Archive for the ‘Problem Solving’ Category

« Older Entries

Objectives vs. Outcomes cont’d

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

Tuesday night, we staged an invitation-only workshop for 25 friends, acquaintances and interested folks to let them experience the marvel that is GameChangers. After reviewing our performance, the GameChangers team’s consensus is that on this particular night we were not marvelous. We started 15 minutes late, got slow in the middle and rushed at the end. We felt that the experience was, at times, less than riveting for our audience.  A couple of people spent an inordinate amount of time on their mobile devices, and we know for a fact they were not tweeting about how great it all was.

Specific notes:

- After cautioning the audience at the beginning of the presentation about long monologues as a means of communicating, I wrapped up the presentation with a long monologue.

- Our direction was soft on a couple of the exercises. This resulted in a kind of sponginess in the middle of the two-hour session, with drawn-out explanations by Antonio and me, less focus by the teams, and a rushed ‘third act’ in the last 15 mins.

- As any improviser can tell you, you have to work on pieces of the process at a time. You cannot drop everything you know on your audience all at once. In my explanation of what we call ‘the orchestral model’ of business communication, and the concept we call ‘quantum narrative,’ I got into more detail than the audience was able to absorb in such a short window. ‘Too clever by half,”as they say in Blighty. ‘Ten pounds of potatoes in a five pound bag,” as they say in Boise.

- The teamwork that usually happens during our workshops was not so much apparent in this one. Things stayed more individualized, and less knit-together than we would like.

- The tempo at which we conducted the session was inconsistent. If I had been conducting a piece of music, it would have been in about 20 different time signatures, with me conducting at least part of the performance with my back to the orchestra. Missing cues. Dynamics roller-coastery instead of scenic.

These notes are related to our business objective for the workshop, which was to explain GameChangers and give attendees a sampling of what we do with our clients. At achieving this objective, we give ourselves a 50%. We were only about half as effective as we believe we’re capable of being.

So why are we not upset?

Two reasons: One is that because our process lets us see so clearly where the issues are, we have already taken steps to remedy them before the next open workshop.

The other, bigger, reason is that the outcomes of the session have been extraordinary, better than the outcomes of many workshops where our performance was actually  much better than it was Tuesday. A lot of credit for this goes to the people who were in attendance. One of the points we make in these introductions to GameChangers is to distinguish between objectives of the game, and the outcomes of the game, and wow, has that been our experience since Tuesday.

These are some of the outcomes:

- Our friend Ron Finley, the ‘renegade urban gardener’ connected with our friends Jenna and Adam from TakePart, who were in attendance. TakePart is the digital division of Participant Media. They are going to do a story about Ron.

- Erin Reilly, the creative director of USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab, spoke yesterday to her faculty committee about having us do a one-day workshop there in March.

- Marcy and Strath Hamilton of Tri-Coast Studios, which is producing a lot of e-books, met a Ruby on  Rails coder named Patrick Maddox, who was in attendance Tuesday.  They’ve been looking for a coder. Now they’re talking to Patrick.

- T.H. Culhane and David Groder, who are working on a robotics education program funded by the U.S. Naval Research Dept., are making a presentation today (Wednesday) at Washington High School in Los Angeles, and are being joined by Ron Finley, who is a Washington High graduate. This is happening as a result of them connecting on Tuesday night.

- T.H. and Groder will soon get introduced by GameChangers associate Jamal Williams, who was in town from D.C. for the Tuesday workshop, to Nii Simmonds, the ‘Nubian Cheetah,’ a Ghanian-born D.C. resident and former investment banker who funds a program called Afrobotics, a robotics competition for African schoolchildren.

- Kevin Wall, who is producing the opening ceremonies and concert for the 2014 World Cup in Rio, was in attendance. Kevin learned for the first time that Fernando Godoy, who used to be an intern in at one of Kevin’s companies, is today a successful internet entrepreneur in Sao Paulo and is a partner in Spirit of Football 2014. Kevin and Fernando are going to meet the next time Kevin is in Brazil.

