February 16, 2023 • 15 mins
Saying that should cease – If You Build It, They Will Come
While often quoted in many circles, it takes far more than building to get them to come.
Origin of the phrase Field of Dreams movie - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_Dreams
Ginny Whitelaw’s Article - https://www.forbes.com/sites/ginnywhitelaw/2021/08/01/if-you-build-it-will-they-come/?sh=70a043846b6a
Previous episode on One Size Fits All - https://beyondtheminimum.podbean.com/e/saying-that-should-cease-one-size-fits-all/
Christian Harris’ LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-harris-slip-safety/
Christian Harris’ event https://www.linkedin.com/events/getconsistentgrowthininterest-l7020020071863316480/about/
The working genius website: https://www.workinggenius.com/
Connect with Tanya Hewitt on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanya-hewitt-55804529/
Buy her a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/tanyah
Credits:
Adam Johns – voiceover - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjohns730/
Beverley McKiver – composer and player of the music Tell Me About Love - https://www.linkedin.com/in/beverleymckiver/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Adam Johns (00:03):
Welcome to Beyond the Minimum, where we'll be exploring the world of work. We'll be chatting about concepts, ideas and phrases, explore practices and delve into what good looks like. Work can be purposeful value lead, and more meaningful to all who interact with the workplace. This podcast is brought to you by Tanya Hewitt who lives in unceded Algonquin, Anishinaabeg territory, otherwise known as Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Tanya Hewitt (00:33):
My family has had the chance to experience some pretty beautiful meals in very posh kind of environments, we are talking about very expensive meals. And I just wanted to share a little bit of a perspective I've gained on this. There was once where we were eating something in advance of going to a show and we needed to rush through this meal, because we really didn't have much time to eat it before the show was going to start. And it was very jarring to have to wolf down a meal that really should be savored should be appreciated and take your time with this. Another one is when we had gone out to lavish experience, and we had starved ourselves, because we wanted to make use of this incredible meal that we're going to be eating. But what happens there is that we tend to be so hungry, we're just ravenous, when this beautiful presented plate
(01:42):
comes in front of us. And instead of slowly appreciating the food, we are just so hungry that we need to getit into ourselves. And we might not be appreciating the flavors or the colors or the way it has been presented on the plate. So in my experience, if you do want to treat yourself and go out to a nicer experience where presentation is important, the chef is taking care to put flavor combinations together for you with all sorts of different ingredients. One, make sure that you have enough time to appreciate the experience. And number two, try not to go there absolutely ravenously hungry, so that you can savor the flavors that are given to you.
Adam Johns (02:41):
Today's episode sayings that should cease.
Tanya Hewitt (02:47):
Hi everyone. Today's saying that should cease is if you build it, they will come. This phrase was popularized through a 1989 film entitled Field of Dreams, where a corn farmer was inspired to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield at great financial risk. The diamond started to attract at first ghost players that started to be seen by other people. And then they could start charging and this whole fantasy of people beginning to watch baseball and paying for the pleasure of doing so becoming a reality. This was an impactful movie, it started to become super impactful with the phrase, "If you build it, they will come." You can find a lot of business articles that have since been written that have paired this with the power of positive thinking. When these two concepts have been merged together, they seem to be an unstoppable force. If
(03:59):
you believe in what you're doing. And if you build it, all you have to do is sit back and wait for people tocome.
I had undertaken a doctoral degree a few years ago, and the project that I undertook was incident reportingsystems. One of the myths that I had tried to break in writing that dissertation was, if you build it, they will come. I firmly believe that incident reporting systems are one of the systems that can do more harm if you implement them without doing your homework first, then if you had never tried to implement an incident reporting system in the first place. A lot of businesses tend when they go down the incident reporting road to put a lot of effort in the user interface that begins to to set the incident reporting system up to be designed in a way that reports that could get into the system won't be analyzed and acted on, because all of the effort is being put on to just getting people to report. Because of that the longevity of the incident
(05:19):
reporting system is very short lived, because people don't see the value in reporting anything, if nothing isever acted upon. Another truism with incident reporting systems is that people believe that just because you build it, people will start reporting, one of the genesis' is is that a word? to get incident reporting on the radar for business at all, is the media, the media will, often after a horrific accident, will talk to employees or former employees. And if there was no incident reporting system, that will be highlighted and become headlines and very newsworthy, and then all of a sudden, everything becomes about incident reporting systems, right. So if that is the reason that people are setting up incident reporting systems, because of the fear induced by media headlines, you might want to question, if that is a good reason to set up a system that
(06:24):
is going to need a whole lot of investment thereafter, There are lots of incident reporting systems that arejust not used to their potential, mostly because they were premised upon the belief, if you build it, they will come. This isn't supposed to be a podcast on incident reporting systems, so I'll keep this very brief. Some reasons might be lack of training on how to use the system in the first place, or a lack of timely training, when you put adult learning principles in the mix there, or a lack of build up a lack of hype about the whole system, poor implementation would be in that category. So those are more transactional type of issues, where you to figure out what the solution is, you could probably execute the solution fairly easily and address that issue. However, a far more insidious issue is lack of trust, and that's on the personable
(07:28):
side. And that is going to be a much, much harder issue to address through some type of corrective actionplan.
