Innovative Concepts

EGOT

EGOT, an acronym for those select artists who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony during their career.  A remarkable achievement in television, music, film, and stage.  What makes it more rare is the unpredictability of the marketplace.  What if our box office record breaking film runs into a Citizen Kane?  Or Book of Mormon’s fanatic followers outpace our acclaimed staging of the Presidency of FDR?  Perhaps our genre of music is slightly less popular the year our hit single releases.

Creating art for the awards and celebration is maddening work.  We must get the content right for the marketplace but also anticipate the timing of other works that will overlap with ours.  We can point to Impressionist artists (famous today) who lived anonymous lives and dabbled in poverty.  Their works auction for millions of dollars and are required acquisitions for any national museum.  Yet, their contributions went unheralded during the award shows of their time, if they could even get placed in the show.

An EGOT artists is part superior artistic talent and part coincidence of events.  Akin to spotting a shooting star in the night sky.  If we aspire to win we need a different mindset than if we aim to inspire, transform, and engage.  Being clear about our intention is crucial.

A Thousand Feet Below

Alexandra Franzen proposed a few powerful questions last week on her blog.  It was shared with me and I read it hastily on the way to catch a flight.  Only once I was securely captive in my window seat as I jetted across the continent did the power of her questions begin to unfold.  As I peered out the window I caught sight of another aircraft piercing the sky headed in the opposite direction, a thousand feet below and moving expediently into the vacuum of airspace that we had just vacated.  A three second encounter gave me pause.  It forced me to try to calibrate the power of air travel.  How quickly I took for granted the physics, technology, and decision-making that allowed me to sit in an abstract state contemplating something completely irrelevant to aerodynamics, engineering, and navigation.  The expertise of the flying ecosystem had allowed me to have a completely different experience than say the Wright Brothers.

When I consider Alexandra’s questions it reaffirms to me the importance of purpose.  If we have not considered the effect, impact, and experience we intended to impart then we miss our greatest super power.  Few people join a cause to raise more money, re-word a mission statement, or attend an all-weekend retreat.  We joined because of an experience that was offered to us and we wanted to share with others.  We want other people to feel the way we feel.

I offer Alexandra’s questions as ones you should bring back to your tribe and ask aloud.  I think this may be the most important dialogue you can have right now.  Otherwise, you may be sitting in a window seat watching your enterprise’s best experiences headed the other way, a thousand feet below.

“What is the effect that I want to have on people?”

“What kind of impact do I want to have?”

“What kind of experience do I want to create?”

“How do I want people to feel?”

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Two Roads Diverged and I Took the Third

Dan and Chip Heath have written some of my favorite books.  I lean heavily on their book Decisive when making significant decisions.  A daily decision-making experience we encounter involves either-or decisions which confront us daily in subtle ways.  Today, Election Day decision-making is far more public.  When only one candidate runs for office we are left with a choice to vote or pass onto another contest on the ballot (classic either-or scenario).   When two or more candidates are on the ballot we engaging in more sophisticated decision making strategies.

Michael Hyatt framed the decision-making challenges as follows:

  1. We have too narrow of focus. We are guilty of “spotlight thinking.” We focus on the obvious and visible. We miss important facts outside our immediate view.
  2. We fall into confirmation bias. We develop a quick belief about something and then seek out information that confirms that belief.
  3. We get caught in short-term emotion. We are too emotionally connected to the decision and struggle with being appropriately detached.
  4. We are guilty of overconfidence. We assume that we know more than we actually do know and jump to conclusions, thinking we can accurately predict the future.

So what is the Heath Brother’s better strategy for decision-making?  The WRAP Process articulates a simple by profound approach.

  1. Widen Your Options.  Avoid narrow framing and look for alternatives.
  2. Reality-Test Your Assumptions.  As disconfirming questions and zoom out in our focus.
  3. Attain Distance Before Deciding. Create distance by changing perspectives and avoiding short-term emotions.
  4. Prepare To Be Wrong.  Acknowledge our overconfidence and set trip wires to alert us when we are off-course.

Limo Ride

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A few years ago Sal Kahn, founder of Khan Academy came to speak at the Ed Sessions in Boise, Idaho.  His message was profound and inspired the audience.  After his talk he appeared outside the theater to mingle with the audience.  In some random occurrence of events he invited my two children to take a drive around the block in the limo provided for him (Idaho’s version was a town car).  My kids emerged from their limo ride even greater fans of Sal and Khan Academy (video here).  

I share this story not to impress but to illustrate.  If everyone from the audience had taken a lap around the theater with Sal it would have been memorable for Sal’s endurance but the story would have lacked originality.  Remarkable experiences generate from the exclusivity of the moment.  When we send out a direct mail campaign to everyone in our community the act is below average.  Therefore, below average responses and advocacy should be expected in return.  If we demand Facebook likes then we manipulate people into acting on our behalf.

