Blessed Unrest

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because it is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.  And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and it will be lost.  The world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions.  It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.  You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.  You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges the motivate you.  Keep the channel open.

No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time.  There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” 

                                                              - Martha Graham, to Agnes de Mille,
                                                              as quoted by Sara Bareilles in her book “Sounds Like Me”

5 Emerging AV/IT Technologies – The Revolution

Thank you to Cindy Davis for the conversation about Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. 

Read the whole article, "5 Emerging AV/IT Technologies - The Revolution," in AV Technology Magazine. 

The Four R’s of User Research

1. Right user
2. Right methodology (asking the right questions)
3. Right analysis
4. Right time (in the process)
   - Strategist at PayPal

Free Business Idea #32

What if someone combined a pizza place (like MOD) with the business model of Toms shoes?  For every pizza sold, one would be given to a hungry person (through a school, at a homeless shelter, through service agencies, etc).  I bet people would pay a little more for their pizza knowing they are helping a good cause.  Plus, it could make people choose your pizza place over others when corporate events and birthday parties came around.  It would taste good and make them look good while they are doing good.

Someone should do this.  And tell me about it.  You’re welcome.

5 Things to Learn From Bad Leaders

I saw one of those motivational parody posters once that said, “Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.”

I feel that the same can be said of the nightmare managers and bad bosses we have all had in our careers.

One thing that leaders can do to avoid running a company into the ground is let people tell them the truth.

Here are 5 things you can learn from bad leaders.

1. Bad leaders don’t listen

No one sets out to be a bad leader. Even incompetent or emotionally-injured people generally want to do a good job.

And perhaps more often than not, people don’t realize that they aren’t good leaders. Speaking truth to power is difficult and uncomfortable and possibly risky, so people don’t generally tell their managers how they really feel.

If the manager has created an environment where bad news doesn’t get shared, then no one is going to share the news that the leader is bad.

I once asked a CEO boss of mine what was the one thing that leaders could do to avoid running a company into the ground (a time-worn description we have all heard to describe the work of a value-destroying CEO), and he said, “Let people tell you the truth.”

This means creating the right environment of humility and openness, and getting the right people.

2. Bad leaders make bad hires

Bad leaders often hire people who are like them — people who think like them, have similar temperaments, experiences, or even the same alma mater.

Sometimes that works out great because of the comradery and teamwork that develops. But more often, the corner office becomes an echo chamber where new ideas, fresh approaches and alternative views can’t be voiced.

3. Bad leaders don’t fire fast enough

Driven by ego (or naïve optimism that things will miraculously get better for no rational reason), bad leaders don’t like to admit they have made bad hires, and they are more likely to hold onto a poor performer until a lot of damage has been done — not only the opportunity cost to the business or the direct impact of mistakes, but also damage to the credibility of the leader.

4. Bad leaders do the wrong things well

Sometimes leaders can get so fixated on the process, continuous improvement and infrastructure required to scale the business that they forget the value of the business as perceived by their customers. This can lead to the automation of processes that make the company worse.

I have been part of improvement initiatives that assumed the way we were doing something was right and we just had to speed it up or make it less labor intensive, only to find out that it was a waste of time and resources. So we just found a better and faster way of wasting money.

Leaders should know which products make them money, which customers have the best overall lifetime value, and what campaigns or initiatives have delivered the most tangible results in recent times.

5. Bad leaders do the right things poorly

Finally, leaders who rose through the ranks on their technical merits or intellectual prowess might find themselves ill-equipped for the soft-skills part of their job. In his book Emotional Intelligence, author Daniel Goleman outlines why being able to identify and empathize with others is a better predictor of success than IQ.

Bad leaders don’t have the necessary skills to deal positively with conflict, defuse tense situations, provide clear direction in the face of uncertainty, and truly lead.

The good news about these characteristics is that they aren’t set in stone. Being a bad leader isn’t fixed in the stars or determined like a person’s height or eye color. These are things that can be developed and with mentoring, thoughtful consideration and work. If you want to be a good leader, strive for it.

This article was originally posted on The Business Journals.

