Transcription:
Eric Qualman: (
All right. How's everybody doing now? A lot of you flew to be here today. When you fly, how many you like to talk to the person next to you and how many you hate that person?
Eric Qualman: (
So we're gonna find a little bit more about you out here today. I'm gonna go over a couple things right here before we get into it. I just wanna learn a little bit more about everyone sitting here. So we're gonna go old school. We're gonna vote with our thumbs actually. So I'm gonna put some images up here on the screen. So if you're a night person, you'd vote with your right thumb. And if you're a morning person, you vote with your left thumb. I'm gonna switch out these as we go here. There's a low murmur there. You guys are like intense about that cereal.
Eric Qualman: (
If you have no idea what this is, you may have had more dates than I did in high school, but I'm part with her back there. I like that both up. That's awesome. Do not wanna be a cat in here, apparently.
Eric Qualman: (
All right. We'll keep it clean in here. As we look at that, that's what we're all dealing with. Right? The next speaker up here is gonna talk about personalization. It's about people, tell us what they like and what they don't like. They tell us that face to face, but more and more they're telling us digitally. It's really up to us. How do we take that and then surprise and delight them. But what I'm gonna spend most of my time on here today is talking about, is digital leadership. So knowing that technology changes every second, but human nature never does, what are the habits that you all practice each and every day to make sure that you're a year ahead of the competition, but never a year ahead of your market or your customer or your client. A year ahead of your competition, but never hear your customer, client or partners.
Eric Qualman: (
What are those habits? We didn't know if it was gonna be 20 habits. If it was gonna be three habits, it turns out there's really five common habits that all of you practice. So the good news is you're already good at these five habits. Now, when I go over them, since there's a lot of like me, a lot of type A personalities in here, you're gonna write down, I gotta rock all five of these out. Absolutely not what we want to do at a conference. Like this is reset to your super strength. So when we look at this, each one of you has a superpower with these five that are up here on the screen. That I'm gonna go over in a second, but it's really about resetting to that strength.
Eric Qualman: (
So when we think about these five habits, it forms the acronym STAMP. It's simple, true, act, map and then P for people. So the first one, which is really hard to do, but it's about simple. It's about less comma, better. The not so simple art of doing less comma, better, a lot of innovations, actually subtraction, not addition. So it's really about that simplification. Now how do we simplify? When we simplify, we actually go further, faster. Now, how many of you still prefer to read on paper? Over 90% of us still prefer to read on paper. It's 25% faster to read on paper. That doesn't mean we're always gonna be behold in the paper. Most of you're probably like me when you travel, you read digitally, but when you're at home, you read on paper. But some folks sitting up at MIT, they said, wait, that's crazy. You can read 25% faster on paper. There's gotta be some way we can program something on our mobile devices so that it's actually faster to read on our phones. This is the technology they've come up with. Now, if bright lights or quick movement bother, you don't look at the screen, but for most of you should be okay.
Eric Qualman: (
All right, we'll stop it there. You guys can take a breath. You guys are very competitive. You're like, I can do it. Give me a thousand. Then you get home and they go, how was the conference? You go, well, I read 20 books on the flight. It was pretty awesome. But when we look at this technology, how many words did they show at a time? How many letters did they highlight in red one? So in order to go further, faster, it actually with simplification allows us to go further, faster. Now for a lot of us on an individual level, what we've had to do in the last couple years is we've had to become pretty good. How many have had to become pretty good at multitasking? Now I've got my hand raised and we multitask. We're all good reasons to multitask. We wanna beat father time, even though father time's undefeated, we wanna ring more of our 24 hour day.
Eric Qualman: (
We wanna get ahead of the competition. So all good things, but ironically enough, when we're multitasking, we're actually getting less done, and we actually have negative health ramifications. When we do this, coz what we're doing is actually switch tasking. So our brain's trying to figure out what's more important A or B. In that moment of switching, our IQ can drop up to 15 points. My dad's always quick to point out, he's like son, you can't afford to lose 15 points, that's a high percentage for you. That's the equivalent of not sleeping for 36 hours or when we multitask as teams, our productivity can decrease by up to 40%. So if there's one thing you wanna leave here with today, it's we gotta get back to single task, single task, single task, actually get more done, be happier and also healthier.
