I came across a book a while back that had ‘Great Work’ stamped all over it.  It’s by my guest on this call, Bo Burlingham, and its title and subtitle says it all: Small Giants: Companies that chose to be Great Instead of Big. The book didn’t disappoint as it shared stories, insights and tactics from companies that were finding their best fighting weight and resisting the temptation to grow for the sake of growth. That’s in part because the material was in the hands of a masterful business writer.  Bo’s got three other books under his belt, including his first one The Great Game of Business and his most recent, The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Handle Whatever Comes Up, which stems from his regular column of the same name he writes with Norm Brodsky. He’s also an editor-at-large for Inc. Magazine.  Bo and I talk about the various strategies and tactics these ’small giants’ employ to do great work – regardless of the line of business they’re in.  I particularly love his reason for why you build relationships with your customers and employees – and it’s not particularly about retention or ‘monetization’.

Bo’s on Twitter – @BoBurlingham

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.

Listen to my interview with Bo Burlingham

If you enjoyed this interview, you’ll also enjoy:

- Arlene Dickinson

- Laurence Haughton

If you’ve been Googling at all in the last week, you’ll have seen the various Sesame St characters popping up as part of the Google design.

It’s all part of the lead up to today, Sesame Street’s 40th Birthday.

Even though it caused chaos in Australia – does the alphabet end in “zed” or “zee”? – it’s hard not to see it as a work of genius.

Let me count the ways…

• Big Bird’s imaginary friend, Alyoysius Snuffleupagus
• The Count
• Ernie singing an ode to pigeons (weird, but still good)
• Grover (who’s insane self-belief makes him my all time favourite character)

And of course, it’s the origin for me of one of the greatest songs ever – and which featured on the first ever episode – Mahna Maha

Here’s the Muppets doing one of their versions

Who’s your favourite character? How did Sesame Street rock your world?

Whatever’s going on for you right now, it’s hard to imagine a situation that would make you quite as anxious as the one reported in the Canadian papers today.

An Inuit teen, separated from his uncle while hunting, finds himself trapped on an ice flow with a polar bear and her two cubs. He resorts to shooting the adult bear when it gets too close, stays as far away from the two cubs as possible, and eventually gets rescued suffering a little hypothermia and, no doubt, a great deal of relief.

Yesterday – and I’ll make the connection in a moment – one of my newsletter readers wrote to tell me I was ’so naive that he just wanted to shake me sometimes.’  It’s a comment that has been rattling around in my head.

Certainly, faced with a polar bear I’d be in trouble. And I know that we all face the metaphorical equivalent in our organizational lives from time to time. How do you handle that? It’s you, one on one, with a dangerous creature.

Do you have to meet force with force or is there another way to manage those difficult situations? Let me know what you think and what tactics and strategies you use. (I’ve got some naive ones… but want to hear what others do.)

The whole practice what you preach thing seems to be oh-so-more-important these days when preaching – blogs, Twitter, YouTube – is a free for all.

That’s one reason I love Leo Babauta’s work. His life inspires his writing.

His latest blog at Zen Habits is a beauty – 13 Little Rules of Action.

Here’s my favourite:

11. Planning isn’t action. Sure, you need to plan. Do it, so you’re clear about what you’re doing. Just do it quickly, and get to the actual action as quickly as you can.

What’s yours?

“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
~ Eden Phillpotts

Isn’t that a delightful thought? Just beyond sight and thought – but coming closer – is magic that will amaze and delight and change us.

But here’s the thing for me: How do our wits grow sharper? Do we just wait and hope? Do they get polished through the rough and tumble of our quotidian lives?

I think not. I think this required sharpness requires new space, requires you to create a time and place to step back from the hurly-burly and to get a new perspective on what’s going on.

David Rock’s new book Your Brain at Work speaks powerfully to this, as he uncovers the nueroscience of how we work most effectively. And he’s a great champion for creating and holding the time to step back and think. Busy-ness just doesn’t hack it. Busy-ness won’t let those magical waiting items arrive.