Millennials: The Summary

Other generations owned big things, like homes and cars, and shared communications, like phones.

This generation shares big things and owns their own communications. 

Impossible and Safe

“A fatherless girl thinks nothing is impossible and nothing is safe.”
– May Sarton as quoted by Gloria Vanderbilt on the documentary she did together with her son Anderson Cooper

If this is true (and thankfully, I don’t have personal experience), what will this mean to our world as so many girls are growing up without fathers in their lives.  More invention.  More innovation.  More paranoia.  More pessimism or more optimism?

Pasteboard Book Backs and #NoFilter

“I think we are an outfit headed for extinction,” commented Ernest Hemingway upon seeing fake books in his fancy hotel room.  Later, it is said that Hemingway went back to the bookcase and stood there stiffly and as he looked at the pasteboard backs again he said, “Phony, just like the town.”  A town who had criticized his writing and was constantly jockeying for their best position at the expense of those who created art.

I think there are a lot of pasteboard book backs in our world as well.  Things that are staged for the sale, but not lived in.  Furniture that distressed with sandpaper, not with life.  People who are photoshopped (as a verb) and filtered until unrecognizable.  So much so that photos posted unaltered and raw on social media are often tagged #nofilter, as the opposite is too common.

This makes the authentic so attractive. 

The Power of Feedback

High self-awareness is a key element in business success. It can be easily overshadowed by the sexier traits of charisma or sheer intellectual genius.  A study a few years back by Green Peak Partners and Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, quantified what employees have known for a while: "Companies and their investors need to put more effort into evaluating the interpersonal strengths of potential leaders. They should focus more on how a leadership candidate does the work, and not focus exclusively on what he or she has done.” 

How one gets things done and the improvements one might make over time are rooted directly in a leader’s ability to face truth about themselves. According to the authors of Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck, leaders can improve themselves. According to their Harvard Business Review article, leaders must become “more aware of what motivates them and their decision making.”

In the end, there are three characteristics of feedback that I believe capture why it is critical to our success; Feedback is a mirror, a gift, and a miracle.

Self-Awareness Requires a Mirror

I don’t mean the kind of mirror by which you check your teeth for spinach or fix your hair. I don’t mean the kind of mirror that customer service agents to make sure they are smiling when taking phone calls (however effective that might be). I am referring to a different type of mirror. The kind that tell you how you are showing up in your professional life that leads to self-awareness and reflection. That mirror is feedback.

"Although the quietest of the emotions self-awareness is an incredible predictor of emotional intelligence," writes Daniel Goleman in a study with Korn Ferry Institute. Turns out, the ability to respond to crisis, develop teams, and manage your own emotions are all skills that can be improved with better self awareness.

Every journey begins with a first step and there are a variety of assessments that you can take to improve your self-awareness. Some of my favorite are profiled here for your reference. I have used Kolbe and StrengthsFinders as team building tools, as well, to help us better understand our team mates and how to work together.

Feedback is a Gift that Isn’t Easily Given (or Received)

“Not all gifts arrive in neat packages,” said Carole Robin, director of the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows Program at Standard Graduate School of Business. “This is definitely true for feedback.” Leaders must be exceptional at giving feedback in order to develop their teams and achieve their goals.   Feedback delivered with candid compassion can transform businesses and relationships and most of us could improve our performance.

Leaders have a double responsibility however. They also need to make sure they are not missing out on the opportunity to receive the gift of feedback themselves. Ken Blanchard called feedback “the breakfast of champions.” And sometimes that breakfast is served is too cold, too warm, or too late, but it can be nourishing in any case.

We need to persevere and to find people who can tell us the truth.  “We all need people who can give us feedback,” said Bill Gates. “That’s how we improve.”

People are often hesitant to give pointed feedback to their boss or colleagues. The conversations are awkward and best and can be career limiting, if the leader values comfort and coddling over results and responsibility (and we have all known a few of those).

The gift of feedback must be received and given with open hands, open hearts, and open minds.  Create forums for feedback like 1:1 meetings, office hours, or surveys. In listening sessions, sit with your arms in a neutral position and try to constrain your reactions or defensive tendencies.

