Want Better Results? Start by Untying the Knot.
A review of Seth Godin’s The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved, and what its central idea can teach us about trade shows, business development and U.S. expansion.
Sometimes a business works harder without moving forward. More meetings. More marketing. More events. The calendar fills, activity increases, but the results barely change.
Seth Godin’s new book, The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved, offers a useful lens for understanding why this happens and, more importantly, what we might do differently.
by Seth Godin
The commitments that keep us stuck
One of the book’s central ideas is that we can pursue a goal while simultaneously holding tightly to a commitment that prevents us from achieving it.
We want growth without risk. We want change without disruption. We want better results without giving anything up.
Godin describes these conflicts as “entanglements.”
For founders, business development leaders, and teams investing in trade shows and U.S. expansion, that idea deserves attention because these contradictions appear frequently in the way companies approach growth.
We want more qualified prospects, but measure success by the number of badges scanned.
We want meaningful conversations, but spend most of each conversation presenting.
We want better event results, but leave preparation and follow-up outside anyone’s clear responsibility.
We want high-value customers, but resist learning their language.
Each reveals a conflict between the outcome we say we want and the behavior we continue to reward.
What can we actually control?
Another valuable distinction in The Knot is between circumstances we must accept and problems we can solve.
Godin encourages readers to recognize the difference, examine the systems keeping them stuck, and question constraints they may have treated as permanent.
This is particularly useful when applied to events.
We cannot control every attendee’s interest, budget, timing or urgency. We can control whom we target, how we prepare, what we ask and whether we agree on a useful next step.
That distinction can turn frustration into a decision.
Instead of asking why an event “didn’t work,” we can examine the parts of the process that were within our control and determine what needs to change next time.
Ask a better question
The appeal of The Knot is its invitation to look beneath recurring problems rather than simply trying harder to solve them in the same way.
That change in perspective matters.
More activity is not necessarily progress. Sometimes the problem is not that we need to do more. It is that something in our existing approach is working against the outcome we actually want.
Recognizing the knot is only the beginning
There is, of course, a limit to this lens.
Naming a contradiction does not automatically provide the budget, skills, authority, resources or process required to resolve it.
Recognizing the knot begins the work. Execution still determines the result.
But for companies preparing to invest significant time and money in a trade show, market entry strategy or U.S. expansion, identifying these contradictions before making that investment can be enormously valuable.
One question for your team
Before your next event or market expansion initiative, try completing this sentence together:
“We want better results, but we are unwilling to change .”
Then examine the answer. What are you protecting? What assumption are you treating as fixed? What behavior are you rewarding despite knowing it does not support the outcome you want?
The answer may reveal the decision your next investment needs most.
Congratulations to Seth Godin on a salient and valuable book. The Knot is recommended reading for anyone interested in continually getting better results.
Interested in The Knot?
Learn more about Seth Godin’s new book and explore the ideas behind The Knot: Problems Can Be Solved.
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