Just Seven Things

Exploring why and how we do what we do, and how we can do it better

Archive for the category “Creativity”

Are you having visions?

Well, if you’re not, you should be.

The power of the human imagination is still relatively little researched. Productivity literature, parents and teachers ask us to focus on the task in hand and our project plans. Yet we know through our human history that it has been the big thinkers that have enabled our faster progress as a human race: not those who just focus on the here & now and accept the norm.

As animals, we are goal oriented (food, sex….) and from what we know about our evolution, we can speculate that a sophistication in our goal setting was introduced as we developed consciousness. We could defer satisfaction. Invest time and energy, working together for a longer-term and ultimately more rewarding goal. I suspect this skill is also subject to further evolution. We can be bound by what we know, as framed by our human history and what we tell each other. Limited by the current ‘realities’ of our knowledge. Or we can recognise this will just bring us a tomorrow that looked like yesterday.

Instead, we need to recognise our own power of imagination. We use the same parts of our brain in imagining as we do in remembering. Your ‘brain’ doesn’t really know that your big vision hasn’t already happened; therefore you are the only blocker to your dreams. Your limiting self-beliefs, your why-nots. So let’s take advantage of our sophistication. Let’s blow the doors off everything that limits us. Let’s all start to have visions that we’re proud of: our reality is what we make it.

Fortunately a giant robot dinosaur called FAKEGRIMLOCK comes to the rescue of our human limitations on a post on Eric Ries’ Lean Startup blog. My favourite part:

EVERYONE GOOD AT SEE CAN’T. EVERYONE LIVE IN WORLD FULL OF IMPOSSIBLE.

EVERYTHING THAT MATTER IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL SOMEONE DO IT ANYWAY.

STOP BEING EVERYONE. STARE AT WHY NOT UNTIL IT GIVE UP AND BECOME HOW TO.

7 Lessons from Steve Jobs’ Career

Some takeaways from Steve Jobs’s career – and what other leaders can practice for success:

  1. Relentlessly pursue bold ideas – Organizations must have the patience, courage, and foresight to encourage, provide resources, and remove barriers for their “wild ducks” to pursue and realize break-out ideas.
  2. The customer rules – Organizations need to identify and accelerate the careers of high potential employees who are attuned to the marketplace in ways that drive products and/or services intended to always surprise and delight the customer.
  3. Ego serves the organization – Leaders can have big egos, but their efforts are fundamentally channeled in the service of making organizations successful.
  4. Don’t confuse activity with results – Successful leaders leverage competitive drive to maintain traction/deliver distinctive excellence. They are not distracted from achieving the organization’s strategy and primary objectives.
  5. The 3 Rs – Strong leaders ensure that the right people are in the right jobs and that the right conditions have been created for them to succeed.
  6. Truth-telling – Don’t tolerate mediocre ideas, and be willing to take decisive action when people are not cutting it in their assigned roles.
  7. Inspirational communication – Provide frequent and intensely motivational communication about compelling objectives, and the importance of speed to market.

Read more…

How To Be The Jack Bauer Of Your Company

How can you be the Jack Bauer of your company?

Break process when necessary to get things done

Processes are well and good for many things, but not much remarkable was ever done as part of painting by numbers.  If you see opportunity to do something amazing outside your processes, do it.  Don’t waste time asking permission, just do what needs to be done.  If you break a process to achieve your objective and succeed, the right management team would never be upset.  If they are you’re with the wrong team.

Believe in what you’re doing (and bring emotion to the table)

A lot of people check their emotions at the door when starting their day.  You shouldn’t do this – especially if you are in a creative industry.  Your emotions, directed by the high road, can be a powerful tool of persuasion and allow you to execute far better than you would without them.  Believing in what you’re doing requires that you bring your emotions.

Fear nothing

I’ve previously promoted the notion you should fear nothing.  Just like Jack faced adversaries without fear, you too should embrace this in anything you do in your industry.  Fear is a dated emotion, having little relevance in modern society.  What’s the worst that can happen to you, really?

Strategist and tactician

It’s a potent combination to be able to not just develop effective strategic plays, but also put them into action yourself.  It is the rare strategist who is able to masterfully execute on the front lines and lead other tacticians to success.  Further, that individual will have greater respect from the execution team than anyone else on the management team who simply sits in their ivory tower.

Read more…

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