Eric Qualman: (
What I just said, it sounds very simple, but it's not easy, right? I'm a recovering multitasker. I've known this now for 12 years and literally everyday I catch myself saying stop multitasking, focus on one thing at a time.? For some of you that is your superpower, that S for simple others, it's T for true, you know who you are at your core, and you have your true north and you stick with it. This is really important in this digital era, cause in the last 15 years, we now have something new, which is called a digital stamp. Your digital stamp's comprised of two things it's comprised of your digital footprint. That's anything that you upload about yourself, about your service, about your brand, about your organization. So you have control over that, but the more important piece is the shadow. And that's what other people post about you online.
Eric Qualman: (
Again, whether that's as an individual or as a brand, we all have these digital stamps. 92% of kids under the age of 2 already have a digital stamp today, 25% of the babies that will be born tomorrow, have a digital stamp today. Parents get excited, they post names, they post sonograms online. So it's really collectively as individuals and also as organizations, it's about producing our best digital stamp and then also protecting it. It's essentially a modern term for our reputation. It's about producing and protecting. How do we do that? There's a lot of ways, but we're gonna do this exercise here today, coz it's a simple way to do it. If you don't mind take out your phones, but I'm gonna ask you in a question in a second here. This is my email address. It's equalman@equalman.com.
Eric Qualman: (
I want you to put in the subject just word "WORD". So it's equalman@equalman.com and then subject word I'm giving my email address too. Just in case you have a question like a week from now or a month from now, just feel free to reach out. The question I have as it relates to our digital stamp is if someone were, and this is from an individual perspective, but again, brands have them as well, is if someone were to Google your name right now, what's that one word you'd wanna show up? What's that one word you'd wanna show up five seconds from now as well as five weeks, five months, five years, 50 years, 500 years, 5,000 years from today, coz this is in digital Inc., not pencil. As we think about these words, here's, we've done this in 55 countries, but here's the words that are coming in.
Eric Qualman: (
We've got inspire, kind, passionate, integrity, honest, love, caring, teacher, leader, fun, loyal, genuine, helpful, friend. So not surprising, great words from a great group that's in here today, but when we think about it, that's the best way that we start to have that intention to make sure, we stay to that T true for individuals. Also this is a good exercise to do with your teams as well to just start at that simplified level of what's that one word. Cause when we think about these words, really what we're talking about T for true digital stamp, as we're talking about stepping into your story. Now I'm gonna tell you my story real briefly, just because I think that all of us are the same. We're all living the same movie. We're just different actors and actresses within that movie. So as I tell my story, it's really everyone's story here.
Eric Qualman: (
It's we have a hesitancy to step fully into our story, coz it's uncomfortable to do that. So my name's always been Eric Qualman, but I haven't always worn these crazy green glasses. When they hand out email addresses early in my career, they hand out first initial, last name. It forms equal man. My first initial last name's just equal man. I honestly hated it. I hated being called equal man, coz I was being intern at Yahoo. They go, Hey, we need some coffee. Well equal man. You're pretty fast. You're a superhero. Why don't you go get some coffee for us? So didn't like it very much. I thought this was always happening to me, but then in a moment in time I realized, wait, this is actually happening for me. I was doing an interview for a magazine around one of the books and they wanted to take a photo for the cover.
Eric Qualman: (
They said, "Hey, you know, because you're a unique moniker of equal man on your email address, do you mind wearing, we wanna have some fun, do you mind wearing some Clark Kent? Like Superman glasses?" I go, yeah we can do that. They go, it's our St Patty's day ion. You might, if they're bright green, I go, whatever it takes, happy to do it. They bring them out. I'm like, whoa, those are really bright green and then we do that. Then a couple weeks later, I fly to Kenya to give a talk. The night before I'm gonna give that talk, I'm going to a rescue shelter to adopt a baby Cheetah, not to take home, my wife would kill me, but just to understand what's happening in the local area. So on the ride over the lady that I'm with, she goes, you know, we filmed you same bolt.