Clay Shirky’s a man to turn to for answers.  His terrific book, Here Comes Everybody, talks about the impact of this new connectedness on how we live our lives – or, as he sums it up in the interview, “group action just got easier”.  Clay’s been writing and thinking on the social and economic effects of internet technologies since the 1990s and his practice is focused on the rise of decentralized technologies – ways of connecting that bend the wired client server infrastructure that typically characterizes the web.  On top of all of this, Clay’s the adjunct professor at NYU’s graduate interactive telecommunications program.

In this interview we discuss:

• The impact of this new connectedness on hierarchy (it’s not going away, but it’s changing…)
• The role of permission in allowing Great Work to flourish
• How and when being “matrixes” works… and when it doesn’t
• The overall strategy to consider in bringing a new level of social engagement to your organization
• What ‘practical surprises’ are – and why they matter

You can follow Clay on Twitter at @cshirky

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.

Listen to my interview with Clay Shirky

If you enjoyed this interview, you’ll also enjoy my interview with Keith Lippert

Naomi Dunford – wow, what a firecracker this woman she is. She’s a mover and shaker in the world of blogging and internet marketing and it’s been a meteoric rise – partially because of her savvy business and marketing skills, partially because of her provocative, disarming, somewhat scatalogical style. She’s like the Chris Rock of internet marketing, but a 29 year old with a punk haircut rather than a black man. IttyBiz is her company, and currently its tagline is ‘marketing for businesses without marketing departments’.  But I kinda liked an earlier iteration, which was ‘working from home tips to keep you from stabbing your own eye out.’  We did this interview almost a year ago, and since we did Naomi gone’s from success to success. In the interview we talk about:

• The moment that tipped Naomi from being a temp to a powerhouse marketer
• Why it’s not money that gets in the way of people being entrepreneurial, but something else. (Naomi’s got an opinion on that)
• Decisions on her business model (and how it works with her authentic style)
• A great insight she stole from Albert Camus
• My cute accent.  (See, I told you I like her!)

Naomi’s on Twitter – @IttyBiz

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.

Listen to my interview with Naomi Dunford

Whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got.
~ Art Buchwald

I like the bluntness of this. I had been toying with putting in the lovely lines from the Renaissance poet Andrew Marvell:

At my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity

(”deserts of vast eternity”. Is that not an amazing turn of phrase?”)

But Buchwald’s quote gets to a different point, and somewhat faster.

It’s not about time ticking away, it’s about Now being the only time there is.

Whether it’s good times, whether it’s bad times – if you want to do more Great Work, now’s the time to do it.

In the interview we’ll get into:

• How connecting with the peak moments can give you a powerful insight as to what your Great Work might be – if you’re courageous enough to pursue it
• The power of meditation as a diagnostic tool – and as a business critical tool (1200 scientific studies can’t be wrong)
• How to counter the epidemic of uncertainty and stress – something that’s costing North America about a trillion dollars each year
• The path of 30,000 steps – and how you can begin that journey in just a couple of minutes

Listen to my interview with Mark Thornton

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.

It’s on at Wednesday, 1pm Eastern – and you can register here.

Come along and you’ll learn:

• What’s the difference between Great Work and Good Work – and whether you should care or not
• How to help a team or an organization focus on the work that makes the most difference – and how to deal with the work that doesn’t
• Two words that will significantly increase the power of your facilitation questions

We’ll be using a new technology that allows us to do small group breakouts on the phone – so this won’t be the usual one-hour monologue. (But it also means you’re unlikely to catch up on much email during the call…)

“If I had to pick a person to have dinner with, when I need to be prodded and challenged and inspired to think about the things I really am committed to think about for myself and what I’m doing, I’d pick Michael Bungay Stanier. He has an ability to shake our tree and make us more conscious and responsible about what we know but aren’t willing to admit we know yet. And the best part – he makes it easy and fun. Great work, Michael!”
~ David Allen, 
Author of Getting Things Done