Christian Harris is a prolific guy on LinkedIn. And I have attended some of his sessions where he shares hissecret sauce to his successful business. He used the phrase, "If you build it, they will come" in a negative way in his presentations. It reminds me that you can have the best system, the best thought, or the best idea. A colleague of Beethoven might have written the best symphony ever, maybe he just had it in his head. Maybe he wrote it down and put it in a drawer or even burned it or something. It could have been the best symphony ever. But if nobody knows about it, we have to start wondering what best is. If you have the best something and yet have not developed trust, then building it will likely be as fanciful as the movie The Field of Dreams.
(08:41):
Instead of starting with building Ginny Whitelaw asks,in a Forbes article, "if you build it, will they come?"In this article, she suggests that resonance guides a lot of our lives, and we should use it to help us. Another way to see this same phenomenon is fit, which is against a societal understanding of a one size fits all. It is playing to our uniqueness, and how this will resonate with our people. In her article, she talks about a four phase process. First phase is ideation, getting the idea, and that should make us excited and enthusiastic. And that's how we know that it's going to resonate with us because we we know that we're excited about the idea. Her second phase is socialization. This is where she talks about early testing with others to see if our enthusiasm is contagious. And this is where we can refine aspects of our idea that don't resonate
(09:51):
with others and reify things that are resonating with others. After that phase, she talks about planning. Andso this is part of the steps of implementation where you will actually lay out the how of what you are going to do, including environmental factors, including is the timing right and doing measurements in order to know if this is going to be a successful enterprise. Christian Harris's program uses measurement a lot, you have to have a way to gauge if this is going to work, as opposed to just guessing. And her fourth stage is builders, not her first, her fourth. In this face, she's talking about experimenting, constantly taking feedback and learning and improving all the time. So she talks about, I'm quoting from her article here, "If the idea we sense matches us and is truly in the zeitgeist supported by larger forces or real needs than Yes, build it,
(11:02):
and they will come. If what we're sensing is a fantasy of our own ego, and building it is a way to proveourselves, or feel like we're accomplishing something, no matter how positive and determined we are, it may not work. Deep listening at these junctures will help us discern the difference when an idea is right for us and ready to happen. The result is us making exactly the difference that is ours to make. When we can be that open and clear. We lead not for the sake of ego, but rather use the ego in service of others build from there, and all things will come to you."
(11:48):
Another model that comes to mind is Pat Lencioni is working genius. So I have my certification in this. And Ilove this model, if only because it introduces the missing middle. Pat's model has three main phases, each one having two sub geniuses, I'm not going to go through the whole model here because there's an entire podcast devoted to the working genius. It is an insightful model in that it offers an ideation phase and activation phase, and an implementation phase. It's not just implementation. And actually it a lot of people who have taken the survey I believe, or the assessments, I believe are Western oriented. And a lot of our western orientation does come from a very linear 17th century inspired implementation valued approach. So the "just do it" kind of stuff. The whole idea is that it's not just build it is far from it. There is a process with many
(13:03):
steps before the building.
If you build it, they will come may be a nice movie line. But we really need to rethink how it has beenimplanted in our culture. Quotes from fictional movies designed for entertainment may not be the best life plans.
(13:27):
I thank you for listening. I don't know if this is your first episode, or if you are a regular listener,having really appreciated some of this content. I just wanted to tell you that I really do appreciate you for listening. If you would like to express your gratitude for this podcast, I would encourage you to buy me a coffee, head on over to buy me a coffee.com/tanyah that's buy b-u-y me m-e a coffee c-o-f-f-e-e all one word.com/t-a-n-y-a-h tanyah. I will put this in the show notes. And I would really sincerely appreciate your support. In addition to that, you can rate and review this podcast and I really, really appreciate that you are here listening to what I am sending out to you guys. Thanks so much.
