In all of the busy-ness and chaos of our daily lives, sometimes it’s very hard to just stop, breathe, and take a second to relax. That makes it difficult to be in the moment and really be open to the goodness that surrounds you everywhere. Losing touch with stillness and the “now” of things can make us really unbalanced and I think we miss so much of the good in our own lives just because we’re missing this moment as it passes us by.

So, how can you stop the frantic world we live in and become more in the moment? I like to use a short, simple meditation that I found in a great book called Ten Zen Seconds by Eric Maisel. Very easily, I close my eyes and repeat the following while I am deep breathing:

(Deep 5 second breath in) “I am completely”
(Slow 5 second breath out) “Stopping”

Believe it or not, this simple little ten second exercise and meditation really calms things down and re-centers you here and now, in the moment. I’ve used this while working, cycling, running, and especially at home to just slow things down for a moment to allow me to focus on the goodness that is happening right now. It can mean the difference in noticing the good ideas of my colleagues, the beauty of the mountains that I cycle and run in, or the laughter and happiness of my children. It doesn’t take long meditations and lots of time to relax and be present in your life. The next time you’re feeling frantic or disconnected, breathe in, breathe out and try completely stopping for ten seconds.

Related posts:

1. Finding Clarity: What’s Really Important in Life
2. 8 Ways to Become More Mindful at Work
3. My vote for the agile mascot
4. Murakami on Sustainable Pace
5. QA and Testing in an Agile Environment

Here are some of the key take-away points from Lucy’s interview:

• She’s extremely concerned with creating a work environment that is conducive to a highly collaborative and very creative experience and expression. We all should be. Too often work environments can be stifling. Open up and let the creativity flow.
• Have the conviction to believe that people have something to contribute.  It’s up to you to figure out a way of bringing the best out of your people. Ask yourself continually “How can I help that person be the best they can be?” And more than that, understand that everyone from the front desk receptionist to a senior VP all have something to contribute.
• Pay your dues and work your way up. Lucy started out without an art or software development background. But she found what she was passionate about, worked hard at getting there and has ended up working her way to a job she loves.
• The most Lucy has ever learned came from letting people touch what her and her team were making and learning from them. Exposing your ideas to the outside world for criticism is always the best way to learn. Don’t keep them to yourself. Air them out, get feedback. And use the feedback to learn from and to make constructive changes to your ideas and products. No one person knows all the answers.
• Always always always keep learning.  Lucy says that “For me, this job is one of those things that’s just continually intriguing. You’re always learning.” Continually intriguing! I love that idea. What if every day you thought your job was continually intriguing? How good would it feel to wake up every morning anticipating the intrigue and learning experience that awaited you at work? It’s probably there…sometimes we just forget to look for it.

Related posts:

1. Are you listening?
2. Conformity, innovation, and progress
3. Sustainable design interview with Greg Lee, CFO of Livestrong
4. Ideas without action are called dreams
5. Pixar’s Randy Nelson on Learning and Working in the Collaborative Age

This week I’m tuning in to listen to Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, talk about the unique culture he and his team have built at Zappos. That got me thinking about corporate culture in general and just how important it really is.  Many traditional companies believe that there too much emphasis placed on fun and creativity in the new Web 2.0 corporate cultures. I personally think that these new, forward thinking, culture-focused companies have got it right.

Witness the bottom line of Zappos or Facebook or Twitter and I think you’ll see the picture very clearly.  Build  a great corporate culture that incorporates fun, respect for employees, and creative thinking and then stick to it. In fact, make every decision based on your corporate culture. If you do that, I think you stand a great chance of being successful and creating brands and products that customers will not only recognize but love.

And, I believe that the most important decisions you can make based on your corporate culture is hiring and firing. Zappos, Netflix, and many other successful companies hire and fire based solely on cultural fit.  Tony Hsieh has said “If you get the culture right, then most of the other stuff, like great customer service or building a brand will just happen naturally.  We’ve actually passed on a lot of really talented people that we know would make an impact to our top or bottom line,” says Hsieh, “but if you know they’re not a culture fit we won’t hire them. Similarly, the company will fire people even if they’re doing their job perfectly if they’re bad for the culture.”  Now, you can go ahead and dismiss Hsieh as a quirky anomaly, but judging by the fact that Amazon bought Zappos for $1.2 billion in 2009, I’d say corporate culture is a worthwhile investment.

So, how do you make your hiring/firing decisions? Do you hire someone regardless of their cultural fit with your organization and hope they’ll work out? Do you hire someone with the wrong cultural fit and hope you can force a square peg into a round hole? Or, do you look for someone who is the perfect fit for your culture and do everything you can to bring them on board? And most importantly, would you be willing to fire someone who just didn’t quite fit with your team culturally?

Related posts:

1. Are you bringing your true self to work with you?
2. Agile micro-cultures: Fan those flames
3. How playful is your workplace?
4. Learning from Quincy Jones
5. Stifling agility with organizational complacency

Did you have some great ideas in 2010? What became of them?  Did you act on them and create something…or are they still just great ideas?

Here are some thoughts about ideas:

1. Ideas without action are called dreams.
2. Ideas are worth exactly $0.00 unless someone brings them to life.
3. Most people don’t care about your ideas (they have plenty of their own).
4. VC’s don’t throw cash at ideas.
5. When people have good ideas, they keep them inside for fear of someone else stealing them.

Now, I’m not suggesting that ideas are bad (although some probably are). They’re also not completely worthless. But ideas require action to become reality. So in 2011, consider this:

1. Generate lots of different ideas.
2. Share your ideas with others and let them help you grow your idea into something even better.
3. When you arrive at your great idea, act on it, execute and see what happens.
4. Be persistent. Give your ideas a chance before you pivot to the next thing. You thought it was great idea for a reason.
5. If for some reason your ideas don’t pan out, learn from them, move on, and try another idea.
6. Keep coming up with new ideas to try.
7. Don’t take action without ideas.

Thanks to Natalie Dee for the image.

Related posts:

1. Where Good Ideas Come From
2. I Can Live with That
3. The Give and Get of Engaged Employees
4. What if: We all did presentations like Starbucks?
5. Did we forget how to talk to each other?

I was recently going through my iPod when I came across my favorite podcast series The Moth. The Moth is an incredible series of storytellers brought together under one electronic roof to tell true stories live, without notes or PowerPoints. Just good old-fashioned story telling. And there are some amazing stories to be heard for sure. I settled on one I had heard before and it makes me laugh, so I listened again. It’s a story by A.J. Jacobs, who is a New York Times bestselling author, Esquire editor, and self-described human guinea pig. His story is called Outsourcing My Life. Without dragging you through the whole story, take a listen to the story right here, and when you’re done, read on. It’s short, captivating, and very funny.

OK, so if you didn’t listen here’s a brief excerpt to set the stage for this post:

“It began a month ago. I was midway through The World Is Flat, the bestseller by Tom Friedman. I like Friedman, despite his puzzling decision to wear a mustache. His book is all about how outsourcing to India and China is not just for tech support and carmakers but is poised to transform every industry in America, from law to banking to accounting.

I don’t have a corporation; I don’t even have an up-to-date business card. I’m a writer and editor working from home, usually in my boxer shorts or, if I’m feeling formal, my penguin-themed pajama bottoms.

Then again, I think, why should Fortune 500 firms have all the fun? Why can’t I join in on the biggest business trend of the new century? Why can’t I outsource my low-end tasks? Why can’t I outsource my life?

The next day I e-mail Brickwork, one of the companies Friedman mentions in his book. Brickwork—based in Bangalore, India—offers “remote executive assistants,” mostly to financial firms and health-care companies that want data processed. I explain that I’d like to hire someone to help with Esquire-related tasks—doing research, formatting memos, like that. The company’s CEO, Vivek Kulkarni, responds, “It would be a great pleasure to be talking to a person of your stature.” Already I’m liking this. I’ve never had stature before. In America, I barely command respect from a Bennigan’s maître d’, so it’s nice to know that in India I have stature. A couple of days later, I get an e-mail from my new “remote executive assistant.”

Dear Mr. Jacobs,

My name is Honey K. Balani. I would be assisting you in your editorial and personal job…. I would try to adapt myself as per your requirements that would lead to desired satisfaction.

Desired satisfaction. This is great. Back when I worked at an office, I had assistants, but there was never any talk of desired satisfaction. In fact, if anyone ever used the phrase “desired satisfaction,” we’d all end up in a solemn meeting with HR.”

Jacobs goes on to detail hiring a team of people in Bangalore, India to live his life for him – answer his emails, call his coworkers, argue with his wife, and read bedtime stories to his son. It’s fascinating.

So, after listening to this podcast I thought, “Hmmm, with 2011 rapidly approaching, I could use some of that.” Then I wondered, what are the low-level tasks that I would love to outsource to free up my time to do more meaningful things. I don’t think I’d go to the extreme of outsourcing story time with my kids (it’s too priceless to me), but there are things I would actually consider, especially in my ever increasing involvement in the world of social media. So, here are some of the things I would really pay someone else to do for me in 2011:

• I spend a lot of time reading (and yes skimming) over 350 blogs each day. On average, I read/skim probably between 500 and 600 posts each day. Then, I make selected clippings in NetNewsWire to read in more detail or make notes on later.  I also flag posts to share with you all on this blog and on Twitter. I would LOVE to outsource some of that. Give someone my RSS feeds and say, skim these and look for things people would be interested in. I probably wouldn’t outsource writing this blog, but I would consider outsourcing posting interesting links to Twitter. It takes a lot of time to do. Here’s what I’d ask them to do: Look for interesting stuff out there. When you find something useful, use HootSuite to schedule a Tweet sometime later in the day. Basically, I’d ask them to fill the HootSuite schedule with Tweets of interesting items to be dispensed throughout the day. That would free up my Twitter time to interact more with everyone instead of just posting links. I would be able to focus on connecting instead of broadcasting.
• I would love to outsource just about everything on my Facebook account! They could manage my Farm, post photos, wish friends Happy Birthday and finally answer my 25 questions for me! They could even scan old school-days pictures and upload them for me and add some witty captions so my old friends still think I’m funny. They could find people I knew way back when and invite them to be friends. I’d love it. All the things I want to do on Facebook but just don’t have time to do, they could do it for me!
• Find interesting people on Twitter for me to follow. As much as it seems Twitter is about getting followers, I actually enjoy finding and following new, interesting people. In fact, every few days, I search Twitter on keywords that interest me and see who pops up. If their profile and recent Tweets are interesting, I follow them for a while. What I’d love to outsource is the time consuming searching part. If I could pay someone to find me 100 interesting people to follow each week I gladly would. That would make my life simpler. Then all I have to do is read their updates and decide if I still want to follow them or not!
• Manage my LinkedIn account. I can never seem to keep LinkedIn up to date. I also manage two LinkedIn groups (Agilistas and Rally Software) and I’m a terrible moderator. I always forget to accept new members and to check what’s going on in my group discussions. Easy spot to outsource. Manage the groups and give me a weekly digest of what’s going in the discussions.
• I would definitely get help keeping my Flickr account up to date. Most of my family and my wife’s family live out-of-state, so they rely on Flickr to see the latest goings-on of our five- and two-year old boys. We’re both terrible parents about keeping it up to date. We take plenty of pictures. We just never upload them. Again, I’d gladly pay someone to go through our cameras and on a weekly basis pick the best shots and post them on Flickr with some family-friendly descriptions. That would make our families so much happier! I’d probably have them update my Posterous and TwitPic accounts while they were at it too!
• I’d even have them do some old-school clearing for me: email. I have 7 different email accounts and get hundreds of emails every day. If they could weed through the accounts and delete spam and junk, and flag only the things I need to respond to, that would be amazing. I get way too much email and this would cut down so much time from my day! If they could answer my email, that would be even better!
• Another thing I’d outsource from my online life is managing my Dopplr travel account. I use to do a ton of travel for my job and my team used Dopplr to keep each other updated on where we’re at. We also used it to track our carbon footprint. But it’s such a burden to have to keep getting my travel details from our corporate travel agent and transferring them into Dopplr. I’d outsource that with no problem.