And just like your grandmother taught you: not all gifts are what you want, but because it is the “thought that counts” you have to treat the gift, and the giver, with graciousness. You must look for how you can best apply what you are learning. You may end up disregarding portions of what was shared, but it is in the consideration and reflection that changes occur.

Truth Telling is a Miracle (considering the obstacles)

In their book Execution, authors Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, talk about the seven key traits of a leader and among them are “know yourself” and “insist on realism.” That last topic was so impactful to their thinking and their business success that they went on to write Confronting Reality. Yet in order for leaders to face reality, they need to be told the truth and they need to hear it clearly.

Failure to listen is more common than head cold among senior leaders. Combine this with the difficulty of speaking truth to power and it is no wonder that leaders can live in an echo chamber of glossed-over good news and ungrounded positivity.  We criticize our culture for believing fake news, but often live in a world of fake news about ourselves and our businesses. It is a wonder hard truth is ever spoken, in fact. We are all guilty of not speaking up boldly enough or not being as open to feedback as we should have. It really is a miracle when it happens. Yet, it is a miracle that we can encourage and even facilitate with the right behaviors and attitudes.

In addition to being open to constructive criticisms, it is critical that you understand the data that indicates business success. In most environments, these include revenue and margin or market share data as backward looking indicators. It is also important to look at early or forward-looking indicators such as sales funnel analysis or engagement metrics on key tools or campaigns known to convert to sales. These business dashboards serve the same purpose as the dashboard of your car: providing you a feedback loop that indicates if you are running at speed, violating conditions of success, or if you have a crisis pending. Data reporting and analysis can be an important part of your truth telling toolkit.

With a combination of mirrors, gifts, and miracles, we can lead better businesses and lead them better.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn Pulse.

On Burdens

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it." - Lena Horne

3 Reasons Why InfoComm Is Like the Family Reunion of the Industry

As we start to plan for InfoComm 2017 in June, I was struck by how the show has become the family reunion of our industry.

Here are three reasons why

1.  It is the “don’t miss” event of the summer

If you are in the AV industry, you start each year by putting InfoComm on your calendar.  You schedule things like vacations and graduation celebrations around it.  You make sure you book early.  You show up anticipating something great!

2. You always learn something new

At your actual family reunion, you might hear a new story about your favorite aunt.  You might learn that your second cousin can also wiggle his ears like you.  You might get your niece’s prize potato salad recipe.  At InfoComm, you can learn about the latest standards, take CTS-certified courses and get “recipes” that you can use for upcoming projects and client jobs.

3.  It is the chance to reconnect

If you work in the AV industry, there are friends, colleagues and partners that you only might see once a year at this show.  You learn what is new with their business and what trends they are following and, if you are lucky, those personal relationships also cross over to updates on the kids and hobbies.   We love connecting with customers and hearing about their successful projects and what they have planned.  And these conversations always end with the earnest promise to stay in touch and help each other out throughout the year

I am looking forward to InfoComm this year and I’ll see you there.  I’ll be the one wearing the “AV Family Reunion 2017” t-shirt!

This blog was originally posted on InfoComm All Voices.

Lean MKTG at PDX Marketing Forum

It was a pleasure to join with marketing leaders in Portland for the PDX Marketing Forum and discuss how we can apply principles from Lean Six Sigma and Agile Development to the new challenges that marketers face in our dynamic environment and economy.  Thanks to Dan Bruton and the organizing committee for inviting me to share some insights.

Staying Curious

"I suggest you take everything as a good sign. You'll fall asleep happy and wake up curious. If that's madness, let me be mad." - Martha Beck

Dead Cat Bounce

I recently heard the serial entrepreneur, Bret Taylor, speak with Kara Swisher from Recode: Decode about the redesign they did of FriendFeed before selling it to Facebook.  He called the redesign a “dead cat bounce,” implying that the product had already lost to a competitor and it was a last-ditch effort to bring it to life, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

It got me thinking.  Does bouncing a dead cat back to life ever work?  At what point did he know it was dead?  What would have been saved (in money, time, or “life force”), if he hadn’t bounced the cat one last time?

