I’ve been reading people for as long as I can remember. Not in a malicious way, but certainly in an effort to gain an edge. In school it was teachers and administrators, always trying to see how to extend a deadline or what it would take to turn a B+ into an A- at the end of the semester. Baseball is all about reading people. I more than made up for a lack of physical talent with an uncanny ability to process and react to the subtle nuances of the game.
Tony Gwynn once told me he knew every pitch Kevin Brown was throwing. He was a guess hitter, but said baseball becomes a whole heck of a lot easier when you figure out how to be right more than you’re wrong. The same is true in business, and in life...
The problem though, is when what was once an advantage starts to have an inverse effect. Alexander Hamilton, and others, said, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” With my baseball days more of a distant memory than a defining characteristic, my ability to read people had transitioned into a chameleon-like trait, where I could suddenly become whoever I thought someone wanted me to be.
It was a scary realization... not knowing who I was or what I stood for.
It took work to get back to center, and still does. But there was a silver lining. There always is. If you’re in business today, no matter your role or title, your job is to influence someone to do something. If you understand what people are paying attention to, not just clicking on, watching or buying, that job becomes a whole heck of a lot easier. Our attention defines our why. We can’t hide it... the hard part was in figuring out how to measure it.
Video gave us that opportunity.
This is why we created Limbik. To put what has once again become a personal advantage to positive use. And why I fought so hard to convince our stakeholders to pivot from the safe to the unknown. Applied properly, the ability to read and understand people at scale, is limitless. We’re building it.
A word of caution... just make sure you stand for something.