Peter Sims learns from poorly-received public speaking experience

"Little Bets" author Peter Sims wrote a post on public speaking that appeared on the HBR Blog Network. Sims did a great job in the post of illustrating how a painful mistake helped him understand and process advice he had received years earlier from former New York governor Mario Cuomo:

[Cuomo] graciously shared the story about how he started speaking publicly in law school and was a terrible speaker until he started 1) talking about things he believed in passionately, and 2) knew his material extremely well.

When he was first paid to speak, at the time of his first book's publication, it didn't go so well. Sims' agent received a kind but brutally-critical email from the conference organizer, which said in part:

Peter did well overall, but it would have been nice if you would have shared that he never spoke to college students or in this type of setting. I think he was more focused on this being the start of his book tour versus personalizing it to the students. Not sure if this was a miscommunication between the two of you or his focus. I, and some of my committee members, felt it was overpriced for the experience. Would have paid $1500 for what we received. I have a limited budget and this could have been spent better. You were a little misleading but maybe you haven't seen him present before.

And it goes on from there. Sims explains that his first reaction to the email was (as should be expected) defensiveness:

I'd been going through a difficult time in my life! I did have doubts about the usefulness of my ideas to college students. Of course when I didn't know the answer to a question, I would turn it back around to the students and ask them! How was I supposed to know how they should manage college roommate conflicts?

But eventually Sims got past his emotional reaction and realized that he hadn't done well, and it was time to put Cuomo's earlier advice into action. Eventually, his speaking experiences had changed significantly:

As the audience came to see that I was just being me and trying to share and teach them, quirks and all, they stopped analyzing and judging me, and could just enjoy the moment. That's how I feel at least, noting how the energy in the audience now seems to shift about a quarter or a third of the way into each event. It's an experience for us all, not a lecture. When I can just be me, it gives the audience to just be themselves, and that human experience is what ultimately unlocks and empowers creativity, my ultimate goal. It has taken me thousands of hours of practice — and reams of hard-to-hear feedback — to improve.

This story is a great illustration of a couple of Mistake Bank points. One is that bad experiences can be great teachers. The second is that valuable lessons often take time (years, in fact) for us to absorb and process.

Peter Sims on Steve Jobs' biggest mistakes

On the Harvard Business Review blog network, author Peter Sims ("Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries," which I reference in the Mistake Bank book) enumerates some of Jobs' mistakes along the way to building Apple into the most valuable company in history. Writes Sims:

Like any creative process, any entrepreneur who wants to invent, innovate, or create must be willing to be imperfect and make mistakes in order to learn what works and what does not.

Well-known failures like NeXT and the Apple Lisa are listed, in addition to other smaller missteps. You might argue with the inclusion of one or more of these mistakes, but the larger point is that Steve Jobs didn't bat 1.000 at Apple. He took a lot of swings, and missed sometimes. In the long run, however, we remember the hits.

"Affordable loss" concept helps reduce the cost of failure

Affordable loss is a concept defined by Prof. Saras Sarasvathy of the University of Virginia's Darden School. The website effectuation.org provides a very concise definition of the concept:

Affordable loss involves decision makers estimating what they might be able to put at risk and determining what they are willing to lose in order to follow a course of action. Using the entrepreneur’s new venture plunge decision, this article combines insights from behavioral economics to develop a detailed analysis of the affordable loss heuristic. Specifically, we develop propositions to explain how individuals: (1) decide what they can afford to lose; and (2) what they are willing to lose in order to plunge into entrepreneurship.

This video from Professor Stuart Read of the IMD business school elaborates on the idea of affordable loss. Rather than sketch out a long-term vision and quantify potential, competitive strategy and define target customers, launching with affordable loss is done by defining a crucial first step (or steps) and deciding to invest a fixed amount (money and time) in it. If that step achieves its goal, it would justify more investment and the next step can be taken.

Affordable loss helps an entrepreneur know when something is not working and gives a signal that an effort should be stopped or redirected before too much money and time is spent. It's also discussed in two recent business books, Peter Sims' "Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries," and "Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future," by Leonard Schlesinger et al.

Here's a quote from an entrepreneur who is interviewed in the video, Kevin DeWhitt, founder of Agilyx, a maker of alternative fuels:

The primary key was a wife who understood me. And when I came to her and said, "Honey, I think in a year's time if I develop a model and a story, I think I can get this project funded, and from there we can move on our way." In reality it took 2 years, and that was 2 years of a scientist not generating any income. There were 5 kids in the house, and a wife that was supporting everybody, that's a little hard. That vision, though, that she and I had together and she allowed me to pursue was really key in getting it launched.