David Zinger’s post Friday (marvelous wordplay and puns) was all about freedom—freedom from clothes.
It seems that a Dave Taylor, a business shrink in the UK, recommends “Naked Friday” to boost team spirit—taking casual Friday to a whole new level.
“Inviting an organisation to go naked is the most extreme technique I’ve used. It may seem weird but it works. It’s the ultimate expression of trust in yourself and each other.”
Seems like naked is the rage among folks with those great accents.
Air New Zealand has made both an ad and a safety video using its own employees, including CEO Rob Fyfe, fully dressed—in body paint. (It’s probably the first time anyone paid attention to a safety video.)
“Each clip took one day to shoot and cost about 10 to 15 per cent of the cost of a major brand commercial.”
But don’t look for anything similar in the US any time soon.
Can you imagine the harassment lawsuits? Even if the staff agreed, someone would accuse someone else of staring and the simplest action would border on inappropriate.
The same with the commercial.
Can you imagine the lawsuits if an airline crew walked through a major airport here clad only in body paint?
The awards for developmental damage to children, the pain and suffering of the adults and the general flouting of public decency could pay off the TARP loans.
Perhaps this is where the US went wrong.
Our Puritanical roots are very close to the surface and we’ve lost our national sense of humor—if we ever had one.
There is nothing like laughter to take the hot air out of the leading windbags who dominate all viewpoints in our national news, whether business, religion or politics.
I received and email in response to last Tuesday’s post about the value of adding QF to your culture’s DNA that absolutely floored me.
“Jess” said that “the disruption caused by indulging in QF” was expensive and difficult considering today’s economy. He said that this wasn’t the time to look for innovation, but to focus on survival; and that even in good times innovation was expensive and not all companies could afford that level of brain power.
Granted, a lot of CEOs have a hunker down mentality right now, but even casual reading will show that the smartest companies, whether large or small, are using this time to innovate and build, so they can move swiftly when things turn around.
But it was the special brain power for innovation that blew me away.
Innovation isn’t about hiring a Steve Jobs think-alike, but about tapping into the people you have and creating a culture that encourages and rewards ideas—even if they upset the status quo.
One of the most innovative and creative business segments these days (and historically) is the wholesale drug trade, AKA, drug lords.
The constant innovation required to smuggle their product is amazing and I doubt that the innovators have special training or degrees from Ivy League schools (other than their financial and legal talent).
The innovation is driven by market forces and necessity.
Creativity is a mindset that can be cultivated in everybody IF the company’s culture supports it and managers have skin in the game.
The requirements for a culture of innovation are already well represented here and in numerous other places.
Skin is accomplished by tying part of managers’ compensation to the group’s innovation.
This requires a well publicized set of measurements, not a boss’ opinion that changes with mood or whim.
(Hat tip to Biz Levity for the drug link. Subscribe if you want to add some business-irreverent laughter to your life).
Wally Bock, citing an article in Forbes, talks about the value of storytelling to get your point across. And it’s true. I frequently use stories to help clients understand a concept more easily or wrap their heads around something that’s very new to them.
Yes, storytelling is an extremely powerful tool, but I see two problems inherent in these discussions.
The first is that the political, religious and business leaders used to illustrate storytelling’s influence are always positive examples and, obviously, plenty of those on the dark side have used it too.
Secondly, there is rarely any information on how listeners can shield themselves from the enthralling effect of the story in order to evaluate the actual ideas being presented.
I remember a friend telling me that he was mesmerized after hearing Bobby Kennedy, who he opposed, use stories to describe a situation and what he would do to change it. The effect wore off, but he found it a frightening experience.
Combine these two and you have a recipe for disaster—Hitler was an expert storyteller from the dark side, which is why he still has adherents.
Business leaders tell stories, called visions, constantly.
But as adults, involved in adult pursuits, we have a responsibility not to suspend our common and critical senses and swallow the story whole.
Here is how you stay balanced.
Enjoy the story, but remind yourself that it is a story and that once the telling is done then the content needs to be dissected and evaluated by the left side of your brain as opposed to embraced in toto by the right.
Are you looking for a good way to make your company or group more innovative? To move it from where it is to where you want it to be?
A good place to start is by encouraging your people to question the fundamentals (QF) of the company.
QF is one of the best ways to overcome the “…but we’ve always done it that way” school of thought and foes a long way to overturning “not invented here” syndrome; both are major stumbling blocks to innovation, productivity, retention and a host of other positives moves.
QF also goes a long way to attracting Millennials and other creative types, because there are no sacred cows—everything is open to improvement and change.
However, making an announcement isn’t going to do it.
