Rishad Tobaccowala's Blog, page 23

Roots/Wings.

Art by Bisa Butler

To succeed as an individual or as a firm one must have roots and wings.

Roots provide stability, a place to stand, a passed along tradition and a sense of history.

But roots alone which are important to ensure one does not get blown away by the winds of change might anchor one too much to the past and to a status quo which may no longer be relevant.

Thus, the importance of wings.

The ability to raise oneself and see above the horizon, to look down with new perspectives and to ensure that the roots which feed us do not wither by failing to adapt to a new world.

Roots nourish via what we were and where we came from and what we did.

Wings encourage us to go where we need to and to blaze new trails which will lay down tomorrows roots and are a highway to what we will accomplish.

Art by Bisa Butler

Why roots are critical.

We are stories.

Whether we are individuals or companies.

We all have beginnings.

Origin stories either real or concocted.

Once upon a time.

Day one.

In the beginning.

This past for companies creates rituals, motivational stories, moments of crisis, provenance, proof, and a reason to believe. Tales that encrust every key financial event like barnacles. The almost went out of business moments, the eureka breakthrough moments, the IPO moment, or the key acquisition.

As time passes, people move on, and locations change the stories linger often shape shifting with the passage of time, with who the story teller is , and the quality of the telling.

Remembered history may not be history but in it is rooted much.

Roots are critical for not just companies but individuals.

Personal roots shaped by the people and places we grew up, first losses, loves, jobs and mentors, help make us what we are. Then key decisions and roads taken or not taken that bring us to the present. We plumb, narrate, garnish, and embellish these roots to explain why and where we are today.

The tattoo moments that we wear as invisible scars or badges that nobody sees but that mark our days.

People, skills, relationships are forged and become part of our roots.

Reputations, brands, trust, and networks are built by time and help us navigate the sway of change by keeping us rooted to what matters, disciplined in skills, protected by a trampoline of earned trust.

Over the years we are forged in the foundry and furnace of experiences that enable us to become the force we are. This enables faster action and movement than the uninitiated since what others must learn comes as second nature.

Roots matter in relationships, in honing of skills and much more.

Art by Bisa Butler

The magic of wings.

While every individual and firm start somewhere, every life and firm are also a journey.

Just as a tree that begins with a seed initiating a root, many of us are lucky to be nourished by the water and light of life provided by families, school, and friends to reach upward and branch out.

We take wings.

Wings are fueled by dreams. By crossing the horizon to go where no one has gone before. To do the unimaginable and the impossible.

It is the fuel that drives not just entrepreneurs but all of us who take a risk, switch careers, leave a city or country to go to another. It fuels immigrants who leave with nothing but a dream for a better life. Wings beat and provide the wind for artists who start with a blank sheet of paper, a piece of rock, an empty space which they convert into stories, songs, plays, paintings, movies, sculpture and more.

While the roots, the status quo, and the ground below us are all real we often take wing to the unseeable, the unknowable.

We take a leap into the void that sometimes results in innovation, creativity, the un-status quo when we land.

Every individual has wings.

It is just a question of when and if we get the chance to use them.

Art by Bisa Butler

Combining roots and wings.

If every individual and company is a story with a place we came from, every individual and a firm is also about a place we are going to.

We all integrate the dualities of roots and wings.

Too rooted and we may wither way as changing times and climate bring drought to the place and way we were.

To winged and we may be blown away in the gusts of change.

Too rooted and we may be seen as old school, hide bound to tradition and inflexible.

Too ready to fly with change may find us painted as unreliable, undisciplined, and short-term oriented.

Transformation is twisting ourselves and companies into new shapes with the clay of what we were and new skills and pieces we acquire.

To believe and better understand where you are going people want to know from where you are coming.

If you wish to record a new track it helps, especially once you are no longer a beginner, to have a track record.

So next time ask yourself, your friends or your company or the companies you wish to partner with:

a) What are the tattoo moments that made you what you are?

b) What do you believe is key from the past to your future and what should you be willing to or need to leave behind?

c) Where are you going and what do you believe about tomorrow?

d) What leaps of faith or acts of courage are you going to take to get there?

And many of us will get to where we are going.

This is because we got where we are today by continuously integrating, balancing, and unifying yesterday and tomorrow, safety and risk and what we are/were and what we want to be.

We are a mix of roots and wings…

On Feedback

To grow one needs to continuously improve.

 A key ingredient to improvement is feedback.

Feedback however is both difficult to give and receive.

Feedback challenges are even more pronounced these days due to three factors:

a. Covid: an increasingly sensitive workforce emerging from a year of Covid-19 driven challenges with heightened emotions and changed mindsets.

b. DEI: a concern that criticism may be taken as a form of insensitivity or discrimination as companies rightly focus on ensuring Diversity, Inclusion and Equality.

c. Polarization: a polarized social and political environment.

The six steps to giving better feedback.

Best practices suggest that there are six approaches that can help people give and accept feedback in ways that recognize these and other realities.

Focus on how the task or the process could have been improved rather than criticize the person: By focusing on how an assignment could be done better the emphasis is in on the product and not the person.

Compare the shortfalls to a higher standard that might have been met on another project or another time: By recalling assignments or times where the individual or team did a great job, one re-enforces to the person or team that they are capable of having done better. The emphasis is on what was less than ideal on this occasion versus rather than believing the individual or team is incapable of doing a good job.

Make yourself sensitive and aware of extenuating circumstances: We all have bad days and many times these are a result of something else distracting us or worrying us in our lives. It may be illness, family issues or other challenges. By empathizing with an individual via wondering if there is a reason quality has slipped indicates both concern and humanity.

Provide input as specific as possible as to what could be done better: Pointing out what went wrong or was less than optimal is only one half of feedback. The more important half is showing or teaching or guiding on how one can improve. Identify either steps or training or changes that need to be made.

Identify the next opportunity or project for a do-over or try another take: By showing both how one can improve and then identifying an upcoming opportunity to put the feedback to work concentrates the mind and channels emotions to action and the possibility of correcting the shortfall.

Provide personal help and perspective: If feedback is provided in the context of what others have struggled with over the years or what you may have learned and improved it lets people know that mistakes, mess-ups, and other shortfalls are par for the course in career growth. By also asking how you can help re-enforces that you are on the persons side and are committed to try to make them improve.

The importance of holding ourselves accountable to getting feedback.

If we do not get continuous feedback, we begin to lose our edge and slowly wither into mediocrity.

But for a variety of reasons including those discussed earlier (Covid, DEI and polarization) but also because we may be too senior or too powerful and therefore either believe we do not need it or people are afraid to offer it to us many of us may not get feedback unless we actively solicit, listen and are sensitive to nuances and signals.