I figure that if I could just outsource these simpler tasks in my life, I’d have at least one more free day every week. And that goes a long way to getting me to my goal of achieving Timothy Ferriss‘ much fabled 4-hour Workweek. But I have a feeling that if I outsourced these simple things, I might start getting like A.J. Jacobs and want to outsource more! I mean, what scares me is at the heart of it, I’d probably outsource everything if I could just so I could spend more time with my wife and kids and have more time for cycling the beautiful roads of Colorado. After compiling this short little list, I might actually try outsourcing some of it to see how it works. I looked into pricing for basic executive assistants and A.J. Jacobs is right, you can get a week of assistance for the price of a nice dinner. Pretty cheap, but I think that’s what troubles me on a moral level. I’m not opposed to the outsourcing part, but am opposed to paying people unfair wages for their work (but that’s a whole other blog post). If I can get around my moral objections I might try it. If I actually do it, I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

So I’d like to hear from all of you now: If you could outsource the little things in your life, what would they be and how would you use that new found time?

Related posts:

1. The Life Manifesto
2. Private: Extending Your Personal Brand Without Diluting It
3. Finding Clarity: What’s Really Important in Life
4. Commit to Something Today! You’ll Be Glad You Did.
5. Know Your Users

Do you frequently feel stressed at work?  If you do, you’re probably not alone.  Chances are that others on your team feel stressed too.  OK, so you feel stressed. Big deal right? Who isn’t stressed these days? We all have a great deal that is expected of us and most of us feel like we have very little control over whether or not we are able to perform well.  Unfortunately when our day-to-day work environment or corporate culture make us start internalizing these attitudes, we start to experience what Martin Seligman terms “learned helplessness”.  Learned helplessness is a perception of inescapability and the acceptance that things just aren’t going to get any better. Once we fall into this state, it’s a vicious circle that keeps feeding our stress and leads to depression and the belief that we are worthless. Ultimately, this robs us of our creativity and our ability to solve problems.

When I think about stressful environments I’ve worked in, it seems that a lack of control over situations leads to the most stress.  Lots of professional psychologists and many business professionals have tried to pinpoint what causes stress in the workplace, and it seems that they have reached the same conclusion: stress in the workplace is most often caused by a lack of control (whether real or perceived). When this lack of control exists and stress runs rampant, productivity and creativity take a tremendous hit.  Plus, there are all of the physical effects of workplace stress that end up costing employers millions every year.  In his book Brain Rules, John Medina identifies the following as the key “business” costs of stress in the workplace:

1. Stress attacks the immune system, increasing employees’ chances of getting sick
2. Stress elevates blood pressure, increasing the risk of heart attack, stroke, and autoimmune diseases
3. Both #1 and #2 increase the costs of health-care and pensions
4. Stress is behind more than half of the 550 million working days lost each year due to absenteeism
5. Stressed employees tend to avoid coming to work at the slightest excuse, and often show up late

Based on the list above, statistical studies show that stress results in corporate losses totaling between $200 billion and $300 billion every year!  That being the case, it would seem that most executives and managers would pay very close attention to the stress levels of their employees. Unfortunately, that’s not usually the case. In many cases, organizations ratchet up the stress level, whether it is intentionally or unintentionally, and ultimately at a cost their bottom-line.  But, if you know me well, you know that I’m less of a bottom-line person and more concerned with people, creativity, and innovation. And this is the real reason I find stress in the workplace to be destructive.

On the personal level, workplace stress leads to stress at home, which in turn leads to more stress at work which leads to more home stress, etc. etc. etc. This leads to chronic stress levels, which create depression and a feeling of hopelessness or helplessness.  And quite frankly, I hate to see anyone experiencing depression. So, Rule #1, eliminate stress in the workplace if for nothing else than to make the lives of the people you work with better, happier, and more enjoyable. If that’s not reason enough, I don’t know what is.

When it comes to working, stress is a tremendous inhibitor of creativity and innovation.  Stress specifically does damage to two important things: declarative memories and executive function. Declarative memories are memories, which can be consciously recalled such as facts and events. Executive function is a very specific kind of thinking that involves problem solving.  The result of the diminished capabilities of declarative memory and executive function lead to what Medina says is an “erosion of innovation and creativity, just as biochemically real as if we were talking about joints and muscles.” Now here’s where Medina’s expanded list of stress related issues gets really interesting. Aside from the “business costs” associated with stress, here are Medina’s cognitive impacts of stress:

1. Stressed people don’t do math very well
2. Stressed people don’t process language very efficiently
3. Stressed people have poorer memories, both short- and long-term
4. Stressed people don’t generalize or adapt old pieces of information to new scenarios as well as non-stressed people
5. Stressed people can’t concentrate
6. Chronic stress hurts our ability to learn

Now, take that list and think about it for a moment. It’s telling us that stress degrades our ability to communicate and thus collaborate. We can’t remember things very well, and we can’t use our memories to apply what we know to creatively solving problems. And most importantly, we have trouble learning.  In the most creative and innovative organizations, constant learning and collaboration are two major keys to success.  Stress in the workplace essentially takes those keys away from us.

So, now that we know what stress can do to us in the workplace, what can we do reduce stress? The answers are simpler than you might think. First, we need to go back to the root cause of most workplace stress: control (or the lack thereof).  Getting control back into the hands of your employees is the key to reducing most workplace stress situations.  Now, what exactly does that mean? It can mean a wide variety of things depending on where individuals are feeling most helpless.  So, it’s your job as managers and executives to actively work at becoming a stress detector. Work closely with your employees and listen carefully. Watch for hints that are indicating a lack of control or feelings of helplessness. Next, after you identify a stressor, be a strong servant leader and change the situation. Whatever it takes, change the situation. It’s your job to make sure that people have what they need to do their work, to feel empowered, and to assume some control. Make it happen today.

Secondly, we can look at our organizational policies and practices to see where we could reduce stress. Here are four things that you can consider offering that can quickly reduce workplace stress:

1. Stress management classes. Typically these are relatively inexpensive compared to the benefits. One study showed that after a $6,000 16-hour stress management class, the organization realized $150,000 in savings in workers’ compensation costs.
2. Allow flexible schedules. Some people are owls and do their best thinking at night. Some are larks and do their best work and thinking in the morning. Let people create their own flexible work schedules to accommodate their best thinking and reduce the stress of having to perform when their mental capacities are at their lowest.
3. Onsite childcare. One of the biggest stressors in life is having to make a decision between family and career (and this disproportionately affects women in the workplace). Offering onsite daycare makes this choice easier. And in general, the cost of onsite daycare is greatly offset by the gains in productivity, creativity and innovation (not to mention you’d quickly gain a better gender balance in your workplace, which is always a positive thing).
4. Provide healthy food. Eating well has been proven to reduce stress.  Providing good healthy food for your employees goes a long way toward improving your organization’s ability to be creative, innovative, and of course, productive. Consider providing free healthy lunches or subsidized lunches. And if you can’t afford that, empty the vending machines of sugar-loaded sweets and offer healthier alternatives. Or, provide some educational material about healthy eating to reduce stress.
5. Provide opportunities to exercise. Exercise is one of the simplest ways to decrease stress. If you can afford it, provide daily exercise classes, yoga, or meditation. If that’s too cost prohibitive, consider subsidizing gym membership fees or providing exercise equipment (especially cardiovascular equipment) onsite. Or, simply encourage taking walks together during the workday. Physical activity is probably the least expensive, most effective way to reduce stress.

These are just a few ideas.  I’d love to add to this list. What do you do as a manager, employee or organization to reduce stress in your workplace?

Related posts:

1. 8 Ways to Become More Mindful at Work
2. Talk About the Passion
3. How playful is your workplace?
4. Is There a Process for Innovation?
5. Asleep on the Job? 10 Tips for Napping at Work

This morning I spent some time with a team going through some serious morale issues.  Lots of things seemed to be getting the team members down, but when they broke it down to the “root cause” it seemed that the team just wasn’t having fun anymore. There is no sense of playfulness at all. In fact, the few times they did try playing a bit, they felt guilty and were the object of organizational scrutiny for “playing” on the job.

By strange coincidence, I couldn’t sleep last night so I ended up re-reading the book Innovate the Pixar Way for like the tenth time or so.  And even more strangely, the chapter I happened to open the book to is called Recess: Go Out and Play! You see, at Pixar, morale means everything. And, they actively promote playfulness.  They find that the level of fun and play at Pixar has a direct impact on morale which leads to people at Pixar working at their peak.

And guess what? It’s not just Pixar that has figured this out. There are plenty of organizations out there that have realized that allowing people to play at work is a good thing. It stimulates creativity and innovation. And there’s plenty of good “brain science” out there to support play at work too.  Just check out John Medina’s awesome book Brain Rules or Refactor Your Wetware by Andy Hunt. When you look at play from a brain science perspective, you’ll realize that not only is play important for innovative teams, it is at the core of being an innovative team.

So, if there are so many companies that are figuring out the value of play at work and good science to back it up, why are so many organizations still resistant to playing at work?  For one thing, there are plenty of corporate types who fear disruption and disorder.  They think this can only lead to a decrease in the only important metric to them: productivity. And to people like this, that equates to a decrease in the bottom line. But that is an absolute misconception.  In fact, plenty of studies show that playful teams end up with very high morale, which always translates into higher productivity. Pixar’s Brad Bird (who directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille) had this to say about morale and the bottom line:

“The most significant impact on a movie’s budget – but never in the budget – is morale. If you have low morale, for every dollar you spend, you get about twenty-five cents of value. If you have high morale, for every dollar you spend you get about three dollars of value.  Companies should pay much more attention to morale.”

Now, I don’t know about you but I’d gladly settle for a 300% return on any investment I make. So why not invest in morale and playfulness at your company.  Make the commitment to keeping our most important “resource”, our people, as happy and content as possible. And for just a minute forget about the bottom line and ROI. Consider that all of us spend at least one-third of our adult lives at work.  As human beings, shouldn’t we strive to make work a fun place to be? It’s doesn’t have to be all seriousness and suffering in the corporate world.

