“A smart strategist gravitates toward ill-defined and ambiguous opportunities.  That is because once everything has been defined and reduced to standard operating procedure, there is no money left to be made.” - Stuart Hart

The point he is making, and the same point Jeffrey Pfeffer, Jonas Ridderstrale, Lynda Gratton and others have made in our interviews, is the same - to be the market surprise, instead of be surprised, you need to create unique and original ways of conducting your business.  Lynda Gratton calls this “signature processes.”  Red Hat is a great example.  We were chatting with a senior executive at Red Hat and I explained part of a presentation we could provide which would showcase companies with leading implementation practices and he stopped me and said, “Look I don’t mean to interrupt but I can’t bring that story in here.  At Red Hat we do it the Red Hat Way.”  He went on to say of course they don’t ignore the market landscape or operate in some creative oasis, but that once they make a bet on a product or service, they execute their way.  By doing it the Red Hat Way, they also build great culture and engagement because everyone feels they are part of true creation.

A lifetime ago around 2001, while leading a small start-up we got together our customer research and stories and dreamed up an online system which could aid the learner and leader to use, apply, track, and campaign on our video learning assets.  Then we built the system and when we took it on the road test, people said, “Oh you’ve built an LMS.”  A what?  “You’ve created a a Learning Management System, although it’s got some stuff we haven’t seen before.”  We had indeed built an LMS before we had ever heard of one.  Instead of benchmarking LMS vendors (whom we didn’t know existed), and listening to our customers instead, we created something unique and did it with passion and energy because we believed in our originality and our ability to create a killer app.  The tip coming from emerging leadership is this: pay attention to the market yes, but be bold and original in what - and importantly how - you execute.

• Stephen Covey: “Pass the torch and listen.”
• Susan Scott: “Waiting to talk is not listening.”
• Keith Ferrazzi: “When you ask someone’s opinion, your next job is to listen and give a damn.”
• Marshall Goldsmith: “Let go of ‘yes, but…’ - stop adding too much value and listen.”
• Tim Sanders: “Recognize and welcome appreciation with a simple Thank you.”
• Warren Bennis: “Ask a probing question and then listen.”
• David Whyte: “The conversation IS the relationship.”

Mark Goulston’s new book, Just Listen, seeks to help people build stronger and more creative relationships through the power of deep listening.  Once you’ve been patient and thoughtful to learn effective listening skills, he says there are a few things you can do to encourage open listening in those you are speaking with.  Often when presenting a new or provocative idea, your audience may metaphorically cross their arms in their mind.  Even if they don’t provide any physical clues as to their position or opinion, if you can get them to gesticulate and open up in their posture and body language, their opinion is likely to follow.  A simple mechanism is to ask, “Can you show me what you mean by that?  Can you draw it for me?”  By asking for an illustration, it will engage their visual and creative energy and they are more likely to open their mind to new ideas.  Also by asking a provocative question, you’ll sharpen their listening skills because they understand you expect them to be active participant in the conversation, and not simply waiting to talk.  The tip is: get your audience to open up their posture and their mind will follow.

“Exaggerate the essential; leave the obvious vague.”
- Vincent van Gogh

Years ago Marshall Goldsmith taught me the lesson: stop adding too much value. I’m sure you’ve been in meetings and conversations in which those around the table keep upping the ante in an effort to display their brilliance and impress. This can be fun but sometimes not terribly constructive because there comes a point in which the idea or solution becomes over-engineered in way that is distracting for the customer and burdensome for the provider. The solution becomes inelegant.

Over-engineered coolness! Venetian Blind Sunglasses, 1950

Matthew May is working to convince companies that sometimes the very best ideas have something missing, are often elegantly simple and even imperfect.  Social media examples include Twitter in which the user community is building upon the architecture and constructing their own rules and functionality.  In-n-out Burger has their own secret menu constructed by their customers.  And Red Hat has created their own version of open source leadership they simply call the Red Hat Way.  A core tenet of the Red Hat Way includes the concept of transparency.  I asked one of their senior leaders what they meant by transparency - did they mean transparency in communication, or in their value chain management, or transparency in their customer business practices?  He said yes, and went on to explain their value system is intentionally non-specific, intentionally open by design.  Red Hat expects every one of their associates to come prepared to not just do their own work, but participate collaboratively in the mission of the company which is, to be the catalyst in the communities of customers, partners, and contributors.  That’s not only an audacious goal, but also a moving target in a constantly changing technology landscape.  And so Red Hat understands that they need to get everyone involved to keep their knees bent, stay open to change and adapt collaboratively to build signature processes, and be the market-changing surprise instead of be surprised by their competition.

