RELEVANCE 101
Image Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn’t be done.
Amelia Earhart (1897—disappeared 1937) dared to fly over the trenches of tradition, above the flat fields of convention, and around the highest mountains of the potential into the ether of possibility. She left generations inspired by her example.
It is important to note that Amelia wasn’t the first, nor was she the best. Her fame wasn’t based purely on skill but on relentless self-promotion and marketing. She was the most well-known.
Risk was a fundamental factor in what Earhart was trying to achieve; people were still dying attempting what she had accomplished. But staying relevant in the headlines helped her make a living in aviation. She continued to fly and set records for distance and altitude. But she promoted herself to make her work relevant: :
Books. She wrote several books, 20 Hrs. 40 Min. (1928) and The Fun of It (1932), about her life and interest in flying.
Magazines. She wrote a column for Cosmopolitan magazine.
Lectures. She was popular on the lecture circuit for her accomplishments, and also for encouraging women to reject constrictive social norms and to pursue various opportunities, especially in the field of aviation.
Nonprofit. In 1929 she helped found an organization of female pilots that later became known as the Ninety-Nines. Earhart served as its first president.
Retail. In addition, she debuted a functional clothing line in 1933, which was designed “for the woman who lives actively.”
All of these efforts helped fund her flights and were carefully orchestrated toward an image of adventure. She dressed and worked like a man. At the same time, when handling the press she was soft-spoken—accessible. Her accomplishments gave her credibility. While she wasn’t the most skilled female pilot of her time, she is the most remembered, balancing a reputation for risk with the need to remain relevant.
Amelia Earhart was one of the first female pilots and helped form an organization for female pilots, The Ninety-Nines. She attempted to fly around the globe in 1937 and disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.
RELEVANCE 101
Relevance is the result of being both highly skilled and highly valued.
Once we overcome the hurdle of gaining the skill to do a job well, we need to connect with our audience, stakeholders, and customers. We must reflect our understanding of their needs, desires, and concerns. We must speak their language. We must know what problem they have that we can solve better than anyone else.
Not all problems can be solved directly. We must gain proximity, relevance, and curiosity for indirect, creative solutions. Amelia needed funding. There were no careers in flying (yet). Since the industry was in its infancy, she had to seek endorsements from companies and build an audience by tapping into people’s desire for adventure and escape. At the height of the Great Depression, Amelia was fundraising for flying time. Her work was not directly impacting the many people who would follow her record-breaking career, yet they couldn’t get enough of her story, clothes, and message on gender equity.
Arriving at solutions to any problem requires us to apply complementary skills. Amelia wasn’t just learning to fly—she also learned to tell her story by writing books and articles, giving lectures, and developing a brand. When we learn to collaborate and present different aspects of the same subject across various disciplines, we gain the proximity necessary to generate more creative, relevant solutions.
To manage the kinds of problems confronting us today, we need to overcome our vulnerabilities. We need to step beyond doing the work at hand to thinking about how the stories we tell ourselves and others about our work. To do this effectively, we must learn complementary skills; we must embrace learning as an ongoing activity.
How do we increase our ability to influence our work's outcome and increase our impact to others?
PRACTICE
Our work, now more than ever, is a form of personal expression, and we need to start identifying and aligning ourselves to problems we deeply care about. To stay competitive in the coming decade, we must be willing and able to direct our learning and development toward solving problems in alignment with our deepest interests.
Identify tensions common in your day-to-day work or task. What are your strengths and what complementary skills will help you increase your influence and help you advance (your work, your cause)?
Identify the relationships or qualities between these tensions. For example, in-person work, like that done by a therapist, art teacher, or trainer, has certain qualities that make it impactful. Amelia associated certain qualities to flying, such as: the beauty of the night sky, the freedom that comes with altitude, and the satisfaction from accomplishment, etc.
Build knowledge, especially tools and skills, enabling the ability to sustain these tensions while work is being accomplished. Amelia needed to fund her ability to fly so she invested in efforts to increase her visibility with the public. She had to make them care about her success as much as she did.
List five core beliefs you have gained doing this work. Hold that certainty lightly. Relax long-held beliefs. (For example, “I believe this work is best done in person. If I have to work remotely, I will be less effective.” Or, “I believe I have to embrace social media to become successful.”)
