Step It Up By Stepping Back

I have a great feeling about this particular team.  The demands of working for the second largest bank in the world can be relentless, but they leverage strengths like:  

-  working with very bright people

-  a palpable commitment to high quality work

-  deep technical expertise

-  and being extremely capable of delivering.

  

They also face challenges faced by many executive teams in large companies, like: 

-  sustaining a shared clarity about the big picture

-  culling myopic or reactive execution practices

-  navigating the growing size and complexity of their organization

-  and working smarter rather than harder.

So why am I so optimistic about their ability to excel? 

Because in the midst of yet another hard charging week, they exercised a discipline that helps Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and other business notables out-lead, out-innovate and out-sustain the competition.  They took time out to think together.  

As Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, wrote:  "...if you don't take the time to think proactively you will increasingly find yourself reacting to your environment rather than influencing it. The resulting situation will inevitably require far more time (and meetings) than thinking strategically would have to begin with."

Regularly carving out time to think is an essential but often elusive practice.  So how can you turn this good intention into a sustainable habit?  

Here are three approaches to consider:

Recognize the stigma of the alternative

"Uber-busy" used to infer "uber-important."  Increasingly, too busy is viewed as the new lazy.  Double parking appointments and running flat out through limitless days can make others question your commitment to high quality work.  As one 360 feedback source asked, "If he can't manage his schedule, how is he managing our function?"  

Curate your commitments

In other words, find ways to say no so that you can say yes.  What is it time for you to let go of, so that you have the bandwidth to do something better? Spending more of your day doing what only you can do increases the odds that you're utilizing your teams well. 

Design your time

Think about what doing your best work looks like.  Then find ways to link elements of the approach in this video to creating a habit of working that way:

What Kind of Failure Will Work?

Innovation leaders navigate a balance between understanding

-  the contributions failure can make in innovative processes
-  and the drivers of risk-adverse business environments.

So, taking a lead from the Eskimos' rich vocabulary for snow, Jamer Hunt proposed the following failure spectrum:

"Abject failure
This is the really dark one. It marks you and you may not ever fully recover from it. People lose their lives, jobs, respect, or livelihoods. Examples: British Petroleum's Gulf oil spill; mortgage-backed securities.

Structural failure
It cuts -- deeply -- but it doesn't permanently cripple your identity or enterprise. Examples: Apple iPhone 4's antenna; Windows Vista.

Glorious failure
Going out in a botched but beautiful blaze of glory -- catastrophic but exhilarating. Example: Jamaican bobsled team.

Common failure
Everyday instances of screwing up that are not too difficult to recover from. The apology was invented for this category. Examples: oversleeping and missing a meeting at work; forgetting to pick up your kids from school; overcooking the tuna.

Version failure
Small failures that lead to incremental but meaningful improvements over time. Examples: Linux operating system; evolution.

Predicted failure
Failure as an essential part of a process that allows you to see what it is you really need to do more clearly because of the shortcomings. Example: the prototype -- only by creating imperfect early versions of it can you learn what's necessary to refine it."

Yes, we can learn something from any type of failure.

But this kind of language goes further, by helping us recognize and optimize the kind of failure that just may work.

"Build a Tower, Build a Team"

In 70 workshops across the world, Tom Wujec gave small teams 18 minutes to build the tallest freestanding structure they could ... using 20 sticks of spaghetti, a yard of tape, a yard of string, and a marshmallow.


This seemingly trivial challenge produced quick, relatable insights into drivers of productive collaborations.

For example, it showed the value of prototyping:

• Teams that oriented themselves to the challenge and roles, planned and built their right answer were ineffective.

• Teams that created quick, successive prototypes, applying what they learned from each iteration were the most effective.

Tom's data also showed the importance of

• including process-oriented team members (CEO teams with executive admins were more effective than CEO-only teams),

• and combining a high stakes prize with "how-to" knowledge. (Just offering the high stakes prize decreased performance, offering the prize and insights into the importance of prototyping increased performance.)