Adam Johns (14:39):
Thank you so much for listening to Beyond the Minimum with Tanya Hewitt. We hope this episode aligned with you. Maybe it was diametrically opposed to us, at any rate, we trust it made you think. The more we can think about our workplaces and start talking about them, the more we can collectively make a real difference. If you're living in Canada, please find out the Indigenous territory in which you reside. Begin using it to introduce yourself. Please reach out to Tanya through her email Tanya@beyondsafetycompliance.ca. Connect and chat with her on LinkedIn. Follow her company Beyond Safety Compliance. And remember to ask yourself the question, How does your work look? Because we can always go Beyond the Minimum.
Welcome to Beyond the Minimum, where we'll be exploring the world of work. We'll be chatting about concepts, ideas and phrases, explore practices and delve into what good looks like. Work can be purposeful value lead, and more meaningful to all who interact with the workplace. This podcast is brought to you by Tanya Hewitt who lives in unceded Algonquin, Anishinaabeg territory, otherwise known as Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Tanya Hewitt (00:33):
My family has had the chance to experience some pretty beautiful meals in very posh kind of environments, we are talking about very expensive meals. And I just wanted to share a little bit of a perspective I've gained on this. There was once where we were eating something in advance of going to a show and we needed to rush through this meal, because we really didn't have much time to eat it before the show was going to start. And it was very jarring to have to wolf down a meal that really should be savored should be appreciated and take your time with this. Another one is when we had gone out to lavish experience, and we had starved ourselves, because we wanted to make use of this incredible meal that we're going to be eating. But what happens there is that we tend to be so hungry, we're just ravenous, when this beautiful presented plate
(01:42):
comes in front of us. And instead of slowly appreciating the food, we are just so hungry that we need to getit into ourselves. And we might not be appreciating the flavors or the colors or the way it has been presented on the plate. So in my experience, if you do want to treat yourself and go out to a nicer experience where presentation is important, the chef is taking care to put flavor combinations together for you with all sorts of different ingredients. One, make sure that you have enough time to appreciate the experience. And number two, try not to go there absolutely ravenously hungry, so that you can savor the flavors that are given to you.
Adam Johns (02:41):
Today's episode sayings that should cease.
Tanya Hewitt (02:47):
Hi everyone. Today's saying that should cease is if you build it, they will come. This phrase was popularized through a 1989 film entitled Field of Dreams, where a corn farmer was inspired to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield at great financial risk. The diamond started to attract at first ghost players that started to be seen by other people. And then they could start charging and this whole fantasy of people beginning to watch baseball and paying for the pleasure of doing so becoming a reality. This was an impactful movie, it started to become super impactful with the phrase, "If you build it, they will come." You can find a lot of business articles that have since been written that have paired this with the power of positive thinking. When these two concepts have been merged together, they seem to be an unstoppable force. If
(03:59):
you believe in what you're doing. And if you build it, all you have to do is sit back and wait for people tocome.
I had undertaken a doctoral degree a few years ago, and the project that I undertook was incident reportingsystems. One of the myths that I had tried to break in writing that dissertation was, if you build it, they will come. I firmly believe that incident reporting systems are one of the systems that can do more harm if you implement them without doing your homework first, then if you had never tried to implement an incident reporting system in the first place. A lot of businesses tend when they go down the incident reporting road to put a lot of effort in the user interface that begins to to set the incident reporting system up to be designed in a way that reports that could get into the system won't be analyzed and acted on, because all of the effort is being put on to just getting people to report. Because of that the longevity of the incident
(05:19):
reporting system is very short lived, because people don't see the value in reporting anything, if nothing isever acted upon. Another truism with incident reporting systems is that people believe that just because you build it, people will start reporting, one of the genesis' is is that a word? to get incident reporting on the radar for business at all, is the media, the media will, often after a horrific accident, will talk to employees or former employees. And if there was no incident reporting system, that will be highlighted and become headlines and very newsworthy, and then all of a sudden, everything becomes about incident reporting systems, right. So if that is the reason that people are setting up incident reporting systems, because of the fear induced by media headlines, you might want to question, if that is a good reason to set up a system that
(06:24):
is going to need a whole lot of investment thereafter, There are lots of incident reporting systems that arejust not used to their potential, mostly because they were premised upon the belief, if you build it, they will come. This isn't supposed to be a podcast on incident reporting systems, so I'll keep this very brief. Some reasons might be lack of training on how to use the system in the first place, or a lack of timely training, when you put adult learning principles in the mix there, or a lack of build up a lack of hype about the whole system, poor implementation would be in that category. So those are more transactional type of issues, where you to figure out what the solution is, you could probably execute the solution fairly easily and address that issue. However, a far more insidious issue is lack of trust, and that's on the personable
(07:28):
side. And that is going to be a much, much harder issue to address through some type of corrective actionplan.
