Monthly Archives: February 2012

Let It Flow

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If you want to foster a culture of open ideas, you cannot stand in the way. Do not shoot suggestions down, do not fight back and never stifle the feedback loop. Close your mouth and bite your tongue if you have to. Whatever it takes to let your team know that they are being listened to and that there is room for their ideas. After ideas have been heard, let open debate ensue. Invite extra opinions and open your ears even wider. Make sure opinions are genuinely collected and heard. Show the idea collection process with surveys, emails, whiteboards, etc. if you think it will help your team see and appreciate your reception to their opinions. And do not fear disagreements. Disagreements are healthy – they suggest that ideas are being contributed and tested. As with any relationship, team relationships stand to grow and strengthen through overcoming disagreements.

If you need to make a quick decision and do not have time for collecting feedback, don’t close the deal immediately. Help everyone understand why you feel the way you do and thank them for their understanding. At the very least, it shows you respect their autonomy and the other contributions they make.

The True Definition of Passion

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Weeks in a row of sleepless nights. Stress, conflict, strained relationships. No social life, terrible diet. Racked brain, philosophical despair. All in the name of a project. Pushing for a huge deadline, kicking and screaming. Crossing the finish line at 4am and dropping dead to a deserved full night sleep. The punchline? Waking up and wanting to do it all over again. If that’s not passion, I don’t know what is.

One Year Anniversary

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I started blogging one year ago today. I’ve successfully posted every single day since then. 373 entries, nearly 70,000 words and 17,000 unique visitors so far. I have no intention of stopping.

This year, I hope to focus my material and brand this blog. If you have anything you like or don’t like about the direction I’ve taken, please let me know!

Thank you, dear reader, for keeping up with and sharing my posts. This continues to be a wild and fulfilling ride. An extra special thank you to Shirl for proofing my posts and never missing a word! Love you all.

2011 Academy Award Wishes

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I have no vested interest in making predictions this year, but there are still a few people I would love to see with a golden statue. Here’s my list of people and films I think deserve awards in each category (or my best stab for categories where I haven’t seen everything). [In brackets, I’ve listed people who weren’t nominated and deserve a shout out]

Picture: The Artist
Actor: Gary Oldman
Actress: Michelle Williams
Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer
Supporting Actress: Bérénice Bejo
Director: Michel Hazanavicius [Nicolas Winding Refn]
Screenplay: Woody Allen
Adapted Screenplay: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Animated: Rango
Foreign: A Separation
Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki
Editing: Thelma Schoonmaker
Art Direction: Hugo
Costume Design: Hugo
Makeup: Albert Nobbs
Original Score: Howard Shore [Alexandre Desplat, The Ides of March]
Original Song: “Man or Muppet”
Sound Mixing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Sound Editing: Drive [Rise of the Planet of the Apes]
Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Documentary: Undefeated

The Camera Will Not Let You Fake Honesty

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For most people, you cannot script honesty. Actors get paid the big bucks to bring someone else’s words to life. Most people can’t do that. Most people stale up when forced to read a script. If you mean to be honest with your audience, words must come from the heart and without censorship. If you cannot deliver a genuine message from a page, throw the page away. Skip the expensive production value if you need to. Keep it simple: one shot, one take. Nothing between you and absolute truth.

Trust In People’s Cores

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Lives are unstable and crazy things happen. People can react in unpredictable ways to unpredictable things. Too much dwelling can quickly transform a person into an unrecognizable Mr. Hyde. The last thing you should do when friends or family react unpredictably to an unpredictable event is react unpredictably yourself. Take a moment to breathe, step back from the situation and wait for the dust to settle. A single event alone cannot transform a person completely (though it certainly can catalyze a chain of behavioral change). Trust smart people with strong souls to undulate back onto their original paths. Have faith that spontaneous decisions or wild moves are a temporary lapse in character and not a complete restructure of people’s cores. Do what you can to help them find their way back home, but be careful taking the reins on an unpredictable situation. Human ambition and emotion should not be lured back into a cage – boxing the beast may be more dangerous than letting it run wild and tire itself out.

In crazy situations, stand by with support and love. Have patience and trust that a person will remember who he or she originally set out to be.

Agree On the Mission

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Before doing anything else, you should check to make sure your entire team agrees with and can own the mission at hand. It’s very important to make sure that you are on the same page with everyone before embarking on a collaboration. If people diverge in completely different directions, you stretch the project thin and go nowhere. You cannot easily push the cart in one direction if your partner is pulling it in the other. Discuss the mission and agree on the meaning behind the problem you are trying to solve first before setting out to find a solution. If everyone is pushing in the same direction, you may have enough momentum to get the cart out of the mud.

Repetition Can Turn Insanity to Truth

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Public speaking and education theory underscore the value of repetition. If repeated, the odds of audience retention increase dramatically for a given piece of information. Repeated more, listeners may start to engage with the material. Debates, testing, execution or indoctrination may ensue.

Take repetition to the next level: get people to live and breathe the information. If repeated enough, opponents may even give up opposing and join the team. The information may not be true. How do you think we came to associate the Trojan War with a lust battle? Enough people recited the Iliad as historical literature, over and over again. Call it “truth conditioning.” Tell a lie so many times that people start to believe it. You may even start to believe it yourself.

When you surround yourself by theories, people and literature that never leave you alone, you start to accept their fiction as fact. Watch Star Wars enough times and you will believe in the Force. Read a book enough times and you will believe the world started six thousand years ago. Spend enough time in your environment and you will believe it’s the only way to live life. We live and breathe conditioning every day and fall prey. You accept “truths” within the world you live and move on accordingly.

Repetition and persistence may be the most powerful tools in mass communication. Say something loud – and then say it again. And again. And again.

What or Who Are You Competing Against?

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Do you even know? No one can genuinely create a sense of urgency without cause or reason. Everyone is competing against the clock (we’re mortals, after all), but why? For what reason? Is it a race? Against whom?

If you have a clear opponent to beat, that’s easy. Wave the enemy’s flag in spite and embrace competition as a positive energy in your organization or life. Move forward and fast, as if it were a fun game.

If you are a startup or non-profit without grasp of a market, what are you competing against? Most small organizations compete against sinking bank accounts. Young companies not yet cash-flow positive must sweat their burn rates and execute on their vision before running out of money. If the money drain is your greatest enemy, make a big deal about that, too. Don’t hide it from your people; share the bank statement with managers if you want them to understand that particular sense of urgency. They will understand.

You cannot motivate people from scratch. You can only give them the tools, information and environment to hopefully inspire them to motivate themselves. As a leader, you must know what you are competing against. And do not forget to share that information with your people who suffer the whip every day.

Treat Impatience With Patience

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Stress and impatience crescendos when met with more stress or impatience. Two impatient fools in a room don’t make a right. When your friend, spouse, child or boss unleash momentary wrath on you, you can fight back and feed the wrath – or go into monk mode and stay calm. If you enjoy conflict and saying things you don’t mean, go ahead and lift your verbal sword. Otherwise, be the better man or woman. Treat impatience with patience.