Leadership Confessions

Do You Exercise Your Idea Muscle?

In 1975, after a year of intensely hard creative work, a young electrical engineer Steven Sasson was ready presented his new invention.  As history tells is "the device was huge, ugly, and took 23 seconds to record an image with a resolution of only 0.01 megapixels.  When Sasson finally showed the  gadget to his bosses, they were dumbfounded. 'Why would anyone ever want to view his or her pictures on TV?' they wondered, as he wrote in a blog post decades later.  Sasson earned a patent for his trouble but otherwise his project was forgotten." (from "I Want to be in Pictures" by Farhad Manjoo, FastCompany, Dec 2011/Jan 2012).  

The device?  You guessed it - a digital camera.  The company that failed to embrace creativity?  You guessed it, the same on that saw it's stock price plummet 60% on a single day in September of this past year: Kodak.  

So what lessons can you and I glean if your New Year's resolution is to become more creative?  Here's a few suggestions:

1. Get comfortable with failure.  Creativity means you are thinking outside the box, which means that the conventional approaches to the issue(s) you are working on changing do not apply.  And uncharted waters are full of jagged rocks.  Take James Dyson as and example (you know, the vacuum guy).  He tried 5,127 prototypes of his bagless vacuum cleaner before succeeding.  That means he "failed" 5,126 times!  If I was him, I would have given up around the 500 mark, which means I would have given up 10 times faster than him.  If you want to be more creative, settle in for a long-ish season of "non-success" and be prepared to hold the line and defend your experiments against the critics.
2. Exercise Your Idea Muscle.  It seems counter-intuitive to link creativity and discipline but listen to the advice of finance columnist James Altucher: Creativity "is not a talent.  It's a learned ability.  The idea muscle, like any other muscle, atrophies in weeks of non-use.  You start ever day with 10 ideas: people I should talk to, businesses I should start, books I should write.  It has to be a solid, doable next step.  You'll come up with nothing but bad ideas for the first month.  Between one and three months, you'll start coming up with good ideas.  After six months, honestly, life should be completely different.  it's not that your ideas are so good.  It's the sheer quantity and the honing of the muscle so you start to know more and more what ones are actionable and good." (Macleans, Jan 9, 2012, p.16-17).
3. Broader Your Horizon.  The challenge with the execs at Kodak is that they saw their world in very narrow terms: they perceived themselves as a film company.  This prevented them from understanding that in more broadly understood terms in the shift towards digital culture, they were actually a well-positioned company that provided pictures and images to people.  If they had been able to realize that (and they still could), they may be able to resurrect themselves from the doldrums of patent trolling.  The take-away here is to think beyond your traditional definitions or constraints.  What would it look like if you thought of yourself not only as a "youth pastor" but as a community advocate?  What would it look like if you thought of yourself not just as a "stay at home mom" but as a person with creative talents and passion to invest in your kids and school?  

Broadening your categories, generating and acting on as many ideas as you can and being increasingly comfortable when most of them bomb can help unleash some new creative ideas that just might change your thinking and your organization in 2012.  even if not organizationally, it might change you personally.  It sure did for Sasson, who ended up being inducted into the Inbventors Hall of Fame in 2011 and recieving a medal of honour from the US President.  It turns out that exercising your little idea muscle just might have the potential to change the world!       

Goals are Emotional - Deal With It!

In his little leadership manifesto aptly titled "It's Not About the Coffee" former Starbucks Sr. Executive Howard Behard shares 10 principles about corporate culture and leadership.  Most of them are lifted straight from the pages of Oprah (be true to yourself, etc, etc) but nestled amidst the sometimes fluff is some good insight and leadership nuggets. 

One such piece was on goal setting and how we tend to detach it from our emotions (presumably in  the hopes that we'll make better decisions?).  But Behar, who wisely advocates later on in this book, that you "think like a person of action and act like a person of thought" (113), makes this impassioned treatise to return goals to their emotive centre:

"Goals are emotional.  If a goal is not working for you, you're not connected with it.  Raise it, make it meaningful, make it touch somthing in you that you want.  Or take it off your list...  When you set out to accomplish something, its going to require effort.  There had better be an emotional connection.  There had better be some buy-in.  There had better be some understanding of what it means, what it's all about, and why" (22). 

