Liz Hutson
speaker
70 appearances
4 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard May 2025
Liz Hutson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Sounds great. Thanks, Scott. Yes. Today's topic is navigating the middle. When I say that, recently I was reading about a company called IDEO. They're a design and innovation company, and they talk about this
v-shaped curve that they call the project mood chart and what it is is basically imagine a v at the beginning of the v you're very positive very excited very hopeful uh things are things are just you know you have these ideas that are cooking and of course once you make it through the project or make it through the kickoff of a company of a project of a product development
At the end of it, you also feel very excited because you're confident that you just solved it. But the middle, from the beginning to the end, that middle part of the here to there can have some negative, hard parts on this. And so I found myself really just kind of reflecting on this idea of that middle. And how do we get through that slog? Because that's actually where we spend time.
most of our time is in that middle. So there were three tips that came to mind, Scott, that I felt like would be worthwhile to share with you and with your audience.
Perfect. That's great. So there's three ideas here that I want to talk through. So the first one is When you're in the middle and you're just kind of spinning and it feels frustrating and that's where most of the work is, first thing is remind yourself of why you're there. Your why is really important because I think that helps with context. What problem are you trying to solve?
If it's product development, can you visualize the ideal future state of what you're trying to do? So if it's a new company that you're starting, if it's an integration that you're doing, if it's navigating a manufacturing transition, whatever that is, can you visualize that ideal future state and then almost manifest that ending, right? What is it that you're trying to do in all of that?
And when you can focus on the why, when you can focus on the bigger context, it gives value to the hours, to the debate, to the frustration, to the dollars that you're spending on it. It gives it some sense of purpose. So that's the first thing is just reminding yourself why you're there.
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. The second thing is to remind ourselves that in that depth of that V shape that I was just talking about in the beginning is to remember that the journey itself has great value. Because not only are we moving our way towards the end or to the ideal future state, but we're learning things that we probably didn't expect we were going to learn.
So it's not just about getting to the end. It's not just about the win.
But it's about that growth mindset that we have that's really critical to success because it's about the process of learning and discovering and really having this open-handed sort of posture of willingness to curiosity and discovery, not just thinking, okay, I've got to the end and so I win and it's done, but really having that growth mindset of I'm learning something and maybe it's not exactly how I thought it was going to shake out, but there's value in that as well.
So the second idea is The journey itself has great value.
Yeah. And the third and final point, and this is a hard one, because I think when we get into something exciting, new company, new product, new something, whatever that project, we're excited when we start. And we can anticipate the excitement when we'll be done. But in the middle, it is a slog, as I said. And we have to remember, it's not about the feeling. It's really about a commitment.
Because if we quit the first time, we didn't feel like it, or we encounter some kind of pushback or argument or debate or whatever that is, some kind of thing that gets in the way, most of our projects would be abandoned, right? The middle isn't fun. It's oftentimes annoying. It's tedious. It's a process of experimentation where you're failing and failing and failing, but it's
It's something that takes persistence. And so I would say, of course, we want to make sure that we're pulling the plug on something where it doesn't longer make sense, right? We want to check context and check strategy. But once we are sure, yes, this is still a good idea, it's just hard right now, then commit to finding a solution, even when it's not fun, even when you don't feel like it.
So that's the third idea. It's not about a feeling. It's not about having that excitement, enthusiastic feeling through this log of it, but really committing to saying, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to work through this even when I don't feel like it.
You got it. So when we're navigating the middle, three ideas. One, remind yourself of why you're there. Number two, the journey itself has great value because we learn things that we did not expect. And number three, it's not about a feeling. It's really about a commitment to success.
Thank you, Scott. Great to talk with you.
Ja, das klingt großartig. Scott, danke dir so sehr für deine Zeit heute. Ich dachte mir, warum ist Genesse wichtig? Ich denke, wenn wir heute die Welt betrachten, wollen wir eine Idee von uns erreichen, sei es in einem Geschäftsbereich oder in einem Gemeinschaftsbereich. Wir wollen unsere Arbeit präsentieren.
Wir wollen für eine Möglichkeit betrachtet werden, ob es ein nächstes-Level-Job ist, ein neues Job, was auch immer es sein könnte. Wir müssen Genesse haben. Wir können all diese Ideen haben, aber wenn sie nie gehört werden, What good is it?
And when I think about the tempo that our world keeps today, if it's not sharp and pithy and pushes forward, those ideas, you know, like even a personality, a person is brushed aside really quickly. And so if we're not positioning it well and we're not having a healthy dose of push, those ideas can stay behind.
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