Sir Winston Churchill, during the early days of the second world war, once said: "Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
Even today, such fortitude in the face of calamity - whether on the field of battle or in carrying out one's daily duties - is always to be aspired to, right? Not so, according to marketing guru Seth Godin - or maybe not in this day and age.
No wonder, therefore, that someone who shares his thoughts with millions on a daily basis rolls out books distinguished by their immediacy, freshness and easy application to everyday working life.
This recent slim volume from the Godin machine is geared to helping people ride out what the author terms the Dip. This refers to the hideous time in a project's life cycle when it ceases to be an exciting challenge and sinks miserably into a low point.
During the Dip, Godin points out that it is horribly tempting to make the wrong decision - either to bail out when one should keep on plodding away towards ultimate success or, conversely, soldier on when the battle is already lost.
In this thin volume, Godin lays out the basics in dealing with the Dip: How to identify the times when it is best to quit and move on, and conversely, when to ride it out. "The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery," he writes. And, in his opinion, this is also the time that sorts out the sheep from the goats.
This embraces not only companies trying to break into an industry or students trying to qualify who have to pass "the killer class", but also people who dream of untold riches, power and the title of chief executive at a Fortune 500 company.
"It's easy to be a CEO. What's hard is getting there. There's a huge Dip along the way," says Godin. The crux of his argument is that when the going gets tough, the tough know when to stick and when to quit - and do so without an atom of guilt.
Thus, according to Godin, advice on the inadvisability of quitting from gurus such as famous National Football League coach Vince Lombardi (or, presumably, Churchill) is fatally flawed. "Quitters never win and winners never quit [is] bad advice," he writes. "Winners quit all the time ... They just quit the right stuff at the right time."
On the assumption that no reader wants to be a loser, Godin's book is dedicated to helping his disciples find out when to bail and when to stick with the job and, in so doing, become genuine winners.
Quite how we need to read 80 pages on how to achieve this is debatable, given that his advice is perfectly summarised on page four, thus: "Quit the wrong stuff. Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other."
To persuade us of the value of this statement, Godin hammers home the importance of being number one - the delicious reward of following all his great advice. In his opinion, being the best leads to fabulous rewards and benefits of being at the top of the tree. And in today's global climate, in a world seething with people and infinite choice, being best should be a common goal.
So, "If you're sold on being the best, but you've been frustrated in the route you're taking to get there, then you need to start doing some quitting," he says.
Readers who take up Godin's gauntlet and dive in will enjoy illustrative examples of smart, focused and incredibly hard-working people who apply this rule in real life and are strategic quitters. They will also receive lots of hyper confident advice about how most people - schoolteachers, big fat companies, you and I, even US presidents - get it wrong an awful lot of the time.
All in all, 80 pages of clever words, the coining of a hot new marketing term and a novel take on how to lead one's life make this book a stylish read. The writer of the most popular marketing blog in the world, Godin is something of a one-man marketing wonder. He is the author of nine thought-provoking books that have become some of the past decade's best sellers. They are all distinguished by their slick, smarty-pants titles, ranging from Small is the New Big to Free Prize Inside, All Marketers Are Liars and, most recently, Meatball Sundae, and by their focus on issues related to marketing, change and work.
In addition, Godin is responsible for many words that are now an ineradicable part of most marketers' vocabularies - including "permission marketing", "ideaviruses", "purple cows", "the Dip" and "sneezers".
Last but not least, he fires out a no holds barred, personal and snappy daily opinion at sethgodin.typepad.com. But is this is a must-read? Maybe, maybe not - especially when the author sums up his own philosophy so neatly at the very get-go.
In a nutshell
Who should read this? Anyone who is bogged down in a project and doesn't know whether to give up or battle on should be inspired by Seth Godin's recent book, the Dip. After all, when you are in the thick of things, it can be a godsend to have outside advice on where you are going right or wrong.
Why should they read this? Any advice that helps working people out of a mess is invaluable, especially advice that teaches people to know when they should keep on pushing forwards and when they should throw in the towel. As Godin writes, "Quitting smart ... is a great way to avoid failing".
Five insights
- The essential thing to know about the Dip is that it's there, writes Seth Godin in his book, the Dip - The Extraordinary Benefits of Knowing When to Quit (And When to Stick). "Knowing that you're facing a Dip is the first step in getting through it," he says.
- There are seven reasons why you might fail to become the best in the world, says Godin. You run out of time (and quit); you run out of money (and quit); you get scared (and quit); you're not serious about it (and quit); you lose interest or enthusiasm or settle for being mediocre (and quit); you focus on the short term instead of the long (and quit when the short term gets too hard); you pick the wrong thing at which to be the best in the world (because you don't have the talent).
- Quitting at the right time is difficult. "Most of us don't have the guts to quit. Worse, when faced with the Dip, sometimes we don't quit. Instead, we get mediocre," writes Godin. After all, "the most common response to the Dip is to play it safe. To do ordinary work, blameless work, work that's beyond reproach. When faced with the Dip, most people suck it up and try to average their way to success."
- On the other hand, if you can get through the Dip, even when everyone and everything in the system is expecting you to stop, you can achieve extraordinary results, he says. "People who make it through the Dip are scarce indeed, so they generate more value."
- Ultimately, readers should see quitting as an opportunity, not a failure. "It's not about the humiliation of failure. Even more important, you can realise that quitting the stuff you don't care about or the stuff you are mediocre at or better yet quitting the cul de sacs frees up your resources to obsess about the Dips that matter."