What goals are you emotionally connected to and why? 

What Would Jesus Buy?

I'm always mildly bemused when a press release notes that their particular event will be a collection of "the most influential Christians in the world".  Usually I take that to mean that the event will feature a healthy cluster of people who are the most similar to or most liked by the event host.  So when I saw this headline earlier today: "Christianity’s Most Creative and Influential Voices to Attend..." I thought I should read more.  

What event is it, you might ask where I could find this meeting of the minds.  This depth of wisdom all in one place?  Why, none other than The International Christian Retail Show in Atlanta, GA from July 10-13.  

And who are these key influencers that shape the present and future of the Christian movement?  (Another solid and logical question - good for you as a thinking person!).  None other than John Schneider (Bo Duke of The Dukes of Hazzard) whose RV will be parked on the convention floor and will be available to talk about a movie he is releasing later this year.  Also present, the Duggars, of TLC fame.  

Now, don't hear what I'm not saying.  I'm not knocking anyone of these people in particular...  It's just that this type of thing smacks of the commidification of religion.  It adds fuel to the fire that Christianity is a niche to be marketed to as opposed to a vibrant and sacrificial faith to be lived.

Sadly, I have already anticiapted your final question: 'where can I get my ticket to attend this culture shaping celebration of the Word?'  And sadly, (gasp) the answer is that you can't.  Not even if you were in Atlanta and you wanted to go... because the event is only open to retailers :-) 

5 Quick Tips for Creativity (Hint: Less is More)

In their recent article in Neue Magazine, the 37Signals crew (Fried and Hansson) have a few more tips for creativity:

1. Embrace Constraints - I don't have enough time / money / people/ experience." Stop whining.  Less is a good thing.  Constraints are advantages in disguise.  Limited resources force you to make do with what you've got.  There's no room for waste. 
2. Throw Less at the Problem - When things aren't working, the natural inclination is to throw more at the problem.  More people, time and money.  All that ends up doing is making the problem bigger.  The right way to go is the opposite direction: cut back.  You'll be forced to make tough calls and sort out what truly matters. 
3. Go after the quick wins - Momentum fuels motivation, so get in the habit of accomplishing small victories.  
4. So NO by default - It's so easy to say yes.  Start getting into the habit of saying no - even to many of your best ideas.  Use the power of no to get your priorities straight.  You rarely regret saying no.  But you often wind up regretting saying yes.
5. Don't Confuse Enthusiasm with Priority - Coming up with a great idea gives you a rush.  [But], the enthusiasm you have for a new idea is not an accurate indicator of it's true worth.  Let your latest grand ideas coll off for a while first.  Then, evaluate their actual priority with a calm mind.

Source: Neue Magazine, April/May 2011, page 45

The Inelegant Non-solution named Workaholism (& Why It Still Trips Us Up)

If you're work life involves projects of any size or complexity,  chances are you've used Basecamp scheduling software.  It's a brilliant tool, clearly designed by innovators with a mind towards productivity and simplifying the complex flow of information that usually transpires when organizing multiple people towards a common goal or deadline.  Well the guys behind Basecamp, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the co-founders of 37Signals, have just come out with a book called Rework.  In it, they argue, amongst other fascinating things, that many leaders don't need to work harder, they need to work smarter.  This is not a new argument but I love the way they language it in a recent excerpt from the book in Neue Magazine:

"Our culture celebrates the idea of the workaholic.  We hear about people burning the midnight oil.  They pull all-nighters and sleep at the office.  It's considered a badge of honour to kill yourself over a project.  No amount of work is too much work.

Not only is this workaholism unnecessary, it's stupid.  Working more doesn't mean you care more or get more done.  It just means you work more.  Workaholics wind up creating more problems than they solve.  First off, working like that just isn't sustainable over time.  When the burnout crash comes - and it will -it'll hit you that much harder.  

Workaholics miss the point, too.  They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them.  They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force.  This results in inelegant solutions.

They even create crises.  They enjoy feeling like heroes.  They create problems (often unwittingly) just so they can work more.  

If all you do is work, you're unlikely to have sound judgements.  Your values and decision making wind up skewed.  You stop being able to decide what's worth the extra effort and what's not.  And you wind up just plain tired.  