Eric Qualman: (
The Olympic sprinter was here two days ago and he adopted from the same litter of Cheeta that you're gonna adopt from. We filmed him. We'd like to film you, marry it together and use that footage to raise more money for the shelter. So I'm like, yeah, let's make it happen. Then she looks at me and goes, but obviously when we're filming, you wanna make sure that you're wearing your green glasses. You can tell in this photo, I look back, I go, oh, I don't wear those around all the time. Look like a fool walking around, wearing bright green glasses. Then the look on her face, I never wanna see that look of disappointment again. So now I'm stuck wearing the green glasses, but it's really just about stepping into that discomfort coz long term that's the most comfortable place you can live. Is that true story that all of us have here and it relates to that digital stamp coz that's the easiest thing to be is yourself. But it's really hard at first that discomfort it's really that second and third step that you walk that make it more comfortable to live in that each and every day. So it's really about embracing our digital stamps as much as we can coz again, that's our true self and that is our reputation.
Narrator: (
My digital stamp, my dad off asked what footprints are you going to leave in the sand? It meant little then, but with time this became a motivating line. A legacy for me, it would seem, a far off lofty dream. After all who am I? I'm just average, somewhat shy. Then I realize something to see it is up to me, my ultimate legacy. Social media search, mobile and more leave digital footprints on the floor. Digital shadows, if you will following all that, I fulfill. My grandchildren and great-grandchildren what will they see and think of me, what is my digital legacy? Will they see that I pursued my dream or that I settled or something in between. Digital footprints remain for all time. So I can't commit the ultimate crime. What is that crime? You say? It is, of course, not seizing the day. Yes, before I die, I'd rather fail, than not even try. I will reach for the sky, laugh and cry. My legacy you see is truly up to me. That's my view. But now I ask, what will you do by Eric Qualman? What will be your ultimate digital legacy? Your ultimate stand on life.
Eric Qualman: (
Oh thank you.
Eric Qualman: (
Because a lot of what you're wrestling with right now, you think about, especially in American banking, when you're thinking about complexity and innovation is that all of us, a lot of times attack it from A to Z when often we're better off attacking it Z to a meaning. What's that end in mind and for most of us in here, it's gonna be, it sounds crazy, but it's actually gonna be a smile. What smile when I put on that customer, that stakeholder, that client and then walk my way back. So sometimes that makes innovation a little easier. When you start with the end in mind, when you go Z to A, rather than A to Z, for a lot of you in here, that was your superpower, others of you. This is what you do really well. You're really good at taking action that nothing happens without action.
Eric Qualman: (
We wanna look at what prevents teams from taking action. And there's a lot of reasons that teams don't take action. But by far the number one reason is there afraid to fail. But all of you in this room know that failure's actually part of the process to get to where you need to go. But it's about failing fast, failing forward and failing better failure itself. Doesn't make us better evaluated. Failure makes you better. So again, failure itself doesn't make you better. You have to evaluate what happens so you can learn from it. So it's about failing fast, failing forward and failing better. Now I'm gonna show this video and I'll explain why I show this video after we play it, but to set up this video, we have Jeff Gordon. He's one of the best NASCAR drivers of all time. They put him into disguise. Pepsi does to go into a local car dealership to act like he's gonna buy a used car back when they actually had used cars on the lot that you could actually buy, but he's gonna go in and he is got glasses on that record everything
Jeff Gordon: (
Glasses can to show you everything that I see, how are you doing? Hello? Nice to meet you Mike. Oh wow. Yeah. Nice and easy. Just head on out whenever you're ready. Are you ready to go ahead, yeah. And drive. Little more than I'm used to. It's got some power, so just get a feel for it.
Steeve: (
You are liable for any damages to the vehicle, so please stop the car. At least slow down, slow down, slow down. You can't go through that gate. Mike stop.
Steeve: (
You're gonna wreck this card. You're live before it. If you wreck it, Mike, Take us back. Just take us back. Yeah. Right over. Oh, you an I'm gonna kill you. Oh God.
Steeve: (
Do you think you are? What do you mean? I'm, Calling the cops.
Jeff Gordon: (
No, no, you don't understand. It's not what you think. It's not what you think. No, it's just a prank. We're just having fun. Look, this is a camera, here's a camera. There's cameras. Look. It was all just fun. Look I'm Jeff Gordon.
Eric Qualman: (
So they obviously have very, very good lawyers at Pepsi to be able to do that. Now I asked the girl to put it on how'd you do this? She goes, well, I was told no nine times I go how'd you not give up? She goes, well, I knew it was a no for now, not a no forever. I thought that was a great mindset and one that you are facing all the time, coz you're being told you're out there pushing that innovation and just understand that that's a no for now, not a no forever. When we look at this, we're all gonna make mistakes. We're all humans, but it's how long we take advantage of that mistake when it happens and this is a good example of what that looks like. So at the Red Cross, this girl thought she was posting this to her Twitter account, but she pushed this out to the global Twitter account and I'll read it for those that are just listening. "Ryan found two more, four bottle packs of Dogfish heads minus touch beer, when we drink, we do it right? #gettingslizzerd."