- Tri-Coast Productions and GameChangers are meeting this coming Monday to discuss two projects–a GameChangers ebook and a video series that would be produced and performed by people from our network of world-class improvisers.

- Andy Sternberg has since Tuesday introduced us to two friends of his whom he believes will be interested in our work.

- We were able to continue a conversation with Nicholle McClelland Betelier, a marketing officer from IdeaLab, that began at a yoga retreat in December.

- A crypto-hipster named Som showed up uninivited, and asked some of the best questions and offered some of the most thoughtful comments of the evening. Thank you, Som, whoever and wherever you are! Please stay in touch!

- My favorite outcome of the evening came about thanks to a ‘gift’ from David Groder. At the very end of the session, after my long-winded closing monologue, Groder asked if we could go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves. All 25 people introduced themselves and described the work they’re doing. It was really remarkable, not only because it completely subverted the normal order of things—introductions at the end instead of the beginning!—but also because the people in attendance are doing brilliant things in the world. Attendees are working in robotics, social media, community development, urban gardening, fashion, cause-related marketing, transmedia storytelling, architecture, criminal law, venture capital, entertainment, academia, e-books, tech, watercraft stabilization, app development, etc. etc. etc. Introductions at the end became a very enjoyable kind of reveal. Almost everyone stayed and talked for half-an-hour or more after the session, and I believe most of that conversation would not have happened if not for David’s gift to the scene.

Never get objectives confused with outcomes. Objectives are what we use to assess and improve our performance. Outcomes happen as a result of having performed. Objectives are finite. Outcomes are unlimited. Objectives create focus. Outcomes generate value.

Post-event conversations were the most productive part of the evening

Post-event conversations were the most productive part of the evening

-

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Coaching, Communication, Education, Fundamentals, Games, Gifts, Issues, Narrative, Objectives, Problem Solving, Scenes, Social Media, Suggestions From the Audience, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The Cliche of ‘Yesterday’

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

Not long ago, I observed a scene in a retail store where a manager requested something from a busy employee. This request was obviously unexpected. An ambush of sorts. The employee was doing something else at the time. We have all been part of a scene like this, in one role or the other.

“And when do you need this done?” sighed the already-dubious employee.

“Yesterday!” said the manager, pivoting abruptly and walking away.

The employee shook her head almost imperceptibly and said to no one in particular, “What am I supposed to do with that?”

Exactly.

‘Yesterday’ is not an answer. It’s an attitude.  And a cliche on top of it. The ‘I need it yesterday’ attitude says to the employee:

“You are now guaranteed to fail. I’m going to be unhappy with you no matter what. You should have thought of this yourself. Do I have to think of everything?” That’s  lot of attitude for one word.

And like the employee said, what is a person supposed to do with it?

Give the people in your scenes information they can put to use! Information that will shed light and bring clarity to the problem at hand. Don’t muck up the scene with your imperious attitude and your unrealistic expectations.

Richard Saul Wurman holds court at USC school of Architecture, 01.10.12

Richard Saul Wurman holds court at USC school of Architecture, 01.10.12

On Tuesday, I went to see Richard Saul Wurman speak to an audience of architecture students and faculty at USC. Afterward he held court outside the classroom for half a dozen students who stayed around and asked him questions. One student asked, “What do you think of urban planning?”

Wurman sized up the student for half a beat then shook his head. “That’s a terrible question,” he scolded. (He pulls no punches.) “It’s too general, too broad. How can I even begin to answer it? It’s like asking a doctor what he or she thinks of medicine, or asking an oceanographer what he or she thinks of water!”

See, there’s learning in the ‘Yesterday’ scene for both players. The employee had an attitude, too. “When do you need this done?” made scheduling the task the manager’s problem. It was therefore not a very useful response to the manager’s request.

Instead of a question that made scheduling the task the manager’s problem (and setting herself up to be a victim) a question or statement that engaged the manager in the scheduling process would have been better:

“I’ve got five to-do’s on my list ahead of your request. Help me prioritize.”

