We donʼt need to “be creative” and “think outside the box.”
We need to get outside the box.
One spring morning in the early 90s, my business partner found me laid out on a hospital bed with a respiratory ventilator strapped to my face. It was a fateful experience. Thankfully, it wasn’t medically necessary. I placed myself in that uncomfortable position, in order to feel what our customers were feeling--it was my company’s ventilator--and in an attempt to solve an intractable product performance puzzle.
After what seemed like hours of breathing, snoring, and snorting into a plastic mask, and while intently watching the changing shape of my breathing patterns on a bench oscilloscope, the answer to our design problem mysteriously appeared to me. It manifested itself as a “what if” question; one that our people fervently noodled over, experimented with and, eventually, brought to life in a very creative way.
I’ve often thought about that “Eureka” moment, and other sparks of inspiration I’ve experienced over the years. How does my mind manufacture these insights? Am I a right-brained person? And how did others like Page and Brin of Google, Starbucks’ Howard Shultz, and Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos, to name a few, come up with their breakthrough marketplace ideas, while others watched in disbelief.
Sometime around 2005, I was introduced to a theory of brain function that would answer my question, and radically change my views on both creativity and human behavior. That theory, or framework, is called memory-prediction. It was developed by Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palm Pilot, and described in his 2004 book On Intelligence:
“The brain is not a computer, supplying an output for each input it receives. Instead, it is a memory system that stores experiences in a way that reflects the true structure of the world, remembering sequences of events and their nested relationships and making predictions based on those memories. It is this memory-prediction system that forms the basis of intelligence, perception, creativity, and even consciousness.”
It appears the brain works like an elaborate and evolving “connect the dots” puzzle. Adding new experiences creates new dots, which makes our mental pictures richer and more insightful. My flash of insight, therefore, was not created by switching my brain from a rational, left-sided orientation to a more intuitive, right-brained one. Instead, my new breathing experience added some critical missing dots to a partial picture; enough dots for the pattern to magically appear in my mind’s eye.
In his book The Future of Capitalism, Lester Thurow wrote, “ . . . [we] are about to enter a world of punctuated equilibrium--a period of economic change so dramatic and unsettling that America’s middle class, as we now know it, may simply cease to exist.” He concluded, “ . . . business must learn to operate in a world where human capital or ‘brain power’ is the only strategic competitive asset.”
We’ve entered that period. We live in that world. Yes, it’s time to turn on our “brain power,” but we don’t need more brainstorming. We need to turn off theories and turn on uncertainty by experiencing life firsthand. We need to spawn new patterns by creating new experiences. We need more dots.
This Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, a de facto national holiday in the United States. It's a day for friends and family, spicy chili and bottomless bowls of chips and dip. And . . . a little bit of football.
Did you know that in the upcoming three-hour televised event, there will be about 11 minutes of actual game play? 11 minutes! That's probably not your perception, your reality, but it's a fact nonetheless.
Truth vs. Fact
In his book Story, the legendary screenwriter Robert McKee wrote, “What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.” Truth is perception.
The fact is U.S. football is a raw, dirty, tedious block-and-tackle game. If you’ve never played, you probably can’t appreciate the distinction between the game as it exists in reality and how it comes to life for the benefit of the television audience.
Trust me when I tell you: TV football is nothing like the gridiron. It’s also a fact that chili is nothing like a garden and a cow. And the people in the television commercials are nothing like the people who work for the advertisers.
Theatre and Substance
One of the National Football League's all-time greats, Jim Brown, once quipped, "I'm not interested in trying to work on people's perceptions. I am who I am, and if you don't take the time to learn about that, then your perception is going to be your problem."
Jim Brown is wrong when it comes to the marketplace of products, services, entertainment and causes. Perception is reality. And it's your job to create that perception.
The perception of an NFL game - enhanced by myth-making, theatre, and video production and post production - has created the reality of the television experience and its soaring popularity. The same is true of all great brands.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that the marketplace is all about image. Today the substance of a brand is more important than the sizzle in creating resonant associations and giving customers the subsequent feeling.
What I am saying is that there’s a theatre part to your work and there’s a substance part. Don't listen to Jim Brown; he was mere substance. Instead, be like the NFL. Combine substance with theatre. Be disciplined and creative, and bring what you do to life in a meaningful and compelling way.
What a silly headline. I mean everyone knows that the purpose of advertising is to sell stuff, right?
Well, not always. Sometimes it's to get people to stop doing things (e.g. littering), start doing things (e.g. voting), and keep doing things (e.g. being proud and productive associates).