Workaholics aren't heroes.  They don't save the day - they just use it up.  The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done." (April/May 2011, page 45) 

A Cause with an Organization (or something worse?)

A few years ago, one of my pastor friends went with his family on a Discipleship Training School (DTS) with YWAM to SE Asia.  Since he was not previously been acquainted with YWAM, I let him know that if you are a type A personality and you want a list of schedules, tight time-lines and the like, that neither YWAM nor SE Asia are really great options for you.  YWAM's greatest strength (at least in my interactions with them) is the sense of faith, adventure and radical discipleship that follows the move of the Spirit as opposed to the over-reliance on organization.  Sure enough, my friend came home with a new name suggestion for YWAM (Youth with a Mission).  Y-W-N-O (Youth With No Organization).  

But the tension between organization and mission is certainly not unique to global mission agencies or short-term experiences...  Denominations and churches and NGO's all struggle with the same question.  Put very simply, most agencies tend to be organization with a particular cause that drives them.  That cause can be eliminating cancer, saving the environment, holistic church planting, or whatever.  The cause leads to mission buy-in which leads to growth which leads to increased organization which can, if left undetected, overextend it's reach and kill the passion for the cause!

That's why I loved what our new Executive Director of our denomination relayed to us at our recent convention in Kelowna, BC.  Willy Reimer, lead pastor at Sunwest for years and fresh into the director's chair, reminded us that "we are not an organization with a cause, we are a CAUSE with organization.  If you mess up that order, you'll do great things for the wrong reasons.  Our mission drives us towards intimacy with God which creates passion which leads to compassion for others.  This is our cause." The organization exists to serve and fuel and expand that cause as opposed to structure or re-shape it.  

What about the places where you lead?  Are they organziations with a cause or causes with organization?       

It Takes No Courage to Criticize

I'm a big fan of the show Dragon's Den (CBC).  It's where entrepreneurs come to pitch their ideas to 4 wealthy investors who either choose to put their own capital in or they tank the idea (hence the US version's name: Shark Tank).  

I'm more than a little sad to hear that Brett Wilson, known as "the dragon with a heart" is leaving the show next season (the irony for the show's most prolific deal-maker is that he couldn't get his own deal with the CBC done).  The dragon who has made 60 deals on the show (and papered about half of them), made a brilliant statement on getting in the game versus sitting on the sidelines in a recent interview with Macleans:

It's easy to say 'no,' it takes no courage, no brains and no wallet to criticize.  Criticism comes free.  Action comes at some cost..." (March 21, 2011, page 14)

For anyone who has been in business or ministry and has experienced frustration at the hands of naysayers, there's a least some comfort in the knowledge that win or loose, you've marched down the road less taken.  And for Wilson and perhaps for you, that makes all the difference.   

Spousonomics: How to Decide Who does the Dishes

A recent book proposes an intriguing idea - what if we applied the cold, hard principles of economic theory to heated marital disputes?  Authors Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson write that spousonomics "is about using the time-tested theories like Adam Smith's ideas that businesses thrive when employees have specialized tasks and then applying that to fight-prone areas of marriage such as housekeeping and tending ot the kids" (Macleans, Feb 21, 2011, page 61). 

To isolate who does what and to solve problems from laundry to child-minding to who does the dishes, the authors turn to British economist David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage.  In short, his theory reads as follows: don't try to split things 50/50 and for heaven's sake, stop keeping score of who does what ("I cooked last night, it's your turn to cook tonight").  What you need to do is as follows:

1. Make a list of all chores
2. Write down how much time each chore takes each individual to do (on average) 
3. Calculate the amount of time differential and divvy chores up accordingly to who does what most efficiently.  For example, if we create a fictional couple named 'Nancy' and 'Eric' and tidying up takes Nancy 10 minutes and Eric 60 minutes but doing the dishes takes Nancy 20 minutes and Eric 30 minutes, then Nancy is comparatively much faster at tidying up than Eric.  "Therefore, according to Ricardo's theory, Nancy should always do all the tidying up and Eric should always do all the dishes.  The new system saves Nancy 30 minutes of her time each week and saves Eric 90 minutes." (idid)  The point is not that Nancy is better at both items, but that this gives them a stronger plan than simply making everything into a debate or a scorecard. 

