Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘Level 5 Courage’ Category

I used to believe others were responsible for my problem, now I believe I am responsible.  The turning point came when I was struggling with a stressful situation a friend gave me some simple advice.  He said “Look inside.”  For some reason, that was enough for me to start my transformation.

I used to compare myself to others.  It caused me great pain because I judged myself as inferior.  Over time I learned that others compared themselves to me and felt the same way.  Also, I learned that success brings problems of its own, namely worry and anxiety around losing what “success” has brought.  Though I still sometimes feel inferior, I’ve learned to recognize the symptoms, and once I call them by name, I can move forward.

I used to care too much about money.  Though I still care about money, I care more about time.

I used to wrestle with the past and worry about the future.  Now I sit in the present, and I like it better.   I still slip sometimes, but I catch myself pretty quickly.

I used to be largely unaware of my lack of awareness.  Now that I’ve learned to be more aware of it, I’m closer to the people I care about.  And I’m aware that I’m just getting started.

I used to want more of everything.  Now I have enough and I want to enjoy it.

I used to want to climb the corporate ladder, now I want to do amazing work.

I used to judge my younger self though my older self’s eyes.  That was unskillful.  I’ve realized that as a younger person my intensions were good, just as they are today.  And, I’ve learned that perfection is an unattainable goal and that sometimes I forget.

I used to think that I had to do everything myself.  Now I get great joy from helping others do things they thought they couldn’t.

I used to think of myself as a steamroller and I was proud of it.  Now I’m a behind-the-scenes conductor who is far more effective and much happier.

I used to be afraid to share my inner thoughts and feelings, but I’m getting better at that.

Image credit – Jai Kapoor

Even after playing lots of tricks to reduce its energy consumption, our brains still consume a large portion of the calories we eat.  Like today’s smartphones it’s computing power is too big for it’s battery so its algorithms conserve every chance they get.  One of its go-to conservation strategies is to make mental models.  The models capture the essence of a system’s behavior without the overhead of retaining all the details of the system.

And as the brain goes about its day it tries to fit what it sees to its portfolio of mental models.  Because mental models are so efficient, to save juice the brain is pretty loose with how it decides if a model fits the situation.  In fact the brain doesn’t do a best fit, it does a first fit. Once a model is close enough, the model is applied, even if there’s a better one in the archives.

Overall, the brain does a good job.  It looks at a system and matches it with a model of a similar system it experienced in the past.  But behind it all the brain is making a dangerous assumption.  The brain assumes all systems are static.  And that makes for mental models that are static.  And because all systems change over time (the only thing we can argue about is the rate of change) the brain’s mental models are always out of date.

Over the years your brain as made a mental model of how your business works – customers do this, competitors do that, and markets do the other.  But by definition that mental model is outdated.  There needs to be a forcing function that causes us to refute our mental models so we can continually refine them. [A good mantra could be – all mental models are out of fashion until proven otherwise.]  But worse than not having a mechanism to refute them, we have a formal business process the demands we converge on our tired mental models year-on-year.  And the name of that wicked process – strategic planning.

It goes something like this. Take a little time from your regular job (though you still have to do all that regular work) and figure out how you’re going to grow your business by a large (and arbitrary) percentage. The plan must be achievable (no pie in the sky stuff), it should be tightly defined (even though everyone knows things are dynamic and the plan will change throughout the year), you must do everything you did last year and more and you have fewer resources than last year.  Any brain in it’s right will fit the old models to the new normal and put the plan together in the (insufficient) time allotted. The planning process reinforces the re-use of old models.

Because the brain believes everything is static, it’s thinking goes like this – a plan based on anything other than the tried-and-true mental models cannot have certainty or predictability in time or resources.  And it’s thinking is right, in part.  But because all mental models are out of date, even plans based on existing models don’t have certainty and predictability.  And that’s where the wheels fall off.

To inject a bit more reality into strategic planning, ignore the tired old information streams that reinforce existing thinking and find new ones that provide information that contradicts existing mental models.  Dig deeply into the mismatch between the new information and the old mental models.  What is behind the difference?  Is the difference limited to a specific region or product line? Is the mismatch new or has it always been there?  The intent of this knee-deep dissection is not to invalidate the old models but to test and refine.

There is infinite detail in the world.  Take a look at a tree and there’s a trunk and canopy. Look at the canopy and see the leaves. Look deeper to see a leaf and its veins.  In order to effectively handle all this detail our brains create patterns and abstractions to reduce the amount of information needed to make it through the day.

In the case of the tree, the word “tree” is used to capture the whole thing – roots and all.  And at a higher level, “tree” can represent almost any type of tree at almost any stage in its life.  The abstraction is powerful because it reduces the complexity, as long as everyone’s clear which tree is which.