“I can have it done in 48 hours.”

“Rate the urgency from 1 to 5, with 5 being an emergency where I have to drop everything and do it now.”

Whatever you do, whatever role you’re playing, give your scene partners information they can act on, not an attitude that makes it more difficult or even impossible for them to solve the problem of the scene.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Additions and Edits, Agreement Principle, Communication, Dialogue, Leadership, Problem Solving, Roles, Scenes | No Comments »

Life is Long

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

ET1One night when my son, Alex (who’s leaving tomorrow for a job in NYC) was five years old, we watched the movie E.T. together at home. When E.T. left Elliot to return to his home planet, Alex cried. He was still sad when I tucked him into bed a little later.  “Why did E.T. leave?” he asked.

“E.T. had to go home,” I said. “To his family, on the planet where he lives.”

“I didn’t want him to go. I wanted him to stay with Elliot.”

“E.T. and Eliot were sad about it, too. But they love each other. And as long as they love each other, they’ll never really be apart. In their hearts, they’ll always be together.”

A pause, as Alex ponders.

“So you and I will always be together?”

“Yes, Son, you and I will always be together.”

Of all the motivational sayings used in business my least favorites express the idea that  ‘Life is Short.’

Because you see, Life is not short. Life is long. Our own lives are short, for sure. Birth, fornication and death—as the poet Ogden Nash so succinctly put it—are the facts when you get down to brass tacks. A human being’s life—or a whale’s or a bacterium’s—is a tiny spark in the night of eternity. But to say or act as if life itself is short generates the kinds of  hurrying and worrying that can cause us to miss much of what life actually is, or can be.

Life is long like the love a parent has for a child. There is nothing short about that. Nothing hurried. Time ceases to matter when we are proving our love.

Life is long like the warmth of a fire on a cold night. We are warmed as much by an experience as old as humankind as by the fire itself.

No matter what mountain we have chosen to climb, or what sudden twist of fate confronts us, when we behave as if life is short, we begin to hurry, and that’s when mistakes happen. As the basketball coach John Wooden said, “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”

My wish for 2012 is that we all find ways to appreciate the idea that life is long…

That the reason we make footprints on the planet is to mark a path for who comes after, and that it’s not the size of the footprint that matters, but the direction of the path.

That we are patient with one another, and not short, abrupt, rude, inconsiderate, unkind—all the stuff we do intentionally or not, when we get impatient, when we are driven by the ticking of an internal clock that no one else can hear.

That we embrace the notion that our Success is inevitable, and so is our Failure.

That the Birth-Fornication-Death thing is fleeting, but poetry endures.

That we remember that nothing of value was ever harmed by the taking of time. (I thought Abraham Lincoln said it, but can’t find the citation. What’s likely is that even if Abe Lincoln did say it, someone said it before Abe. Because life is long.)

That we see growth not as something that takes time, but as something that transcends time, because growth is happening now and always has been. What can take time is our own ability to see and make sense of it. The Disney animator Ken Anderson once pointed out to me, about the great old California Oak trees in Descanso Gardens near his home in Flintridge, CA, “The trees are dancing. If you could look at them over a long, long time you would see them dancing.” Life-is-short sees a tree. Life-is-long sees a dance.

That while our time here is limited, our ability to love one another is not. And that as long as we act out of love, our footprints will mark a path worth following.

Have a lively 2012! Don’t be the Tree, be the Dance!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Emotion, Issues, Metaphor, Movement, Narrative, Problem Solving, Relationships, Themes, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Role Model

Monday, December 12th, 2011

Our friend, Howard was the publicist on the film, Tex, which was Matt Dillon’s breakout role as a leading actor in a feature film. Young Dillon was barely out of his teens at the time, maybe even still a teenager, and was, by all accounts, a raw and rambunctious lad. He and Howard were in Atlanta visiting the nerve center of new media at the time, Turner Broadcasting, the first of the Superstations, where Young Dillon would be doing a series of interviews. After his first interview, he began chatting up a young Turner employee who was beautiful in a way that only southern girls can be. They can say everything without saying anything. A Turner exec pulled Howard aside to tell him Young Dillon had to back off the belle. “That’s Ted’s girl,” explained the exec.