So, my question to everyone out there is this: HOW PLAYFUL IS YOUR WORKPLACE?  Here are some questions from Innovate the Pixar Way that might help you answer that question:

1. Is it common to hear laughter coming from your employees?
2. Does the laughter stop or diminish when management is around?
3. Is the workplace humor good-natured constructive ribbing rather than destructive sarcastic criticism?
4. Does your boss usually have an optimistic and happy attitude?
5. When something gets screwed up, can team members step back and laugh at their mistake?
6. Do you have fun celebrations on a regular basis?
7. Is the physical workplace conducive to fun?

Related posts:

1. 5 Ways to Reduce Workplace Stress
2. Hiring and firing based on cultural fit
3. Is improv the key to innovative teams?
4. Why is Microsoft arguing?
5. Bert Decker: You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard

I’m a super passionate person about my work. I love to be 100% engaged in everything I do. But to be honest, I get bored easily.  Sometimes it’ll be some small thing that I get bored with during the day. Sometimes, I’ll get bored with something more significant in my life.  Either way, my boredom with whatever it is that’s boring me acts as a wake up call.  It let’s me know I’m moving or thinking in the wrong direction. It makes me pause to consider how I can reframe something to be more exciting, more interesting, more innovative.  In fact, when I’m really attuned to my boredom, I use it as a pause to refresh my viewpoints. So, in a strange way, getting bored can be kind of a good thing for me.

So, when you feel bored with what you’re doing, what do you do? Do you ignore the boredom and push on in an uninspired way? Do you let your mind wander to other distractions? Or do you use it as a signal that an opportunity to think about something in a different way is just around the corner? The next time your feeling bored, try to take it as a sign to take that pause that refreshes.

Related posts:

1. How playful is your workplace?
2. Where Good Ideas Come From
3. 8 Ways to Become More Mindful at Work
4. How to be an Expert Agile Team
5. Is improv the key to innovative teams?

I overheard a conversation last week in which someone said “Today’s corporate culture has no heartbeat…no soul.” And to a certain extent I agree.  There may be a good reason why it seems like corporate cultures lack a soul.  Ever since I started my career back in the early 90′s the mantra was “It’s not personal, it’s just business”. That mantra has extended itself into who we are when we come to work.  For some reason or other, it’s become the norm to check our personalities, our passions, our emotions at the door.

How often have you heard the advice to offer unemotional feedback? How often have you been told that you’re getting “too close” to your work? How many times have you held back your emotions or genuine feelings because it felt counter cultural to just express yourself at work?  I believe that this persistent urge to suppress ourselves at work has led to a generation of corporate citizens that are disconnected from the work they do at a very personal level (in addition to countless other problems).

But don’t lose hope.  We can work toward changing the status quo. We just need some corporate culture insurgents on the inside to become the prototypes for transformation so that others have a path to follow.  We can bring our true genuine selves to work with us. We don’t have to check our passions and beliefs at the door.  And maybe we can start to reconnect with our work on a deeper, more creative, more passionate, more genuine level.  But why is this important? What does it matter? It’s important because if all employees are genuine in what they do, not only is the workplace transformed, but the intent of their work is different, more positive as it goes out into the world. And that is huge! That begins to change the world.

Fortunately for us, we don’t have to go it alone without good examples to follow.  Many of the successful Web 2.0 companies have been shining examples of allowing employees to bring their true selves to work with them.  They encourage genuine interactions and their corporate mantras and products reflect this attitude as their work goes out into the world. Google: “Don’t be evil”. Twitter’s first principle: “Be a force for good”. There is hope and it starts with you.

No related posts.

Take a minute to think about your workday. Actually, forget the work “day” and just focus on this present moment.  How do you feel? Excited, depressed, happy, anxious, stressed? What is true about this very moment for you? Don’t judge anything, just be in touch with and aware of the present moment.  Are you there now? And where exactly are you? If you’re clearing your mind of the past and the future, the place you are at now is a state that is often referred to as mindfulness.  It’s a calming place. A place that offers quiet serenity.

Now, I’m no walking Buddah, and I don’t want this post to get wrapped in philosophical meanderings.  However, it’s been proven that getting yourself into a state of mindfulness can reduce stress, depression and anxiety.  And it’s been proven at numerous organizations across the globe to increase creativity, innovation, and yes…productivity. In fact organizations like eBay and Facebook have entire programs focused on improving mindfulness in the workplace.

Unfortunately, bringing mindful practices to an entire organization isn’t an easy endeavor. In fact, it could be downright difficult.  I had the opportunity to speak with Leah Pearlman of Facebook and Rich Fernandez of eBay this weekend and although they are expanding mindfulness within their organizations, the path to doing so was difficult and challenging at times.

Putting aside organization-wide mindfulness (that’s another post entirely), maybe there are simple things you can do each day to bring mindfulness to your workday to give yourself a break from the fast-paced business world. And maybe, just maybe, by bringing mindfulness to your day, others will become more mindful too. So, what can you do to become more mindful? Try these 8 simple ideas and see if they work for you:

1. Just Breathe: Find a quiet place where you work or close your office door if you have one. Sit upright, close your eyes and slowly inhale and exhale through your nose. Take deep breaths. Feel your chest expand and contract with each breath. Allow whatever thoughts come into your mind to just come and go.  If you find your thoughts are focusing on events of the day (either past or present), come back to focusing on just your breath. Don’t judge your thoughts. Just let them flow. Observe the sounds and smells and sensations around you. Make your breathing the foreground. Try this for about five minutes, then open your eyes and allow your gaze to lengthen to take in the sights around you with a wider awareness.
2. Smooth Transitions: During the workday, we are constantly and quickly changing contexts. We move from emails, to Twitter, to meetings, to writing documents all with extreme speed.  Many times when we make these transitions from one mode of working to another, we bring the former mode of work to the next mode. For example when we enter a meeting, we might still be contemplating the email we read just moments before this meeting.  Our minds are not fully present at the meeting we’re in. Or maybe you’re thinking about that afternoon one-on-one with your manager. Either way, you are not fully present in the moment at this meeting.  So try this: Give yourself some time to transition between modes. In the transition time, acknowledge that you are making a transition now. Come to a natural end of one activity and know you are moving to a different activity. Recognize the pause between the activities. Think about how you feel right now during this pause? Are you anxious, excited, nervous? Don’t judge yourself.  Just recognize how you feel. Then enter your next activity feeling fully aware and awake in the present moment.
3. The Bow: Start your day with a bow.  In fact, if your colleagues at work are up to it, try starting all of your meetings with a bow.  The bow is a simple but powerful thing. Start with your eyes open, sitting up with your back straight and your hands on your thighs. While sitting this way, feel the desire to learn, to experience, to be awake. Feel your feet on the floor, your butt and back against the chair. Then relax and feel the vulnerability of yourself. Feel the gentleness that comes from this vulnerability. Finally lean forward into a slight bow and feel the bow as a sense of a gift flowing to others in your meeting or others outside of the room. The entire bow takes less than a minute and really sets a calming mind and opens you up to a willingness to share and help others. That’s a pretty good return for just one simple minute of time.
4. Observe and React with Serenity: When dramas arise in the workplace as they are bound to do, try hard to observe what’s happening without becoming drawn into the drama. And if by chance you do become involved in the drama (which we ultimately do because we’re all human) stay present in the moment. Don’t draw on old opinions or anger and don’t allow visions of what the future outcome could be determine your actions. React to the present moment with all the serenity you are capable of pulling together.
5. Falter and Learn: Know that we are all human and we all fail every day. And trust me, it happens.  As I am writing this post, I know full well that I’ve failed to be mindful most of this morning in my work. If you lose patience, or find yourself drawn into an office drama, or if you can’t relax or make smooth transitions, don’t judge the experience as bad. Look at it as a learning experience.  What was true about the moment that caused you to react the way you did? Did your reaction work for you? If not, try not to react that way again in the future.
6. Look Out Any Window: Too many of us are trapped in windowless cube farms these days.  Surrounded by artificial lighting, air conditioning, and a general lack of the natural world.  If you can, exit that world and take a brief walk outside at least once a day to connect yourself with something natural.  Even in large cities, there is something outside that connects us to a more natural world.  And, if you can’t step outside, look out any window.  It’s a proven fact that looking out a window into a natural setting reduces stress and anxiety. So give it a try.  Find a window and peer out.  Maybe you’ll find a tree and really connect with it. Look at the trunk, the branches, the leaves, how it moves in the breeze. 5 minutes of this and you’ll be refreshed and awake.
7. Smile and Laugh: The old saying that happiness is contagious is true. Too often, we bring our “work personas” to the office with us. And too often, these “work personas” don’t smile or laugh or show joy. I really believe that we should bring our true selves to work and smile, laugh and share some joy with each other. The contagious nature of joy and happiness is tough to suppress and it can do wonders for people who are stressed, depressed, or anxious.
8. Mindful Clock: This one is less of a practice and more of a tool to help you during the day.  The mindful clock is a simple little app that gives you a “meditation” chime that you can set to remind you to relax throughout the day.  I actually have mine set to chime on the hour to remind to enjoy 5 minutes of breathing.  But you can use it however you need to just to remind you to take that a break from emails, or blogs, or whatever.  You can find the Mindful Clock here.

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Here’s a quiz for you. Which of these two teams succeeded in making history and being extremely innovative in the process?

The A Team
• Budget: $2,000,000 in grant money.*
• Project Manager: A world renowned scientist and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute.
• Team members: The best scientists money could buy.
• Subject matter expertise: Years of scale model experience.
• Industry connections: Extremely well connected.
• Publicity behind the project: Unprecedented.

The B Team
• Budget: $24,000 of their own hard earned cash.*
• Project Manager: None.
• Team Members: Two guys without high school diplomas.
• Subject matter expertise: Printing and bicycles. Make that none.
• Industry connections: Um, who are these guys?
• Publicity behind the project: Like I said, who are these guys?

Well, it wouldn’t be worth writing about if it were The A Team.  Of course, The B Team is the correct answer. The A Team was led by Dr. Samuel Langley and turned out to quite literally be a big flop.  The B Team had no real leader. It was a team of two brothers named Orville and Wilbur.  You might know them better as the Wright Brothers…you know…the guys who pioneered powered flight and changed the course of history.  So how is it that these two guys from nowhere with a tiny budget beat a well-funded, government-backed team of top scientists to become the first team to achieve powered flight?

Mostly, they had a passion for what they were doing.  They understood Langley’s team was bigger and “better” than they were. But the Wrights were passionately committed to the “idea” of powered flight.  They knew that it wasn’t about having a huge team of scientists or tremendous budgets to win the game. Langley and his scientists were hired guns; if they failed, they failed.  No big deal. They’d find another government grant to keep them going. If the Wrights failed, it was their life’s savings and their own personal reputations on the line. They were taking personal risks that could only be countered by a passion for what they were doing. The Wrights were driven by doing things that were different and challenging, not to meet the goals of a grant or a contract. It was this passion, this desire to do something challenging that allowed the Wrights to create the world’s first wind tunnel, develop innovative wing and propeller designs, and devise a control system that made powered flight possible.

