I Like Mommy's Version Better

Since my kids were born, we sing to them as part of their bedtime routine. A long standing favorite of mine has been

Lullabye by Billy Joel. When my son was young, I even practiced so that I could learn all the words. Recently, in the car, my husband was playing DJ and put on the Billy Joel version and jokingly asked:

"Do you like this version or Mommy's version better?" 
And my son in his amazing 6-year-old way, said, "Mommy's"

Both my husband and I chuckled a little and then it got me thinking. To my son, my slightly off-key version was all he knew. It is familiar, it is comfort, it is him and me. It is in the same category as his lovey, ragged and loved from years of snuggling but the most priceless of all his toys. I mean really, how can Billy Joel compete with that? One of the greatest voices and song writers of our generation, singing his own song.  

So, which is better?  Familiar or quality?

For a little kid, familiar almost always trumps better. I truly thought Papa Gino's was the best pizza for most of my childhood. But as a grown up, we have to distinguish between the value of familiar and the value of different.

Internal recruiting is one of the most effective practices companies have for bringing in good people. Top companies like Ernst & Young, Deloitte and others are hiring more than 40% of employees from employee referrals. People that they have worked with before. People whose skills they know and understand. People that they know how to work with. For the past 7 years, I have worked with derivations of the same team. Three different projects. Different combinations of people. Different industries and in each case there were things that worked and things that could have been better.  But, we liked working together. We made each other better. But could we have had a Billy Joel instead? Would we have been better off if instead of familiar we had sought out domain experience? Best in class? Maybe, maybe not.

It's spring sports season so we are now spending weekends and weeknights at the soccer and baseball fields. We are watching a wide variety in skill level as the teams learn the basics and start to work together. It is generally joyful chaos. If you haven't watched little kid soccer recently, it looks more like a swarm of bees and the kid with the most coordination pretty much controls the game for her team. As they get older and more coordinated,  one great player helps but two average players who are working together, can generally get more done and are certainly having more fun.

Where does this breakdown?

Doesn't it help to actually be an expert?

If I had a choice, should I hire a team of experts or a great team?  The truth is somewhere in the middle. In my past projects, there have been gaps. There have been areas where we would have been stronger with domain expertise. We could have moved faster if we had an expert that we could flank with a great team - a little kale or chicken apple sausage on that Papa Ginos pizza. But - only if we can figure out how work with the expert. Only if we believe in him and only if he trusts us.

And that expertise doesn't come cheap. Another book that I loved (also listened to in my car), is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He explored why some athletes, artists, and experts in their field were able to do more, take bigger leaps.  The resounding theme across music, sports, technology and the like, is practice.  In each case,  the expert had clocked more hours than those around them. The magic number according to Gladwell was 10,000 hours.  With this kind of expertise, you truly could be better, you have seen more iterations, you can anticipate how the crowd will react, you have the domain experience.  But, unless you are playing 4 year old soccer, that's not enough.

You need the best athletes 

Okay - another tidbit from Simon Sinek. He explored how some why's seem to have more power than others.  The best example here was Martin Luther King, Jr.  Sinek talked about how he was not the first with these incredible and important ideas.  He was an incredible and captivating speaker but here's why he was able to ignite a movement, make demands and changes that had long been recognized but couldn't mobilize - he had a mobilizer on his team.  He had a how guy who made the calls - told people not to ride the buses.  Who took the words, the passion,  the vision and turned it into action who.  A guy whose name I am literally unable to find. This is the dangerous part of listening to books . . . 

Meeting a Need

So, maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. You don't need the best if you are meeting a need. BetaMax failed to an inferior better distributed product in VHS. If you are meeting a critical need well, then you don't have to be the best.  You just need to understand your audience.  My kids don't want fancy pizza.  They don't want better music. They just want us, with all our delightful imperfections.

Thanks for reading!