Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin

Author:Seth Godin [Godin, Seth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2004-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

Bringing It Together: Voting for Stamps

Start with a simple soft innovation: Let U.S. consumers celebrate the end of the millennium by voting for which events will be commemorated with a stamp.

Azeez Jaffer came up with the idea while on a business trip, then became a champion for making it happen.

He realized that having a deadline would make it possible to push it through the many layers of approval at the Postal Service. At every step, he used the urgency of the upcoming millennium to make it happen.

Jaffer started with his creative “tiger team,” a group of 3 or 4 senior people with whom he discussed the concept. They used “March to the Millennium” as the working project title—giving something a name makes it more real. After they had ironed out some of the initial details, they went into seclusion for a few days with their cross-functional team; there, they decided how to market their project (create voting ballots for mail, e-mail, schools) and develop it. For example, the group decided that the committee should dictate the choices for the first few decades, since most people wouldn’t know what to choose as significant from 1920 or 1930.

Notice that Jaffer worked out a framework early, and made sure to involve people from across the organization. The next step was more difficult. Jaffer had to work with the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee, a group that normally takes 5–7 years to go from idea to stamp. Without a deadline, he wouldn’t have had a chance. “This idea was completely counterculture,” he said. “I was thrown out of the room,” he joked. The committee and people were used to working through a process of years, not three to five months.

Once this hurdle was addressed, Jaffer beefed up his vision of the future. Specifically, he knew that management was very focused on the bottom line. “We ran the numbers, and it was clear this would add fifty million dollars to the bottom line,” he explained.

The next level of the organization cared much more about how it looked to the outside world. So he sold them on the role of the project in history, and showed them that this was a program that would show the world the USPS was being progressive even if it failed. (He convinced the transportation head in the same way: “This is what it’s all about. Your kids and grandkids will read about this.”)

Jaffer didn’t have to convince everyone. In fact, he walked away from some people when they showed the first signs of resistance. How’d he know which people he could walk away from? “Because I knew which would make or break me.” As the project gained steam, the fact that he was willing to leave people out actually gave him more power, not less.

Result? He made his numbers (it was the most successful rollout in USPS history). He got promoted. And he was the Man of the Year for the American Stamp Dealers Association and was on the cover of Promo magazine.

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