We should all be concerned if we do not get feedback of some sort because it may mean we a) don’t really matter, b) are being put out to pasture, c) are considered too difficult or prickly to deal with or d) have a reputation as bullies who punish anyone pointing out faults.

Three ways of ensuring one is getting feedback

Scan for signals: People are constantly providing feedback even if they are not vocalizing it. In some instances, you may gauge it in numerical signals from how well your writing is read, reacted to, or shared or whether you are invited to key meetings. Other times it is to watch facial and body language. You learn a lot by reading a room or a Zoom gallery.

Ask for feedback on a regular basis: One can do this with three simple questions which by the way they are framed ensure people are comfortable helping you since they are positive in tone:

a. What worked well?

b. If/when I do this next time what could be better?

c. Who do you think does what I need to do well and where can I learn more?

End of Day or Week Self Review: Most people know in their gut what worked or went well and what did not. Many successful individuals end the day or week with some variation of a quick review :

a. The Work: What went well with my work product that I feel proud signing it and what could have gone better.

b. The Team: What felt good and productive in the way I interacted with people and where could I have been better in some ways in handling my or someone else’s emotions.

c. The Improvement: What little improvement did I manage to make today or this week? A new habit. Learning a new approach. Strengthening a relationship.

Compound Improvement

One improves slowly over time.

Some days one improves and other days there are setbacks that one learns from. A practice of continuous improvement is what drives not just success for athletes but for all people.

The day we stop learning we stop growing and we begin dying.

By being accountable for our own feedback and by being comfortable helping others with feedback to unleash their growth is a sign of not just successful businesspeople but people who find success in every component of life.

Happiness is not necessarily where you start but how you get better and where you are going.

Feedback is a key to growth and the journey forward.

(And as many do every week please feel free to provide feedback to this piece as well as this thought letter. Your input has improve it bit by bit…)

Two To Transform: Embrace Tech. Upgrade Talent.

Creative photography by  Anna Devis and Daniel Rueda

A river of change is carrying everybody and every company into the future. Six significant forces are sculpting the frontiers of tomorrow.

While there is a great complexity to be dealt with to ensure a profitable and successful tomorrow, there are only two key drivers that matter. These are ones we should focus on and not be distracted by a cacophony of distracting headlines or consultants offering complexifying choices.

Get these two more or less right and you and your firm should thrive.

Tech Alignment: Understand how technology is a) changing people and their behavior and b) how it is re-configuring your products, services, and experiences by either enabling new competitors, re-defining value, eroding or creating competitive advantage or radically transforming economics.

Upgrade Talent: Given the right resources (tech alignment) the firm with a disproportionate share of talent passionately aligned towards a common outcome is likely to win. It is true in sports, and it is true in business.

These are the two key drivers, and BOTH are required at the same time. Fantastic silicon (tech) with mediocre carbon (human talent) or vice versa are unlikely to succeed.

Every Board of Directors or Leadership Confab should not begin meetings with financial updates, product updates, M&A updates but rather a) a Tech Terrain detailing a threat and opportunity matrix and how the company is preparing and making progress in ensuring competitiveness and b) a Talent Capital X-Ray which should include not just attrition and retention measures but also employee joy, educational investments, culture health checks, and much more.

Talented people in a good culture with enabling technology are what create happy customers, innovation, differentiation, revenue growth and profits.

Creative photography by  Anna Devis and Daniel Rueda

Embrace tech by recognizing your company is a tech company.

Today every company is a tech company.

 If a decade ago one had invested in Domino’s, Apple, Facebook, or Google one would have got a better return on investment with Dominos!

Yes, Domino’s makes pizza and delivers it to a person’s home, but they leveraged technology to re-imagine and then transform every single aspect of their business from how customers could order the pizza, monitor its journey , decide where to receive it (at the football field as you tailgated?) and how it was delivered to them (drone anyone?)

They re-imagined stores, understood how delivery services could become parasites eating into their margin while trying to control customer relationships. Domino’s controls every aspect of the customer relationship and delivery.

They understood technology could re-define their future and was their business. They understood that the challenges and changes it brings about cannot be stopped and needs to be embraced.

To read more about Dominos or see a video of its transformation check this: https://producthabits.com/dominos-pizza-drove-90x-increase-stock-value-acting-like-tech-startup/

Creativity is where art and technology intersect so if you are in a creative business, you are in a technology business. Communication changes as technology changes and if you do not adapt (most newspapers for instance were done in by the failure of their management to recognize the impact of technology and not technology itself) your media business may not thrive in the future. Marketing is about understanding and meeting customer requirements and as customers’ requirements, expectations, and behaviors as well as the communication channels change every aspect of marketing becomes a technology infused business.

Smart companies and leaders recognize the critical nature of technology and realize an understanding of its potential should be throbbing in the beating blood of every key employee. Technology implementation may be led by the CTO and CIO but understanding of its impact and a vision about how to leverage it, must reside in every leader and should be central to every aspect of product, service, and experience design.

Creative photography by  Anna Devis and Daniel Rueda

Prepare for the Third Connected Age of Tech.

While technology and online has been around for a long while, there was a step change in how businesses were impacted beginning in 1993 with the launch of the First Connected Age marked by the creation of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee.

During this first connected age people connected to discover and people connected to shop. The companies that created the best products and services in these areas like Google and Amazon became the most valuable companies in the world.

Search and E-commerce transformed many aspects of business.

In 2007 we entered the Second Connected Age which built on the first age as technology now allowed people to connect with each other (social networks) and connect all the time (smart phones). Not surprisingly Facebook and Apple were also big winners and are among the most valuable companies.

Mobile and Social continued this transformation of business but also transformed many aspects of society.  The challenge society faces is that many of the modern communication channels were built to optimize for consumers and an advertising operating system but now they are a society operating system and we need to optimize for citizens.

We have now entered the Third Connected Age of Technology ( its dawn was first heralded five and a half year ago)  and it will make all the seismic changes of the last three decades pale in significance.  This is because not only does this age build on the foundations of what has come before due to advances in technology but also three decades of people’s changing behavior and expectations.  Almost every millennial was born after the dawn of the first connected age and the modern graphical internet.

The Third Connected Age will see four new connections.

a)  AI: Data connecting to data which is a simplistic way of describing machine learning

b) 5G: Much faster and more resilient connections

c) Voice/AR/VR: New ways of connecting. In many countries voice search is greater than text search.

d) Quantum Computing: Connections to the New God in the Sky as cloud-based computing takes a quantum jump.

