. It literally changed my life, and I do mean literally.
Take a moment today to look around. Find someone who is doing good work and let them know you noticed them. At the very least, you will make someone feel good, and you never know what else it might lead to.
Walk this way and embrace the new
In this extract from one of his most popular articles for Estates Gazette, Dan Ward explains why working with unfamiliar teams could take your career in an unexpected direction
In 1986, something magical happened on MTV. Rap group Run DMC performed a cover of Aerosmith’s 1975 hit Walk This Way, and two of the guys from Aerosmith were performing right alongside them.
Watching it left me feeling excited, confused and a little scared. It wasn’t just a rap version of a rock song; this was rappers and rockers performing together. I’d never seen anything like it.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but looking back, it is now clear that the Run DMC/Aerosmith collaboration helped set the intellectual foundation for much of the work I would later do as an engineering officer for the US Air Force.
Whether I was overcoming inter-service rivalry to bring soldiers and airmen together for a joint development project, or blending imagery and signals intelligence feeds into a “multi-INT” product, my most important work seemed to happen in situations where categories converged and boundaries got fuzzy. I am pretty sure I owe it all to Walk This Way.
Duncan Watts explained this in his 2003 book Six Degrees, saying that important breakthroughs often occur at the intersection of diverse disciplines. For example, he writes: “The arrival of the physicists into a previously non-physics area of research often presages a period of great discovery and excitement… No one descends with such fury and in so great a number as a pack of hungry physicists, adrenalised by the scent of a new problem.”
A similar thing can happen when we build unusual connections. Research shows that weak ties are more helpful in a job search than strong ties, and casual links are more likely to lead to creative outcomes than the formal organisational relationships we usually rely on. To quote Watts again, these “undivisions” provide us with “rapid access to everybody else’s work, thus dramatically speeding up the cycle of ideas and innovation”.
So if you are interested in finding new solutions to tricky problems, or just trying to build a more innovative team, it is a good idea to reach out beyond the typical category boundaries and see what happens. As business guru Tom Peters advises, you may want to start by taking someone new and weird out to lunch.
The funny thing is that the members of Run DMC had no idea who Aerosmith were before their producer, Rick Rubin, played the song for them and suggested they made a cover version. In fact, they didn’t like the idea at first. But it ended up being a breakthrough hit for both bands and one of MTV’s most popular videos. That sort of thing happens at the convergence of previously divided communities.
And if you are wondering why a former US Air Force engineering officer is writing about a 30-year-old music video in a publication for the UK property market, let me explain: I am blending categories. The good news is, you can do it too. It’s much easier than you might think. All you have to do is walk this way.
Dan Ward is a frequent contributor to Estates Gazette and is the author of The Simplicity Cycle: A Field Guide To Making Things Better Without Making Them Worse and F.I.R.E.: How Fast, Inexpensive, Restrained, and Elegant Methods Ignite Innovation. He served in the US Air Force for more than two decades researching, developing, testing, and fielding military equipment. He is a cybersecurity fellow at the New America Foundation and a senior associate fellow at the British Institute for Statecraft. Contact him at www.thedanward.com