Start by identifying your company’s fundamentals, not so much the official ones (although they can also be problematic) as the unwritten/unspoken ones your employees deal with every day.
It’s easy to find them, just ask—but ask knowing that you may not like the answers. (One client found that, contrary to its stated policy, their people believed that quality wasn’t as important as shoving the product out the door.)
Depending on your current culture the identification process can be anything from a public brainstorming session with a whiteboard to some kind of “suggestion box” that’s truly anonymous.
You may be very surprised at some of the perceptions that turn up.
Once you start on a list of fundamentals you want to open them up to debate—the more passionate the better—using a combination of technology (forum, wiki, etc.) and in person discussions. The object being to decide whether to modify/jettison/keep each one, as well as what to add.
Unless your MAP dictates a company that functions in Dilbertland, this is an ongoing, proactive management task to encourage employees to question, rethink, revamp or even dump the company’s fundamentals.
Even when QF is deeply embedded in your culture you can’t assume your people will keep doing it and new people coming from other cultures will need assurance that QF is indeed part of your company’s DNA.
Last week’s discussion about the difference between busy and productive featured a comment from Jim Gordon. In a follow-up comment he expanded how he deals with this problem when teammates complain, whether by word or look, that he’s goofing off because he isn’t ‘busy’.
“One strategy I used in my groups was to map out every single task we were doing, have the team agree that it is a fair and balanced, distributed workload, and completed the tasks on my terms. By doing this, I was able to finish everything quickly. In fact, on multiple occasions I gave myself MORE work only to finish it hours before the rest of the team to prove a point. I am not saying I recommend this, as I had the time to do it, but the underlying idea behind the method is what’s important.
What this does is put everyone on a common ground – it makes everything transparent. In a sense, it almost divides the group into a set of individuals. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, unless you have booming chemistry it is the best way to accommodate opposite personalities. Busy people will always like busy people better than productive people (think in terms of “misery loves company”). Productive people will like the other productive people. The idea is to work “together” separately and on common terms. I didn’t run into a single other problem after we began agreeing to these common terms. I would say “I’ll crunch these numbers, translate them, write the report on them, and email it to you if you do this other task… does that sound fair?” If they said “Yes,” then as long as you finish your task, they cannot say anything.”
Smart thinking—especially considering that Jim did this in college (he just graduated).
But what if you’re work isn’t quantitative? It’s a difficult solution to implement when your work day isn’t comprised of set duties.
Think about it. How many of your people really understand what you do and why you spend your time the way you do? And that means that when you’re managing by walking around, which is very productive, they think you’re just goofing off and leaving all the work to them.
The solution is simple, whereas the implementation can be difficult.
The solution is to communicate; to talk. To describe to your people what you do and why, so they see your wandering around the department as a job duty and not a time-waster. To make sure that your people can track your productivity even when you don’t seem busy.
There are many managers who don’t know what they do beyond the obvious parts and you can’t share what you don’t know.
And more managers than you might think don’t want to share; they want to keep the managerial mystique intact, which means shrouding much of the work in secrecy or at least no details.
The former just takes some effort to identify and describe all the intangibles that make up your invisible work.
The latter is between you and your MAP, but as I keep saying, MAP can change and it’s always your choice.
Do you subscribe to The McKinsey Quarterly? They have a great selection of topics depending on your interests. I mention this because you may have to register to read the following, but no worry, it’s free.
McKinsey has done a great interview with Stanford prof and management guru Robert Sutton, he of The No Asshole Rule fame.
I love questions. Questions are the stuff of life, especially if you’re a ‘why‘ person like me.
Answers are fine, but questions take you further; they’re all about creativity, innovation and the unknown. Questions are the road to the future.
“The first people had questions and they were free. The second people had answers, and they became enslaved.” –Wind Eagle, American Indian Chief (Questions take you further than answers. Hat tip to Slacker Manager for this quote.)
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” -–Galileo (See that; it’s about the questions.)
“I am not young enough to know everything.” –Oscar Wilde (Isn’t that great? Under 25 (give or take) and you don’t need questions.)
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” –Ellen Parr (More questions. Questions are curiosity in action.)
Do you have a favorite question quote? Please take a moment and share it with us.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
“Jess” said that “the disruption caused by indulging in QF” was expensive and difficult considering today’s economy. He said that this wasn’t the time to look for innovation, but to focus on survival; and that even in good times innovation was expensive and not all companies could afford that level of brain power.
Yes, storytelling is an extremely powerful tool, but I see two problems inherent in these discussions.
A good place to start is by encouraging your people to question the fundamentals (QF) of the company.