Today a toddler version of these capabilities bundled together are available via Amazon Echo and Google Home. Anticipate in less than 1000 days the transformative potential of these technologies will create a plethora of new winners and losers across every Industry.

Do you have your best talent in your company working to ensure Third Connected Era readiness?

Creative photography by  Anna Devis and Daniel Rueda

Upgrade talent.

Talent is all.

People are key.

A company only transforms if the people in the company transform. A company gets better when the people in the company get better.

Technology smarts and modern technology are necessary but not sufficient to succeed.

People/Talent are the key to win.

If one reads Will and Ariel Durant’s “ The Lessons of History” it becomes clear that every advance in technology places a premium on superior talent.

Basically, technology is like a lever. It allows talent leverage and scale. It is never technology or talent. It is technology and talent.

Great people with great tools will dominate all.

Today we are living in a truly transformed terrain for talent.  One where every aspect of what talent wants from companies and their bosses, the nature of work and much more are being twisted into new shapes.

Smart companies are realizing that the next few years will be driven by how they can upgrade their talent through a combination of recruiting new talent as well as training and inspiring existing talent

Today smart leaders everywhere recognize we are at a unique moment in time due to the combined impact of Three Big Shifts : a) Importance of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion,  b) Role of ESG, Purpose and Values in a company culture and c) The unbundled workplace and new life mindsets post Covid .

This is the ideal time for leaders to truly re-think their talent strategy, company culture and training plans to attract and upgrade people.

Creative photography by  Anna Devis and Daniel Rueda

Talent=Growth.

Companies want to grow.

But so does talent.

And if talent grows the company grows.

There are six types of growth people want and every company must offer some combination of all six though they will be mixed in different ways for every individual, role, and where the person is in their career journey. A key is to think with tomorrow in mind.

a) Compensation: Talent wishes to be paid fairly and to see their total compensation increase as their impact and skill sets and contributions grow. Companies must compensate for where they want future behaviors and growth to be rather than reward people for today while talking about tomorrow. People will follow the money.

b) Recognition: Every individual wants to be recognized for their work. They want to work for bosses who allow them to shine.

c) Autonomy: One cannot learn and grow if every step is micro-managed. If one is rooted in process and routine, how can one spread one’s wings and navigate the winds of change?

d) Skills: Today the half-life of many technical skill and some soft skills erode and need to continuously be re-built. Companies must invest deeply in  continuous education. Talent will thrive if they are being taught skills that increase their market value in tomorrows marketplace. Yes, increase the number of people who want to recruit away your talent. This retains talent and attracts new talent.

e) Purpose: Critical factor in joining and staying in a company is a growing belief in the purpose and value of a company.

f) Relationships/connections: Growing a network of mentors, colleagues and others over time is a key to career success and happiness.

Few jobs and companies allow for every one of these six growth factors at the same time, but few companies can attract and retain talent if they do not offer many of these growth enablers.

Today we are at a particular junction where a fusion between a new era of technology (The Third Connected Age) and a new talent mindset is underway. To grow and thrive we will need to grow our understanding of the implications of technology on our business while enabling our people to thrive by unleashing their potential.

The Jigsaw of Return

If leaving the office was hard to do, returning will be fraught with more difficulty.

Just like a champagne cork once removed expands and does not fit, it will be hard to put work back in the office.

Both, the decisions on what a “return to the office” means and how the decisions are made and conveyed are likely to have as great an impact on the culture and competitiveness of a firm in the next few years as any corporate or product strategy.

What a firm decides will at minimum impact its ability to a) attract and retain talent, b) cost structure, c) culture d) client and customer service levels and e) ability to innovate.

That’s all.

A way forward.

After a first burst of non-nuanced, tone-deaf, future-fearing decision making about the end of Zoom meetings, the implication that those who hustle and care are the ones who want to return, and the laying down the law of how many days everyone needs to come back, the opposition of an empowered workforce alive to new possibilities has required re-thinking.

It is not going to be as easy as issuing blanket edicts.

Instead, it will be a jigsaw puzzle of different approaches for different people, different roles, different markets, and it will be a work in progress with many benefits and challenges.

The smartest firms and leaders are approaching these key decisions with a combination of these best principles

Communicating an understanding that going back to March 2020 makes ZERO sense unless one wants to go out of business.

Recognizing that hybrid is really a spectrum.

Sharing key principles and beliefs driving the thinking.

Following a software model of decision making.

1) Communicating an understanding that going back to March 2020 makes no sense for most industries and firms.The past year has surprised everybody about the many myriad benefits of distributed work.

For employers these have included, a) no significant drop in productivity, b) the ability to combine teams from all over the world to increase collaboration and work product, c) attract a far more diverse work force d) significant cost savings through reductions in travel, real estate and sometimes talent costs and e) progress towards their green goals as they reduce their carbon footprint.

For employees the benefits have included a) more flexibility to be with family and live-in different places, b) significant reduction in wasted time of having to travel to work or between Client meetings, c) ability to “see” senior management and have their “voice” heard, d) cost savings from reduced transport and other work-related costs and e) ability to have global demand for their time and a wider swath of opportunities.

While there have been significant benefits there have also been several challenges.

Employers worry about a) how to build a culture, on-board and train folks, b) how to maintain the creativity and relationship building that often needs the electrifying connection of people interacting in person or coming together in unplanned encounters and c) how to ensure a work life balance.

Employees want to get back with other folks to a) leave the narrow confines and loneliness of home, b) meet new people and build relationships and c) learn from the observations and interactions that only real world connections may make possible.

Most smart companies want to find a way to preserve as many benefits as possible of yesterday’s model of full time in the office and this past year’s world of working from home while solving for the drawbacks and challenges of each.

Thus, a key for every firm and leader is to stop using the words “going back” but “moving forward” and replace the mindset of “returning” to that of “starting anew”.

Any company starting fresh today with the technologies available today and soon available tomorrow (5G, Voice, AR, AI and Quantum based cloud computing) would never have a set up like companies did at the end of 2019 and hope to be compete from a cost, agility and talent attraction perspective.

2) Recognizing hybrid is a spectrum.

There is now however a new emerging mindset that hybrid is not as simple as some days at the office and some days at home.  Instead, one needs to think about how to put the pieces together of The Unbundled Workplace.

The Unbundled Workplace will combine four spaces:

a) Home: The safety, the flexibility, the ability to focus (especially if school resumes and children are not underfoot), and the cost and time savings of not having to travel to work will ensure that the home office will be foundational space that most people will spend significant time getting work done.

b) Distributed Work Pod: Either to enable gathering of teams or the option to work outside the home many companies will sub-lease space (e.g., We Work, Regus) near where clusters of their employees live. This will enable teamwork and getting away from home with a far more time and carbon friendly footprint.

c) Periodic Events/Experiences: Automattic (owners of WordPress and Tumblr) is a 1800 person global company where everyone works distributed but teams get together at a location of the team’s choice (often exotic ones) for a few days every quarter to collaborate, build relationships and learn from each other. Every year for one week the entire company gets together for education, inspiration, and bonding. Increasingly companies will create periodic events and experiences to offset the downsides of working in a distributed model which are difficulty in establishing and building relationships, culture sculpting and skill enhancement. There is no reason that this needs to be done in the offices left behind or a large capital expenditure needs to be allocated to re-configure spaces when far more impactful and cost-effective external options are available.

d) The Legacy Office (aka the Museum): The old central office or HQ will remain but will be significantly downsized and be more of a gathering space for some key training or client meetings, a roosting place for senior management and a museum of relics and artifacts that are the key to the story telling and culture of the company. Most employees will likely spend less than a third of their working year at this office.

3) Sharing key principles and beliefs driving the thinking.

Once companies remind people they are not trying to go back to the past and recognize that the future of work will incorporate a spectrum of locations they need to lay down certain beliefs and principles that they are basing future workspace plans on:

For instance:

We believe that in our creative industry it is key that people get together from time to time to collaborate, connect, and build on ideas. Thus, we are going to ask people to come to a common location x days a month.

Our legal and other constraints imply that our offices and employees need to work in these states. While we will work to expand these today, we need to work within these and other legal constraints.

We serve Clients and they will expect a certain level of service which will include a certain number of in-person interactions. We need to make sure we remain competitive versus others.

In certain markets people do not have the space to work from home and we need to ensure we have a space for them to work every day.

While we believe in flexibility, we believe we also need to have some firm guidelines and expectations for everybody to ensure fairness and clarity. For instance, we want to ensure that someone who works primarily remote does not get penalized regarding promotions versus someone who works in person.

The idea here is to treat everyone like adults and share both the first principles and constraints that one is working with. This will help people understand why certain decisions are being made.

Some basic rules and minimum expectations offer greater clarity than anything goes. Companies cannot be managed by commune. To have flexibility one needs to have a framework.

It is likely people will challenge and provide improvements to the framework. This is part of the process of indicating both clarity and listening.

4) Following a software model of decision making.

There is never going to be a solution or solutions what will make everybody happy.

The jigsaw of return cannot be solved elegantly with every piece fitting but if people see the big picture you are trying to solve for, they are more likely to accept or resent less whatever decisions are being made.

How the decisions are made may be as important as what decisions are made.

The reality is no one has really done this before and there will be much learning along the way.

For instance, many companies are not going to have fixed spaces for teams to sit in but follow a hotel concept when one checks in and gets assigned a desk. On paper this sounds cool but if you think one click below it is questionable because if the reason you want people to be at work is to have teams work together but now, they can sit anywhere how is it better than they operating from home in the first place? Unless teams are in the office together and co-located to some degree one gets all the downsides of an office with none of the upsides of working from home!

We will all make mistakes like this (or maybe it is not a mistake). Therefore, consider a software release mindset with the first guidelines being an alpha followed by a beta and then a 1.0. Maybe in six to nine months into the process there will be a working process that then can be modified every six months or a year. Build in room for continuous learning and improvement.

Communicate that the return is a journey in which all of us travelers and the terrain are different than when everyone departed the office 15 months ago and we are all going to solve the puzzle together.

Becoming Innovative

Photography by Alex Burke

There are many definitions for what is innovative.

Often these definitions use the words “new” or “inventive” or “pioneering”.

I prefer this description of innovation: “fresh insightful connections”

Each of these three words; “fresh”, “insightful” and “connections” helps not only identify what is innovative but even more importantly, help one become innovative.

Photography by Alex Burke

Insights

Insight brings humanity and people into the innovation equation. Since much innovation is eventually experienced by people, it is critical to understand peoples unstated needs by watching, listening, and learning from their behavior.

After all, the best innovation solves a problem, finds a better way of doing something or brings tangibility to an unspoken gap.

Data is not insights, but insights can be gleaned from data by looking for patterns or idiosyncrasies.

Netflix uses co-relation a form of pattern finding to both recommend and greenlight new content.

Amazon uses idiosyncrasies about how people navigate its experience (sudden twists and turns in their transaction journey for one) to ask why?

Photography by Alex Burke

Fresh

Fresh is a better word than new.

New, really is about time and the calendar and not about a way of thinking.

Fresh implies something different from the status quo. It is about a never seen or never thought about approach. Today, we see so many of the same images, and find so many of the same things all over the world, that we really wake up when we see or come across something fresh. So fresh that it fits no cliché and often requires its own language.

You remember the unusual, the moments when your travel fell out of a well-planned itinerary.

Fresh awakens and makes for tattoo moments that will be embed in us (and our customers.)

Photography by Alex Burke

Connections

Connections is a about the process where the human mind takes the same letters of the alphabet but puts them together in a unique way to create something that far more compelling than the parts that went before. All the components for innovation existed. The magic was in the connecting.

In the creativity of the connections, one unlocks the combination that unleashes innovation.

Google’s connected the insight that a more heavily referenced citation in an academic document should be ranked higher than a less cited one, with how pages linked to each other and gave birth to a fresh approach to search.

The iPad connects the insight that there was no computing device optimized for consumption and slouching (phones are for communication and walking while computers for creating and sitting), with a tactile, almost sensual approach to interacting with content to create a new object of lust.

In category after category, one sees these three factors in innovation. Fresh. Insightful. Connections.

So, begin by gleaning insights. Then put all the ideas one has down on paper that help solve unmet needs driven by these insights. Now shake and stir and step away and come back and see if you can connect things in fresh ways that still resonate with the insights.

Photography by Alex Burke

Three simple methods to drive innovation.

a)     Unbundling/Re-bundling: Break down your product or service or customer experience or journey into its component parts and ask what parts can be eliminated or how can they be re-configured or re-bundled.

 A bank removed multiple steps from the process of opening an account by breaking down the steps and then eliminating some that were duplicative or no longer relevant, digitizing others, importing data into the process rather than needing people to fill in forms or bring data with them, and making the process available 24X7.

Unilever outsold Procter and Gamble shampoos in India by recognizing that instead of selling many head washes at a time in a bottle they should sell a single wash in a sachet that was more affordable to the millions who earn daily wages and do not have the money to buy an entire bottle.

Airbnb will soon launch a new threat to landlords and the legacy rituals of renting by asking why a need for a security deposit is there and why should leases be yearlong? This insight came from the fact that almost a quarter of their stays were over a month long during the pandemic. Why own a second home when you can have thousands of second homes available for a month or three months everywhere in the world without any of the fixed costs, maintenance hassles and the dreary ritual of returning to the same place?

b)    Blank Sheet of Paper with a Red Team/Blue Team: Create two teams. One that works to find ways to enhance your current product or service based on insights, and a second whose only goal is to vanquish, destroy and put your brand out of business. Both teams are free to use all legal and scientifically available tools with some economic constraints like the need to break even within x months or years.

Often, the attacking team ends up being more innovative because of two keys to innovation which are  a )  no anchor of legacy structure or thinking and b) refusing to accept anything except the law and science as a given.

c)     Diversity of Voices: A key to fresh insightful connections is to have different people with different backgrounds and experiences working together in an environment where every voice is heard. Diversity of ethnicity, gender and expertise are all key but even more critical is a culture where people can speak up, challenge the status quo, and take leaps of imagination. This requires both a diverse work force but also a culture that is supportive and provides trampolines of trust for the hesitant or questioning voices and the daring risk takers.

To be innovative think “fresh insightful connections” and then decompose and recompose your product, service or experience while suppressing legacy thinking and constraints.

You will be surprised at how many ideas you will come up with.

Then the key is to implement the good ideas.

Because if you do not someone will.

Becoming Innovation

Photography by Alex Burke

There are many definitions for what is innovative.

Often these definitions use the words “new” or “inventive” or “pioneering”.

I prefer this description of innovation: “fresh insightful connections”

Each of these three words; “fresh”, “insightful” and “connections” helps not only identify what is innovative but even more importantly, help one become innovative.

Photography by Alex Burke

Insights

Insight brings humanity and people into the innovation equation. Since much innovation is eventually experienced by people, it is critical to understand peoples unstated needs by watching, listening, and learning from their behavior.

After all, the best innovation solves a problem, finds a better way of doing something or brings tangibility to an unspoken gap.

Data is not insights, but insights can be gleaned from data by looking for patterns or idiosyncrasies.

Netflix uses co-relation a form of pattern finding to both recommend and greenlight new content.

Amazon uses idiosyncrasies about how people navigate its experience (sudden twists and turns in their transaction journey for one) to ask why?

Photography by Alex Burke

Fresh

Fresh is a better word than new.

New, really is about time and the calendar and not about a way of thinking.

Fresh implies something different from the status quo. It is about a never seen or never thought about approach. Today, we see so many of the same images, and find so many of the same things all over the world, that we really wake up when we see or come across something fresh. So fresh that it fits no cliché and often requires its own language.

You remember the unusual, the moments when your travel fell out of a well-planned itinerary.

Fresh awakens and makes for tattoo moments that will be embed in us (and our customers.)

Photography by Alex Burke

Connections

Connections is a about the process where the human mind takes the same letters of the alphabet but puts them together in a unique way to create something that far more compelling than the parts that went before. All the components for innovation existed. The magic was in the connecting.

In the creativity of the connections, one unlocks the combination that unleashes innovation.

Google’s connected the insight that a more heavily referenced citation in an academic document should be ranked higher than a less cited one, with how pages linked to each other and gave birth to a fresh approach to search.

The iPad connects the insight that there was no computing device optimized for consumption and slouching (phones are for communication and walking while computers for creating and sitting), with a tactile, almost sensual approach to interacting with content to create a new object of lust.

In category after category, one sees these three factors in innovation. Fresh. Insightful. Connections.

So, begin by gleaning insights. Then put all the ideas one has down on paper that help solve unmet needs driven by these insights. Now shake and stir and step away and come back and see if you can connect things in fresh ways that still resonate with the insights.

Photography by Alex Burke

Three simple methods to drive innovation.

a)     Unbundling/Re-bundling: Break down your product or service or customer experience or journey into its component parts and ask what parts can be eliminated or how can they be re-configured or re-bundled.

 A bank removed multiple steps from the process of opening an account by breaking down the steps and then eliminating some that were duplicative or no longer relevant, digitizing others, importing data into the process rather than needing people to fill in forms or bring data with them, and making the process available 24X7.

Unilever outsold Procter and Gamble shampoos in India by recognizing that instead of selling many head washes at a time in a bottle they should sell a single wash in a sachet that was more affordable to the millions who earn daily wages and do not have the money to buy an entire bottle.

Airbnb will soon launch a new threat to landlords and the legacy rituals of renting by asking why a need for a security deposit is there and why should leases be yearlong? This insight came from the fact that almost a quarter of their stays were over a month long during the pandemic. Why own a second home when you can have thousands of second homes available for a month or three months everywhere in the world without any of the fixed costs, maintenance hassles and the dreary ritual of returning to the same place?

b)    Blank Sheet of Paper with a Red Team/Blue Team: Create two teams. One that works to find ways to enhance your current product or service based on insights, and a second whose only goal is to vanquish, destroy and put your brand out of business. Both teams are free to use all legal and scientifically available tools with some economic constraints like the need to break even within x months or years.

Often, the attacking team ends up being more innovative because of two keys to innovation which are  a )  no anchor of legacy structure or thinking and b) refusing to accept anything except the law and science as a given.

c)     Diversity of Voices: A key to fresh insightful connections is to have different people with different backgrounds and experiences working together in an environment where every voice is heard. Diversity of ethnicity, gender and expertise are all key but even more critical is a culture where people can speak up, challenge the status quo, and take leaps of imagination. This requires both a diverse work force but also a culture that is supportive and provides trampolines of trust for the hesitant or questioning voices and the daring risk takers.

To be innovative think “fresh insightful connections” and then decompose and recompose your product, service or experience while suppressing legacy thinking and constraints.

You will be surprised at how many ideas you will come up with.

Then the key is to implement the good ideas.

Because if you do not someone will.

Leader = You

Watercolor by Thomas Schaller

Every single person can be a leader.

Leader is not a title that is bestowed but a role that is lived.

Leader does not mean boss.

One can be a leader with zero minions or reporting staff.

People are assigned to bosses.

They follow leaders.

The six traits of leaders.

Everyone can learn and build the traits of a leader if they wish to and are disciplined about it. Becoming a leader does not entail anyone else allowing it, awarding it or being able to take it away.

The six traits are 1) Competence 2) Time Management 3) Integrity 4) Empathy 5) Vulnerability and 6) Inspiration

They are all internally driven and with discipline and time can be honed and sculpted.