Sometimes it’s very tempting to think that “if we had a bigger R&D budget, we’d be more innovative” or “if we had more resources we’d be able to really innovate” or “we just don’t have the right team and experience to be innovative“.  The Wrights proved that you don’t need any of these things to be innovative. You need people who are passionate about what they’re doing. People who are willing to stick it all out there, take the risks and ignore the naysayers. And you don’t need a lot of them.  Come on, if two guys who didn’t finish high school could change the world, a team of passionate people in your company or organization can certainly come up with innovative ideas that at least change your industry.

Want more proof from a more current success story? Listen to what Steve Wozniak says about his work at Apple: “All the best things I did at Apple came from (a) not having money, and (b) not having done it before, ever.”  The truth is, you probably already have the right resources and people that you need.  Just find a way to let them dream the “crazy” ideas, unleash their creative potential, and build innovative products that they are really passionate about.

*Note: The budgets were actually $70,000 for Langley’s team and $1,200 for the Wright’s…but adjusted to reflect today’s value they are $2M and $24K.

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Do you ever get that tired feeling shortly after lunch? You know that feeling when you’re in a meeting and you just can’t keep your eyes from slamming shut? Or the one where you can’t seem to stay focused on your work or conversations? Well, if you’re an average worker bee in the U.S., you are definitely not alone.  In fact, according to one study, 56% of American workers fall asleep at work at least once a week. We are overworked, over stressed, and over tired.  And it’s costing us. Current estimates range from $70-$100 billion lost per year in productivity, accidents, and health costs as a result of workers who are over tired.

The question is what can we do to shake that tired, groggy feeling? It’s no secret that other cultures have thought about this issue long before we did.  There’s the famous siesta in Spain, as well as other culturally accepted daily day-time nap breaks in countries such as Italy, Greece, Japan, China and Taiwan.  But here in the U.S., sleeping during the day or sleeping at work is not only discouraged, but it could very well get you fired.

However, things are beginning to slowly change. Buoyed by corporate and clinical studies (like those performed at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine) which have demonstrated that short periods of sleep improve alertness, memory, motor skills, decision-making, and mood, while cutting down on stress, carelessness, and even heart disease, more and more U.S. companies are recognizing the value of a cat nap at work. In fact, a NASA study of some of its pilots revealed a 35% performance improvement in pilots who took a short 26 minute nap during the day. From the big guns like Nike and Google that have sleeping rooms for their employees to Jawa, a small software company that has built two nap rooms, napping at work is catching on.

Sure, you’re thinking: “But I’d get canned for sure if I slept at work” or “There’s no way my company would go for that”. Well, you’re probably right. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still take a nap during your workday.  Here are 10 tips that I’ve personally used to make sure that no matter where I’ve worked, I’ve been able to grab a short “power nap” to keep myself fresh and energized during the day.

1. Know your ideal nap zone. Without getting into details, your ideal nap zone is about 12 hours after the midpoint of your nightly sleep. If you go to bed at 10:00 PM and wake at 6:00 AM, your nap zone should begin around 2 PM.
2. Keep it short. Sleeping longer than 30 minutes induces deeper sleep zones that can leave you feeling a bit groggy later in the day. Try to keep you naps in the 20-30 minutes range.
3. Go to the good place. Make sure you’ve got a comfortable sleeping space.  Your desk is not the ideal in comfort and neither is the bathroom stall.  Find a quiet place or office where you can lie down. Warmer places make for better sleep as well.  I’ve often used my car as a last resort for a quiet, private sleep space. Sometimes I’ll drive to a quiet park, put the seat back and let the sunlight warm up the car for a nice cozy sleeping spot (it kind of makes me feel like my dogs basking in sun spots on cold winter days).
4. Don’t forget the accessories. There are lots of things that can improve the quality of your sleep.  Some of the key accessories that’ll launch you into a better sleep are a pillow to avoid those neck aches, a yoga mat to make a conference room floor more comfortable, and a blanket to warm your body up. Of course you may want to leave your stuffed animals at home unless you like being the butt of candid office snapshot jokes.
5. The dark side is good. Darker is better when it comes to good sleep.  Darkness increases melatonin production which induces higher quality sleep. If you can’t find a dark place to sleep, consider picking up a sleep mask to at least cover your eyes.
6. Avoid unnecessary chemicals. Sure, caffeine may you give you that energy jolt that you think you need, but the detrimental effects of caffeine on your body are not worth the energy burst you experience from it.  In fact, it’s been proven that 20-30 minutes of sleep will provide more energy later in the day without increasing stress on your body the way caffeine does.  In general, avoid caffeine, nicotine, sugar, and carbohydrates in the morning if you’re hoping to fall asleep quickly and take that short power nap after lunch. They’ll make it difficult to fall asleep quickly and have a quality sleep session.
7. Don’t oversleep! You do not want be late for meetings or calls because you overslept! If there’s one thing that can kill acceptance of workday naps quickly, it’s missing work events because you overslept. If you can’t naturally keep your naps to 30 minutes or less, use your watch, mobile phone or a travel alarm clock to set an alarm to wake you in time.
8. It’s all about the transition. When planning your nap time, allow for enough time to wake up, maybe splash some water on your face, and wipe the crusties from your eyes.  Also, give yourself some time to transition back to work, both physically and mentally. And use this transition time to recognize your refreshed state. Breathe in and out through your nose, and contemplate your rested state. You may even want to meditate, thinking “I am refreshed.  My body is energized. I am ready to create again”.
9. Know your corporate sleep culture. Know how your organization reacts to “different” work practices. How your company perceives change or new ideas can have a big influence in how they’ll be likely to view work time naps.  If you work in a conservative, risk averse, cubicle farm, chances are you may need to find somewhere else besides your workplace to catch some ZZZ’s. Major metro areas have sleep spas that you may want to consider.  Otherwise, as I mentioned previously, there’s always your car.
10. Change the corporate sleep culture. OK, this is less of a tip and more of a strategy, but if you’re really passionate about napping at work, work hard to convince others of the benefits and create a groundswell to encourage napping during the day.  Maybe you can be the one who sparks a change in your organization’s culture. And who knows, maybe if you work hard enough at it, you can get your company to build nap rooms or maybe even buy you one of these:

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Lots of organizations spend time and money trying hard to figure out how to build a system or a process that encourages creativity and innovation.  I’d argue that they’re wasting their time.  Innovation doesn’t come out of a process.  Innovation doesn’t come from a systematic approach.  Innovation comes from people connecting with each other on a deeper level that can’t be turned into a system.  It’s different in every case. You can’t write an organizational document on how to be innovative. If you need proof of this, consider how Steve Jobs talks about Apple and how they innovate:

“The system is that there is no system. That doesn’t mean we don’t have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that’s not what it’s about. Process makes you more efficient. But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.”

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I was so impressed by the book that I registered for the Boulder edition of the Wisdom 2.0 Conference today.  Looks like it’s going to be a great conference featuring speakers like Alex Bogusky (Co-founder of Crispin Porter + Bogusky), Gopi Kallayil (Group Product Marketing Manager at Google), Rich Fernandez (Head of Learning & OD at eBay), and Leah Pearlman (Facebook) and of course Soren Gordhamer.  If you’re on the Front Range and can’t make it out to the big Wisdom 2.0 shindig in Silicon Valley this February, check this out. It looks like it’ll be well worth the time.

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Alan Atlas, an old friend of mine and one of my agile mentors, would always ask this question to teams that he worked with that were flailing but resistant to change:

“Do you know what the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

How do you stop flailing and begin meaningful change? Maybe take the advice of another wise person, Eleanor Roosevelt:

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”

If you’re not trying something that scares you, then you’re probably not doing something different. And if you’re not doing something different, you’re perpetuating the status quo. So, what did you do today that scared you?

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So how do you create an environment that favors the givers? In their now well known paper “The Ten C’s of Employee Engagement“, Gerard Seijts and Dan Crim found that 84% of engaged employees feel that they can positively effect the quality and direction of their organization’s products. It’s all about empowering your employees (sorry for using the “e” word there, but it’s the truth).  The interesting flip-side to this stat is that only 31% of disengaged employees feel that they have any impact on quality or product direction.  Why is there such a strong correlation between empowerment and engagement? Maybe Scott Cook, founder of Intuit, summed it up best a few weeks ago at the Economist’s Idea Economy Conference when he said:

“You’ve seen these people–the people who say: The boss doesn’t get it. The company doesn’t get it.  They know how to fix it. They have ideas, but no one cares, and no one allows them to try what they think is right. It’s crushing to the human spirit and potential.”

Cook is essentially giving the anti-condition for creating a culture of giving, passionate, engaged employees.  But there is hope.  Cook also prescribes how to create the conditions that don’t crush potential:

“The way to put human potential on steroids is rapid experimentation. Got an idea? Okay, what are the hypotheses underpinning that idea, and how can we rapidly test one or more of them? It stops the boss from being the judge–it ends that thumbs-up thumbs-down Caesar approach. Let the customer be the judge.”

In places that I’ve worked and consulted, the best managers were always those who took a hands-off approach.  They provided some basic vision and then got out of the way.  They allowed their teams to make decisions and take ownership of their work.  So maybe that’s the answer: Let go of some control, accept some ambiguity and chaos in the system, and let those smart people that you hired become givers instead of getters.

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I was watching a video of Steven Johnson speaking about where good ideas come from on TED recently.  To say that this talk is jam packed with amazing insight of how collaboration leads to innovative ideas would be an understatement.  Not to spoil your enjoyment of watching this video, but the very last statement of this talk summarizes everything in such a neat little nutshell that it’s worth saying up front: “That is how innovation happens. Chance favors the connected mind”.

So, now that you know the ending, what exactly does it mean.  It means that collaboration, real true and honest collaboration, is where the most innovative ideas come from. What’s interesting is that what Johnson refers to as the “liquid network” in his talk, Randy Nelson of Pixar refers to as “amplification”.  Look at how each describes the environment where good ideas come from: Johnson’s Liquid Network:

“…where you have lots of different ideas that are together, different backgrounds, different interests, jostling with each other, bouncing off each other — that environment is, in fact, the environment that leads to innovation“.

Nelson’s Amplification:

“Connecting a group of individuals that are interested in each other, that bring separate depth to the problem and that bring a breadth that gives them interest in the entire solution. They find the most articulate way to get a high fidelity notion across to a broad range of people so they can each pull on the right lever.”

There are lots of things these two ideas have in common. First, it’s all about a group of individuals building on each others ideas. There is no single “innovator”, no singular mind providing the vision and mission statement to lead a team toward innovation.  Secondly, individuals with different interests and backgrounds (or depth and breadth) work together to build an idea that they couldn’t have built with a group of like minded individuals. I think these two points are the keys to really collaborating and coming up with great ideas, innovative ideas. I also like that Johnson emphasizes that ideas come from a chaotic place; a place that doesn’t exist in a cubical or a conference room. He says:

“We take ideas from other people, from people we’ve learned from, from people we run into in the coffee shop, and we stitch them together into new forms, and we create something new…this is the kind of chaotic environment where ideas are likely to come together, where people were likely to have new, interesting, unpredictable collisions — people from different backgrounds.”

