Why You Should Zig When Everyone Else is Zigging
I am usually for being unique. I get bored easily. I find that difference is refreshing. It’s normally pretty honest. Most people who act in a way that doesn’t compare to the masses are bold, courageous, and willing to be criticized.
Zig-Zagging
I encourage you to speak and act up if you believe that something common is not right. We are impactmakers and that is what we do. We are trying to make positive changes in the world. By definition, we want to zig when everyone else is erring in their zag. However, we can also not overestimate our abilities. There are things that we cannot expect ourselves and our teams (see E-Impact 53 from last week) to pioneer.
The modern world and technology are a great thing. I support this in my book (Personal Finance in a Public World). Even outside of the realm of finance, it’s important to acknowledge that we have some great tools that the world is employing. We need to take advantage of things that will help our cause and things that people are already familiar with.
For example, people are used to finding information on their mobile phones. They want it this way. If your impact project is related to world hunger, it’s probably not a good idea to try using a brand new way of communication with your volunteers that sacrifice the convenience and familiarity of the phone. In fact, you should perfect the way that you use it. Make sure that your website, your e-mails, and your text messages are perfect for experiences on a mobile device. It just makes sense to zig as the cell phone technology zigs until the world finds another way to gather and disseminate information. You’re better off zigging in something related directly to world hunger. After all, that’s the problem, right? It’s not communication.
The “Bored” Game
They say board games are called that because you play them when you are bored. Or, maybe they are just boring themselves. I happen to like playing games; as long as I have a nice group of friends to enjoy them with. Nowadays, you can even play them on your phone. Some of the game companies understand this and they are now offering digital versions of their games. A good collective “zig” if you ask me.
For those of us that still play real board games, there are always some strategies that will never get old. The games don’t change and neither should how you play.
A good example of a game that has some traditional strategies is “Settlers of Catan”. This game involves collecting various resources that enable you to build roads, settlements, and cities in order to accumulate victory points. There are expansion packs that make the original game more complicated but the basic strategies don’t change. You can attempt to build long roads and cover the map with lots of settlements or you can concentrate on building “up” by trying to acquire cities which are worth more than settlements. It’s hard to do both at the same time because they require different resources. There are other ways to go about winning but some variation of settlements and cities is required.
It’s amazing how each game of Catan is exactly the same yet totally different. It’s definitely not boring.
Always Buy Everything
One of the most well-known games of all time is Monopoly. I haven’t played the game in a while (You’d think maybe I’d have played a lot of it during the pandemic.). But, I’ll never forget how it’s played. Some people think it is actually a “bored” game. There’s a huge element of luck because of the dice. You are at the whim of what the little white boxes say. But of course, strategy is important.
Writing a book on personal finance makes me uncomfortable while typing this. But, you want to buy everything you can. It’s general knowledge that the more properties you own in Monopoly the better. It’s really not a good metaphor for life. However, the way the game is set up makes it beneficial to be in control and benefitting monetarily from as many places on the board as possible.
There was a point in life that Monopoly was a pretty popular activity in my life. Admittedly, I got a little bored with the traditional strategy and I decided to try something unique. After all, it’s just a “bored” game and who cared if it failed? Looking back, I did care. It wasn’t fun. The idea obviously backfired.
Instead of purchasing whatever property I landed on, I tried to be patient and target specific properties to see if I could acquire a “monopoly”. This is when you own all the properties of a specific color and can start building “houses” and eventually “hotels”. In theory, you want these because they require a much higher payment to the owner if you land on them. The problem is that it’s strictly luck if someone lands on them. In the game I am writing about, I ended up with a Monopoly and I even had all the railroads too (four separate properties, one on each side of the board). I built up those properties and had a “murderer’s row” of hotels of which all the other players were afraid. Unfortunately, the dice never really worked with me and someone only landed on the properties once. I was the first one out of the game as I was frequently landing on all the other properties that people owned. I was too highly concentrated.
The “always buy everything” strategy in Monopoly is the way to go. At a certain point later in the game, it may make sense to hold on to some cash as insurance. But, the more you “spread” your ownership the better. It swings the odds in your favor that the dice will help you out.
Impact Moves
Impactmaking is obviously a lot more serious than Monopoly and Catan but there are some lessons to pull.
Strategy and vision are two things that we have examined before in E-Impact 50. You cannot underestimate how important it is to have a plan for your organization.
Zig-zagging doesn’t not indicate the absence of preparation. It could be the result of indecision and unpredictable behaviors. However, it’s beneficial if your zig-zagging is the result of being nimble and willing to make adjustments. Entire industries will zig-zag as a whole when needed. I have experienced this multiple times working in the financial world. Part of my current role at Initiate Impact is to make sure that we are keeping with the new industry trends. We want to zig when needed as the other well-qualified professionals around us are doing the same. We have a system in place to make impactful moves that are different than the norm.
What the best way for people to understand your message?
Lots of Input
The most challenging part of making big decisions for your business or organization is considering the effect that they have on who you serve. I believe that leaders are most stressed when big decisions are not made. This is why it’s so important to have a process in place to make those decisions. It should be as easy and as least time consuming as possible for you to zig.
We have talked about work-life balance on Speaking of Impact a few times (Episodes 20 and 16 with Andrew Tarvin and Dr. Travis Parry, respectively). I believe that organizational leaders are most stressed because of things that take too long to decide. It’s not the amount of decisions or overworking themselves with too much responsibility. If you can more easily make decisions (especially big ones), you will be more efficient, serve your people better, be healthier, and ultimately make better decisions.
Overthinking things is a result of no process and no help. You have people around you that can assist and if you’ve done a good job hiring and asking to volunteer, those people should be trusted. Your process should include taking a lot of input, evaluating the information that has been gathered, and organized decision making. I think you will find that with enough input (The input yields information and it’s easier to decide than to research when you have a strong mission.), you’ll know enough about what’s going on in the space you work in and you’ll see why most organizations are zigging. And if most are zigging, you will too.
Arbitrage
As alluded to above, in a competitive business environment there will be arbitrage opportunities (chances to zig when others are zagging). I must stress that these are far and few between. They should also have a decision making process (it can be similar to the other one). You should NEVER make organizational changing adjustments that are sudden and without a system. It’s okay to make the change, but it must make its way through a process before approval (even if that process only involves you as the only member of your local impact project).
Arbitrage is rare. Consistency and mass adoption are how we stay modern and attract the masses.
Winning With Everyone
The impactmaker movement is about change. But, it’s also about community, equality, compassion, and togetherness. The most important things about positive world impact is that more people focus on kindness and benevolent acts. By nature, we want as many people as possible to be involved. Therefore, acting in a way that will resonate with the masses is imperative.
I urge you to familiarize yourself with the most modern trends. Learn about the newest forms of technology and psychology. When I started Speaking of Impact and this blog, I wasn’t sure how digital and the newest of social technologies really worked. In fact, I still don’t know a lot. Yet, I’ve done much work to see where things are and where they are going. Year 2 of the impact movement is going to look a lot different. Partially because I have learned more and partially because things have changed even since it started. I have done a lot of “zigging” with the crowd in the past year. There will definitely be more moving with the crowd and maybe as we are more comfortable with things there will be some trend bucking “zags”. But for now, we need to be in tune to how the majority thinks.
Stay focused. Stay modern. Unique will come.