Strands of Genius: What if Every Little Thing You Do Changes History, Dishoom’s Review of the Year, Bird Migration

Guest curated by Adam Morgan, Founding Partner, eatbigfish

Feb 01, 2024

:: A BIT MORE ABOUT GUEST CURATOR, ADAM MORGAN ::

LOCATION: London, England

I’m Adam, and I’m the Founding Partner of eatbigfish, a consultancy that specialises in helping clients bring a challenger mindset to a strategic or cultural problem. I worked in ad agencies for 17 years on both sides of the Atlantic, and then started my own thing with some friends. I’ve written a couple of books (Eating the Big Fish, The Pirate Inside, A Beautiful Constraint), and in fact first met Faris almost 20 years ago when I was talking about one of them on a slightly unstable canal boat in North London.

Editor’s Note (Faris): It’s a genuine honor for us to have Adam guest curate this edition. The clarity of his thinking have been very impactful on me and many people in our industry. He’s been carving his own path with eatbigfish for many years and he, and the agency, continue to produce actual thought leadership that explores new areas and new approaches to brand growth. He’s also awesome and really nice. Thanks so much Adam!

I remember very well meeting him on that boat - he was a guest speaker to the very first IPA Excellence Diploma class that I was part of way back in about 2007, which is indeed almost 20 years ago. Wowzer. It is no exaggeration to say the program massively inspired and informed my approach, my way of working, and my writing.

Also, I used to blog A LOT back then and have the post from the day after I met here, which I will reproduce here for convenience:

FROM JULY 2006:

I saw Adam Morgan, champion of challenger brands, author Eating the Big Fish and The Pirate Inside give a talk last night. It was very good - a case study in how to use illustrative anecdotes to communicate your points - but there was one bit I particularly latched on to: a concept he called Creative Tenacity.

This interested me for two reasons.

It means finding a better way of getting through - to someone, to an organisation - if someone doesn't get your point, find a better way of communicating it. If someone slams the door in your face, don't keep banging on it - find the window.
The first few times he said it, I thought he meant having the tenacity to push through good creative ideas, which isn't exactly what he meant - creative tenacity is a noun phrase in this context [be creative about your tenaciousness] - but because I work in the communications industry my brain parsed it incorrectly - creative has a slightly different, and in fact, narrower meaning for me than it used to have.

The first thing I thought was great. Reminds you not to get frustrated when a client / anyone doesn't get you straight away.

He used a great example - sadly I forget who it was attributed to - of someone saying:

When I hear no, I take it as request for more information.

The second thing was frankly a little worrying but an important reminder of how much what you do channels how you think.

PS. This is the joke I told him:

Why are pirates so brilliant?

They just aaaarrrrrrrrr!

:: THE LINKS ::

WHAT IF EVERY LITTLE THING YOU DO CHANGES HISTORY

Whenever I interview people with successful businesses I’m struck by how often they feel they’ve had a moment of luck that changed things for them – they happened to be sitting next to someone critical at the right time, or someone had a business need that coincided with something they were thinking about. That kind of thing. And Brian Klass’ essay, based on his book ‘Fluke’ is all about the small turns of chance that have a huge impact on our own lives and the world around us. Our instincts as human beings, as parents, as business owners, as problem solvers is often to try to control. But as Klass says ‘We control nothing, but we influence everything.’ It often feels as if, most of the time, most of us forget that. (The Guardian)

DISHOOM’S REVIEW OF THE YEAR

If you don’t know Dishoom, it’s a group of restaurants in the UK based on the Irani cafes in Bombay (as they still refer to it) of the founders’ childhood. Every year one of the founders, Shamil Thakrar, writes his reflections on the year and what they’ve been doing. And what I love about much of this piece is the way he describes how they approach creating restaurant experiences unlike anything else in the world. The strategy and brand world is talking a lot – rightly – about the ‘sea of sameness’ at the moment. And this is why you will never find Dishoom in that conversation. (Dishoom)

BIRD MIGRATION

I’m baffled why the entire planet is not fascinated by bird migration; it is one of the great wonders of the world. Here, for instance, is an account of how a bird weighing roughly the same as a slice of bread flies 15,000 km across the Bering Strait, Siberia and Asia to winter in Africa. Before coming back again. It is barely credible, and yet it happens every year. Now tell me there is no wonder and mystery left in the world. (All About Birds)

Looking for more from Adam Morgan? Coming Friday, look for an interview from him in your inbox!

:: AND NOW… SOME FAST FAVORITES ::

:: Game :: I’m still looking for something better than Ghost of Tsushima.

:: City :: Stockholm, preferably in winter. Blue skies, a fierce cold, archipelago, water.

:: Book :: You are Here by Katharine Harmon

:: Newsletter :: Tone Knob by Nick Parker

:: SHOPKEEPER’S WORLD ::

I was in a food market in Japan, when I walked past this shopkeeper. It was late in the afternoon. She had very little on sale, and nobody was stopping and looking at what she had to offer, but I was struck how proudly she stood there as they all went by, defiant almost, in this world she had created, with her scooter parked in the back of the shop. I asked if I could take a picture of her and we smiled at each other as we waited for there to be a gap in the people passing between me and the shop so I could take the shot; I only had time for one. And I loved the picture of her and her world, and she’s inspired me to take pictures of shopkeepers whenever I go ever since. I have a little gallery of them. They fascinate me, as a sort-of shopkeeper myself: they are offering the world what they make, what they curate, their taste, and being endlessly and quietly rejected by most of the people who walk by. And yet still they persist and find a way to make a living with it. That’s a very particular type of courage.

At the heart of my podcast ‘Let’s Make This More Interesting’ is a question that is close to the heart of this: what can we all learn from people who make dull subjects much more interesting? Who find a way to stand out and elevate the mundane? You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts, and on The Challenger Project.

I hope you enjoy it.

Adam Morgan
LinkedIn | eatbigfish

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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based out of Washington, our company is registered in Tennessee, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)

Strands of Genius