The message is this. Our brain takes shortcuts with its chunking of the world into mental models that go out style. And our brain uses different levels of abstraction for the same word to mean different things. Care must be taken to overtly question our mental models and overtly question the level of abstraction used when statements of facts are made.

Knowing what isn’t said is almost important as what is said. To maintain this level of clarity requires calm, centered awareness which today’s pace makes difficult.

There’s no pure cure for the syndrome. The best we can do is to be well-rested and aware. And to do that requires professional confidence and personal disciple.

Slowing down just a bit can be faster, and testing the assumptions behind our business models can be even faster.  Last year’s mental models and business models should be thought of as guilty until proven relevant.  And for that you need to make the time to think.

In today’s world we confuse activity with progress. But really, in today’s dynamic world thinking is progress.

Image credit – eyeliam.

If you’re serious about your work, you’re too serious.  We’re all too bound up in this life-or-death, gotta-meet-the-deadline nonsense that does nothing but get in the way.

If you’re into following recipes, I guess it’s okay to be held accountable to measuring the ingredients accurately and mixing the cake batter with 110% effort.  When your business is serious about making more cakes than anyone else on the planet, it’s fine to take that seriously.  But if you’re into making recipes, serious doesn’t cut it.  Coming up with new recipes demands the freedom of putting together spices that have never been combined.  And if you’re too serious, you’ll never try that magical combination that no one else dared.

Serious is far different than fully committed and “all in.”  With fully committed, you bring everything you have, but you don’t limit yourself by being too serious.  When people are too serious they pucker up and do what they did last time.  With “all in” it’s just that – you put all your emotional chips on the line and you tell the dealer to “hit.”  If the cards turn in your favor you cash in in a big way.  If you bust, you go home, rejuvenate and come back in the morning with that same “all in” vigor you had yesterday and just as many chips.  When you’re too serious, you bet one chip at a time.  You don’t bet many chips, so you don’t lose many.  But you win fewer.

The opposite of serious is not reckless.  The opposite of serious is energetic, extravagant, encouraging, flexible, supportive and generous.  A culture of accountability is serious.  A culture of creativity is not.

I do not advocate behavior that is frivolous.  That’s bad business.  I do advocate behavior that is daring.  That’s good business.  Serious connotes measurable and quantifiable, and that’s why big business and best practices like serious.  But measurable and quantifiable aren’t things in themselves.  If they bring goodness with them, okay.  But there’s a strong undercurrent of measurable for measurable’s sake.  It’s like we’re not sure what to do, so we measure the heck out of everything.  Daring, on the other hand, requires trust is unmeasurable.  Never in the history of Six Sigma has there been a project done on daring and never has one of its control strategies relied on trust.  That’s because Six Sigma is serious business. Serious connotes stifling, limiting and non-trusting, and that’s just what we don’t need.

Let’s face it, Six Sigma and lean are out of gas.  So is tightening-the-screws management.  The low hanging fruit has been picked and Human Resources has outed all the mis-fits and malcontents.  There’s nothing left to cut and no outliers to eliminate.  It’s time to put serious back in its box.

I don’t know what they teach in MBA programs, but I hope it’s trust.  And I don’t know if there’s anything we can do with all our all-too-serious managers, but I hope we put them on a program to eliminate their strengths and build on their weaknesses.  And I hope we rehire the outliers we fired because they scared all the serious people with their energy, passion and heretical ideas.

When you’re doing the same thing every day, serious has a place.  When you’re trying to create the future, it doesn’t.  To create the future you’ve got to hire heretics and trust them.  Yes, it’s a scary proposition to try to create the future on the backs of rabble-rousers and rebels.  But it’s far scarier to try to create it with the leagues of all-too-serious managers that are running your business today.

Image credit — Alan

“Here – I made this.”  Those are courageous words.  When you make something no one has made and you show people you are saying to yourself – “I know my work will be judged, but that’s the price of putting myself out there.  I will show my work anyway.”  I think the fear of being judged is enemy number one of creativity, innovation, and living life on your own terms.  If I had ten dollars of courage in my pocket I’d spend it to dampen my fear of being judged.

No one has ever died from the fear of being judged, but right before you show your new work, share your inner feelings or show your true self, is sure feels like you’re going to be the exception.  The fear of being judged is powerful enough to generate self-limiting behavior and sometimes can completely debilitate.  It’s vector of unpleasantness is huge.

At a lower level, the fear of being judged is the fear someone will think of you differently than you want them to.  It’s a fear they’ll label you with a scarlet letter you don’t want to own.  This mismatch is the gradient that drives the fear.  If you reduce the gradient you reduce the fear and the self-censorship.