Nobody, including Young Dillon, had to ask what this meant.LeadershipFlowers1A

The old role model of leadership was about control.  How do I get what I want when I want it?

Leadership in a networked world is not nearly as much about control as it is about adaptability. How does a team get the resources it needs to solve the problem?

Now—-

Just because leadership is highly adaptive doesn’t mean it is without structure. In fact, it’s the opposite: Because what it means to lead can change from scene to scene, it  calls for even more structure and definition than the old models did, when one org chart covered every leadership scenario.

We call our role model the 3A Role Model. Here’s why: There are three A’s to every role: Accountability, Autonomy, and Authority. When the 3 A’s are clearly defined and understood by all the players in a scene, and when they are complementary between players, leaders will emerge organically and authentically from that team and its scene.

When the 3 A’s are muddled, overlapping or disputed, leadership can get territorial and ’status-y.’ When this happens, leadership  arises from something that’s not part of the scene—qualifiers like job titles, seniority, family ties, company politics, intimidation, scapegoating, etc.—all of which are unrelated to the problem to be solved in the scene and therefore offer only an illusion of leadership, not the real deal.

The 3A Role Model:

Accountability. We are Accountable to our team, and to the ‘game’ of solving the problem at hand. We are also Accountable to our company, to the agreement that we are engaged (one hopes) in generating something worthwhile in the world, and in caring for families, loved ones, communities, and ourselves. These are the most important aspects of Accountability, because they are intrinsic to teams and individuals. Beyond that, Accountability does, in fact, mean organizational responsibility–who reports to whom? This structure is extrinsic, though, and does not guarantee a good flow of communication. In fact, if leadership is extrinsic, scenes often produce a one-way flow of communication, which is a big no-no. Good leaders make it clear they are every bit as Accountable to their team as their team is to them. And so it flows…

Autonomy. If Accountability is the root system of an organization, nourishing and sustaining it from within, Autonomy is the leaf system, which has the potential to energize and give it life by drawing in outside resources and opportunities.  Autonomy means the freedom to decide and act on one’s own, without any other player’s approval or oversight. Nobody tells a leaf which way to turn! A company’s spirit of entrepreneurship and ability to innovate are liberated by Autonomy. Its ability to turn these energies into growth rests with Accountability and….

Authority. Authority—-which stems from a 13th-Century Old French word, autorite, meaning “a book or quotation that settles an argument”—–is the ability to empower and disempower. It governs the other two A’s. To extend the permaculture metaphor, this is the planter or designer who decides what grows where. In the parlance of IT departments and gamers (and IT departments), this is ‘god’ or ’superpower’ status.’ This ‘A’ regulates the other two ‘A’s’, by deciding, for instance, the makeup of a team. Authority also means Authorship—of strategies, plans, vision, letters to employees, and the game elements of Environment, Roles, Guidelines and Objectives. It can also mean Authorization and Authentication: Who has access to accounts? Lists? Records and reports? Facilities? Fellow employees? Who can call a meeting? End a meeting? Okay a budget?

Ultimately, leadership is the art of role-modeling. When a team’s roles are modeled artfully, its leaders will emerge when and where they are needed.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Casting, Leadership, Problem Solving, Relationships, Roles, Scenes | No Comments »

Gamechanging Leadership

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

MountainTeam1AIn hierarchical organizations, leadership moves primarily from the top down. That’s its sole direction. In this model, the CEO is automatically the leader in every scene that doesn’t  involve the Board of Directors. The people who report to the CEO are the leaders in every scene that does not involve the CEO or the Board etc. etc. etc. until you get to the janitor, who is the leader of the broom. Every scene has a pecking order, and the pecking order has been decided before the scene begins.

