Sometimes when things get tough it helps to have something right in front of you to grab hold of; not so much to keep going, but to help you change course.
Changing course is often the best way to get past a problem; it’s no that you ignore it, rather you approach it from another direction—or find that it’s not necessary and just let it go and move on.
Ten years ago my niece sent me a card that I framed. It’s hung on the wall by my desk at three different locations and it still works.
What would your reaction be to an executive who, when asked about company values, replied, “What do you mean by ‘values’? Do you mean ‘value’? I don’t understand what you mean by ‘values’.”
That was Sir Alan Sugar’s response at a recent conference when asked if he’d ever sacked someone because their values conflicted with the company values. (In case you’re wondering, Sir Alan is the counterpart to Donald Trump on the British version of The Apprentice.)
Based on what we’ve seen lately, Sir Alan has a lot of company.
So I have some questions for you.
How do you establish values in your company or in your life?
Do you depend on a set ideology or do you determine them yourself?
Are your values absolute or are they flexible? Why?
Are they sustainable?
I hope that many of you will take the time to respond and add your own thoughts.
You will recall that the shifty moneylender had put two black pebbles in the bag.
The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.
‘Oh, how clumsy of me,’ she said. ‘But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked.’
Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the money-lender dared not admit his dishonesty out of fear, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.
I like this story because it is a simple illustration of the difficulty of so-called thinking outside the box, but why is that?
Starting as young children we are praised for coloring inside the lines and praise for coloring inside the lines continues as we grow.
The lines we stay inside my not be apparent to an onlooker, but they are obvious to our chosen world. Fashion is a great example, the Goth look that is seen as so outside-the-box by many is framed with as many rules and lines as is any mainstream look.
Fred H Schlegel had a nice suggestion, but it depended on changing the basic nature of the villain and when looking for out-of-the-box solutions we rarely can change people’s basic nature.
Becky Robinson came closest; she was honest and said that she had seen a similar problem previously. But in her synthesizing Becky allowed the crook to take the active role, assuming he would act ethically to maintain his honor, but if he had honor he wouldn’t have cheated in the first place.
Did Becky win? You decide in comments.
Creativity requires us to step away from many of our own basic assumptions as well as going outside the lines dictated by our world.
Doing this is how we enlarge our box to encompass the universe. (My apologies, I just found that this link didn’t work last week.)
It takes effort and lots of practice, but the rewards more than justify the work.
As I said in the old posts I pointed out yesterday, I don’t believe that anyone ever gets out of their box, but boxes are infinitely enlargeable and the only constraints are the ones you put in place.
I thought I’d offer up two visual mind-expanders today. Fun for you and fun for me.
Did you know that research shows that no matter how scrambled the letters if the first and last are in the correct position you can read the words? Try it now.
Could you read it? If not, try again.
How are you at spatial puzzles? Here’s one that’s been around for a long time, but I haven’t met many people who solved it.
Think abut what you just saw. The MAP that stops most of us from figuring it out is based on what we start hearing as toddlers when we get our first crayons—
“Silly, whoever heard of an orange sky?”
“But cows only have 4 legs.”
And from our first coloring book, and as a metaphor throughout life, we hear over an over “color inside the lines;” then all of a sudden we’re being chided for doing exactly that.
Go ahead, expand the lines; push the boundaries; you’ll be surprised at how easily they move.
One of my very favorite bloggers, Jim Stroup, has been away for the last couple of months. He’s back now and his first post is one of the best Memorial Day posts I’ve seen.
It’s interesting because the story he tells is one about an attitude I’ve run into multiple times in my life as a headhunter.
Read it and be sure it’s not about you.
And for those of you who don’t read Leadership Turn here are my thoughts translated into a visual by mY generation author Jim Gordon. Thanks, Jim!
Do you watch Extreme Makeover Home Edition? I usually have it on Sunday evenings while I’m writing and last night was no exception. For those of you who don’t watch, all the makeovers this season were for ‘heroes’; people who ignored their own situation to give back.
Last night was a makeover for Bernard McFarland, a 37 year old single dad who has become a mentor to all the kids in his neighborhood. He’s a firm believer that ‘knowledge is power’ and that learning and books are the answer to everything. (You can watch it online.)
But what I really like is the slogan he teaches the kids and, obviously, believes himself.
I like it enough to add it to my Rules To Live By (it’s number 24).
Yesterday I talked about the importance of failing fast, learning and moving on. I received an email from Chris asking what the best way to move past failure was. He said he was penalized for any goal missed or effort that fell short all his growing years and couldn’t seem to get over it as an adult.
Chris is not alone; like Pavlov’s dog we humans also respond to conditioning and as with every living organism people avoid doing things that they’ve been conditioned to believe brings humiliation—or worse.
As I said, Chris’ difficulty isn’t unusual and there are many ways to approach it. I know one coach who routinely recommends therapy, but I’m a bit more pragmatic than that. While therapy may help in the long run, most people want tools they can use to move forward now.
To do that, start with your definition of failure.
It’s believing that so-called failure actually means something that creates the fear of it. But I’m willing to bet that the times you ‘failed’ you weren’t struck by a thunderbolt, the earth didn’t stop turning and the sun still rose in the east.
In other words, what you tried didn’t work, so try something else.
Failing does not equate to death; as long as you get up, falling on your butt shouldn’t be a big deal.
You can even get up slowly; take time to let the ibuprofen work before you form another plan and try again. Falling down isn’t the problem, it’s not getting up that’s the problem.
Of course, knowing this and implementing it are two different things. Chris is going to think over what we discussed and call aback; I told him that if it makes sense to him I’d be happy to coach him through it.
Sometimes when things get tough it helps to have something right in front of you to grab hold of; not so much to keep going, but to help you change course.
Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.
It’s moxie that
Failing does not equate to death; as long as you get up, falling on your butt shouldn’t be a big deal.
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