I don’t know much about FriendFeed, and I am in no place to judge, as I know that I have bounced a dead cat in my own career.  Vigorously.  With passion and authority.  And seen it skid out.  To see the effort amount to nothing other than lost time, money, and credibility.

It requires a lot of self-reflection and brutal honesty to avoid the temptation of playing “Weekend at Bernie’s” with your business, ideas, products, or initiatives.   May we all have the courage to face the truth and focus our attention on the things that matter most.

What kind of team are we?

Everyone loves to talk about teamwork.  Consults will consult.  Writers will write.  Leaders will lead.  And all of them are obsessed with teamwork.

But recently, I was watching my daughter’s track meet and thought about all the different types of teams that exist.  Each one requiring different types of teamwork.  We often don’t think about that in a work environment, even though we see examples of all of these in our workplaces.

Basketball (or soccer or football):  In this team sport, each player has a role, plays that they run, and they are constantly communicating to react successfully to new competitive conditions.  They share a common time clock, a common score board, a common uniform, a common coach, and are all playing the same game.  They are all striving to make or assist with the making of points.  The work group is an example of this kind of team.  Coming together, each representing a role or a strength, to collaborative work on a single deliverable, project, or document.   The key to results of this kind of team is aptitude and attitude.  If the individuals know their own strengths and weaknesses, and that of their teammates and can work selflessly towards the team goal, then greatness can be achieved.

Relay: In a relay team, each player has a role, but they don’t play them at the same time.  They, too, are constantly communicating, but only to assure successful hand-offs.  They share a common time clock, score board, and possibly a common uniform.  Each person on the team is running, but they are placed in position because of their relative strengths and speed.  They are dividing and conquering a larger task (in this case, a race) by breaking it into individual pieces.  A service escalation is this kind of team.  The first leg might be done by a customer service agent on the phone.  Then the problem is escalated to a technician, to a service manager, and then to an engineer.  Throughout, there is a common time clock and a common goal of customer issue resolution.  Everyone is doing similar jobs, but are doing it in their own way.  The key to achievement with this team is individual competence and the game is won or lost at the hand-offs.

Track and Field: The larger team, of which a relay is a part, is a loose affiliate of people who are all performing in tandem to rack up points for their overall team.  They are all in the same location (the track meet) and subject to the same environmental conditions and priorities.  Yet, they are all doing their own things.  Often in tandem (with field events happening the same time as running events).  Often together (as is the case with the relay team).  But each person is an individual contributor doing their best, which results in team achievement.  But you can’t ask a pole vaulter to anchor the 4 x 100 relay team and you can’t ask the person doing the 3,000 meters to throw the shot put.  A product launch is an example of this.  Web site content and brochures can’t be written until the messaging is complete, but that is often done by a different group.  Messaging benefits from a thorough understanding of features and benefits.  Features can’t be known until the engineering finalizes the design.  And those features can’t be determined or prioritized without market requirements.  Together these can show customers why the product is a winner, but each step of the process is quite unique and not interchangeable.  The key to achievement with this team is getting individuals to perform their best.

There are many other types of teams that can follow these and other patterns.  Debate teams work a bit like the relay and a track and field team.  Choirs are like relays in many ways, as the blending and the music reading is like the hand-offs.  Cleaning and painting crews can be more like a basketball team.  Kitchen staff or wait staff in restaurants can mimic all of these at times.  The key to any type of teamwork is for the group to first recognize what kind of teamwork is required.

Vulnerability

"It's empowering to stop pretending to be powerful." - Kesha, at SXSW 2017

Progress is Diagonal

Anyone who has lived knows that nothing good comes without some heartache, struggle, and failure along the wall.  Any truthful trajectory showing a result doesn’t look like a rocket.  It looks like a squiggly diagonal line to the right.  Success is an upwards sloping line, but at any point of the line, the slope wasn’t upwards. 

Artists Have A High Tolerance For Chaos

Call it an “artist’s temperament” or perhaps the high propensity of ADHD among artists, chaos often follows artistry.  Whether you are talking about a visual artist, painter, musician, or even a creative software developer, things like time management, detail-orientation, and the need for clarity is often low.  They are more comfortable with uncertainty, with ambiguity, and take a more flexible approach to things (often everything except their art).