In a business environment that changes at the speed of thought, there are lots of issues with this leadership model. Specifically, it’s too slow. it does not let an organization act quickly enough on opportunities or adapt cost-effectively to changing market conditions.

In networked organizations, by contrast, leadership is organic, it grows out of the structure of the scene and its problem-solving process, and not from a presumed hierarchy.

Visibly good leadership is essential to attract employees and customers to a brand and keep them engaged in its narrative, but that visibility can come from anywhere. Sure, it can and should still come from the ‘top.’ It can also come through the side door, from behind, the center, the edge, from out of left field, up from the ashes, or out from the shadows. It can be bombastic, it can be imperceptible, or any dynamic in between.

In networked organizations, leadership is everyone’s responsibility, and there is no single context for it, or one accepted style of leading. It is the scene that determines what leadership looks like, and what purpose it serves.

Further, being a leader is no bigger or lesser a deal than being a follower (i.e. team player). Just as everyone in a networked organization ix expected to be a leader, everyone is also expected to be a follower. A player’s leadership (or followship) status is a condition of the scene and the game, not necessarily a condition of his or her rank in the organization.

Among the questions addressed, on a scene-by-scene basis, in a gamechanging leadership model:

-Whose subject matter expertise, perspective, or professional experience is most important to the scene?

-How well-articulated and shareable is the vision?

-Is your scene’s narrative (and its possible outcomes) scripted ahead of time, or co-created by your team as a result of its problem-solving process?

-Are your team’s roles complementary and supportive, lacking expertise to solve the problem, or overlapping and in conflict?

-What is the balance, and who does the balancing, between listening and speaking? Between information and intuition? Deconstruction and construction? Postmortem and Premortem? Questions and declarations?

-How does a team stay focused on the problem at hand, while at the same time honoring historical and future organizational narratives?

-Who decides? How?

-What’s the game? When is it time to change the game or edit the scene?

And while there’s no one style or way of behaving that defines effective leadership, two things are true of all gamechanging leaders:

1) They listen first. 2) They do not script outcomes.

They understand that there are many ways to solve a problem, and that most of those ways will not be their own. This leadership model is the only way to act quickly enough on market opportunities and adapt cost-effectively enough to changes in the environment to stay competitive in the networked world.

NEXT: How we define Roles

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Communication, Creativity, Leadership, Narrative, Objectives, Problem Solving, Scenes, Uncategorized | No Comments »

De-Severance

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Dr. David Boje, the author of Storytelling Organizations, is on the faculty in the College of Business at New Mexico State University, and he is also a skilled blacksmith, who comes up with many of his ideas while he’s working in his forge. Among his creations are kung-fu swords forged using 1075 high carbon steel. Boje uses the phrase ‘de-severance’ to describe the work of the blade. By this, he means that the purpose of the blade is not cleaving, but connecting–connecting fire and steel, art and craft, action and purpose, history with the moment of creation. The act of de-severance connects a blacksmith in Las Cruces, N.M. in 2011, with every other blacksmith who ever forged a blade at any time, for any reason.

As you go about your business today, wielding a sword forged by your your authority, your education, your responsibility, your intelligence and experience, don’t think of this sword as a severing device that you use to slice, dice, and eviscerate. Don’t go medieval on anyone’s ass, or be chopping off  heads to generate fear among the populace. Instead, think of this sword of yours as a de-severing device, a weapon of compassion, one that joins–SwordsCollage1

the fire of purpose with the steel of structured action;

the art of entrepreneurship with the craft of leadership;

the genius of others with your own;

your history and your future;

your intuition and your intellect;

your character and your role;

your brand and your customers.

A weapon of choice isn’t the same thing as a choice of weapons. How you choose to use your weapon is way more important than what weapon you choose to use.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Branding, Communication, Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Metaphor, Narrative, Problem Solving | No Comments »

Burning Platforms

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Before yesterday, I’d never, to my recollection, heard the phrase ‘burning platform’ used in a business conversation. