Welcome to Edition #76 of Did You Know? (DYK), the weekly newsletter by Gorick Ng, Harvard career adviser and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of The Unspoken Rules, where we deconstruct the untold story of how someone (or something) became successful—and what you can do to follow in their footsteps.
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Did You Know? Create a common language!
→ Read time: 5 min
Your story this week
Did you know? Tiffany the jewelry company would have no way to ensure that its iconic blue color looks the same everywhere had a part-time employee not invented the Pantone color standardization system.
Pop quiz: What color is the logo of Tiffany & Co. (the jewelry store)?
If you said “blue,” “teal,” “turquoise,” or “teal-turquoise,” you’d be right.
But now imagine you’re Tiffany—and you need to tell a printing company to manufacture a shipment of gift bags in your iconic blue color but you also need to tell a different company to manufacture a shipment of jewelry boxes with the exact same color.
You can’t just tell both companies to “use blue ink.” Otherwise, the gift bags might come back as LinkedIn-logo blue and the jewelry boxes might come back as Samsung-logo blue.
(And no, you can’t use RGB or HEX color codes. After all, a given HEX may look a certain way on your laptop—but it could look different once it’s printed on a paper bag versus a velvety jewelry box.)
So, how do you make sure everyone knows what type of blue you’re talking about—and then ensure that the exact same color is reproduced, no matter the material?
This was the exact question that plagued the New Jersey-based printing company M&J Levine Advertising in 1956.
Then, Lawrence Herbert, a pre-med student from Hofstra University, showed up as a part-time employee and immediately thought: There had to be a better way to do things.
Six years later—and Herbert became so interested in color chemistry that he ditched his plans to become a doctor and bought the printing half of the business after it had fallen into debt.
Herbert’s goal? To create a common language for color.
He renamed the company “Pantone,” called his new system the “PMS”, or, the “Pantone Color Matching System,” and released a new color guide “to reduce the number of variables… [so that] any printer anywhere can accurately produce a color.”
Images via Pantone and eBay.
The idea took off: Suddenly, designers could use the color selector guides for clients and clients like Kodak could sell products in the same consistent color. Seeing the potential, ink producers lined up to pay Herbert royalties for his system.
Within 8 years, Herbert had “sold over 100,000 chip books” across the United States, Europe, and Asia and, as a result, made about $2 million USD.
Today, 62 years later, Pantone makes ~$18 million USD each year from selling expanded versions of Herbert’s PMS guides for somewhere between $700 to $9,000 USD and offering digital and consulting services.
Consulting for whom, you ask?
As it turns out, “Tiffany Blue®” (owned by LVMH, whom we covered recently) is a custom-made Pantone color.
And ever watched the film series Despicable Me with its adorable yellow Minions? “Minion Yellow™” is also a custom color made by Pantone.
Lastly, ever heard of “Color of the Year”? Each year’s color selection—which in 2024 is “Peach Fuzz 13-1023”—is also a Pantone color.
What does this mean for you? The next time you’re trying to collaborate with others (and notice that everyone is talking past each other), remember Pantone—and how it brought the entire world together through a single common language.
Images belong to Pantone, Tiffany & Co., and Universal Pictures.
Your strategy this week
Did you know? Create a common language and you, too, can become an authority.
Herbert probably didn't even realize this himself at the time, but a surefire way of establishing yourself is by creating a common language.
Why? Because once you create a standard way of communicating, you create a way for people to look eye to eye—and a way for people to remember you by.
In my book The Unspoken Rules (Chapter 15—“Show Your Potential”), I tell the story of “Imane,” a software engineer at a tech company, who noticed that her teammates were releasing new software features whenever they wanted—and many features often ended up conflicting with each other.
Her solution? A feature release calendar that standardized the way that new features were pushed live. In proposing this simple yet effective idea, Imane not only established herself on the team but also built a strong case for her early promotion.
In that same chapter, I tell the story of a manager who found himself creating tons of Excel spreadsheet templates that others in the company might find useful.
His idea? To upload his template to the company intranet with his name and contact information attached. Before long, he became famous in his company of 20,000+ employees.
How can you create a common language? Try filling in these blanks:
(1) “In my day job, I keep seeing people struggle to communicate _______, which blows my mind because it comes up on an almost daily basis.”
- E.g., “In my day job, I keep seeing people struggle to communicate about the most recent files that we're working on, which blows my mind because it comes up on an almost daily basis.”
(2) “Rather than have one person use the word _______ and another use the word _______ when both parties are trying to say the same thing, what if we created _______?”
- E.g., “Rather than have one person use the word “latest” and another use the word “v2” when both parties are trying to say the same thing, what if we added the date to all files using the convention YYYY-MM-DD so we can find the latest version at a glance?”
Not all common languages will be welcomed by others, especially if everyone strongly believes that their way is the best way. But one of your proposals might just stick—and people might just come looking for you to thank you for your proactivity and to seek out your expertise.
I know it because I’ve experienced it: I wrote The Unspoken Rules partly because I noticed that there wasn’t a common language for discussing performance in the workplace. Many managers would tell me that they’d know a high performer when they saw one.
But, this advice wasn’t helpful, especially for the millions of new grads entering the workforce each year anxious to succeed—but not knowing how. That’s why I created my Three C’s framework of Competence, Commitment, and Compatibility—and that’s why I continue to spend so much time sharing it with the world.
Create a common language!
Gorick
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> What this high school principal can teach us about patterns
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> What the fastest growing sport in America can teach us about accessibility
Sources:
- RGB or HEX color codes
- M&J Levine Advertising
- Lawrence Herbert
- There had to be a better way to do things.
- bought the printing half of the business
- “to reduce the number of variables… [so that] any printer anywhere can accurately produce a color.”
- “Pantone Color Matching System”
- The idea took off
- “sold over 100,000 chip books”
- made about $2 million USD
- $18 million USD
- “Tiffany Blue®”
- “Minion Yellow™”
- “Peach Fuzz 13-1023”