No one can label you without your consent, and if you don’t consent there is no gradient.  If you think the scarlet letter does not fit you, it doesn’t. No mismatch.  When someone tries to hand you a gift and instead of taking it from them you let it drop to the floor, it’s not your gift.  If you don’t accept their gift there is no gradient.  But there is a gradient because you think the scarlet letter may actually fit and the gift may actually be yours.  You create your fear because you think they may be right.

In the end it’s all about what you think about yourself.  If your behavior is skillful and you know it, you will not accept someone else’s judgment and there’s no fear-fueling gradient .  If your approach is purposefully thoughtful, you will not consent to labeling.  If you know your intentions are true, there can be no external mismatch because there is no internal mismatch.

No one can be 100% skillful, purposeful, thoughtful and intentional.  But directionally, behaving this way will reduce the gradient and the fear.  But the fear will never go away, and that’s why we need courage.  Be skillful and afraid and do it anyway.  Be thoughtful and scared and do what scares you.  Be true to your heart’s intention and just courageous as you need to be to wrestle your fears to the ground.

Image credit – Paul Townsend

If on the first day on your new job your stomach is all twisted up with anxiety and you’re second guessing yourself because you think you took a job that is too big for you, congratulations.  You got it right.  The right job is supposed to feel that way.  If on your first day you’re totally comfortable because you’ve done it all before and you know how it will go, you took the job for the money.   And that’s a terrible reason to take a job.

You got the job because someone who knew what it would take to get it done believed you were the right one to do just that.  This wasn’t charity.  There was something in it for them.  They needed the job done and they wanted a pro.  And they chose you.   The fact their stomach isn’t in knots says nothing about their stomach and everything about their belief in you.  And the knots in your stomach?  That ‘s likely a combination of immense desire to do a good job and an on-the-low-side belief in yourself.

If we’re not stretching we’re not learning, and if we’re not learning we’re not living.   So why the nerves?  Why the self doubt?  Why don’t we believe in ourselves?  When we look inside, we see ourselves in the moment  – in the now, as we are.  And sometimes when we look inside there are only re-run stories of our younger selves.  It’s difficult to see our future selves, to see our own growth trajectory from the inside.   It’s far easier to see a growth trajectory from the outside.  And that’s what the hiring team sees – our future selves – and that’s why they hire.

This growth-stretch, anxiety-doubt seesaw is not unique to new jobs.  It’s applicable right down the line – from temporary assignments, big projects and big tasks down to small tasks with tight deliverables.   If you haven’t done it before, it’s natural to question your capability.  But if you trust the person offering the job, it should be natural to trust their belief in you.

When you sit in your new chair for the first time and you feel queasy, that’s not a sign of incompetence it’s a sign of significance.   And it’s a sign you have an opportunity to make a difference.  Believe in the person that hired you, but more importantly, believe in yourself.  And go make a difference.

Image credit – Thomas Angermann

Thriving is not striving. And they’re more than unrealated. They’re opposites.

Striving is about the now and what’s in it for me. Thriving is about the greater good and choosing – choosing to choose your own path and choosing to travel it in your own way. Thriving doesn’t thrive because outcomes fit with expectations. Thriving thrives on the journey.

Where striving comes at others’ expense, thriving comes at no one’s expense. Where striving strives on getting ahead, thriving thrives on growing. Striving looks outwardly, thriving looks inwardly. No two words are spelled so similarly yet contradict so vehemently.

Plants thrive when they’re put in the right growing conditions. They grow the way they were meant to grow and they don’t look back.  They thrive because they don’t second guess themselves. If they don’t grow as tall as others, they’re happy for the tallest. And if they bloom bigger and brighter than the rest, they’re thoughtful enough to make conversation about other things.

Plants and animals don’t strive. Only people do. Strivers live their lives looking through the lens of the zero sum game. Strivers feel there’s not enough sunlight to go around so they reach and stretch and step on your head so they get a tan and leave you to supplement with vitamin D.

I can deal with strivers that tell you they’re going to step on your head and step on it just as they said. And I have immense disdain for strivers that pretend they’re sunflowers. But when I’m around thrivers I resonate.

Strivers suck energy from the room and thrivers give it way freely. And just as the bumblebee gets joy from spreading the love flower-to-flower, thrivers thrive more as they give more.

If you leave a meeting feeling good about yourself and three days later you rethink things and feel like a lesser person, you were victimized by a striver. If you feel great about yourself after a meeting and three days later feel even better, you rubbed shoulders with a thriver.