Now that's a lotta guru! Here is Tim Sanders chatting with Gary Hamel after a recent event in Mountain View, CA. Tim came down to the studio to record a fresh series of videos on the Keys to Talent Management, and I can tell you they are pitch-perfect.

It’s simply not possible to perform competitively in a tiered command-and-control manner any longer.  To be sure, seismic change efforts marshaled by Ed Zander of Motorola or Anne Mulcahy at Xerox, are indeed awe-inspiring.  Remarkable corporate turn-arounds have historically been about executing on steely-eyed vision.  But that’s not the kind of change that will bring lasting and sustainable competitive advantage.  The kind of culture needed to foster sustainable creativity and engagement starts with something Hamel calls “management innovation.”  Then the process, product, and business architectures that create lasting competitive advantage start to emerge naturally.

Our next live event on Oct 20 features Matt May who talks about making innovation accessible at all levels of the organization, and the importance of creating environments where people come not just to do their own work, but rather improve the work of the organization.  Matt demystifies common descriptors about innovation being incremental or evolutionary or breakthrough, and instead prefers defining innovation as simply doing something better than it’s been done before.  Define innovation in this manner, and Matt says you can create an environment where innovation is suddenly accessible and achievable at all levels of the organization.

A few years later we had all graduated and set off on other adventures, and Paul returned to Zimbabwe to become a licensed river and bush guide and establish a touring company.  This story you might vaguely recall from over ten years ago, because his heroic efforts hit the international news wire, and was later featured in a National Geographic story.  Paul was guiding a group of tourists down the Zambezi river and had divided his clients between himself and the two other guides aiding him that day.  Paul was keenly aware hippos are notoriously territorial and took precaution to keep his group close and periodically bang the side of the boat to encourage the hippos to surface and be seen by their little armada.

Suddenly his friends guide boat was flipped by a 4,000lb hippo and both the guide and his clients were launched into the river.  Paul responded immediately and lept into the river to save his guide and direct his clients to the shore, but the hippo attacked Paul repeatedly holding him down beneath the surface, and eventually when he was freed by the beast and swam to shore, his arm had been nearly severed and his lung had been punctured.  The nearest surgeon was 270 miles away in Bulawayo over a dusty difficult jeep ride, and hours later upon arriving and the doctor was left with no choice but to amputate Paul’s arm.

Paul’s second act has been to marry, father three beautiful children and become a successful, dedicated and talented speaker, coach and inspiration for many around the world.  In the wake of this event, Paul has found strength.  Check him out - be inspired.

When Mary’s birthday arrived, Abena filled her skin with water and set off on the five mile journey to deliver her gift, yet the sun was strong and hot winds blew in her face and parched her lips.  She finished her water only halfway on her walk and arrived exhausted and parched.  Mary greeted her with cool towels for her feet and cold water to drink.  They spent the afternoon sharing stories of their families, hopes and dreams.

As the evening light approached Abena rose to leave.  They filled her skin with fresh water from the well and Mary asked for a mule-cart to bring Abena back to her village.  Abena stopped her gently, “Please understand your generosity is not necessary.  My walk is part of the gift.”

Let all of our efforts of gratitude be in the walk.  This true story was told to me by Jo Radner.  Enjoy.

When you moved you didn’t have a choice, closing day and walk-through with your buyers was looming. At work, think of it the same way: closing day is coming. The law of the last mile is finish what you started, take ownership, execute, get ‘er done. In Tim Sanders’ new book, Saving the World at Work, failing to finish affects more than you might think. Lack of execution on stated goals can infect a culture with an implicit suggestion that abandoning projects is OK, and can become anticipated. Tim cites Tom Peters’ suggestion that every project be outfitted with a 2% person – someone who owns that closing 2%. A cleaner.

And if you want to work and play and collaborate in a culture that covers the last mile, show the way. Or as Jim Kouzes puts it, “Model the Way.” Because leadership is the relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow. And believe, if you choose to lead the last mile, they will indeed follow because nothing inspires like finishing.

To cross the last mile, build both transparency and accountability into your projects. Keep progress highly visible to avoid starving the project of energy and to maintain momentum. And build accountabilities into the system so everyone understands the clear contributions and role they play.