Again he touches on the idea of people from different backgrounds coming together, but the most interesting part of the phrase is that unpredictable ideas come from chaotic places.  And the use of the word collisions is brilliant. It’s not about neatly arranging individuals and asking them to “brainstorm” together. It’s about chance meetings, chance conversations that happen spontaneously, resulting in a collision of ideas, and producing an unexpected result.

I’ve been with too many organizations where they have tried to reduce the noise, temper the chaos, create “idea-of-the-month task forces”, and of coarse mitigate all risks.  When you need to fill out a form proving the return on investment for every little thought a team has, when we build cubicles to isolate individuals, when we hire individuals who fit the organizational mold, or when we form teams of thinkers, we severely limit the possibility of collisions that uncover the unpredictable ideas that ultimately lead to true innovation.

So I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that if you want to be innovative, build organizations and build the spaces in your workplace that support both Johnson and Nelson’s ideas about collaboration. Bring together individuals with wildly varying backgrounds and experiences and give them the freedom to roam.  Let minds become connected in an open space.  Allow the chaos to thrive and allow the unpredictable ideas that come out of liquid networks and amplification to permeate your organization’s culture and direction. That’s the place where great ideas come from and that’s where I know I’d rather live. If you’re interested here is the full TED talk from Steven Johnson:

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So, in light of yesterday’s post and my friend’s email this morning, I thought this was worth sharing. It has great advice for anyone doing some soul searching and trying to figure out what’s important in life. Some of my favorite lines from the manifesto:

1. If you don’t like something, change it.
2. If you don’t like your job, quit.
3. Ask the next person you see what their passion is and share your inspiring dream with them.
4. Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them so go out and start creating.
5. Live your dream, and wear your passion.

I hope you find this manifesto as interesting and inspiring as I did.  Here it is in all it’s simple glory:

By the way, Holstee is a very cool design company. They are dedicated to design with a conscience. To deliver on this, they hold every design accountable for the impact it has for on all people, our planet and the product’s quality. 10% of all Holstee revenue is used to empower entrepreneurs in the developing world through micro lending. How cool is that?

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Those are the first two questions Tim Miller (CEO of Rally Software) asked me when I came to work for him.  Before then, I don’t think I ever stopped and asked myself either of those questions.  But they’re important to answer.  Understanding your answer to these questions can make a huge difference in whether you are happy in your work and your life.

I haven’t really written anything new on EdgeHopper in over a year.  Things in my life changed what I was passionate about.  Or, more precisely, I wasn’t quite sure what it was that I was passionate about.  You see, when I’m passionate about something, I quite literally get a burning feeling in the pit of my stomach.  It’s something that burns inside of me and just has to escape somehow.  That’s when I know I’m passionate about something.  And for the past year or so, I just didn’t have that feeling.

But over the last few weeks, the fire began stirring again and I realized that something inside was just bursting to get out.  This weekend, I laid awake in bed for hours thinking about innovation, collaboration, creativity, and work. I thought about all of the companies I have worked for or done consulting with and how each approached these ideas in different ways.  In some cases, there was an amazing amount of innovation, collaboration, and creativity.  In others, there was a cold, dark hole where the soul of the company should have been.  There was a lack of innovation, non-collaborative practices, and a healthy disregard for risk taking and creativity.  They were focused instead on bureaucracy, risk mitigation, filling out the right forms, command and control, and return on investment calculations.  In other words, they just weren’t having any fun!  And it was this last thought that kept me awake the longest.  So I turned the questions over and over: Why not? Shouldn’t work be fun? What’s wrong with taking risks? Why were they so afraid to fail? Why couldn’t they collaborate and build upon their ideas together? Where did they go wrong? Where did we go wrong as a society of thinkers and innovators?

Well, those questions ignited into a fireball in my stomach and when I woke up the next morning, it was clear that I needed someplace to get those thoughts out of my head.  I needed to start working through the questions and finding the answers.  So here I am, back at home on EdgeHopper, ready to start tackling the questions and searching for answers.  I hope you all join in on this journey because your ideas on these topics are extremely interesting to me.  I’m interested in how you approach these questions.  And I’m interested in finding out we can answer these together through conversation and collaboration.  So sit back, enjoy, participate in the conversation and answer two simple questions: What are you passionate about? What keeps you awake at night?

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In his very casual and easy style, Nelson starts off by talking about how PIxar uses improv as a method of collaboration. In that method, two principles have surfaced that have guided Pixar:

1. Accept every offer. You don’t know where that offer is going to go. But one thing is for sure: If you don’t accept that offer, it’s going nowhere! So you have a sure thing on one hand: a dead end. And you have possibility on the other.
2. Make you partner look good. That means that everybody on your team is going to try to make you look good and vice versa. And it’s not about judgement or saying “This is pretty good. How can I make it better?”. It’s about saying “Here’s where I’m starting. What can I do with this?”. Nelson calls this “plus-ing“.

I passed this video along to my friend Bert Decker, CEO of Decker Communications, to get his take on this as it is right up his alley. Here’s what Bert had to say:

“Randy talks about ‘plus-ing’. Sue [Walden of ImprovWorks] calls it “yes, and…” What we mention in our advanced course is two essential rules of improv that you can apply to all communications, (and life for that matter) is:

1. Always positive (yes, and…)
2. Support your partner

And of course there’s ‘forward lean’ but that comes even before improv….”

Based on those two principles, Pixar looks to find people who are really good at something. And Pixar is really good at being innovative. So, how do you find people who are really good at being innovative? If something has never been done before and it’s truly innovative, how do you find the people to do it. According to Nelson “You look for people who have seen failure and figured out how to make something from it. The core skill of innovators is error recovery not failure avoidance. We’re looking for resiliency and adaptability.” Wow, how many places think like this? I mean really think this way and not just pay the lip service. Not many trust me. It’s so great to see a hugely successful organization express this attitude out loud and really mean it.

What Pixar has realized is that a great predictor of innovation is mastery of something. It could be mastery of anything. The important thing is the personality that goes along with mastery. It’s that sense of “I’m going to get to the top of that mountain” that you can use in your enterprise. It’s called depth. Nelson goes on to say that given the fast pace of business these days, there’s very little chance that people are going to achieve mastery on the job. You want them to be masters coming in the door.

Another predictor of success is breadth. No one-trick ponies. We want to find people with lots of experiences (not necessarily “experience”). People with a breadth of experiences are deeply interested in many things. My favorite quote from Nelson: “We’re looking for people who are interested…not interesting.” Interested is tough, interesting is easy. Interested is a real skill. If you say “I’ve got a problem”, interested people lean in. They amplify you. They want to know what YOU want to know.

The notion of breadth leads to Nelson’s third predictor, communication. Another awesome quote, especially for all of you developers and techies out there: “Communication involves translation.” If you just emit tech, nobody really hears you. The translation gets pushed to the receiving end of the conversation and gets garbled. Do the translation at the SENDING end so that it doesn’t have to be done at the receiving end and the listener can say, “I understand”. So, no non-communicative techies! Nelson says that “Communication is not something the emitter can measure.” You can’t declare yourself as articulate or a good communicator…only your listener can. People who are interested are more likely to view communication as a destination rather than as a source. Nelson postulates that breadth and a broad range of experiences is the thing that fuels that. To me, this notion of communication as a destination not a source is extremely crucial to the success of teams comprised of so many different skillsets and levels of technical expertise.

According to Nelson though, the most important predictor of success and innovation is collaboration. But what is collaboration? Real collaboration? It’s not cooperation. We’ve been conditioned to jump to this answer very quickly. We all think “We have to cooperate to get our jobs done. That’s collaboration.” But, all this really means is we’re not getting in each other’s way. Nelson says that the things that get done in a cooperative enterprise could, in effect, all be done by one person if we had enough time and resources. He says that there is nothing in a cooperative workplace that job one does that can make job two better. Job one can prevent job two from getting done, but there’s nothing job one can do to make job two better. Collaboration is not a synonym for cooperation.

So what does collaboration mean if it’s not about cooperation? Nelson says that collaboration for Pixar means AMPLIFICATION. It means connecting a group of individuals that are INTERESTED in each other, that bring separate DEPTH to the problem and that bring a BREADTH that gives them interest in the entire solution. And most importantly, it allows them to COMMUNICATE on multiple different levels: verbally, in writing, feeling, acting, pictures. In all of these ways, Nelson says “They find the most articulate way to get a high fidelity notion across to a broad range of people so they can each pull on the right lever”. I absolutely love this definition of collaboration and it’s all rooted in a collective vision that everyone understands and can relate to.

After listening to Nelson walk through these four points with passion and enthusiasm, it’s no wonder why Pixar has been immensely successful in their endeavors. After a little digging and emailing, I found that indeed, Pixar’s HR department uses all four of these predictors for the basis of their hires. They don’t just look at a candidate’s experience or resume. In a 2006 New York Times interview, Nelson said:

“The problem with the Hollywood model is that it’s generally the day you wrap production that you realize you’ve finally figured out how to work together,” Mr. Nelson said. “We’ve made the leap from an idea-centered business to a people-centered business. Instead of developing ideas, we develop people. Instead of investing in ideas, we invest in people. We’re trying to create a culture of learning, filled with lifelong learners. It’s no trick for talented people to be interesting, but it’s a gift to be interested. We want an organization filled with interested people.”

The things Nelson describes are intangible, you can’t write them down. But when you talk with and work with people who possess these traits, you know who they are right away. And they’re the kind of people you want on your team. Give me 10 people like this over 100 people with years of experience and you can do incredible things.

Related posts:

1. Is improv the key to innovative teams?
2. Where Good Ideas Come From
3. Did we forget how to talk to each other?
4. Scaling agile success
5. In team we trust

Last February, I spent a few weeks on my back with a herniated disk and pinched nerves in my neck. (Yes, it hurt). One of the worst parts of spending time in bed was missing my daily indulgence of visiting Starbuck’s for my coffee in the morning. One morning, my amazing wife brought me home a nice, hot Starbucks mocha. I usually don’t look to my coffee cup for inspiration, but laid up and having not much else to do, I started reading “The Way I See It” on the side of the cup. I really liked the quote, but, in a Vicodin-Espresso induced haze, I lost track of the cup and forgot the quote. Well, here I am over a year later sitting in Starbuck’s sipping a mocha and what do you know, I got the same cup. Well, not the very same cup, that would be kind of gross, but I think you get what I mean. I thought, hmmm, maybe karma is telling me something. Here’s what my cup said:

“The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.” – Anne Morriss

Well, I’d have to say I’m glad I found this cup again and I’m glad I found it now. I’ve been very non-committed to writing my blog in the past few weeks. Things have been swirling around in my professional and personal life and I just couldn’t focus. My blogging and Tweeting had been taking too much time away from my personal life. So, I stopped really putting my all into my blog. In fact, I stopped writing all together for almost a month. Then I realized I missed it. Somehow, I needed to commit to a better balance between my real life and my “online life”. So, that’s commitment number one: I’ll continue to blog and Twitter but with a much greater respect for my personal time. It’s a commitment to those that I love and a commitment to all of you who read my blog (and yes, I love all of you too, but in a different way). OK, got that out of the way and I’m feeling good. I’m breathing again!