So, if you want to be a leader you can.

Right now. Right away.

Watercolor by Thomas Schaller

CompetenceTo be a leader in any field, at any level, you need to build proficiency.

You need to learn your craft, hone your skills, continuously improve, and remain relevant and up to date.

Too many “leaders” slip into irrelevance by letting their skills atrophy. Today due to the rapid change in demography and technology the half-life of whatever one has learned rapidly decays and the fuel tank of competence needs to be continuously filled. Organizations fail to keep up when their people fail to keep updated and re-orient themselves as the compass of the future calls for a new navigation path.

We are all blessed with the ability to learn both independently using the world of resources online but also most organizations are now investing in training and skill upgrading. In addition to these avenues one can build skills by volunteering for new assignments or switching jobs.

The day we stop learning our leadership capabilities stop growing and may begin to die.

Watercolor by Thomas Schaller

Time Management.

The three “time” skills that one needs to build to become a leader are that of a) bi-focal focus, b) delegation/teamwork and c) zero based time budgeting.

Leaders learn to have bi-focal focus by recognizing the difference between the urgent (which often must be done to live another day) and the important (what needs to be done to ensure long term success). They put time on their calendars every week to ensure that there is time to focus on the strategically important or they will be lost forever in a swirl of tactical urgency. Take time every week to think of where you want to be or your company to be six or twelve or twenty-four months in the future and what you may need to get there.

To be a leader requires one to work with teams so one can focus on what one does best, leverage and learn from others who do things best and where one can delegate tasks that you have already mastered or which someone can do much better than you. Being “irreplaceable” or “nobody can do this as good as me” ensures that you will not grow and people around you will not grow.

We all have financial budgets, and we have time budgets. When you say yes to a new request ask yourself or the person who has given it to you what you can stop doing. Or one ends up doing a lot of things in a half-baked way and corners get cut which can cost the firm and you in time and trouble. This is a formula for poor results, burn out and a flushed and flustered demeanor which is not the look of a leader.

Watercolor by Thomas Schaller

Integrity.

Trust is speed.

Trusted people rarely have the need to pull out multi-paged power point decks to convince their teammates, bosses, and clients about what they are recommending.

If one is not trusted it is hard to be a leader.

Trust can be earned by placing a primacy on facts, being clear about one’s intentions and transparent about how one is making decisions.

To be trusted one must face reality and deal with facts. Facts are stubborn things. Reality has a habit of breaking in. Truth matters. If one does not begin with these fundamentals, it is very hard for people to believe you. You may be able to mislead them for a time but once found out you may never recover. Looking reality in its face is what a leader does versus imaginative mind gaming and selling of hallucinatory fantasies. Sooner or later people wake up.

Be clear about your intentions. What are you trying to do and what do you hope to gain? This allows everyone to understand your goals and they may have better ideas of achieving them and neither you or they waste time in trying to figure out what you are up to or why they are being recruited to a cause.

Often decisions are made that people do not agree with. But they are much easier to accept if they are built on a foundation of facts, a clarity of intentions and a transparency on the thought process that led to the decision. There is no confusion about a “black box” or some demonic plan.

Everyone can be known for integrity by beginning with facts, stating intention and being transparent about their process.

In time this builds trust.

Watercolor by Thomas Schaller

Empathy.Leaders bring about change and achieve goals by bringing other people along with them.

To do so it is key to understand where people are coming from. What their fears, concerns, challenges as well as hopes, desires and dreams are.

A simple way is to ask four questions.

a)     What is on your mind?

b)    What else?

c)     If you were not doing this, what would you be doing or how could things be better?

d)    How can I help?

These questions allow both facts and emotions to emerge and a real conversation to ensue which is key to empathy.

After all being a leader is as much about other people as it is about you.

Watercolor by Thomas Schaller

Vulnerability.

Vulnerability is strength and not a weakness.

By speaking about things, one worries about, one reveals humanity and comes off as believable.

It makes other people step up to try to help and offset your concerns or lack of competence with their or other people’s complimentary skills.

But as importantly it gives people the room to also speak up and point out other weaknesses that may exist not just with you but on projects that you are working on.

Leadership is not being the all-knowing, all-seeing, always-right demi-god but a human with good intentions, discipline and focus trying to figure out the best way forward. Does anyone truly believe the bombastic, bullying, blow hard? We may fear them, but do we follow them? No way Jose!

Watercolor by Thomas Schaller

Inspiration.

As Blaise Pascal wrote “We choose with our hearts, and we use numbers to justify what we did”.

After the facts and the data, after the PowerPoints and the spreadsheets we often remain unconvinced, dis-believing, and hesitant.

Yes, we are living in a data driven, silicon based, computing world but all of us are story driven, carbon based, feeling individuals!

Joan Didion wrote “we tell ourselves stories in order to live” and thus storytelling and examples bring a vivid reality to get people to rise to another level.

Learn to communicate through words, stories, art, and example.

It will take you and everyone else to another level.

Eight Client and Customer Expectations.

Illustration by Irena Zablotska

Over the course of four decades of working with clients and customers all over the world, their needs regardless of industry, size, or the country they operate in, almost always distill down to eight key expectations from their service providers.

Four of these expectations are focused on outputs and outcomes and four of them focus on process or how the partner works.

Outputs: Insights, Ideas, Inspiration, and Implementation.

Process: Collaboration, Continuous Improvement, Operating Discipline, and Values.

Illustration by Irena Zablotska

4 Key Output Expectations

1. Insights: Clients pay the highest premium in not just economic value but their attention and their admiration to firms that bring them insights about their customers or their business. Client relationships can be salvaged, or business can be poached away by firms that can provide a new way of understanding the marketplace. Something that is so obvious and yet not obvious. If we are living in an age where people are in control and markets are being transformed, there is a premium placed on perspectives that allow a firm to better understand their customers and analyze their markets in ways that provide an edge against the competition.   

2. Inspiration: External suppliers and partners see a world different than a client. Most work across different industries and have a different employee mix. Clients in these changing times want to know how they benchmark against the best. Not just their industry, but across industries. Showing them examples, exposing them to different stimuli, bringing in outside experts, all speak to this hunger, while underlining that their partners are in touch with changes happening around them.

3. Ideas: In the end despite debate as to whether they pay adequately for ideas, every client cares a lot about ideas and without a good flow of them it is hard for an outside partner to remain valuable. Even if a client does not buy the ideas, the inability to present ideas, including ones that stretch and are out there, often is reason for the clients eye to wander. Best partners provide “gifts” of a big idea or two every few months.