Learn the Laws of the Saver Soldier

About a year ago I interviewed the pro-blogger and marketing guru David Meerman Scott.  I asked him, why don’t my blog readers comment that often?  He said I probably wasn’t saying incendiary or controversial things, which is fine depending on what I was trying to accomplish - and what I’m really trying to accomplish is to share the insights and ideas of those with leading ideas.  My original post led with the line “Einstein: The secret to creativity is hiding your sources.“  I received more notes and even a few comments on facebook to the effect that I had lost my mind.  My favorite was author and innovation guru Stephen Lundin who wrote simply “Say what?!”  I’m quite certain when Malcolm Gladwell said in his New Yorker review that Chris Anderson was wrong in his book Freeconomics, and then Seth Godin blogged that Malcolm was wrong they needed email filters to manage the deluge.  Tim Sanders recently posted a nice piece of advice that our digital footprint may need constant pruning.  Let me prune the original post…

Aside from Einstein’s famous brilliance, he was also famous for his wit and his quote is pure tongue-in-cheek.

I appreciate David Murray’s book, Borrowing Brilliance, because it helps to heighten our awareness that most all great ideas are built on the shoulders of giants.  We are all iterating on the great works of those before us and beware those who claim pure original thought.  In addition to that witty remark, Einstein also said:

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” - Albert Einstein

One of my favorite TED talks is by writer Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, who suggests in this talk that the current culture favors identifying individuals as Geniuses, and yet the etymology of genius is from the Latin meaning a guardian spirit or deity who watches over each person from birth and can, at times, emerge to influence the person’s works of art or labor.  Since the ‘genius’ was a disembodied spirit, the author had no total claim over the quality or originality of the finished work.  Elizabeth likes this idea because it reinforces our mortality and fallibility, and to be elevated to the status of being a genius is an intolerable burden.  Borrowing Brilliance is a wonderful work dedicated to understanding that the current ideas recognized as original thought are, in fact, built on the strength of those before who have, in turn, iterated on previous thought.  So read the quote and post here as a celebration of the great history of innovation we are constantly building upon.

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.  - Albert Einstein

In 1971 Ray Tomlinson was working on ARPANET and mashed up terminal networks with an existing application that allowed users on the same terminal system to share messages.  He wrote a script that allowed messages to distinguish between different machines and jump from one to another.  Bill Gates got the idea for Windows from Apple’s graphical user interface (GUI).  And Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species didn’t arrive fully formed from the cosmic muse, the ideas were germinating from the influence of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, who wrote The Laws of Organic Life in 1796, in which he suggested sexual behavior and competition might affect species change.

For a fun read on the derivative nature of innovation, check out Borrowing Brilliance by David Murray.

“Trust your people.  No matter what happens. When you give trust you get trust.” -Howard Behar, Former President, Starbucks

Howard said it referencing internal transparency, but of course he was standing on the shoulders of giants before him who said it many times over about the importance of honesty among colleagues.  What happens when you build trust and transparency in the marketplace as well?  Now, possibly more than ever in free trade commerce, consumers are asking discriminating questions about the source and visibility of the product chain.  A couple years ago Michael Pollen’s Omnivore’s Dilemma was one of many shots over the bow of comestible providers to say out loud that not only should food providers be more transparent in their sourcing and growing process, but that the consequences were market loss due to loss of trust.  Apply that principle to your t-shirts, or XBoxes, or even consulting or intellectual efforts - the market has a heightened bullshit detector and it has become increasingly difficult to hide as a provider.  If you have been able to stomach watching Food Inc., you’ll walk away with another insight altogether.

The Organic Exchange, with Historic Futures, has pioneered a track and trace program which validates the materials sourcing process to assert to the market that the end product has integrity.  The key idea is that, while providers do not “own” their supply chain per se, they must be accountable in building value along the way, and are ultimately accountable to the consumer that their product created value at all points along the chain.  Wouldn’t you feel better knowing your killer flash new sneakes weren’t stiched by child labor?  In this interview, David Bennell, Executive Director of Organic Exchange explains what this is all about.

The Results Only Work Environment is coming of age and the hypertension-inducing nation of clock-punching is eroding.  WL Gore, HCL Technologies, Google and Whole Foods are currently out front in management innovation and the race is on to build the 21st century play-space environments that foster the kinds of killer app product creation that happened organically in the 90s.  The thing is - we’re now understanding that these creative hotbeds don’t have to happen by happy accident.  We can create environments that are not command-and-control, that allow the best ideas to emerge and where resources gravitate to the best ideas, instead of being hierarchically allocated.

Google wants to be a highly inventive company with little tier-based control, and so attracts highly inventive people and then assigns managers about 60 direct reports, which is intentionally unmanageable.  Who can possibly exert granular management over 60 people?  That’s the point.  Google also is a world of radical transparency, or as Schmidt puts it, “highly porous.”  Because remember, if you want real sustainable competitive advantage it has to be in the DNA.  A product sleight of hand, or lucky market timing break won’t persevere.  As Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, says it so nicely here, “The culture defines the outcome.”