Prototyping is a more readily accepted approach in some work environments than others. You can keep it simple and scrappy, collecting responses to rough drafts of your ideas and using what you learn to improve each new draft.

It's a potent form of active learning that builds innovation mindsets and skill sets by

• encouraging curiosity,

• uncovering hidden assumptions,

• and helping teams think, feel and work in new ways.

Could it be a more effective approach to something you're working on today?

Bend and Break and Recreate

If you're not getting the results you want, try breaking - or at least bending - the rules that guide your typical approach.

For example,

Don't immerse yourself in a stubborn challenge. Distance yourself from it.

Creating physical or psychological distance can help us find creative solutions, by changing how we mentally represent things. Distancing from a time (projecting the challenge into the future) or probability (assuming success is more or less likely) perspective can also increase creative thinking.

Learn more about how psychological distance impacts creativity here.

Don't work to understand the challenge. Work to understand the context.

Design thinking helps would-be problem solvers avoid solving the wrong problem by immersing themselves in the world of the user before defining the problem to solve. Reading context clues and observing interactions within the environment can uncover more powerful needs.

Find resources and references for designing discovery strategies here.

Don't meet or exceed expectations. Recreate them.

If you want more of the same, keep doing and thinking what you're doing and thinking. Not everything needs to change. But if you want different results, consider ways to crack open new possibilities here.

At COMPIO, we have been busy prototyping new ways to deliver our services. Stay tuned for updates on what we're learning as we bend and break the rules that have guided our approaches.

Your Priorities Are Showing

There's a difference between forced-ranking and prioritizing.

Forced ranking is reactive, "With everything there is to do, what to do first?"

Priorities are pro-active; they're what you attend to while everything else waits.

To understand today's priorities, notice where you spend most of your time.

While you're busy with these things, you're setting aside other things.

Moving forward, ask yourself:

• How do I define success? This is a good question to revisit regularly.

• What am I doing that is getting in the way of my version of success? Find ways to stop doing these things, or do less of them.

• What will I do instead, to achieve more of this success? A priority is something you do, not something you intend. If you're not doing it, it's not a priority.

Your priorities shape your success. There's no need for a priorities list - what you do, and don't do, is shouting out what is important to you.

Can You See It?

Want to make your next presentation even more engaging and memorable?

Create your slide deck using pictures... only pictures.




Select a series of images that illustrate your point

(this will also help you focus your message).







Sequence the images so they tell a story.

And, as you speak, let the images carry your audience

from where they are

to where you want to take them.


Imagery kindles emotions, imagination and personal connections.

Your audience will be more engaged during your talk,

and remember the experience longer after they leave.


To play with this idea, you can:

- Watch National Geographic's David Griffin use this approach.

- Find free images at Wikimedia Commons and Google Images.

- Read Presentation Zen.

Sifting Assumptions

Our understanding of the rules shapes how we play the game. These rules are learned or based on experience.

Our understanding of the "givens" shapes how we solve our problems. These assumptions are also based on learning and experience, and put boundaries around the options we see.

But there is a way to shift the impact of your assumptions, using them as catalysts for game changing inspirations:

List the "givens" in your challenge. If your challenge has to do with laptop computers, these could include

• Laptop computers have keyboards.


• They have one screen.


• The screen flips up.


• We interact with software through the computer ...

Consider each "given" in turn, asking, "What if we changed or reversed this truth in some way; then what could be possible?"

• What if they didn't have keyboards? Then ...


• What if they had several screens? Then ...


• What if there were several screens ... and they interacted with each other? Then ...

David Merrill explored the possibilities listed above while building Siftables.

Siftables are cookie-sized computer tiles that can be stacked and shifted; interacting with the user and each other; creating images, calculations, language, even music. See Siftables in action by clicking here .

A universe of possibility opens up as you learn to recognize, test and challenge your assumptions.