4. Implementation: Eventually insights, inspiration and ideas mean little if they cannot be implemented in the marketplace. Clients look for firms that have the skills either internally or thought tight partnerships to yield tangible programs, products or services into the marketplace in a cost-effective timely manner. Skills that are relevant to changing times and beat to the metronome of increasing rapidity are critical.

Illustration by Irena Zablotska

4 Key Process Expectations:

While insight, inspiration, ideas, and implementation are the wings of a healthy partnership, there are some processes or ways of working that are as important and often can carry a relationship when the ideas, insights, ideas, or implementation are wanting or can challenge a partnership when not present even if ideas, inspiration, and insights are flowing

1. Collaboration: Clients hate (and it is not too strong a word) the lack of collaboration between their various partners. They resent having to baby sit grownups who cannot play together. They see the friction as a loss of time and economic value. As industries blur in the digital world and many partners all claim expertise or rights to the same area (e.g., “social”) this has become an obsession with clients. The words “childish”, “soap-operatic” and” I wish I could dump the whole lot and start again” are heard. Yes, often the client’s incentives and structures encourage the petty and insecure behavior we engage in when our turf emotions and short-term economic incentives make us forget the big picture. The big picture is that clients are trying to build economic value of their brands via insights, ideas, inspiration, and cost-effective implementation and frankly will reward for that.

2. Continuous Improvement: In a world of change, businesses ask if the outside partner is continuously improving themselves. Are they remaining curious, challenging the status quo, and leveraging technology or other efficiencies costs, becoming more productive? Businesses are under intense pressure to enhance productivity and are looking for their partners to become more productive themselves. This is not just about cutting costs but also developing better product, re-using ideas from one part of the globe in another, eliminating or automating things that can be.

3. Operating Discipline: This is the least sexy and interesting part of what clients want because in many ways they expect it. Can their partner run their own business by managing budgets, schedules, legal clearances, and the like? Are they responsiveness and do they staff with capable people? Can the agency or partner make the trains run on time, read the signals, and ensure the engine stays on track? The wrong ad shipped to the wrong media company, lack of legal approval and non-responsiveness in an emergency get folks fired all the time.

4. Values: This is an expectation that has grown increasingly important over recent years as companies increasingly care about employee well-being, diversity, and purpose. Integrity and trust have always been critical to Clients, but they now want to know about the workforce of their suppliers and partners. Are they being treated well? Are the sufficiently diverse? Is the company giving back to society?

Illustration by Irena Zablotska

A way to build enduring Client and Partner relationships

One way to keep enduring relationships is schedule a meeting every six months with key partners and clients and provide a quick review of four areas.

What ideas, insights or outside inspiration were provided in the past six months?

What were the key challenges and successes in program implementation?

Where did collaboration thrive between partners with Clients and where can they improve?

Which products or services or employee programs were developed or enhanced over the past six months by your firm?

These meetings provide multi-faceted benefits:

They focus teams on making sure they are working the 8 key areas that clients evaluate their suppliers since there will be a meeting to share progress.

It allows clients and their partners to celebrate and often merchandise the progress they have made; share the issues they have uncovered and plan how to build on things that work and correct those that do not without all the emotion and drama of being fired or reviewed or put on notice.

It enables both sides to understand how expectations are changing and which areas are critical and need to be focused on.

Success in an increasingly connected world is the power of connections and relationships between people and partners. Constant updating of expectations, continuous communication and celebrations of successes build understanding and fuel enduring relationships.

Constrained Growth 2.0

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Some 14 months ago, a few days into the US lockdown, on March 30, 2020, in a piece titled “Constrained Growth”  I tried to imagine how the lockdown might change us:

Today’s constraints on our physical movements can provide the opportunity to enlarge our mental and emotional capabilities to such an extent that it may lead to a great re-invention.

Emotionally the crucible of change we are in can make us feel differently about our lives, our connections, and our work.

Mentally the stress in the foundry of uncertainty will twist our thinking in one or more ways as we seek to make sense of what has happened and plans for when the constraints lift.

In many ways it will make us appreciate what we took for granted.

In others as we forgo certain behaviors and have the time to ponder and ruminate on our previous days, we may question why we did certain things.

We will question many aspects of our lives and we will make resolutions.

Every one of us will adapt, evolve, and meld different versions of ourselves and interact with a world of people and institutions that are different.

We may have gone into this crisis as MS-DOS and focused on the narrow corridors of ourselves but if we spend the next few weeks correctly, we could come out as Windows 10 with expanded horizons…

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Over a year later.

The pandemic is still with us, and it is causing great devastation in India. Many areas of Japan are back in an emergency lockdown with the Olympics only a few weeks away. However, in the US with significant portions of the population vaccinated and an easing of the need to wear a mask, life will likely return to familiar routines.

As the constraints ease and the limits are removed will we return to the way we were?

Every individual will be emerging from the past year in different ways. Over half a million people in the United States who were lost to Covid will not be here to register these days. The tens of millions who were connected to them will always see a gap, a shadow and an empty chair which was previously occupied. Others among us may have lost jobs or needed to move back home or move away to a different place. Relationships have been strengthened and sundered. Rituals were postponed, delayed, or virtually held. All these have made their mark and left their invisible tattoos.

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Limits can lead to growth.

Many have found growth amidst the constraints and limits.

In the ordinary.

In less.

In enough.

In endings.

Ordinary.

There is a newly found appreciation for the ritual of the ordinary day.

We might have pined for the extra-ordinary, the special and the memorable eighteen months ago.

But as we sat socially distanced, masked, and locked down the little habits, movements and freedoms of every day loomed large.

Sometimes one does not know what one has until one loses it.

Happiness is not often in the one day in the future or getting promoted to the right level at work or when the right “number” is reached.

It is in the ordinary of good health, relationships, and freedom.

The extra-ordinariness of “everyday ordinary” is what is special to many.

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Less.

All we may need is less.

For many people the tragedy of Covid-19 has been a lack of food, shelter, jobs, money, and health care. For many others especially people with white collar jobs that can be done remotely we are realizing that except for space we could do with less.

How many of the things you have, or the past harried routines or frenetic travel are you missing?

All the frenzy of movement and much more remind us of William Wordsworth’s lines.…the world is too much with us; late and soon. Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers...

Many people are using this time to re-consider their lives and many are discovering that all they need is less.

And if one needs less, it opens a world of options since we may be able to pursue the dream our previous lifestyle may have priced us out of.

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Enough.

