Overlooked Excellence

If you're a sophisticated and seasoned professional

using world class tools,
with access to a large, diverse audience,
and ample time to demonstrate your capabilities ...

will your talents be appreciated?

Consider Joshua Bell's experience.

One of the world's greatest musicians, he's played before crowned heads of state and commands rates running around $1,000 a minute.

On one of the most valuable violins ever made,

he performed several difficult, elegant pieces
at a busy metro stop as 1,097 people walk by -
for 43 minutes.

The audience response was recorded by a hidden camera. Was there a problem with crowd control? Not exactly.

Six minutes passed before anyone stopped to listen.
Only seven people stopped and paid attention for a minute or more.
Twenty-seven gave donations, totaling almost $33.

98% of the people bypassed world class talent directly in their path.

This experiment reinforced several leadership lessons:

Strengths that are not marketed well will go unnoticed.

Capability isn't enough. You need to ensure that your strengths are recognized. One passerby had seen him in concert - she stopped to listen, thanked him, and left the largest donation.

Context matters.

If he'd been playing at a concert hall, his audience may have listened more appreciatively. Context determines relevance.

Time constraints limit our ability to recognize unexpected pockets of excellence.

If 1,000+ people were too intent on their destination to acknowledge the virtuoso before them, what else isn't registering? Allow yourself to stop and smell the roses, hear the music and make the most of what's right in front of you.

Anchor and Twist

The next time you have a something new to introduce, try using an "anchor and twist" approach.

Dan Heath discussed this approach in a Fast Company article on introducing innovations.

In a nutshell, you
• anchor your idea to something that is known and accepted
• and then provide the twist that makes it exciting and new.

So,
• TiVo works like a VCR (anchor) with TV shows (twist).
• Spyder is like Speedo (anchor) for skiers (twist).
• Sermo is a FaceBook (anchor) for doctors (twist)
• and Fluevog uses open-source (anchor) marketing (twist).

This strategy builds receptivity by meeting listeners where they are before taking them where you want to go; prompting an immediate positive association; and explaining the idea quickly enough to keep it exciting.

Be Brief, Be Bright, Be Gone

"Be brief, be bright, be gone" is an astute rule of thumb for business presentations - and for breathing new life into standing meetings.

Be Brief

• Start by checking that everyone understands what needs to occur for this meeting to be a success: the required meeting outcomes.
• Eliminate any non-essential agenda items. Each remaining item should be critical to achieving the meeting outcomes.

Be Bright

• Ask if everyone attending has a contribution to make that will have a clear impact on the meeting outcomes.
• During discussions, press for information that is new and relevant. Point out high impact contributions.
• Keep discussions focused on reaching the meeting outcomes.

Be Gone

• Summarize conclusions and outcomes at the end of the meeting.
• Define next steps clearly.
• End early or on time.

Fresh Ideas

We've been dealing with sobering realities. Time and budgets are tight, but there's more to do than ever. We're working harder and smarter, knowing that change presents opportunities.

Tough times call for creative minds, so I conducted an experiment.

The setting: I invited a cross section of business leaders, creative professionals and entrepreneurs to participate in a prototyping process.

The focus: creating a resource for keeping our thinking fresh and flexible, in the moment and over time. A way to add some creative zest to our work.

The response: smart, talented colleagues and clients from fields including innovation, organizational development, sales and marketing, communications, executive administration and entrepreneurship worked with me to shape the focus, content and presentation of a new resource.

The outcome: Fresh Ideas. Fresh Ideas is a creative catalyst that is

Sustained: Every two weeks, for either six or twelve months, you receive an e-mailed issue describing a specific creative thinking strategy, examples of how it's been used, and ways to apply it yourself.

Informative: The strategies and examples within Fresh Ideas are drawn from past and current literature on creativity, leadership and innovation. The topics are purposefully eclectic, providing a diverse range of starting points.

Actionable: Each issue runs about 500 words, making it easy to absorb and apply quickly. Receiving content in small bites helps you build a habit of thinking more creatively; week after week, application after application, insight after insight.

Engaging: You can learn from others' experiences, and reinforce your own success, by joining the conversation at the Fresh Ideas: What Works blog.

Come take a look. You can preview and work with a few free issues of Fresh Ideas by clicking here.

Better Brainstorming: Charge Admission

Pulling together some brilliant minds to generate some brilliant ideas?

Make the most of your time together by charging admission to the meeting.

Before holding the group brainstorming session, send a preliminary invitation to your targeted participants. Clearly define the challenge and why it's important, provide as much background information as you think they'll need, and describe what you'd like the brainstorming to produce.

Ask them to independently generate and post several initial ideas. Provide a posting venue they can easily access, such as a

• physical venue: using a centrally located whiteboard or flipcharts,
• public virtual venue: using a site like evernote or ning,
• private virtual venue: like your company intranet or a private LinkedIn group.

Review basic brainstorming etiquette and ask for their ideas by a specific date.

Those that post several ideas, review and build on the ideas already posted, and demonstrate good brainstorming etiquette by the date requested are admitted to the group brainstorming meeting.

The group's time is then used by invested, engaged thinkers to augment and improve their initial ideas.

This approach accommodates different thinking styles, builds in an incubation period, and optimizes the time spent thinking together.