Let go of thinking that reinforces lopsided actions, decisions, or singular solutions.
COMMIT
[ ] I commit myself to increase my relevance by learning a skill that will complement and advance my efforts.
FURTHER READING/ WATCHING
The Fun of It: Earhart recollects how she became interested in being an aviator, which led to her establishing several firsts for women and also becoming aviation editor for Cosmopolitan Magazine. She also profiles the careers of other pioneering female flyers of her time. Earhart also encourages young women to follow their own careers and dreams. The title comes from her quote "Flying may not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price."
World of Mysteries: In search of Amelia Earhart: “In Search of Amelia Earhart”, is a documentary, from the “World of Mysteries” series.
The Search for Amelia Earhart: Goerner’s 1966 classic is the only bestseller on the subject ever penned, and remains a gem of original research chronicling the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan. This may not be the definitive book on Earhart's final journey in 1937 but it reads plausibly. Goerner was a KCBS newsman when he started researching this story and made several trips to the islands where he believed Earhart's plane went down. When he did his research he was able to talk to many people who were alive and still remembered the "tall woman who dressed like a man and had short hair" and a man who was with her. He sites numerous reliable sources who, with no connection to each other, told the same story. When the book was written in 1966 there were still tensions with Japan. One person who told the author that he was on the right track and not to give up was Admiral Chester Nimitz who served during WWII and had knowledge of the events in the book.
In her words…
“Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization.”
“Not much more than a month ago, I was on the other shore of the Pacific, looking westward. This evening, I looked eastward over the Pacific. In those fast-moving days, which have intervened, the whole width of the world has passed behind us, except this broad ocean. I shall be glad when we have the hazards of its navigation behind us.”
— Amelia Earhart, several days before she left for Howland Island and disappeared
“…decide…whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying….”
“I lay no claim to advancing scientific data other than advancing flying knowledge. I can only say that I do it because I want to.”
“Worry retards reaction and makes clear-cut decisions impossible.”
“Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.”
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life and the procedure. The process is its own reward.”
“My ambition is to have this wonderful gift produce practical results for the future of commercial flying and for the women who may want to fly tomorrow’s planes.”
“One of my favorite phobias is that girls, especially those whose tastes aren’t routine, often don’t get a fair break… It has come down through the generations, an inheritance of age-old customs, which produced the corollary that women are bred to timidity.”
“Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture.”
“The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.”
“It is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.”
“Anticipation, I suppose, sometimes exceeds realization.”
“Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace, the soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.”
“The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.”
“The soul’s dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay with courage to behold restless day and count it fair.”
“Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”
“[Women] must pay for everything…. They do get more glory than men for comparable feats. But, also, women get more notoriety when they crash.”
“…now, and then, women should do for themselves what men have already done—occasionally what men have not done—thereby establishing themselves as persons, and perhaps encouraging other women toward greater independence of thought and action. Some such consideration was a contributing reason for my wanting to do what I so much wanted to do.”
“In my life, I had come to realize that, when things were going very well, indeed, it was just the time to anticipate trouble. And, conversely, I learned from pleasant experience that at the most despairing crisis, when all looked sour beyond words, some delightful “break” was apt to lurk just around the corner.”
“Never interrupt someone doing something you said couldn’t be done.”
“No kind action ever stops with itself. One kind action leads to another. Good example is followed. A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves.”
“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.”
“Never do things others can do and will do, if there are things others cannot do or will not do.”
“The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship.”
(quotes from AmeliaEarhart.com)
What we don’t see on the resumes we review or the job descriptions we want is the litany of emotional entanglements we bring to our roles, uninvited, to the team and organizations we work in. Alongside technical skills, people who can master a range of subjective skills are better able to influence, deal with ambiguity, bounce back from setbacks, think creatively, and manage themselves in the presence of setbacks. In short, those who learn lead.
Observing subjective qualities in others past and present gives us a mental picture for the behaviors we want to practice. Each figure illustrates a quality researched from The Look to Craftsmen Project. When practiced as part of our day-to-day, these qualities will help us develop our mastery in our lives and work.