Eric Qualman: (
Now someone across the country. A minute later at the red cross posted this, "We've deleted the rogue tweet rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we've confiscated the keys." Now the girl wasn't fired coz they had a record amount of donations. The week this happened huffing and post and New York times sell is hilarious. They got free earned media beer company that was mentioned, said, Hey, instead of drinking a pine of our beer, why don't you donate a pine of blood or donate some money to the red cross and what that is? It's what I call being, flawsome. The people don't love us coz we're perfect. They love us coz we're perfectly flawed and that includes banks. It's about, Hey look, we're flossing. We're just like you we're here to help out. So we're just gonna embrace being flawsome as much as possible each and every day.
Eric Qualman: (
Everyone, that's a parent in here, this has happened at one point. But it's easy for me to sit up here and say, okay, let's go out there and fail, but our brain's designed to kind of prevent us from hurting ourselves, and so it's sometimes we have to use our bodies to help our brains overcome that fear or that stress. Now because of my name, I've done a lot of research around superheroes. It turns out if you actually stand like a superhero, it can suppress some of that cortisone in our body by up to 20%. Some of that stress inducing hormone does not work for everyone, but we've done it now in 55 countries, it seems to work for about 96% of people. And so what we're gonna do here, we're actually gonna stand up where I've been sitting there. So we're actually stand up like superheroes and you're probably wondering out what the heck does superheroes stand like?
Eric Qualman: (
But if you take a deep breath, just take a deep breath, put your shoulders back. Then we're gonna take our hands. We're gonna make them in a fist. We'll put them in our sides like this. And then most importantly, get spread your feet a little wider than you normally would into like a power pose here. this is called the Superman. If you wanna do the wonder woman, it's just a slight head tilt like this or like this, whatever you like to do, I can actually prefer the wonder woman, but whatever you wanna do, get some music here going so,, you guys are great. Hopefully you're feeling better. Thank you guys can sit on. Thank you so much for those that are going back to the office, just don't do that in the elevator. It kind of freaks people out
Eric Qualman: (
So that was a for action. For some of you, that's your superpower, others in here you're M for map that you're actually firm in your destination, but flexible in your path on how you get there. What the heck's that mean? So you think about it. Normally you set a goal, you kind of a linear progression. You get there, can't do that in this hyperconnected world, coz it's gonna be challenge hurdle, whether that's a external challenge, internal personal, these hurdles are gonna come up. It's about getting back to that firm destination. So when you look at example of what this looks like, if you look at Steve jobs, so not a perfect person, but I'm gonna use him. Cause everyone knows who he is. He's got a firm destination in mind, put a dent in the universe yet at the age of 30 apple fires them, the board goes over here, not happy about it starts.
Eric Qualman: (
Next. Computers becomes a CEO of Pixar, couple years, couple failed CEOs later at apple. They're about to go bankrupt. They go, let's roll the dice. Let's bring Steve back. We got nothing to lose. They bring him back. He's a much better leader coz of his time at Pixar. And they use some of the software at the next computers in the new MacBooks. So at the time of his death, he reaches that firm destination, highest market cap of any company in the world. And arguably both good and bad has changed our behavior more than anyone with the invention of the iPhone. So firm in that destination and flexible in the path. What else does that look like? How many of you before the pandemic would buy your crackers online? Yeah, most of us weren't buying our crackers online, so it would've been easy for wheat, Ethan to sit there and go digital information, transformation, innovation that has nothing to do with us. We sell crackers, but instead they go, let's go out online and see if anyone talks about crackers. Sadly, a lot of people talk about crackers online and they post stuff out there like this girl did, ah, I'm outta Wheatens. My life is officially over. But as we started this session, it's about taking this information and surprising and delighting
Clip Host: (
This. One's hilarious. Ah, I'm outta wheats. My life is officially over kind of dramatic Tabitha. Yes. Okay. Do you recall tweeting? Ah, I'm outta wheat thins. My life is officially over. Yeah. We got a hold of that. We just want you to be sure that you're aware that we have plenty of wheat thins and that's for you. That's just a gift. That is a lot of wheat thins. Oh my gosh. Everybody in the van let's go in the truck. You take care., come on boys. Who's next?