But more than that, this cup really woke me up (and not just from the double espresso) to my growing desire to write a book “one of these days“. I’ve had this idea in my mind for a book about the power of collaboration and it’s impact on innovation in successful organizations for some time and I’ve kept putting it off for a variety of “really good” reasons. Hmmm, can you say internal critic and fear? Apparently I can’t, so I did what Anne Morriss said, and I dressed it up as rational hesitation. I had a million excuses why I couldn’t start writing it. Well, I think I’m going to go out on a limb here and free myself by finally, openly committing to writing this book that I’ve had inside me for a long time. Aaaah, I feel better already. Two big commitments and I didn’t die, I didn’t implode, I’m still here. And because I believe deeply in commitment, I feel deeply liberated by openly making these commitments. Wow, what a great feeling!

So, what’s holding you back from doing something you’re passionate about? Maybe today is your day too. Maybe you just need to make a commitment and go for it. I promise, it won’t hurt (unless you’re committing to finally getting that tattoo you’ve always dreamed of). Go ahead and make your commitment right here for everyone else to read. Tell us what you’re passionate about and what you’re going to commit to.

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Over the past two years, I have had the good fortune to get to know Bert Decker. He is an amazing person with an incredible background. If you haven’t heard of him before, Bert Decker is a national communications expert, best selling author and entrepreneur. He founded the 100 person communications training company Decker Communications, Inc. He has been featured in the NY Times, Business Week, and on 20/20, as well as being the communications commentator for the NBC TODAY Show for the Presidential Debates. He has been a communications coach to Charles Schwab, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Mattel CEO’s John Ammerman and Jill Barrad, Olympians Bonnie Blair and Tom Dolan, SF 49er All-Pro Brent Jones, and dozens of other executives And he is the best selling author of “You’ve Got to Be Believed To Be Heard” and “Speaking With Bold Assurance“. Bert graciously agreed to do a ten question interview with me and here are his insights on a wide range of topics.

(1) In your book “You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard” you refer to “The New Communicators”. Can you explain what a new communicator is? Can you give an example of your favorite New Communicator?

New communicators connect with EVERY audience – no matter the setting – in:

• behavior

• content

• interaction

In our Decker Method courses we call it the messenger, the message and the medium – they all are one. A new communicator creates a communication experience that is energized and action oriented.

Three great New Communicators are Steve Jobs (business world), Guy Kawasaki (tech/author world) and Bono (celebrity world.)

(2) So, that covers the good communicators. Who would say is having the most trouble these days as a communicator and why?

• Richard Fuld, Lehman Brothers CEO – closed, arrogant and aloof when he testified to Congress.

• Caroline Kennedy – she lost her bid for the NY Senate seat with a monotone, halting delivery, unfocused message and a mess of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs.’

• Timothy Geithner – stiff and cold. He is not a good messenger for this very important and controversial message.

(3) There has been so much said about Barack Obama’s oratory skills in the past year. Would you consider Barack Obama to be a New Communicator?

No, he’s a good orator, not a great communicator. I’ve reviewed him often (check out Bert’s review here) and it’s fascinating – Obama is President largely because of his 2004 Convention speech, but he STILL does not use the teleprompter well (here’s Bert’s detailed take on Obama’s use of the teleprompter) And when not speechifying, he usually communicates in a professorial manner, with a halting cadence, and also many ums and ahs. Occasionally he is energetic and open and light – but rarely. So ironically, the one who became President because of communication (read oratorical) skills needs to increase his connecting skills.

(4) If you could give one bit of advice to Mr. Obama, what would it be?

• Learn to use the teleprompter so it’s not a ping-pong match – 4 seconds to one side and 4 seconds to the other.

• Leave pauses instead of filling space with non-words.

• Vary rhythm and pacing of voice – energize not professorialize.

(5) You have become a fixture on Twitter in the past year (BTW, I love your Tweets). How do you see the rise of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook impacting communications over the next few years?

I see Twitter (not Facebook) as the dominant communication tool for both text and speaking. It’s a powerful business/personal communication medium in it’s current form as text only, and will become EXPLOSIVE with the right app (the new Nambu is promising – that’s the direction it will be going.) But it will change the face of the speaking environment.

(6) Do you believe there is going to be a new breed of new New Communicators who will use social media tools to connect with people?

Yes and no. First the no – the majority of people will use the text only email/Linked-in/Twitter etc as text only – will not incorporate it holistically.

And yes, the New Communicator will embrace the social media tools (Twitter mostly) in ALL of their communicating environments – but they will be smart about it, and understand there is a difference in text, voice and in person communications – learn the differences and use them intentionally. Most people communicate at the unconscious level – our goal is to make it conscious.

(7) It seems that a big buzz these days is about the use of Twitter at conferences and presentations. What are your thoughts on the rising use of Twitter during presentations?

Twitter is going to be very powerful in expanding (or disrupting) the conference and formal speaking environment. I blogged on that here – but more is yet to come. Big business (most of our clients) are not used to using Twitter in meetings and speeches, but no longer can anyone say ‘laptops down.’ People will Twitter whether you like it or not, so you have to incorporate that in your ‘experience’ and be intentional. Those who become good at it can enhance and expand their speaking – but it will be a rocky road for awhile. Those who use it well will succeed mightily.

(8) You attended SXSW in Austin, TX earlier this year. What were the top insights you gained at SXSW this year?

One of the most amazing conferences I’ve attended (out of thousands!) SXSW Interactive was peak energy, peak connections and peak engagement. 30 meetings going on at a time, 50-75% of people in most meetings/speeches were tweeting on laptops or cells. Podcasts and audios, twitpics and Flip videos and of course tweets were going out to the world by the thousands every minute. More and more conferences will become more like this.

Again, New Communicators must have not only the messenger and the message at peak performance, but also the medium.

Critical point though, that almost ALL neglect is getting video feedback and seeing themselves – so many at SXSW have distracting and nervous habits that it doesn’t matter how good their content or medium use is – they get in their own way. Observed behavior changes. The smart New Communicators at SXSW and all conferences will get themselves on video!

(9) What blogs are you reading most these days and why?

• Well, this one: EdgeHopper - Always well written and lengthy posts on relevant communication subjects – interactive media and personal behavior.

• Presentation Zen - Garr Reynolds is the leader (along with Nancy Duarte) of slide design and communications quality. His posts are in depth, and insightful.

• Seth Godin’s Blog – At first I didn’t like Seth’s text only posts, but then they grew on me for two reasons. They are short and pithy. 80% of them are original and thought provoking. (Pareto’s Law comes into play.)

(10) Who are your favorite follows on Twitter and why?

@ed – a very unusual man of integrity, insight and influence that I have gotten to know well on Twitter.

@OliviaMitchell – great communication research, tips and blog.

@Mashable – always good, up to date links and info on Twitter and the tech world.

But it’s a very tough question because there are so many Twitterers AND blogs that are good. [Chris' note: If you want to follow Bert on Twitter, and I highly recommend it, he's @BertDecker]

Related posts:

1. Bert Decker: You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard
2. Did we forget how to talk to each other?
3. Learning to Speak
4. Distributed communications mediums
5. Social Media and Your Business

I was working from home yesterday and my 3-year old convinced me to go with him to Story Time at our local library. He’s so cute, I couldn’t resist. I hadn’t been to Story Time in years. In fact, the last time I was at Story Time was back in the early 90′s when I was a regular guest reader at the New York City Public Library. I went to Story Time thinking this’ll be a great half-hour with my little guy. I never thought I’d walk away thinking that I learned some valuable lessons myself. Ah, the expert mind…it always convinces us that we can’t learn from “simple” experiences. But after it was over, and I reflected a bit on Story Time, I realized that there were valuable lessons to take away from it that we can all use in our presentations. Believe it or not, librarians and others who read to children at Story Time may be some of the best presenters in the world, and we’ll never see them on TED or hear much about them (plus they have some of the toughest audiences in the world). If you really want to get your presentation game on, maybe you should start reading books to the itty-bitties at your local library. In any case, here’s what I learned from my trip to the library with my 3-year old:

1. Know your audience

Before you ever even head into your presentation, know who your audience is. In this case, it was 2- and 3-year olds. Understand why they’re there, what they’re hoping to get out of their time with you. And understand who they are. Don’t deliver the same canned presentation to every audience. Work at it, put some energy into it and craft your message and your presentation to your audience.

2. Say hello

You don’t have to sing the hello song to get everyone on the same page, but say something to get your audience into listening mode right off the bat. It doesn’t have to be a formal introduction of who you are; they probably already know that, otherwise they wouldn’t be sitting in the audience. But say or do something interesting to get everyone ready to listen to you.

3. Have a good story to tell

Presentations are about telling stories. We loved stories as kids and we still do as adults. Stories make an impact, they’re memorable. Maybe your entire presentation is one big story or maybe it’s made up of lots of little ones. Either way, it doesn’t matter, but just be sure to tell stories. They sink in much better than facts and figures. Imagine if Goldie Locks were told the same way we present our talks. There would be detailed descriptions and charts about the size, weight, age, and gender of each bear, their general disposition, the specific types of foods and beds that they liked, etc. Boring! Just tell the story already.

4. Use pictures

Your favorite stories when you were a kid had pictures. Imagine a Dr. Seuss book without pictures. Not quite as much fun right? And what exactly would a Crunk-Car, or a Lorax, or a Zumble-Zay mean to you without the pictures to connect the words to your emotions. News flash: We don’t change when we grow up. Vision is our most dominant sense and when you use great pictures and visuals to help your audience emotionally connect to your words, you win and more importantly, your audience wins.

5. Invite audience participation

Show of hands: How many of you have ever been to a presentation where the presenter rambled on and never engaged his or her audience? Oh, that many of you huh? It’s that easy folks. Want to involve and engage your audience: Ask a simple question.  At Story Time yesterday it was this simple to get the kids engaged: “How many of you know what a koala bear is?” The kids were instantly engaged.  For those who knew what a koala was, the anticipation of a story about a koala grew. And for those who didn’t, it was “Wow, we’re going to learn what a koala bear is!” The same thing applies to your audience even if they are all old, balding men. Engage them, get them interested in where you’re taking them.

6. Get your audience moving around

We don’t have to all get up and do the kangaroo dance, but get your audience doing something. Clapping, raising their hands, standing up…anything to keep the blood flowing. And if you’re doing anything for more than an hour, give them breaks to move around. If you’re teaching or doing a workshop, make your exercises include lots of movement. Keep the blood flowing.