There's even a chapter on supply and demand where the authors discuss sex (again, it's strictly economics...  "lower the cost and the quantity demanded will rise almost instantly" they suggest).  

In the end, I'm not sure I agree with everything they suggest, but who knew that all of the dry and dusty economic theory you learned in college might come in handy to save your marriage!     

Stealth Inflation: Why Stuff (Technically) Doesn't Cost More

I had a donut at church today but it seemed smaller than donuts from a few years ago.  Less of the old fashioned glaze that I love.  I thought it was just me, but then I asked around and did a bit of research and it turns out that many things have been getting smaller.  While the inflation rate has stayed fairly stationary over the past year (just wait till they factor in gas prices - a 30 cent jump in two weeks!), costs for raw materials have gone up.  So are big companies simply being generous and letting us keep more of our money?  Fat chance!  

Some are practicing stealth inflation - a practice where they don't increase the price, but they give us less product for the same amount of money.  A little research dug up the following examples:

• Ivory dish soap - Old size = 30 ounces.  New and 'better' size? 24 oz.
• Classico Pesto sauce - old size 10 ounces.  New size? 8.1 ounces.
• Kraft american cheese - Old size: 24 slices.  New size? 22 slices.
• The one closes to my heart (no coffee made the list)? Haagen Dazs ice cream - Old size = 16 oz.  New size? 14 oz (and still over $5!).

If you do the math, that turns out to be "an average price inflation of 12.2 per cent - far above the official rate of inflation.  Call it inflation by stealth" (sources: Consumer reports and Macleans, March 7, 2011, page 43).    

Narativity: The Problem of Public Perception and the Power of a Simple Story

The Detroit Auto Show hardly seems like a place to learn about the art of story-telling.  After all, it's usually driven by eye-candy, brash statistics (US auto sales are up 11% in 2010) and design engineers.  But this year was different - and leaders whose role includes public communication (politicians, teachers, pastors, sales execs, writers) need to pay careful heed.

Take Chrysler as an example of how to tell a good story.  Their usual play at these types of events is to roll out a re-design and attach some kind of image to it - a glossy photo op with a celebrity.  But this year, they carefully crafted a narrative that would engage the public at a deeper level.  As music from Eminem (a white rapper who earns the respect of his peers in the streets of Detroit, just a few blocks up the road from the event) pumped in the background, Olivier Francois, president of the Chrysler brand, made a speech heavy with references to Eminem's 2002 movie 8 Mile.  "Today you will see what happens when we are backed into a corner...  You will see that we come out swinging."  This was carefully crafted to work on a number of levels... to counter public skepticism about his company having taken government bail-out money and also to tie into the launch of their re-designed more aggressive line of cars.  

Over in another part of town, Toyota execs were telling their own narrative.  Peppered with questions about last year's recalls because of sticky gas pedals and questions of quality, Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the founder, "held up a package of rice balls, available at convenience stores all over Japan.  While they are good to eat and definitely safe, Toyoda said through a translator, they will never be as desirable as homemade onigiri, made with love by Japanese mothers and packed in schoolchildren's lunches - which is how he said Toyota intends to make its cars" (Macleans, Jan 24, 2011, page 40).  

Now, each car maker had choices as to how they approached the problem of changing public perception.  Chrysler could have simply said "our new 300 model is a great car!"  But by choosing a local, well-understood story and tying their own story to it (rap meets execs from Fiat in suits with French accents - it's quite amazing to process the contrasts a truly global auto show presents us!), it elevates their narrative and makes it stick more powerfully in a consumer's mind.  Similarly, Toyota could have simply stood up and said "Our cars are safe.  We've always made quality vehicles and we will continue to do so".  But by using the lunch box versus homemade metaphor, they add layers and texture to a story.  

Perhaps this is why the greatest teacher in history, Jesus, used simple stories (called parables) to communicate profound but accessible truth.  One of my friends, Dora Dueck, reminded me of this yesterday in response to my post on complexity...  That sometimes, the language of narativity and the power of a simple story have a staying power that every sales chart, projection graph, or photo op can't come close to competing with.