Christian Harris is a prolific guy on LinkedIn. And I have attended some of his sessions where he shares hissecret sauce to his successful business. He used the phrase, "If you build it, they will come" in a negative way in his presentations. It reminds me that you can have the best system, the best thought, or the best idea. A colleague of Beethoven might have written the best symphony ever, maybe he just had it in his head. Maybe he wrote it down and put it in a drawer or even burned it or something. It could have been the best symphony ever. But if nobody knows about it, we have to start wondering what best is. If you have the best something and yet have not developed trust, then building it will likely be as fanciful as the movie The Field of Dreams.
(08:41):
Instead of starting with building Ginny Whitelaw asks,in a Forbes article, "if you build it, will they come?"In this article, she suggests that resonance guides a lot of our lives, and we should use it to help us. Another way to see this same phenomenon is fit, which is against a societal understanding of a one size fits all. It is playing to our uniqueness, and how this will resonate with our people. In her article, she talks about a four phase process. First phase is ideation, getting the idea, and that should make us excited and enthusiastic. And that's how we know that it's going to resonate with us because we we know that we're excited about the idea. Her second phase is socialization. This is where she talks about early testing with others to see if our enthusiasm is contagious. And this is where we can refine aspects of our idea that don't resonate
(09:51):
with others and reify things that are resonating with others. After that phase, she talks about planning. Andso this is part of the steps of implementation where you will actually lay out the how of what you are going to do, including environmental factors, including is the timing right and doing measurements in order to know if this is going to be a successful enterprise. Christian Harris's program uses measurement a lot, you have to have a way to gauge if this is going to work, as opposed to just guessing. And her fourth stage is builders, not her first, her fourth. In this face, she's talking about experimenting, constantly taking feedback and learning and improving all the time. So she talks about, I'm quoting from her article here, "If the idea we sense matches us and is truly in the zeitgeist supported by larger forces or real needs than Yes, build it,
(11:02):
and they will come. If what we're sensing is a fantasy of our own ego, and building it is a way to proveourselves, or feel like we're accomplishing something, no matter how positive and determined we are, it may not work. Deep listening at these junctures will help us discern the difference when an idea is right for us and ready to happen. The result is us making exactly the difference that is ours to make. When we can be that open and clear. We lead not for the sake of ego, but rather use the ego in service of others build from there, and all things will come to you."
(11:48):
Another model that comes to mind is Pat Lencioni is working genius. So I have my certification in this. And Ilove this model, if only because it introduces the missing middle. Pat's model has three main phases, each one having two sub geniuses, I'm not going to go through the whole model here because there's an entire podcast devoted to the working genius. It is an insightful model in that it offers an ideation phase and activation phase, and an implementation phase. It's not just implementation. And actually it a lot of people who have taken the survey I believe, or the assessments, I believe are Western oriented. And a lot of our western orientation does come from a very linear 17th century inspired implementation valued approach. So the "just do it" kind of stuff. The whole idea is that it's not just build it is far from it. There is a process with many
(13:03):
steps before the building.
If you build it, they will come may be a nice movie line. But we really need to rethink how it has beenimplanted in our culture. Quotes from fictional movies designed for entertainment may not be the best life plans.
(13:27):
I thank you for listening. I don't know if this is your first episode, or if you are a regular listener,having really appreciated some of this content. I just wanted to tell you that I really do appreciate you for listening. If you would like to express your gratitude for this podcast, I would encourage you to buy me a coffee, head on over to buy me a coffee.com/tanyah that's buy b-u-y me m-e a coffee c-o-f-f-e-e all one word.com/t-a-n-y-a-h tanyah. I will put this in the show notes. And I would really sincerely appreciate your support. In addition to that, you can rate and review this podcast and I really, really appreciate that you are here listening to what I am sending out to you guys. Thanks so much.
Adam Johns (14:39):
Thank you so much for listening to Beyond the Minimum with Tanya Hewitt. We hope this episode aligned with you. Maybe it was diametrically opposed to us, at any rate, we trust it made you think. The more we can think about our workplaces and start talking about them, the more we can collectively make a real difference. If you're living in Canada, please find out the Indigenous territory in which you reside. Begin using it to introduce yourself. Please reach out to Tanya through her email Tanya@beyondsafetycompliance.ca. Connect and chat with her on LinkedIn. Follow her company Beyond Safety Compliance. And remember to ask yourself the question, How does your work look? Because we can always go Beyond the Minimum.
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