7. Have a consistent theme

At Story Time yesterday, the theme was “Pockets”. We read lots of stories about things with pockets. Upon signing in, the kids got nametags shaped like pockets. The songs we sang were about…you guessed it, pockets. The reader was wearing an apron with pockets and so was Moe, her little monkey puppet. While you may not go to these extremes in your presentation, you should have a consistent theme. And by that I mean, have a key point that you’re trying to make. And, make sure that the visual theme of your slides or other visual aids is consistent and compliments your narrative theme.

8. Use your voice(s)

Oh the drone of that monotone speaker! How long can you listen to that for? Listen to a great storyteller and see how they use many voices to tell their story. I’m not implying that you need to be Rich Little or know how to do 100 impersonations. I’m talking about your own voices. Don’t use the same tone and volume throughout your talk. Whisper, shout, talk faster, talk slower. Use your own voices to emphasize points or to grab the attention of your audience. Without even trying, I bet you have at least 8 voices that you can use in your next presentation.

9. Use drama and suspense to create tension

The reader yesterday had a little monkey puppet sidekick with her named Moey. He was wearing an apron with a pocket in front. Here’s how the reader created tension and suspense with the monkey: “Do you know what Moey the monkey likes to keep in his pocket?” You could the see the tension and anticipation build immediately. The kids were all like “What, what, please tell us!” Now for the slow reveal to really create drama and suspense: “He keeps a gemstone…(she slowly takes the gemstone out)…he keeps a cookie…(oh boy, here comes the cookie)…and he keeps…a Golden Key! (using the whispering by the way)” Now the kids are like: “Wow, a Golden Key…I wonder what that’s for!” In your presentations and talks, don’t be in such a rush to pull out the Golden Key. Build some suspense, some tension. It keeps your audience focused on you and what you’re going to say next.

10. Have a memorable moment

Oh, so about that Golden Key: it opened a treasure box where Moey kept all of his favorite toys (see, wait to pull out the Golden Key…it works well in writing too). My little guy is still talking about the treasure box today. It was the single most memorable moment of Story Time yesterday. He didn’t forget it. When you do your presentations, does your audience walk away remembering that treasure box moment or do they walk away with far too much information crammed into their heads to ever remember anything. Make sure you have that magic moment in your presentation that everyone walks away with.

11. Keep it short

Story Time was a mere 20 minutes yesterday. Guess what? That’s about how long the best presentations I’ve ever seen have been too. Take a look at all of the great talks on the TED site. Guess what? They’re all less than 20 minutes! It doesn’t matter if you’re 3-years old or 30-years old, as a species, we tend to have a very short attention span. Depending on the source, the average adult attention span is somewhere between 7 and 9 minutes. John Medina of Brain Rules fame calls it the 10 Minute Rule . According to John, “What happens at the 10-minute mark to cause such trouble? Nobody knows.” We may not know what happens, but it happens. Keep it short, and keep it interesting.

12. Wave goodbye

So maybe you don’t sing a goodbye song, give Moey the Monkey a hug, or wave goodbye to your friends, but you should have a concrete, definite ending to your presentation. It’s part of the natural arc of a story: beginning, middle, and end. Don’t end by saying “So, um, that’s it” or “Well, that’s all the time we have“. End on a strong note that lets the audience know it’s over. And end early if you can. It’s the old performer’s saying: Leave them wanting more. At the end of Story Time my little guy said to me “I can’t wait until the next Story Time.” That’s how you want to end. Make sure your audience leaves saying, “I can’t wait to see that guy present again!”

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Seth is an amazing guy and it’s statements like these that make him so likable and so successful at what he does. He’s a great storyteller and has been an absolute inspiration to me. So, please, enjoy the video, and if you read yesterday’s blog post, take my advice and listen. Thanks for the great interview Andrew.

Andrew Warner is an ambitious internet entrepreneur. In 1998 he used credit card debt to launch Bradford & Reed, an online greeting card company which reached annual revenues of over $38 million. After selling the company in 2003, he launched Mixergy.com, where ambitious startups learn from experienced entrepreneurs.

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“Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Maybe we can learn an awful lot from Emerson’s words. And maybe we can apply these words on a less ethereal level. Let us be silent that we may hear each other. As executives, managers, mentors, and team members our silence can be an incredibly powerful tool. Sure, I like to write a lot about presentations and speaking, but sometimes, allowing silence to fill the room allows for other voices to be heard. Important voices. Those of your staff, your peers, your teammates.

I think that today, it has become commonplace to value the sound of our voice and our own opinions over those of others. Most people want to be heard more than they want to listen to others. We do it in meetings, on our blogs, on Twitter. It’s all about us isn’t it? Well, not if you want to be really successful. By quieting our anxious voices and letting silences exist in our daily conversations and meetings, we allow others to be heard and to fill our own world with new information. It allows us to widen our world view. We gain insights we wouldn’t have if we didn’t take the time be quiet and listen.

This skill, or rather, this discipline is really important for managers. In an article for StickyMinds, Esther Derby once wrote:

“In a social situation, a 50/50 balance between talking and listening feels comfortable. But management conversations are different. Managers need to understand how people are working, and where they need help. Managers need to understand the status of work, risks, and obstacles. 30 percent talking and 70 percent listening is a more appropriate balance for management conversations.”

I think Esther hit on the head in her statement. As managers, we should be listening more than speaking. Now, that doesn’t mean you wait around for others to say something. You have to engage people to get them talking, and that means asking questions instead of dictating answers. When you ask your questions, allow silence to fill the space to allow the conversation to breath naturally instead of forcing and rushing answers.

By using silence and increasing your listening skills, you can help create a dynamic, innovative environment.   If people don’t think their ideas are heard or accepted, they’ll stop presenting them, effectively reducing your team’s knowledge base and innovative ideas. You want to open the space up to allow innovative ideas to flow, and by talking less and listening more, you can do it. And if you’re still more concerned with your own success than that of your team, here’s a nugget for you too, a key trait of the most influential people is facility with listening and understanding another’s perspective. So, maybe it’s time we all started talking a bit less and started listening more.

So, how do you start listening better? Here’s some great advice from Jamie Walters, the founder and Chief Vision & Strategy Officer at Ivy Sea, Inc. in San Francisco, CA.

Be present

• Resist distractions (noises, interruptions, fidgeting, prejudices, etc.).
• Don’t do five things at once. Do one: listen to the person with whom you’re speaking.
• Demonstrate your full attention by leaning forward slightly, focusing your eyes on the speaker’s face, and trying not to fidget or glance away too frequently.
• Follow the golden rule. Take a moment to realize that every person is important and deserves your attention. How does it feel to talk with someone who doesn’t seem to be listening, or be ignored or treated disrespectfully?

Bracket

• Keep an open mind and be flexible to others’ ideas; release your need to be right, if only temporarily. Our need to be right can cause us to be contentious, or even inflammatory.
• Don’t tune out because you disagree. You just have to listen and understand, not agree.
• Don’t jump to conclusions before you’ve heard the whole message.
• If you find yourself reacting to what another person says, your body language will communicate your reaction. Try saying, “You can probably see I’m reacting a bit, but it’s important to me to understand your point of view. Please tell me more about ?”

Reframe

• Ensure your understanding by saying something like, “I want to make sure I understood you correctly. You’re saying ?” or “So your concern (or idea) is ?”

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According to Webster’s Dictionary the word improvise means

“to compose, recite, play, or sing extemporaneously; to make, invent, or arrange offhand; to make or fabricate out of what is conveniently on hand”.

I actually prefer the definition of improvisation that Wikipedia provides though. According to Wikipedia, improvisation is

“the practice of acting and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of ones immediate environment. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols and/or new ways to act. This invention cycle occurs most effectively when the practitioner has a thorough intuitive or technical understanding of the necessary skills and concerns within the improvised domain.”

Wow, now that’s a definition! But what I love about this definition is that it recognizes the link between the response to the immediate environment and the invention of new thought patterns. In short, it recognizes that improvisation and innovation are intimately linked.

Most people associate improv with acting or comedy. But, you don’t have to be an actor or a comedian to apply improvisation to your work. In fact, I think there is more opportunity for improvisation in the professional world than most people think. Gary LaBranche of the Association Forum of Chicagoland says:

“Board meetings and committee meetings, dialogue with colleagues and other everyday situations give professionals plenty of opportunities for improvisational responses. Improv is all about adapting to constant change and unexpected situations, which is familiar territory for most professionals.”

I think Gary’s statement is right on the money. We have more opportunities to use improv as professionals than we realize. In fact, a few weeks ago, I wrote about Pixar and their use of improv in their creative process. Pixar boils down their use of improv to two essential principles:

1. Accept every offer. You don’t know where that offer is going to go. But one thing is for sure: If you don’t accept that offer, it’s going nowhere! So you have a sure thing on one hand: a dead end. And you have possibility on the other.

2. Make you partner look good. That means that everybody on your team is going to try to make you look good and vice versa. It’s about saying “Here’s where I’m starting. What can I do with this?”.

I think Pixar was able to break down their use of Improv into these two principles because of their long, shared experience with improv. I like these two essentials principles of improvisation for innovation, but wanted to expand on a few other principles for teams and organizations that are just starting to experiment or have never used improv before. So, to add to Pixar’s principles, I would advise those new at improv think about these as well:

1. Keep questioning what works. Good is the enemy of great. When something is really awful, we know we need to fix it, and we usually do. But when something is good, we settle. We don’t necessarily think about how we can make it better. So, take a look at what you do everyday. Consider the things that are good and ask yourself or your team “Can this be better?”

2. Be a risk taker and take chances. Sure, you can do things the way you’ve always done it. And you’ll probably get predictable results and that might be good enough for you. But if you want to be innovative, you need to break through barriers, take risks, take chances. You may not always be successful when you take chances, but if you don’t, you won’t ever have the chance to really innovate. The most innovative companies and creative people have failed more than they have succeeded. But, when they did succeed, it’s been with market-changing and world-changing innovations.

3. Always be changed by what is said and what happens. Innovative people and innovative teams always uncover new information. But more than uncovering new information, they learn to react to that new information. Instead of locking up when change comes along, these innovative people let that change inspire new ideas and let what unfolds next guide them on. They welcome and thrive on change. And they allow themselves to be changed. They have the beginner’s mind and are always able to learn and change.

4. Create shared, dynamic plans and agendas. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry right? We’ve all heard that a thousand times before. So, why stick to a plan that is going awry? The answer…DON’T. Abandon them to serve the reality of what is right there in front of you. That’s right, ABANDON them. Let your plans and agendas emerge in real-time in response to what’s right there in front of you.

5. Be fully present and engaged. So, you get your team to abandon static, concrete plans. You’ve gotten out of planning and into being. But, this comes with a caveat. To do this, your team has to be completely engaged and have their attention completely focussed. You have to always be ready and able to ask the question “Yes and?“. You have to be engaged and present to always be asking this question. 

