Episode 212 - Pre-Parade
Transcript:
Pete: Hey, Jen.
Jen: Hey, Pete.
Pete: Remember way back in Episode One, when we talked about pre-mortems?
Jen: I do, in fact.
Pete: I'm unsure if I could possibly bring myself to listen back as to whether that episode is actually any good because it was our first episode. However, I recently heard of an idea that I've now become obsessed with, which is essentially the opposite to a pre-mortem. And it's been introduced to me as a pre-parade, and I think we should talk about it.
Jen: Oh. I thought you were gonna say post-mortem, and I'm like, "This is a new idea to you?"
Pete: No, no, no.
Jen: But pre-parade? Sign me up. This is The Long and The Short Of It.
Pete: I had a feeling you'd be excited about this idea, because I...it feels so obvious. But anyway, when I heard it, I was like, "Oh my god, I've never thought of that." So, this idea comes from a interview with Roelof Botha...I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. I'll put the interview in our Box O' Goodies. And he's a partner at the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, so a very, very smart guy, very accomplished. And he was sharing some insights into how he thinks strategically in that role at Sequoia Capital. And so basically, they spend a bunch of time investing in many, many entrepreneurial businesses around the world. And one of the things he mentioned they do as a thought exercise, is, yeah, he actually talked about, "Yeah, we do pre-mortems. Which is, 'Let's imagine, if this goes wrong, if this goes off the rails, if this investment is a disaster, what would that look like? Why would that be the case, so we can try and mitigate it.'" But he said the other thing they do, which actually he finds more impactful, potentially, is a pre-parade. And so, that is, "Paint what it will look like if everything goes incredibly well. What would be possible in the world if this idea, this entrepreneurial venture, this business that someone is, you know, ideating or coming up with or seeking funding for, if it goes absolutely perfectly, what would that look like for the world?" And I have become obsessed with this idea. So, reactions, thoughts, feelings?
Jen: I mean, I love it. I absolutely adore it. I can't wait to start talking about it as soon as we end this call to anyone who will listen. The joy that I'm seeing, even in your body language...obviously, listeners, you can't see, so let me describe that-
Pete: Pete's moving around.
Jen: -Pete is doing like a little happy dance, even thinking about the idea of a pre-parade. So, just the inherent good feelings that come up with it feels like reason alone to do it. And it's reminding me of the work of Gabriele Oettingen, who wrote the book Rethinking Positive Thinking. And she has this framework...I'll post something about it in the Box O' Goodies. Her framework, I'm sure I've talked about it on the show, is called WOOP, W-O-O-P. Like, not the greatest acronym, but at least you remember it. Wish-Outcome-Obstacle-Plan. And what you are describing is the second step, I believe, in WOOP, which is envisioning the amazing outcome if everything you were wishing came to fruition.
Pete: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. As a way to, I think, get clear on just how much impact of this idea could have.
Jen: Mmm-hmm.
Pete: You know? Like, if you, I don't know, I guess if you take Airbnb or Uber, seem like very universally easy to understand examples. Like, if you'd done that exercise when you started the journey of investing in a company like that, where you've got some crazy person saying, "People are going to sleep in each other's houses, and it's going to be great. We'll create a marketplace." The easy thing to do the pre-mortem, is like, "No one's going to trust anyone. That is a really bad idea. There'll be crime. There'll be, you know, houses will get trashed," like so many things you could come up with go wrong. But if you flipped it and went, "What could go well? What would the pre-parade look like?" You might say, "Well, the hotel industry will never be the same again. There'll be more equitable options for people to get housing both from a travel perspective but also maybe from a short-term housing perspective. Like, people will now say as like a verb, like, 'Oh, I Airbnb'd on my holiday.'" You know? Like, that would be what a pre-parade might look like. So if you can imagine that and you go, "Holy guacamole. This idea has the potential to completely revolutionize an entire industry or an entire world of travel. That could be worth us spending some time on." Versus, I imagine you might do a pre-parade and you go, "Oh, you know, if we invest in this new bottled water, there'd be a new bottled water on the market. Maybe it would, you know, increase everyone's hydration by...," whatever, I'm making this terrible example up. But would it make that much of a dent in the world? Probably not, compared to what we already have. And so, maybe we don't invest in that particular thing. So I think it's worth looking at from the perspective of, "What is the possibility or what is the possible impact of this given idea?" Now, we're talking in the entrepreneurial sense, but I think you and I could easily extend this to many, many other projects, aspects of our lives.
