Lanny Goodman: May 2008 Archives

When was the last time you had an "ah-ha!" moment?

Seems as though they come in two versions.  The first version is when your worldview shifts.  These ah-has are usually permanent.  Once things have shifted, they don't ever go back.  Discovering complexity theory was that for me, the notion that all systems have a natural tendency to self-organize.  Head slappers.

The other type is more ephemeral and usually an observation or insight on ourselves or our organizations.  These are at least as if not more important but have a tendency to slip away quickly.  If you've ever flown on a day with low overcast skies and as the plane takes off, at some point gets above the cloud deck into astonishing sunlight.  Sooner or later, however the plane begins its decent back into the murk.  So it is with these moments of insight.

How to somehow insure that these insights are not lost?  

1) Write them down.

2) Act on them.  Now.

That's what you can do in my experience.

I had one today.  And I'm acting on it by writing this blog.

The insight was this: The output of my work is not nearly as creative as the output of my brain.  

Anyone else ever share this reality?  (Raise your hand.) 

There is a reason for this, actually, but it is a problem that is amenable to process improvement.  Here's the issue:

Accomplishing anything involves two design problems:  the first is the design of what you would like to create.  The second design problem is how to execute the results of the first design problem.  What normally happens is one of two things:

1. We start trying to figure out the second design problem concurrent with the first design problem.  This turns the whole exercise into a fur ball and typically fatally compromises both the quality of the vision and the quality of execution.

2. We get so bogged down in the details of execution that the execution is late or never gets done at all and as a result we don't innovate at anything like the pace either of which we are conceptually capable or that we need to to maximize mining of our markets.

Solutions:

1. Never worry about execution during the creative design phase.

2. Build the organizational infrastructure for execution.  Hire an assistant, hire a project manager, contract with an agency, bring in a temp, set up an office space, put up a big bulletin board, do whatever you need to do to capture those ideas and get them executed quickly.

3. Engrave the following mantra in your brain: "The Key to Innovation is Miniaturization."  Execute all your ideas on a small scale.  They will execute much more quickly, you won't got bogged down with budget discussions, accountants and lawyers won't get involved (and no one can shut down execution faster than lawyers and accountants) and if the idea turns out to be a dud, so what?  The cost was relatively trivial.  If it actually works, then put more resources behind it and push.  Your worst enemy is your own organization.  

It's worth remembering that the fundamental imperative behind every organization is to make sure that absolutely nothing new ever happens.  To get something new happening you have to push people out of their comfort zones, or (if you're smart) pull people out of their comfort zones.  Bring a wild new idea to the table and everyone's brakes lock.  Bring a proven concept to the table and people will at least listen and chances are someone will get excited and pick up the ball and start to run.

Now I've got to go figure out how to apply this wisdom to my own life and business!

The classic example is the tobacco industry.  One hundred years ago, tobacco was an honorable business to be in.  But as it grew and became a very valuable (financially) institution, and knowledge of the deleterious effects of tobacco became known, its members found themselves unable to make appropriate value judgments, such as saying, "We really should get out of this business because it's killing people."  Instead (as further discovery revealed) they began figuring out how to target women and children, develop additives that made cigarettes more addictive and generally compounded the felony of remaining in that business.  The ultimate expression of this was the spectacle of the nine CEOs of the largest tobacco companies on national television lying to Congress about their knowledge and activities.

As our knowledge and understanding evolve, we have to be very careful that our business doesn't stunt our growth.  The case for global warming is another example.  The only major country in which there is any serious debate about global warming is the US.  Why?  Because of a very carefully orchestrated disinformation campaign by the oil companies.  (For extensive documentation of this just Google "global warming disinformation".)  Given the potential impacts of climate change, how can the people involved justify these kinds of actions which by any standard of measure are immoral?  

In my writing on self-management, I've made the case that people's behavior is a product of the ecosystem in which they work.  It's not difficult to see how people get locked into a system where there is way too much peer pressure for individuals who have qualms to be able to change the system.  The system has way too much inertia to allow for a voice of sanity to be heard.  Meanwhile, the participants in the system are stuck in a moral dead end.  The knowledge of the inappropriateness of what they are doing is there, but they are unable to respond so they have no choice but to resolve this cognitive dissonance by conjuring up some justification for their behavior.  Taken to its extreme, this can have serious legal implications (e.g. tobacco).  For the entrepreneur, the issue is more one of developing a case of values blindness which stunts our spiritual growth.

Our understanding of what is healthy and in alignment with nature is growing by leaps and bounds.  Is your business built around an obsolete model?  If your business has to do with food, large energy consumption, large percentage of cost or value in throw-away packaging, or is of little intrinsic value (e.g. impulse purchases), this would be a good time to think long and hard about how to transform your business.

Would there be a cost?  Sure.  Would there be dislocation?  Sure.  But think of it this way, someone out there without the liability of the organizational and market inertia you have is laying awake at night trying to figure out how to displace you with products and services that make yours either irrelevant or unappealing to generations of consumers who are looking at what they buy in very different ways than has historically been the case.  

Ultimately the issue is that in times of great change, the status quo is the most dangerous strategy.  Not only does it bring a significant business risk, but values blindness is a significant personal risk as well.