The Song of Significance

Like most important words, translating a concept like the Japanese term kokoro is difficult. It means heart, spirit, mind, and self. It’s the inner and outer expression of who we are and what we’re capable of. Even if you don’t speak Japanese, the word is likely to resonate. It’s an expression of our personhood, the dignity and connection we seek i

23. Before We Begin Create two documents with your team before your next project: The pre-mortem and The rave Each unit of work we do can be considered a project—the next customer we serve, the product we launch, the call with investors … Imagine that the project fails. Let’s make a list, in advance, of all the things that went wrong. What didn’t work?

The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful. BEN ZANDER, BOSTON PHILHARMONIC

We owe our employees a debt. We owe it to our coworkers. And we owe it to our bosses. Work is the expression of our energy and our dreams. We owe those along for the journey the same dignity and connection we would like to receive in return.

Industrial capitalism (industrialism) seeks to use power to create profits. Market capitalism seeks to solve problems to make a profit.

care enough to build the best job you ever had,

The work of significance embraces the very things that industrialism seeks to stamp out. Significance is inconvenient.

Wonder is the open-ended version of curiosity, without seeking an explanation to solve the problem.

another series of questions we can ask after we’re done: Did we ship on time? Did we make big promises (to our customers, sure, but also to our coworkers) and keep them? Did we relentlessly make the work better? Did we seek discomfort in the process of stretching to innovate? Is our theory of change, process, and creation improving? Did we ask hard