In any and all events, the purpose of advertising is to affect viewer and listener behavior. The real question is, What's the best way to go about it?
We're going to witness a subset of corporate America's answer to that question during this Sunday's Super Bowl broadcast, when they display the results of their collective brain power and combined investment of more than $200 million (the most expensive real estate on TV).
For many of those advertisers, the viewer behavior desired will be transparent and really quite simple:
Most commercials will probably be about nothing. There won't be a compelling reason to consume their stuff weaved into the ads, since their stuff is pretty much the same stuff as their competitors' stuff; think beverages, salty snacks, and candy bars. Their solution: Get you to like and remember their brands, so when you walk through the store you'll (hopefully) reach out and grab a few.
Some advertisers will take a more subtle approach to the aforementioned strategy by acting as corporate sponsors of various portions of the game; $500k coin toss anyone? Others will employ a more experiential, sampling strategy; for example the network (NBC) and various movie studios will broadcast clips and trailers to whet viewers appetites for their upcoming shows.
Some, most notably automakers, will likely try to wow viewers with artsy displays of their new products, while others will use celebrities, babies, and animals to grab viewer's attention while casually highlighting their products' positive attributes (dot coms readily come to mind).
If, like me, you get your jollies out of studying and understanding what drives human behavior, you're in for a highly entertaining and revealing exhibition.
So, would I invest in a 30-second spot during this year's Super Bowl game to get my message in front of 100 million+ people? Perhaps.
First, I'd have to be at a complete loss as to where to invest the $3.5 million to improve my product, help my community, or enhance my customers' experiences with my organization (and my partners' organizations). The best marketing will always be passionate people.
Next, I'd have to have something ready to deliver that uniquely feeds people's hungers. When they search (which they will invariably do for all non-impulse purchases), I'd make sure they discover a frictionless experience wrapped enticingly around something highly desirable.
And finally, I'd have to star in the ad. :)
Okay, I'm kidding on that last point. But I'm not kidding when I emplore you to rethink advertising. It shouldn't be used as a mindless tool in a margin sucking game of share point improvement. Rather, it should be used to introduce people, and excite them, to new possibilities that can genuinely improve their lives.
And what should you do, in the short term, if you're fresh out of new possibilities to advertise? I don't know, open your heart and use your God-given imagination. Take the $3.5 million and turn on the lights at all of the local ball fields for a year. Rent some buses and shuttle a bunch of disabled veterans to a sponsored Super Bowl party. Do anything that will demonstrate your integrity of purpose and your imaginative vision.
And you know what? It may even cause people to like you, remember you, talk about you, and consume your stuff.
The same people who control your destiny.
Late last year the boxing world lost a legend when Joe Frazier, the first man to defeat Muhammad Ali, died of liver cancer at age 67. Frazier, an Olympic and undisputed world heavyweight champion, did more than beat "The Greatest;" he was instrumental in the creation of brand Ali through their epic trilogy of bouts in the 1970s. And likewise, Ali helped create the brand "Smokin' Joe."
It's indisputable that Ali could "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee," and had a knack for feeding the media's hungers. But neither he nor Joe was "in control" of his brand. The boxing relationships were mutual, not causal. Everyone was in it together, for themselves: the fighters, the fans, the reporters, the promoters, the networks, even the Black Muslims co-created their realities and their reputations (whether they were aware of it or not).
In the same way, organizations are not in control of their brands. And neither are consumers. No one is in control. The idea of being in control implies that the future is predictable. But future events are not passive to past events. The future unfolds like an improvisational performance. You can play a part, but you don't write the plot. Despite today's growing obsession with data and measurement, the marketplace is not a predictable process. It's a dance.
Unfortunately, many leaders continue to respond to our complex, rapidly changing and increasing uncertain times with simplistic, cause-and-effect thinking and actions. Instead of embracing the hearts and minds of intelligent, self-interested and socially influenced human beings, they anxiously attempt to cause success to happen through a hodgepodge of uninspiring techniques and tactics. Doing what's vital, challenging, and remarkable has been replaced by a dispassionate calculus of consequences.
Great leaders understand the distinctions of today's tumultuous marketplace. They've given up the need to control events, have come to terms with their fears and egos, and are dedicated to adding value and happiness to people's lives. They inspire. They embrace change. They accept the uncertainty of the future. They trust people and help them live their dreams. By giving up the idea of control, they end up with the kind of relationships they really want; trusting and mutually beneficial ones. They move from the illusion of persuasive power to the reality of collaborative creation.