Jack Brennan the CEO of Vanguard has a new book out called “Straight Talking on Investing” in which he quotes the journalist Jason Zweig from a January 2000 Money magazine column:

“I once interviewed dozens of residents in Boca Raton, one of Florida's richest retirement communities. Amid the elegant stucco homes, the manicured lawns, the swaying palm trees, the sun and the sea breezes, I asked these folks - mostly in their 70's - if they'd beaten the market over the course of their investing lifetimes. Some said yes, some said no. Then one man said, "Who cares? All I know is, my investments earned enough for me to end up in Boca."

The moral of this story is three-fold.

a) What are our goals in life?

b) There is a need for finish lines. Comparison is the thief of joy. Continuous benchmarking is a recipe for always coming up short. Living in the minds of other people might leave us empty. Are we happy with what we have when we have them or only when we can show others that we have them?

c) Enough. The most satisfied people recognize the power of enough. Living in a fervor of continuous measurement means you live by the scoreboard, and we stop focusing on the ball.

Life is the ball and not the scorecard.

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Endings

Franz Kafka wrote “The meaning of life is that it stops.”

In the future the ritual of the ordinary day will be special, just as we have come to realize after months of a new way of living that the simple pleasures of free movement, meeting friends, sitting in a crowded bar, and watching a sports game were so special.

Life does not have to be lived forward and understood backward if we decide to pay attention.

We can use the lessons of 2020 to be aware of the fading moments of now.

Look around you. Watch the special quality of light or listen to the hiss of the air duct. Treasure the conversations and even the repetition and lack of differentiation of day after day.

Because one day it will not be so…

So, as we get back to the way it was maybe the year of constrained living with anxiety, fear and uncertainty has grown all of us in ways that show that limits can free us and concentrate the mind and heart on what matters.

All Photographs by Rishad Tobaccowala

Slaying Our Inner Dinosaur

Many, if not all of us suffer from IDD.

Inner Dinosaur Disease.

The cause of this disease is change.

It is all around us. We all talk about it. We are buffeted by it. We participate in conferences about it. We hand down edicts and issue press releases about change initiatives.

But individually we abhor it.  Change sucks.  Particularly for decision makers.

Change exposes us to vulnerability and loss: of control, of clout, of turf and of face. It demeans the very currency of expertise, seniority, networks, and image we spend decades building. How dare some pompous young pup, some fresh idea, some innovative technology, some fearless startup, or bossy consumer challenge us?

The two-phase inner dinosaur shuffle.

We let our inner dinosaur roar and roam unleashed against these threatening changes to our ecosystem by indulging in a two-step shuffle.

 First, we justify our refusal to change via the Deflection Dance!

Blame our myopic bosses who are approaching retirement or the organization that has too much money riding on status quo.

Attribute inaction to the profit pressures and business realities we carry on our shoulders.

Suggest the Client or Customer gave only lip service to change readiness.

Rebuke the employees.  They are not trained or motivated for this stuff.

Exhume specimens from the when-things-went-wrong. Remember when?

Wait for others to find the landmines. 

The second step is Change Botox—little injections of temporary surface embellishments to distract from real change.  Common manifestations:

Announce the retention of a Consulting firm who, over the next X months, will benchmark and develop a plan of action.

Launch a Vision or Change 202X task force to “get out in front” of change.

Hire a talent agency, next generation modern marketing firm, or niche agency, then issue a press release.

Re-launch a quiet, unsupported brand or initiative with a small budget dedicated to a new way so there is something to point to.

Five weapons slay our inner dinosaurs (and dragons!)

Here are s ways of slaying inner dinosaur disease (IDD): a) own change, b) empower the iconoclasts, c) cross the line, d) leverage organizational inertia, e) act to change or change your act

1. Own change. If you change, others will follow.  If they do not, change your partners, or your options.

It cannot be achieved via delegation, outsourcing or by committee.

Change would be easy if there were no people or organizations to get in the way. This draws a laugh, among leaders and often a pensive “so true.”

Less comfortable for the leaders who run organizations is that we are often the people who get in the way.  Appointing a change agent, hiring some boutique agency with a hip name, securing a powered consultant to affect change, or just embracing cool and different behavior might be part of an answer. But it is our organization, and it is us who must eventually be the doer of new things.

2. Empower the iconoclasts. There are many talented revolutionaries within your corporate environment, but they are often dismissed as “too junior” to add value.  Seek out your best thinkers at any level or age.  Listen to them, give them a platform and the support they need to achieve their goals. Encourage them to attack your ideas, your company. Too many of us get delusional surrounded by sycophants who either fear them or lust for the dollars we control.  

While organizations can clearly promote a culture that is conducive to innovation, it is ultimately the individual that matters—the passionate, risk-taking, caution-to-the-wind individual.  Not some group think, an organizational grope or some socialistic, homogenized, outward bound team.

3. Cross the line. We all cower within self-drawn boundaries. Too often we self-edit ourselves, fearful of crossing a line.  Or we wait for permission.  

Remember you do not know where the line is until you cross it.  

Let ethics guide you and start changing things. Now. You will be surprised to find that people will not stop you but most likely will follow you.

Cross the line. Often you will notice the line was in your imagination.  You might learn that those who once prevented you from crossing this were not aware of a line at all.

4. Leverage organizational inertia: It is possible to get “The Company” to do what we want if we simply start doing it.

If getting approval requires lots of forms, presentations, and justification, it means your organization may suffer from so much inertia it might not actually know how to say no. This is a real opportunity for the daring.  Instead of asking for approval to start something, why not take the initiative and see if the company stops you?  No harm done, right? Key is that idea or initiative is ethical and legal.

Most important, in today’s fast moving and ever increasingly digital world, the lines we draw around our categories are disappearing.  So are the barriers and lines that once controlled competition in our industries. Did any phone company executive a few years ago predict competition from Skype? Or Whats App?  New competitors appear all the time, as do new threats, but so do new potential partners and opportunities.

Crossing the line is a lonely job.  It is you who must eventually be the doer of new things.

If you are successful, why not be willing to take a risk? Are you not amazed at how many admired, world class organizations are overly cautious?  If they cannot grasp the opportunity to fail at some greater thing, are they not already in the process of ossification?

5.   Act to change or change your act.

You might be a highly talented individual cowering within some imagined or real constraint. If your company is repressing you and you are good, risk taking can only beget one of two outcomes. You will succeed or you will be asked to leave. If you are asked to leave and you are good, many companies will be ready to hire you, or you could go into business for yourself. But staying put and becoming some bureaucratic czar will eventually lead to you resenting yourself and reducing your market value.

Do yourself a favor.  Cross the line.  Most times no one will stop you.

Challenge yourself to fail once you have succeeded.

Seize bigger opportunities!

All non-dinosaur photography by  Erin Babnik