6. Keep moving forward. When you’re constantly in the flow of improv and innovation, you can’t stop to analyze. It slows you down and stifles creativity. When something unexpected happens, take advantage of this new situation and move forward with it. If something goes wrong, learn the lesson and move forward. The whole idea is to keep moving forward. The road behind you is not the road that leads to innovation. Keep moving forward.

7. Understand the good of the whole. When you personally understand what is good for the whole, you have a deeper understanding of when to hang back, when to grab the reigns and how to grab them, and how to support the other members of your team. When the whole team has this attitude and understanding, it creates a truly collaborative, improvisational environment.

8. Lose control. We don’t want anyone on our team to be the star or orchestrator. We want to make sure that no one gets into the “controlling mind“. As soon as one person assumes control or seeks the spotlight, the creativity, improv, and innovation of the team suffers. We need to lose the control aspect of the team and allow everyone to respond to the moment.

9. Self-organize. Creativity is naturally a self organizing system. Teams that allow themselves to explore and play find this self-organization with ease. The team may set some very basic guidelines of play, but once they do, their roles and organization emerge naturally and creativity flourishes. This type of self-organization allows all kinds of things to be possible.

From my own personal experience, the most innovative teams I’ve ever worked on embraced these basic principles of improv. In fact, a few years ago, I worked on a truly creative, innovative team. That team always asked the question “What else can we do with this?”. We opened our minds to all possibilities. There were many times we said, “We’ve never done this before”. Often, we had no idea how the idea would play out. But we always accepted the offer to see where it would go. Sometimes we failed. But, we learned and moved on. And, when we were successful, we produced some of the most innovative software the mapping world had ever seen. I don’t think we ever tried to be improvisational or purposely forced these improv principles. It emerged naturally on a team full of incredible talent with no egos, and I think that made all the difference in the world.

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Today, the incredible organization Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) is trying very hard to bring attention to this tragedy in the Congo through their program Condition: Critical, Voices from the War in Eastern Congo. Condition: Critical is a multi-media initiative launched by Doctors Without Borders aiming to bring global attention to the humanitarian consequences of the intensifying war in the Congo.  Through testimonies, photos, and video, Condition: Critical goes beyond headlines and news reports to document how civilians are struggling to survive in Congo’s North and South Kivu provinces, Ituri province, and the Haut-Uélé region – where violence, displacement, and sexual violence are mainstays of daily life.

In addition to these efforts to bring this crisis into view for the world, Doctors Without Borders continue to carry out emergency surgery, treating injuries including gunshot wounds and burns; run mobile clinics to reach those who have fled to safer, more remote areas; provide health care in hospitals and health centers; respond to epidemics like cholera; provide medical care to victims of sexual violence; and provide psychological support for those traumatized by what they have experienced. The scale of this humanitarian crisis in the Congo is extremely large. In 2007, Doctors Without Borders employed more than 2000 field staff and spent more than 39 million euros to fund its projects in the country, most of them coming from private donations.

I personally implore you to please, at the very least, watch the video clip here and if you feel moved to help, please visit the Condition: Critical website or the Doctors Without Borders site to volunteer or donate whatever you can to help these amazing people on their difficult but important mission.

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” – The Dalai Lama

The Girl Effect.  Global Oneness.  (Red)Wire.  Starbucks. People Doing Good Things.

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I recently had the opportunity to speak with Greg Lee, the Chief Financial Officer of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and Livestrong, about the design and buildout of the new Livestrong world headquarters in Austin, Texas. Livestrong is in the process of converting a 30,000 square-foot, 1950′s-era industrial building into a modern, green, collaborative workspace for their foundation’s efforts to combat cancer. You may have seen some video clips of Lance Armstrong touring the new facility yesterday here on EdgeHopper. In this interview, Greg gives us a more detailed look at all of the sustainable design elements of the new building and discusses the long-term financial savings they will provide. He also delves into the collaborative nature of the space and the teams at the foundation. I was going to turn the interview into a blog post, but Greg provided so much great information in such a passionate way that I wanted to have you hear it from Greg himself.  I hope you enjoy this interview with a fantastic person from an amazing organization.

Greg Lee Interview

At the Lance Armstrong Foundation, we fight for the more than 28 million people around the world living with cancer today. There can be – and should be – life after cancer for more people. That’s why we kick in at the moment of diagnosis, giving people the resources and support they need to fight cancer head-on. We find innovative ways to raise awareness, fund research and end the stigma about cancer that many survivors face. We connect people and communities to drive social change, and we call for state, national and world leaders to help fight this disease. Anyone, anywhere can join our fight against cancer. Join us at LIVESTRONG.org.

About the LIVESTRONG Global Cancer Campaign

Lance made the decision to return to cycling because he thrives on competition. For his Foundation, the competition is the global threat of cancer. Cancer is poised to become the world’s leading cause of death by 2012. The Global Cancer Campaign is a worldwide initiative uniting everyone from survivors like Lance to world leaders and policymakers who must commit to the effort to avoid a public health catastrophe. To put it simply, we’re going to build a global movement against cancer, and we’re going to win.

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If you don’t sleep as well at The Benjamin Hotel as you do at home, Andy Labetti, General Manager for The Benjamin, will give you a free night’s stay. A good night’s sleep is non-negotiable. The Benjamin’s ‘Sleep Guarantee’ ensures that everyone who stays at the hotel walks away well rested or gets their money back. If a guest is dissatisfied with his or her sleep at The Benjamin, all they need to do is contact the front desk, and the hotel will refund the cost of their night’s stay.

And those aren’t just some words slapped on a hotel brochure. The Benjamin has gone to extraordinary lengths to back up the guarantee of a good night’s rest in New York, “the city that never sleeps.”

Andy told me “The Benjamin sells a good night’s sleep, and we guarantee each guest’s comfort by providing anticipatory services, such as remembering a pillow preference and having it waiting in the room upon check-in. We’ve also implemented a number of innovative initiatives, including our Sleep Concierge, a 12-choice pillow menu, our sleep guarantee and a variety of other sleep-inducing amenities through room service and our Wellness Spa. We always provide caring and genuine service with an innkeeper’s mentality to make every guest feel like their comfort and needs are our top priority, and we center everything the hotel does around following through on these expectations.”

In fact, three days before a guest is scheduled to arrive, the staff advises him or her of the pillow menu so that the pillow will be in the room when the guest arrives. The menu is amazing. It offers guests a selection of 12 different types of pillows from which to choose: down, upper body, buckwheat, satin, hypo-allergenic, water-filled, Swedish memory, magnetic therapy, a jelly neckroll, a five-foot body cushion, sound, maternity and a special anti-snore pillow. In addition to the pillows, the hotel features The Benjamin Bed: a Serta mattress created exclusively for The Benjamin, covered with 100% Egyptian Cotton 400-plus thread count sheets by Anichini and a down-filled comforter with luxurious triple sheeting. (The pillows, sheets, and mattresses have become so popular that they are now offered for sale for guests who want to sleep as well at home as they do at The Benjamin!) Aromatherapy bathroom amenities help guests relax and prepare for bed. In addition to the luxurious sleep amenities, The Benjamin’s windows are double-glazed with argon gas between the panes to help keep rooms quiet and restful. If you’ve ever slept in a midtown Manhattan hotel, you know how important that is!

When I asked Andy about The Benjamin’s edgecrafted marketing strategy, he told me “We realized that the number one productivity tool for today’s travelers wasn’t a laptop or Blackberry – it’s a good night’s sleep. The Benjamin is an innovator in the hospitality industry by recognizing that niche and being the first hotel to offer a 12-choice pillow menu and an on-staff Sleep Concierge to satisfy guest’s needs for a perfect night’s sleep.” He went on to say that “We are continually educating our staff so all associates know the latest sleep tips and breaking research in the sleep industry. Sleep intertwines throughout the whole culture at The Benjamin – from the sleep-inducing food we serve to the in-room soothing amenities and services we offer to the soothing sounds and smells that are infused throughout the property.”

I love that Andy said “Sleep intertwines throughout the whole culture at The Benjamin”. Culture, in addition to the unique services offered, is what seems to set The Benjamin apart. And that culture includes listening not only to their guests, but to their staff as well. “As an organization, it’s our culture to include our staff in all new ideas and innovations that we bring into The Benjamin,” Andy said. “We talk to our associates about what ideas they might have that we could implement so everyone is involved in the continuing development of the hotel and shares the responsibility to make sure it comes to fruition. As an example, when we introduce a new pillow, everyone has a chance to test it so they learn what the benefits are in case a guest asks them to recommend something for a specific ailment The Benjamin staff prides itself on the satisfaction scores we receive from past guests, and we are always working as a team to make sure we are continuing to raise those scores across the board.” Key point: Continuous improvement through teamwork and collaboration.

The Benjamin also actively collects feedback from their guests through one-on-one discussions and by hosting weekly managers’ receptions. No “How did we do?” cards here. They also put outside focus groups together for new ideas, and have staff meetings twice a month to talk about the future of The Benjamin. They discuss not only what’s happening inside The Benjamin, but also what other hotel companies are doing and how the hospitality industry is developing overall.

Now that’s edgecraft! That’s setting yourself up to be remarkable. A lot of hotels offer a “100% Satisfaction Guarantee”, but how many go to the lengths that The Benjamin does to actually make sure that their guests are satisfied. If you’re going to offer a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee to your customers, think about what The Benjamin does and ask yourself “Am I offering just words and hoping for the best, or am I actively doing something to make sure my customers are satisfied 100%?”

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Let me just say that I love crowdsourcing and crowdsourced projects. With all the things that are being crowdsourced today, one of the most interesting is the trend toward crowdsourcing journalism. On the forefront of this effort is HARO….or Help A Reporter Out. HARO is the brainchild of Peter Shankman, an entrepreneur and the CEO of The Geek Factory, a PR and Marketing boutique firm in New York City. Essentially HARO connects journalists who have questions or queries for their stories with YOU. It’s such a simple but amazing way to connect journalists with the widest possible selection of sources available to them. They ask a question…you answer it. As I said, I absolutely love crowdsourcing and I think that HARO has hit it out of the park with this one. As for rules, HARO has just this simple advice (and you might apply this in other areas of your life/business as well):

“Just promise me and yourself that you’ll ask yourself before you send a response: Is this response really on target? Is this response really going to help the journalist, or is this just a BS way for me to get my client in front of the reporter? If you have to think for more than three seconds, chances are, you shouldn’t send the response.”

That’s it. It’s simple, it’s effective and it requires very little effort…oh yeah, and did I mention it’s FREE. That’s what makes crowdsourcing work the best! Four letters: F-R-E-E.

Here’s how it works: After you register on HARO’s website, you receive a simple email a few times a day with questions and queries from legitimate reporters around the globe (totally not spammy either). If you are really able to answer the questions or are a qualified expert in an area of need, you can become a real source for the reporter. Today, there are 30,000 journalists who have used HARO, sending out more than 3000 queries per month to over 80,000 members. That’s a great network and a tremendous crowd to source from.

Right now, the emails contain queries for all sorts of categories. But, future plans are for additional break-outs with specific HARO notices for specific industry verticals.

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