Charles F. Keating wrote, "A problem well stated is a problem half solved." Who controls the brand? isn't a problem well stated. In fact, it isn't a problem at all. For inquisitive types, it's a rhetorical question to help ponder the nature of success in today's chaotic marketplace. For everyone else, it's a distraction. Business and work are not problems to be solved; they're integral parts of our evolving stories. Success is not knowing how everything happens and then attempting to control it. Success is being inspired by something, and then flat out doing it.
There's a huge dynamic underway, a cultural shift in the world of business accelerated by the rapid adoption of social technologies. This new worldview is about being human, as much as about being in business. It's about tuning in to your audience's new frequency. Turning on your inherent sense of curiosity and empathy. And ultimately, it's about being open and standing out in a marketplace that's bursting at the seams with self-centered, look-alike products, services and salespeople.
A successful transition to this new model requires 10 fundamental changes in mindset and behavior:
P.S. These principles are not new (I wrote them over 8 years ago). I am happy, however, to find many people finally catching on, or perhaps empowered to speak up, aided by the recent advancements in social technologies. Please keep it up! The establishment needs your 21st century, tuned-in perspective.
Have you noticed that whenever the economy stalls most business leaders inappropriately cry “be innovative” when what they really mean is “be resourceful:”
“Times are tough people. We have to look for ways to do more with less. Let’s innovate!”
It certainly sounds more scholarly than “Buckle down!” but it’s still wrong. Innovation is not a mandated, disjointed course of action for optimizing daily activities. It’s a collaborative, strategic endeavor designed to add value to people's lives, while increasing the value of ones brand over time.
What is innovation?
Ask ten people to define innovation and you’ll get eleven answers. It’s a lot like asking people to define the word “branding.” The origin of the word innovate is simply, “to alter or renew.” But that’s about as useful as defining branding as, “to mark with, or as if with, a hot iron.” It doesn’t help inform decisions in an increasingly complex workplace and highly competitive marketplace. Here’s my view:
Innovation is the successful application of a new idea that results in a more desirable customer experience, and which is believed will make the brand more valuable to everyone over time.
Innovation, in this context, can range from business model and supply chain innovation to designing new products and processes, creative pricing and financing, even to the way people communicate. The new idea can be breakthrough or incremental. It can be a significant game changer, or a simple smile inducer. The one thing that it should not be is haphazard.
Idea generation may be chaotic and messy, but innovation needs to be purposefully designed and carefully orchestrated to inspire and align people, and to increase the value of the brand over time. What ever changes you make--from improvements in the product and productivity to innovations in sales and marketing--must ultimately be made around things that matter to everyone.
That’s right; they have to be things that you and your people, as well as your customers and the community, care deeply about. Because in today’s product saturated and increasingly transparent world, the marketplace will call out phonies and sycophants. More importantly, your people will only become engaged and creative when their activities have significant personal meaning, meaning beyond money. When it comes to something as challenging as innovation, passionate intent and total engagement is paramount.
People do not fear change.
Despite what conventional wisdom continues to whisper in your ear, people are not afraid of change. What they’re afraid of is darkness, uncertainty, the unknown. The most typical employee reaction to, “Let’s innovate!” is fear and confusion, because they don’t know what the hell that means. It’s like a coach yelling, “Let’s win!” without ever going over the strategy and tactics necessary to win (and with a bigger, more skilled opponent staring you in the face).
Why in the world will people change what they are doing without a clear vision of what that change will produce in the future? They won’t, especially not during tough economic times when every activity and dollar spent is routinely scrutinized. It is the duty of today’s leaders to eliminate that fear; to communicate a vivid and inspiring vision of the future, to shake things up, and to coach and encourage people to innovate.
Innovation has nothing to do with the ebb and flow of the economy, and everything to do with an organization's integrity of purpose. Its enemy is the reactionary rhetoric and disjointed activities that infect every organization that has taken its eyes off the ball and has lost the passion and resolve required to uniquely add value to people’s lives.
Don't let that happen to you.
Take a look at your office. It's a box. Your computer? Another box. You leave work, climb into a box, and drive home to another, more expensive box.
Once settled into your box, you grab something to eat from a refrigerated box and plop down in front of a mesmerizing box.
Do you want to know what's draining your energy and passion? Confinement. Detachment. Comfort. Certainty. The "boxes."
Forget the bull about "thinking outside the box." If you want your passion to return, you've got to start living outside the box.