Jen: Yeah. So in this interview that you heard, did he talk at all about how, then, the vision of the pre-parade actually became something actionable in the present? Like, when we do a pre-mortem, the reason we do a pre-mortem is so we can plan ahead for how we might deal with obstacles so that they're not a surprise, or we instill practices to ensure that certain obstacles don't come into play. So, what do you actually do after you've done your pre-parade? What do you do with it?
Pete: That's a great question. And I think we could debate or we could probably hypothesize other things we could do with it, but the example that we're talking about was very much through the lens of venture capital. So I'm not a venture capitalist, I don't claim to be one on the internet. But basically, they are investors who are taking debts, taking punts on various organizations, hoping that some of them will be whooping successes, like Airbnb or Uber, for example. Also, recognizing 80% to 90% of the businesses they invest in are probably going to fail. And so, they are very much playing with probabilities and hypothesis. So what they're looking at is, basically, what they're hoping for is finding that one, that 10% of the pie that's going to completely change the culture, like an Airbnb or an Uber. (They're just such easy examples to get your head around.) So for them, the pre-parade is, "Can we imagine this changing the fabric of society? If so, it's probably worth a punt or worth an investment." Versus, "Oh, no, I can't quite see how this would literally reshape society. We're probably going to say no to that," or, "We go in recognizing it's probably not going to be a homerun, this one," or, "It's more likely to fail." So for them, it's just like, I think more of a metric to help with, "How big could this be," which probably for them is like, "How big a check should or could we write?"
Jen: It's like a risk tolerance assessment tool, and potential impact is what's being measured. So the greater the potential impact, the more motivated-
Pete: Right.
Jen: -one is to take the risk or the more capacity for risk one might have.
Pete: Exactly. Exactly.
Jen: Okay, I'm thinking about a conversation I had with a client last week about putting more explicit boundaries around the kinds of job opportunities she was seeking, and this is specifically in her creative work. And she wanted to be able to articulate those boundaries to her agent. And essentially what she came up with is, "I am only interested, at this moment, in career altering opportunities. And so, if it is not something that could completely transform the fabric of my career, I don't want to audition for it."
Pete: Perfect example, yeah. Perfect example. Yeah, and so the pre-parade becomes a mechanism to look at opportunities and see if that has the potential to be career altering. Yeah, I think for most of us that aren't, you know, venture capitalists, it's a mechanism or a tool or framework that helps with decision-making, essentially. And so, you know, like if you're thinking about moving jobs or moving cities, as another example, you might look at, "If this goes really well, this move to this new job or this new city, what might be possible?" If it's that, like, "I could completely transform my career or my life, or I might meet someone, or I might like decide that this is the place I want to spend the rest of my life. And it's warmer, and it's beautiful, and like oh my god, it would be so spectacular." Versus like, "I would be away from family. I would be sad. I would...the weather is worse. I wouldn't have..."
Jen: Right.
Pete: Like, if it wasn't as spectacular a pre-parade, it might become easier to make a decision, basically.
Jen: Yeah. It's also making me think about when fear becomes something that keeps you stuck in your tracks, that a pre-parade could get you unstuck. Just like a really simple example, because I work with clients all the time who want to reach out to people and introduce themself.
Pete: Right.
Jen: You know, "We're both artists, we should know each other."
Pete: Right. Right.
Jen: And they get so so so scared that they don't do it. It feels like opportunity cost on steroids, where you go, "Okay. If I don't send the reach out, I will be exactly where I am right now. I know where that is. That feels safe, great. If I do send the reach out, which I'm so afraid to do, it could be the most impactful collaboration of my lifetime or I could completely transform the way this industry works if that person and I work together on this project, or any number of amazing things." But it's so easy to get stuck in the fear of like, "But what if they say no? But what if they don't read it? But what if, you know, I'm just going to stay where I am?" So, I love this as a tool for moving through fear.
Pete: Yes. Yes. Like, we've talked before about the question of, "What's the worst that can happen?"
Jen: Yeah.
Pete: As a way to try and navigate fear. But actually, this is like, "What's the best thing that could happen?"
Jen: Right.
Pete: Because often, you know, "What's the worst that can happen?" "Oh, they reply and say, 'No, thanks.' Oh, okay, I guess I could still send this reach out." But even that is like still not that inspiring to build momentum to send the reach out.
Jen: Right.
Pete: But, "What's the best that can happen," and you're like, "Oh, damn, I could get excited about the opportunity that might happen if I send this."
Jen: Yeah.
Pete: So yes, I agree, it's a way of getting unstuck. It's a way of getting out of fear. It also feels like...you know, one of my words for this year, which we talked about right at the start of the year, has been "abundance". And I deliberately chose that word because I recognize because of fear or because of life, sometimes I have a tendency to go into like scarcity mindset, I guess like we all do at times.