Eric Qualman: (
That is a lot of weekends at now. This you might wanna take a picture of, this might be the thing you could use the most from our session here today is that pioneers always get push back. So you're getting push back in this room. A lot of you're getting pushed back. That can be very frustrating in the moment, but if you've gotta flip that around and go, okay, that is frustrating. But that means I'm pioneering. Of course I'm getting push back. We're not using old maps to get the new destination. So pioneers always get push back. It's a signal that you're actually pioneering. Now, as we move into the last one, which is P for people, and this is some of your superpowers P for people, success doesn't happen alone. And now more than ever before all digital leaders in this room understand it's a combination of offline online.
Eric Qualman: (
It's what I call Jetson splint stones. It's a combination of those two things coming together. You cannot replace the face to face, but when time, distance and safety are an issue, you can augment the face to face with digital. So it's that combination of those two things coming together. It's Flintstone, Flintstones and Jetsons, here's a tactical thing we can use. This is something that's come through. After the last two years, we historically did not check in with our team enough. We realize that it's important for us to check in with our team. Now, when we check in, just try this out, it's gonna be very uncomfortable for most of us in the room. When you start doing this, but long term, you're gonna love it, most of you. So what you're gonna do is you're going to ask your teammate, how are you doing on a scale of 1 to 10, coz if you ask, them how they're doing, they're just gonna say fine, but ask them how they're doing on a scale of 1 to 10.
Eric Qualman: (
If they come back with an 8, 6, doesn't matter the answer parse, but they come back with an 8. You ask them, how do you get to a 10? How do I get you to a 10 and get in the habit of asking that you'll start off probably once a week, then get in the habit of asking that as often as you can a couple times a week, just try it out, let me know how it goes. It's gonna make a lot of you uncomfortable doing this. That's the point. It's about developing those relationships with our stakeholders, with our teammates, asking how are you doing on a scale of 1 to 10? So go ahead and test that out in the coming weeks.
Eric Qualman: (
All right. So we went over simple, true act map P for people went over very fast. Now we're gonna do a hand raise before we wrap things up. Just I'm curious how the room breaks out here in terms of like, which one is your true superpower again? You're good at all five of these things. That's why you're sitting here where you are today, but which one is your true superpower? How many of you is it S for simple. A decent amount. Then how many are T for True. A for action. Well, there's a lot of action people in here. M for map and then P for people. Pretty, even A was pretty high off the charge there, but pretty even except for A jumped up a little bit. So my hope is that at conference like this, you reset go back to that superpower.
Eric Qualman: (
With our time here, we're wrapping up here. We're gonna do a quick exercise here together. I mentioned that you wanna start Z to A often we're doing innovation and that Z is often a smile. So we're gonna end with a smiling exercise. To do this, you're gonna pair off with the person next to you. Now, if you stand by someone that you know, then shame on you, but you're gonna be really happy. You did, coz it's gonna get really weird here in about two seconds. So what we're gonna do is you're gonna partner off with someone near you. So if you can partner off into twos, we're actually gonna stand up to do this. You're gonna stand up. Are you gonna partnered off with a person next to you?
Eric Qualman: (
All right. If there's an odd number, if you wanna go 2, 1 that's okay, but you got 2 people. So you got one person standing with your back to this wall, please. So one's that way. The other one, your back's to that wall. So you're facing each other. So you're facing each other. I want this person you're gonna give your best smile. So even if you have a mask on your eyes, you're gonna crinkle. So you can tell that you're smiling. So you're smiling. This person, you're gonna look deeply into their eyes and you're gonna try not to smile. Okay. So smiling and not smiling, ready? Go.
Singer singing: (
Strangers in the nine exchanging glances.
Eric Qualman: (
Alright, thanks for doing that. How many by a show of hands were trying not to smile? You were actually trying not to smile. How are able to not smile? How actually able to do it. We're able to not smile. We got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 8 people that you absolutely do not wanna sit by in an airplane. No, I'm just kidding. No, it's also impossible. Not to smile if someone's smiling at you, whether that's in person or whether that's digitally. So thanks for putting a smile on my face with the stain ovation. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Thank you.