Knock, Knock

A good joke creates tension, and then relieves it. "Knock, knock" creates tension by creating an expectation that a joke is about to be told, and hopefully a good one. The appropriate response to "knock, knock" is "who's there," which is an invitation to relieve the tension. Tell me a joke that I get, we can all laugh, and then get on with our lives.

But have you ever told a joke that the other person didn't get? You build the tension, deliver the punchline, and then... nothing. It's awkward. What do you mean you don't get it?

And then the next logical question: Was it me, or them? Was the joke really that bad, or are they just slow to the punch?

A joke gone awry eats at us because we have a psychological need for coherence, and for the safety that's created by having everyone on the same page. Because if we're not on the same page then one of us failed, one of us did something wrong. We either told a bad joke, or the other person failed to get it.

Turns out this feeling is everywhere, and it shows up when you're innovating as well. Mike Maples tells his startups to get out of the present because the future is where all of your competitive advantage lies.

But there's an issue. That feeling of others not getting the joke, it shows up when you're living in the future. What makes living in the future a competitive advantage is that others aren't living there. You get a joke that they don't. But that feels uncomfortable. Andy Rachleff does a good job of explaining how that feeling manifests for anyone trying to create something new:

"The second biggest mistake that I see entrepreneurs make, especially in enterprise, is that when they pitch a potential customer on the idea and the potential customer doesn't like the idea, then they try to iterate on the product to build something the customer would want. By definition, that's writing consensus so it's going to lead to a mundane outcome. That's the absolute wrong thing to do, even though that feels right. So you want to go find people who actually love what you're doing, not try to convince the no's and turn them into yeses."

Peter Thiel has a concise way of codifying both living in the future, and the tension that creates. He calls it the contrarian question.

"Whenever I interview someone for a job, I like to ask this question: 'What important truth do very few people agree with you on?'

This question sounds easy because it's straightforward. Actually, it's very hard to answer. It's intellectually difficult because the knowledge that everyone is taught in school is by definition agreed upon. And it's psychologically difficult because anyone trying to answer must say something she knows to be unpopular."

The good news is that you can actually use this feeling as a compass for thinking about innovation, building a product, or asserting a point of view. Here's how Seth Godin approached that feeling when he built the altMBA.

Tim Ferriss: The altMBA in those early days, why did you have the conviction to build that specifically? Just so people have a window into your thought process, which might help them find the courage to also make some of these decisions to do hard work, as opposed to the long work.

Seth Godin: And so I literally went to the desert and I sat there for a few days. I went with friends, but I wasn’t good company. Because I said, “This is a creative moment for me.”

“I’m going to come back from this trip and either say, ‘I have a thing’ or I’m going to say, ‘I’m walking away from that medium entirely,’” because I needed to make a leap. And so I cornered myself. I said, “You don’t need more time. You just need to decide. Lay it out. What would it be if you had to do it?” So by that acting as if, I built a thing out of paper that was three-dimensional and you could show it to people. I showed it to people and at least half of them didn’t get it. I thought, “Now I’m on to something.” Because if everyone said it was a good idea, it was probably banal. So we did a play testing, which is an old software development term, where I pretended I was the system, and people engaged with me as the computer. I said, “Yeah, I’ll put my name on this. Let’s see what happens.”

And so the lesson is this: If you've got a killer point of view, idea, or product—one where you see a future that others will eventually see—don't water it down by changing it to make it more appealing to more people. Instead, look for people who are in on the secret with you, and serve them.

This is as true for the Pariveda point of view (POV) process as it is for us helping our customers build new products and services. We help our clients keep what's unique about the future they're building so that they keep the core of their competitive advantage... especially when it's psychologically hard.