Jen: Mmm-hmm.
Pete: So this, to me, feels like a more abundant frame of looking at things.
Jen: Yeah.
Pete: "What could be possible," as opposed to, "What will go wrong?" I just, I tend to be quite an optimistic positive person, maybe that's why it resonates with me. But I just, it gets me far more fired up than looking at the counter, looking at the negative.
Jen: Today, I was listening to the latest episode of Akimbo, which is called Cybertruck. And in it, Seth is talking about how optimism is really what you're selling when you are heading towards something new. So, also thinking about the pre-parade as a pitching tool, as a marketing tool, as a leadership tool.
Pete: Yeah. Right.
Jen: Like, how do you get people excited about a future that doesn't yet exist?
Pete: Oh, that's good. Yeah, help paint it for them. Or a way to get them enrolled in that change could be, have them help articulate the pre-parade.
Jen: Yes.
Pete: You know, maybe it's like a team activity. Or maybe you give everyone the project, you know, "Before we catch up next week, I want you to write up three paragraphs of a pre-parade. Like, if we embark on this digital transformation," which is what a lot of companies are doing at the moment since the pandemic, "if we embark on this big transformation project and it goes unbelievably well, what would that look like?" If you have each member of your team take part in that, I imagine you help build enrollment and excitement and engagement around the process of creating that change. Oh, that's good, Jennifer.
Jen: I'm remembering this line from a musical I directed, Man of LaMancha, which is based on Don Quixote. And it's possible that this line is taken directly from the book, I don't know. But it is not meant as a compliment. "You see the world as it is, not as it could be." And it feels like the pre-parade is like seeing the world as it could be.
Pete: Yes, please. "What it could be." Hmm, I love that. Now that we, I guess, have some clarity or some insight into what this pre-parade looks like, I guess the next thing I'm trying to work out is, how do I make this a regular practice of mine? How do I look to do a pre-parade? I mean, I feel like you could do this on the micro, right? Like, "What's the best thing that could happen if this meeting," if I'm like loathing going to a meeting, it's like, "Oh, actually, if I have this meeting and connect with this person, it could lead to this, this, and this. Now I'm excited about the meeting." So I'm thinking about it on the micro, but then also the macro as well. Like, maybe it's something we do as part of our New Year's resolutions. Or, maybe it's something we do twice a year. Like, what are the possibilities? What does the pre-parade look like if the next six months go smashingly? And I'm guessing, you know, for me it might be just like a journaling activity. Have you got other thoughts on how you might do this?
Jen: Well, I just think about the meeting you and I have at the beginning of starting any project together, where we get on the whiteboard and we do, "Who's it for? What's it for? Who's it not for," and then we pre-mortem.
Pete: Yeah. "What does success look like," and then, yeah, pre-mortem. Yeah.
Jen: Yeah. So it seems to me that, "What does success look like," actually isn't what we're talking about.
Pete: No, no.
Jen: We're talking about, "What does wildly extravagant success look like?"
Pete: Exactly. I feel like, "What does success look like," is almost, "What does good enough look like?" You know? Like, "What's the minimum viable impact I'm seeking?" Whereas this is like, "What's the maximum viable impact?" Yeah.
Jen: Yeah. And I see how this, in our own process (because you and I have been through this, you know, in the last couple years, a good handful of times together), I could see how this would inject some very important enthusiasm and energy into what we're doing, and also get us to push ourselves a little bit harder. And I don't mean like, to work harder. But I mean, to dream bigger, to think more creatively.
Pete: Yep. And then, I imagine it becomes a really effective tool for when we hit the dip,-
Jen: Oh my gosh, yes.
Pete: -that point in the project where we're like, "Is it worth it? I want to give up. This is a stupid idea," which is a part of any project. And Seth Godin has written the book that we refer to every third episode, The Dip, and I'll pop it in the Box O' Goodies for the forty-second time. But the thing that happens in the dip is we feel like giving up, and so maybe reminding ourselves of the possible, reminding ourselves of the maximum viable impact, the pre-parade, could be a useful way to get ourselves back through the dip.
Jen: Mmm. Maximum viable impact is such a sexy term to me. I love that. Alright, well, I am so inspired by this concept. I am ready to put on my band outfit, grab my baton, and start like marching down the parade route, encouraging people to come along for the pre-parade.
Pete: Yes. Consider this a pre-parade for pre-parades. Yeah.
Jen: Yes. And that is The Long and The Short Of It.