Learn to spot the strivers so you can distance yourself. And seek out the thrivers so you can grow with them.

Image credit Brad Smith

Things don’t happen on their own, people make them happen.

With all the new communication technologies and collaboration platforms it’s easy to forget that what really matters is people.  If people don’t trust each other, even the best collaboration platforms will fall flat, and if they don’t respect each other, they won’t communicate – even with the best technology.

Companies put stock in best practices like they’re the most important things, but they’re not.  Because of this unnatural love affair, we’re blinded to the fact people are what make best practices best.  People create them, people run them, and people improve them. Without people there can be no best practices, but on the flip-side, people can get along just fine without best practices.  (That says something, doesn’t it?) Best practices are fine when processes are transactional, but few processes are 100% transactional to the core, and the most important processes are judgement-based.  In a foot race between best practices and good judgement, I’ll take people and their judgment – every day.

Without a forcing function, there can be no progress, and people are the forcing function.  To be clear, people aren’t the object of the forcing function, they are the forcing function.  When people decide to commit to a cause, the cause becomes a reality.  The new reality is a result – a result of people choosing for themselves to invest their emotional energy.  People cannot be forced to apply their life force, they must choose for themselves.  Even with today’s “accountable to outcomes” culture, the power of personal choice is still carries the day, though sometimes it’s forced underground.  When pushed too hard, under the cover of best practice, people choose to work the rule until the clouds of accountability blow over.

When there’s something new to do, processes don’t do it – people do.  When it’s time for some magical innovation, best practices don’t save the day – people do.  Set the conditions for people to step up and they will; set the conditions for them to make a difference and they will.  Use best practices if you must, but hold onto the fact that whatever business you’re in, you’re in the people business.

Image credit – Vicki & Chuck Rogers

Innovation Excellence announced their top innovation bloggers of 2014, and, well, I topped the list!

The list is full of talented, innovative thinkers, and I’m proud to be part of such a wonderful group.  I’ve read many of their posts and learned a lot.  My special congratulations and thanks to: Jeffrey Baumgartner, Ralph Ohr, Paul Hobcraft, Gijs van Wulfen, and Tim Kastelle.

Honors and accolades are good, and should be celebrated. As Rick Hanson knows (Hardwiring Happiness) positive experiences are far less sticky than negative ones, and to be converted into neural structure must be actively savored.  Today I celebrate.

Writing a blog post every week is challenge, but it’s worth it.  Each week I get to stare at a blank screen and create something from nothing, and each week I’m reminded that it’s difficult.  But more importantly I’m reminded that the most important thing is to try. Each week I demonstrate to myself that I can push through my self-generated resistance.  Some posts are better than others, but that’s not the point. The point is it’s important to put myself out there.

With innovative work, there are a lot of highs and lows.  Celebrating and savoring the highs is important, as long as I remember the lows will come, and though there’s a lot of uncertainty in innovation, I’m certain the lows will find me.  And when that happens I want to be ready – ready to let go of the things that don’t go as expected.  I expect thinks will go differently than I expect, and that seems to work pretty well.

I think with innovation, the middle way is best – not too high, not too low.  But I’m not talking about moderating the goodness of my experiments; I’m talking about moderating my response to them. When things go better than my expectations, I actively hold onto my  good feelings until they wane on their own.  When things go poorly relative to my expectations, I feel sad for a bit, then let it go.  Funny thing is – it’s all relative to my expectations.

I did not expect to be the number one innovation blogger, but that’s how it went. (And I’m thankful.)  I don’t expect to be at the top of the list next year, but we’ll see how it goes.

For next year my expectations are to write every week and put my best into every post.  We’ll see how it goes.

If I was CEO of a company that wanted to do innovation, the one thing I’d strive for is clarity.

For clarity on the innovative new product, here’s what the CEO needs.

Valuable Customer Outcomes – how the new product will be used.  This is done with a one page, hand sketched document that shows the user using the new product in the new way.  The tool of choice is a fat black permanent marker on an 81/2 x 11 sheet of paper in landscape orientation. The fat marker prohibits all but essential details and promotes clarity.  The new features/functions/finish are sketched with a fat red marker.  If it’s red, it’s new; and if you can’t sketch it, you don’t have it. That’s clarity.

The new value proposition – how the product will be sold. The marketing leader creates a one page sales sheet.  If it can’t be sold with one page, there’s nothing worth selling.  And if it can’t be drawn, there’s nothing there.

Customer classification – who will buy and use the new product.  Using a two column table on a single page, these are their attributes to define: Where the customer calls home; their ability to pay; minimum performance threshold; infrastructure gaps; literacy/capability; sustainability concerns; regulatory concerns; culture/tastes.