There is another way.  Identify a few individuals out of the crowd and offer your version of a limo ride.  Dedicated one-on-one time to connect, ask questions, and build an experience worthy of sharing.  Impact that lasts.  To act in this manner requires courage.  Far easier to offer a generic experience.

What if we offered a few people remarkable memories?  What if those opportunities were focused on the passenger?  What if we dare to share a compelling vision for the future?  What if we asked them for fuel for our journey (time, touch, talent, or treasurer)?  What if we challenge the status quo?  What if we fundamentally change lives, like Sal Khan?

Measure With People

Metrics that are easy to read and simplify complex formulas are awesome.  Charts that show improvement rock.  Real-time telemetry amazes.  However, if we stare at the dashboard too long it is easy to replace numbers for people.  We let systems and schedules run the people instead of vice-versa.  How do you make sure the people are always the first point of focus? 

Great leaders would never sacrifice the people to save the numbers; they would sooner sacrifice the numbers to save the people. – Simon Sinek

Pass and Pause

IMG_7322A Strategic Plan’s greatest value is not on the day an organization adopts it.  Rather its greatest value comes from the moment it is ready to be replaced by a new strategic plan.  All along the strategic plan was a permission slip to think and act differently.  To consider the alternate routes, to head to the scenic overlooks and take in the landscapes, to reflect, and to decide on routes.  If you are using the plan as a road map, then consider it outdated and full of erroneous assumptions.  Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery had a few local guides and anecdotal information but the most accurate map they possessed was the one they created the day they returned to St. Louis at the culmination of their adventure.  Their purpose was their compass and the blank pages were permission to seek a route to the Pacific Ocean.

What does your strategic plan encourage you to discover?  Is your plan prescriptive or a permission slip?

The Power of Sensemaking

At your next meeting ask one of the these questions:

  • On what list do we want to rank #1?
  • What are our 3 greatest assets? Name 2 hidden assets.
  • What is distinctive about our organization? Is that quality/service becoming more or less valuable in the world in which we work?
  • Which conversations are you trying to create?
  • Are our behaviors reflective of our values?
  • How will you know it has succeeded?  How will we measure success/progress along the way?
  • What intersections/boundaries do we need to cross in order to innovative?

Did asking these questions alter the conversation?   What remarkable ideas were surfaced?  Did you find alignment or diversion?  Was there a different energy to the dialogue?

The movie industry has a timeline for the next six years related to the production and release of movies generated from comic books.  The last few years have seen the release of numerous superhero related films.  Many of these characters and story-lines existed for decades.  Somebody asked the question, ‘how can we look at these characters and their stories differently?’  If they had not tried to make sense of the genre the characters would have been contained to comic books and a small but dedicated tribe.  Scale does not make the transformation compelling but what does is the recognition that there was a generative question to ask.

BoardSource Leadership Forum Day Two 2014

IMG_7614“One cannot solve a problem in the same state of consciousness and one created the problem.”

A. Einstein

What is the most remarkable dialogue you are engage in at this moment?  Not a decision, evaluation, or a conversation. Rather dialogue where one builds on the ideas of others, asks questions to clarify intent, and willingness to listen without judgement.  Patrick Davis lead a remarkable session at the BoardSource Leadership Forum building a case for the power of dialogue.  

Has your enterprise spent as much time in dialogue as it spends discussing the budget?  Why not?  We rarely address transformational issues by making a quick decision or collecting data.  Rather, it is in our divergent discourse that we offer ourselves the opportunity to engage with new ideas.  

Two individuals who have developed compelling frameworks for centering ourselves around dialogue are Bohm and Bonnie.  Their guidelines follow:

Bohm’s Suggestions:
No group decisions (we make fewer decisions than we realize already)
No cross-talk
Suspend judgement and suppress “we have already done that” thinking
Build on ideas with ‘yes, and…’ statements
Be aware of which lens we are using as engage

Bonnie’s Suggestions:
Establish clear intentions
Listening not only what is being said, but why it is being said
Avoid building a case against or for while listening
Promote advocacy and unscripted thought
Engage in inquiry with questions that allow for greater understanding
Ask ‘what am I doing?’  Where the head turns so goes the body

Asking ourselves to tackle the wickedly big questions is a courageous act.  Balancing the interplay between hope and the brutal facts is akin to drawing an arrow on a bow.  The right amount of tension and extraordinary precision can be achieved.  Too little or too much tension and the impact of the arrow declines precipitously.  

I am bringing the practice of guided dialogue to my ecosystem and look forward to reporting the results.  I wonder which brave organizations will risk a few quiet moments and a little change to reap extraordinary rewards?