Some of us straddle the worlds of art and science.  We have responsibilities to design the systems and then keep the trains running on time.  And when we feel like the chaos factor swings a little high, it might be time for us to channel our inner artist.  And realize the only thing we control is our art.
 

Restlessness: the path to innovation

On a Tuesday in 1954, H.W. Sweatt, the president of Minneapolis-Honeywell (a leading control systems company that would go on to be called Honeywell) had an important message to deliver. According to Jeffrey Rodengen, in his The Legend of Honeywell, H.W. assembled some division executives and sales people and shared some thoughts about innovation.

“To me,” he began, “one of our greatest weaknesses and one that I think is growing in this company is a failure to keep ‘a spirit of restlessness’ fully alive in our organization.” He went on to describe that he observed people in the sixty-nine year old company had gotten too comfortable with that status quo or how things exist today and lacked the time or the mental energy to do the “thinking, planning, and imaging that must be done to protect the future of the company – not next year, but in the decades that lie ahead.” In a successful business it is easy to overlook the constant change that is “inherent in every business picture,” and efficiency can not take precedence over changing and leading. To continuing to pioneer new frontiers with an entrepreneurial spirit.

“As for me, while I always want to strive for perfection and never want to be satisfied with less, if I had to choose, I would prefer to settle for a little less perfection today and a little more imagining for tomorrow.” He recognize that risk-taking would lead to mistakes, errors, and sacrifice immediate profits, but the threat of withering and dying was too real. Sweatt, who is now the namesake of Honeywell’s highest award for engineers/scientists considered this spirit of restlessness “One of our most priceless and fundamental possessions.” 

In Creativity, Inc. Ed Catmull, President of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation recounted a time when a proud tradition and commitment to excellence conflicted with a spirit of innovation. The team at Disney Animation was making the movie Bolt and ran into a technical challenge that was set to delay the film unacceptably by over 6 months. After a pep talk from leadership and some creative problem solving by a few team members, the problem was resolved in a few days. So, why did the larger team think it would take six months to do something that ended up taking only a few days? Why the conservatism? “The answer, I think,” Ed surmised, “lay in the fact that for too long, the leaders of Disney Animation placed a higher value on error prevention than anything else.” 

No one had to remind them about the legacy of the studio, the innovations and advancements that had been made under Walt Disney’s leadership, and the pressure that they faced to get things right. “Their employees knew there would be repercussions if mistakes were made, so the primary goal was never to make any.” But estimating that a problem would be solved with no errors, was absolutely the wrong choice in this situation. “Seeking to eliminate failure was in this instance – and I would argue, most instances – precisely the wrong thing to do,” he continued. It was important in the end to turn the focus “away from the notion of the ‘right’ way to fix the problem to actually fixing the problem – a subtle, but important distinction.” 

In the final tally, perfection and innovation have to be held in balance. If things are too perfect, efficiency might be high, but innovation suffers. If things are too innovative, there may be wasteful rework and abandoned short-term profits. The higher order problem to be solved might not be as obvious as the problems of yesterday that prompted the processes, procedures, and thinking prevelant today. There isn’t a warning label that exists in the world because someone wasn’t first harmed or injured. So, these “perfect” processes, documentation, and support rise up to solve yesterday’s problems. Maybe not the problems of the future. 

The spirit of restlessness, that H.W. Sweatt encouraged and was demonstrated by the small team at Disney Animation, is the attitude that keeps clever people pushing forward, with dissatisfaction to today’s constraints, imagining the future, and possibly most importantly, trading in short-term perfection along the way for the discovery of solutions to larger, more impactful, problems. It’s restlessness, in fact, that uncomfortable feeling that we have outgrown the status quo or might be missing something bigger, that puts us on the path of innovation.

This article originally posted on LInkedIn Pulse.

On Unlearning

"We are often told we need to know how to learn. But how do we learn to unlearn." - Chris Dede, Harvard

To build new habits. To change our approach, to find a new path.