If you are a manager and want to position your company or organization to succeed in the future, I'd suggest changing the normal managerial question of "How do I get more out of my employees?" to "How do I get the best out of my employees?"
Why? because passion, energy, creativity and innovation aren't easily reflected in quarterly earnings statements but they do show up in the long-run.
"When I come back, I want you to explain to me something complicated that I don't already know."
This is the question that Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, would routinely ask people he was interviewing in the early day's of Google's existence.
It is an excellent question--and one I have recommended before--but, as this article points out, there is an additional positive side-effect of asking this in an interview setting. Even if you don't end up hiring the person, your time will not have been wasted if you learned something that you didn't know--or, better yet, unlearned something you thought you knew.
Interested in some other questions that might help you unlearn? Try these on for size:
A Powerful Question: What Don't I Know?
Seth Godin has a wonderful post today entitled "Headroom" in which he states, "The only thing worse than being able to say, "my boss won't let me," is having to acknowledge, "my boss will let me."
It's a great point.
Now what if, as a manager or leader in your organization, you told people your default managerial position was that you were granting them full authority to act. In other words, your expectation was that they were there to get things done.
The difference is that instead of people coming to you to ask for permission to do things (and thus you act as a centurion), you redesign your position to facilitate the actions your team has already initiated.
It is the difference between playing defense and going on the offensive.
In this era of accelerating change, I think there is really only one way to go.
If you haven't already changed your default setting from permission to action, it's time.
Dan Pink has a wonderful article on the power of "flip thinking." I have long been an advocate of turning problems into opportunities but Pink's article takes the idea a step further and provides some wonderful examples.
For example, he cites a high school teacher who now makes his students watch his lectures on YouTube at home during the evening and then uses the classroom time to help them with their homework. This allows his students to stop and rewind his lectures whenever necessary, and allows him to help them where they most need it. (If you have ever struggled with a homework assignment late at night, you might appreciate this innovative approach.)
Pink also encourages authors to try releasing a book in e-book format first and then print a hard cover version later. He also cites an example of a company which has thrown tradition out the window and now throws parties for new employees instead of the much more common practice of throwing "going away" parties.
If you have any other examples of flip thinking, I'd love to hear them. Until then ... keep flip-flopping away.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
Question: What do chameleons do?
They do many things but the one thing they don’t do is change color to match their background. Chameleons do, however, change color in response to changes in light and temperature. They also change appearance when frightened or when attempting to gain the attention of a member of the opposite sex.
This distinction between changing to meet every change in external conditions and changing in response to only those factors which are critical to one’s long-term well-being or survival is an important one.
From a human perspective, the difference can best be seen with the actions of a “yes man”—someone who readily changes his message to match the viewpoints or beliefs of his audience—and a person who changes his mind in response to new information.
There is, for example, a big difference between the juror who has reservations about the guilt of the defendant but decides to go against her convictions and vote “guilty” with the other jurors for the sake of expediency, and a juror who had originally sided with the majority but, when presented with new information, changes her mind based on the principle of fairness.
The distinction is an important one especially in a society where changing one’s mind has become something of a liability. Now often have you heard a politician skewered by an opponent because they changed position on an important topic? “Candidate so-and-so was for it before he was against it!”
Distinguishing when someone is flip-flopping for expediency sake and when they are doing it out of principle can be difficult but one strategy for avoiding such situations is to “fear commitment” and steer clear of making unnecessary public statements.
It has been scientifically demonstrated that once a person publicly commits to a course of action, he is far less likely to change his position. The remedy to this problem then is to keep an open-mind and maintain a position of “non-commitment” as long as possible. Of course, as anybody in a long-standing romance where one partner refuses to commit to the relationship can tell you, this strategy is not without its pains and risk but these can be minimized.
In fact, the solution can be found by emulating the actions of the chameleon. Again, it is simply not true that these creatures change in response to every external change—and neither should you. Rather, the key to survival is to contemplate which external factors are critical to your survival and change only in response to those. In the case of the chameleon, they change to regulate their temperature, hide from predators, or procreate. In other words, they commit to changing only when one of three criteria has been met: 1) their external environment has changed; 2) to avoid being killed; or 3) to survive and propagate as a species.
It is behavior worth mimicking. It is probably true that at some point everybody will “show their true colors” but it is also equally likely that every person’s true colors will change in response to external factors. The trick then is to avoid committing to a one-color policy in a multi-color world.
I know a few people who don't wear seat belts. Normally, as someone with libertarian leanings, I wouldn't have a problem with this. (This would almost certainly be the case if society weren't also required to pay for their treatment after they have been in an accident)
My problem stems from those individuals who cite, as a rationale for their decision, stories of people who have lived after being thrown through a windshield. Their conclusion is that a seat belt might somehow similarly prevent them from escaping death after a bad accident. In short, they use the stories of these survivors as justification for their decision.
I will admit that, while rare, such events do occur and people can occasionally be saved by being thrown through a windshield. What my friends who espouse this line of thinking miss is that there are literally thousands of people who died precisely because they were thrown into or through a windshield.
Dead men don't talk so it is only natural that we will only hear the stories of those rare few who were fortunate enough to survive.
An element of unlearning us to see what we can't see and hear what we can't hear. This is hard to do but if you listen closely you might just hear the lesson of unlearning in the whispers of the thousands who didn't live to tell the tale of their encounter with the windshield.
If I haven't been clear enough, I encourage you to buckle up. If you need a little inspiration, just watch this short but powerful video.
IBM recently released a survey of 1500 CEO's across the globe and they said that creativity was the most important leadership quality for guaranteeing future success.
How does one become creative, though? Part of the answer, I 'd argue begins with the ability to unlearn.
It is now generally understood that today's more successful companies have figured out how to provide products and services to customers who don't even know that they want those services or products. But if your customer doesn't have a clue about what they want, how are your expected to have a clue?
The answer is that you must unlearn what you and your customer think you know about what is important.
You must see things from new and different perspectives; train your brain to appreciate ambiguity; figure out how to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar; and, above all, you must strive to always cultivate a beginner's mind.
P.S. As a short quiz, study the above picture and tell me what is unique about it?
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I have two children -- ages 9 and 11. I love them dearly but they have been known to not play so nicely with one another on occasion. What I find really fascinating is how they can be at each other's throat one minute and then playing peacefully together the next minute.
They have mastered the art of letting go. They don't hold grudges.
As we get older, I think we unlearn this habit and it isn't healthy. As example, I'd like to ask you to grab a pen. Now squeeze it as tightly as you can for a minute. At the end of the minute slowly begin to loosen your grip. It feels wonderful, doesn't it?
The real question, of course, is this: What else in your life are you holding on to? Are you squeezing on to a prized, physical possession (e.g. a car or a house); a personal relationship; or even an idea about yourself?
Now, think about letting that object go. Is it really as important or vital as you think it is? What would happen if you now really let it go?
The answer might surprise you because it could result in greater happiness.
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