Market classification – how will it fit in the market.  Using  a four column table on a single page, define: At Whose Expense (AWE) your success will come; why they’ll be angry; what the customer will throw way, recycle or replace; market classification – market share, grow the market, disrupt a market, create a new market.

For clarity on the creative work, here’s what the CEO needs: For each novel concept generated by the Innovation Burst Event (IBE), a single PowerPoint slide with a picture of its thinking prototype and a word description (limited to 12 words).

For clarity on the problems to be solved the CEO needs a one page, image-based definition of the problem, where the problem is shown to occur between only two elements, where the problem’s spacial location is defined, along with when the problem occurs.

For clarity on the viability of the new technology, the CEO needs to see performance data for the functional prototypes, with each performance parameter expressed as a bar graph on a single page along with a hyperlink to the robustness surrogate (test rig), test protocol, and images of the tested hardware.

For clarity on commercialization, the CEO should see the project in three phases – a front, a middle, and end.  The front is defined by a one page project timeline, one page sales sheet, and one page sales goals. The middle is defined by performance data (bar graphs) for the alpha units which are  hyperlinked to test protocols and tested hardware.  For the end it’s the same as the middle, except for beta units, and includes process capability data and capacity readiness.

It’s not easy to put things on one page, but when it’s done well clarity skyrockets.  And with improved clarity the right concepts are created, the right problems are solved, the right data is generated, and the right new product is launched.

And when clarity extends all the way to the CEO, resources are aligned, organizational confusion dissipates, and all elements of innovation work happen more smoothly.

Image credit – Kristina Alexanderson

There are three prerequisites for greatness.

1. You have to believe greatness is possible.
2. You have to believe greatness is worth it.
3. You have to believe you’re worthy of the journey.

If you can’t see old things in new ways, see new things in new ways, or see what’s missing, you won’t believe greatness is possible.  To believe greatness is possible, you have to change your perspective.

Greatness is an uphill battle on all fronts, and to push through the pain requires weapons grade belief that it’s worth it. But the power isn’t in the payoff.  The power is the personal meaning you attach to the work.  Your slog toward greatness is powered from the inside out.

Here’s the tough one – you’ve got to believe you’re worthy of the journey.  At every turn the status quo will kick you in the shins, and you must strap on your self-worth like shin guards. And when it’s time to conger greatness from gravel, you must believe, somehow, your life force will rise to the occasion. But, to be clear, you don’t have to believe you’ll be successful; you only have to believe you’re worth the bet.

From the outside, greatness is all about the work. But from the inside, greatness is all about you.

Image credit – Dietmar Temps

If you want to run a brainstorming session to generate a long list of ideas, I’m out. Brainstorming takes the edge off, rounds off the interesting corners and rubs off any texture. If you want me to go away for a while and come back with an idea that can dismantle our business model, I’m in.

If you can use words to explain it, don’t bother – anything worth its salt can’t be explained with PowerPoint. If you need to make a prototype so others can understand, you’ve got my attention.

If you have to ask my permission before you test out an idea that could really make a difference, I don’t want you on my team. If you show me a pile of rubble that was your experiment and explain how, if it actually worked, it could change the game, I’ll run air cover, break the rules, and jump in front of the bullets so you can run your next experiments, whatever they are.

If you load me up to with so many projects I can’t do several I want, you’ll get fewer of yours. If you give me some discretion and a little slack to use it, you’ll get magic.

If, before the first iteration is even drawn up, you ask me how much it will cost, I will tell you what you want to hear. If, after it’s running in the lab and we agree you’ll launch it if I build it, I won’t stop working until it meets your cost target.

If there’s total agreement it’s a great idea, it’s not a great idea, and I’m out. If the idea is squashed because it threatens our largest, most profitable business, I’m in going to make it happen before our competitors do.

If twice you tell me no, yet don’t give me a good reason, I’ll try twice as hard to make a functional prototype and show your boss.

To do innovation, real no-kidding innovation, requires a different mindset both to do the in-the-trenches work and to lead it. Innovation isn’t about following the process and fitting in, it’s about following your instincts and letting it hang out. It’s about connecting the un-connectable using the most divergent thinking.  And contrary to belief, it’s not in-the-head work, it’s a full body adventure.

Innovation isn’t about the mainstream, it’s about the fringes. And it’s the same for the people that do the work.  But to be clear, it’s not what it may look like at the surface. It’s not divergence for divergence’s sake and it’s not wasting time by investigating the unjustified and the unreasonable. It’s about unique people generating value in unique ways. And at the core it’s all guided by their deep intention to build a resilient, lasting business.

image credit: Chris Martin.