Search for The WHY: Errors of Omission vs. Commission
Legendary CBS Evening Newsman, Dan Rather, spoke to my Temple University graduating class.
He told us we’d probably only remember two nuggets from his address.
He was right.
Well…
Wait…
Schnitzelfritz…
In writing this, I’ve realized that I’ve forgotten one of the two things
It was with me for a solid decade but whatever it was has slipped my mind.
Well, point, meet made.
It’s funny how our memory latches onto specific things… important or not.
My senior year of college, I took an Advertising Account Management class. It had a mix of project management skills, public relations, business ethics, and the occasional life lesson. I’m pretty sure the professor’s name was Ned Kornblau — * searches Linkedin * — LEN not Ned… Len Kornblau.
Good dude, I remember enjoying his class in the sense I was learning new things that I deemed useful.
I can’t tell you what exactly I’ve used from his class but I feel like I’ve applied some of those learned practices without recognizing them.
But as far as what I actually remember, like, specifics, two things:
1 — The sound of my 18” Toshiba laptop’s fan fighting for its life and disrupting the whole class.
2 — The difference between an ERROR of OMISSION and an ERROR of COMMISSION.
At the time of #2, I don’t think I had a significant moment of enlightenment. But it stuck with me. To this day I’m unsure if it stuck with me because it was profound or if it’s because it’s what I wanted to hear and to inevitably interpret how I saw fit.
The advertising lesson on omission vs. commission was presented in the form of situational analysis.
You’re a media buyer and you’re offered a short-notice, big-time opportunity to get your client’s brand in front of a national audience. But obviously the bigger the opportunity will be costlier and increase the risk / reward scale.
You can’t get ahold of the client in the 30 minutes you have to make the call.
Do you do it?
Ultimately, we settled on buying the placement.
There was a whole discussion on WHY you make that decision and underlying human nature of it being actually making the call and moving forward with what you’re supposed to be an expert on will be more respected and appreciated in the long run, rather than letting potential opportunities slip through the cracks.
What I heard …
Pull the trigger and ask for forgiveness later.
You can boil that nugget of humanity all the way down to fight or flight.
If an opportunity arises do you take it?
F@%& yeah you do.
And in regards to the “do’s” that require extra effort, a little bit of cringe, and external judgement…
Let us first address the eye-rollers, the invalidators, those who see no fault at all in a life without pursuit of something greater...
They will always give you a reason why you SHOULD NOT.
As far as the response required, see Pac —>
Simply a friendly reminder.
To take it even further into the prefrontal cortex…
If you’re searching for a reason to do something you can probably find one.
If you’re searching for a reason not to do something, you’ll definitely find one.
Easy.
Light work.
But what will you learn?
If you take the shot and it fails, you’ll still learn a million and one lessons. You might even learn that patience is a virtue.
But on the contrary, if you don’t go for it, that’s just about the only lesson you can learn. THAT, and next time you should go for it, idiot. But that’s it, nothing more to learn from a non-experience.
No one’s thankful they didn’t go for it.
So do that shit.
Ball out, mi amigo.
In failure, do your best to learn and apply those lessons going forward.
P.S. The Dan Rather story that I do remember was his retelling of a joke his wife made to him.
While driving through her hometown, they saw a former date of hers running a gas station. Tongue-in-cheek, Dan said something to the affect of:
“ See that, if you never met me, you’d be running that gas station. ”
And his lovely wife responded:
“ No Dan, he would be anchoring the CBS evening news. ”
I look bald.
Spidey and the bros.
‘14, yikes.
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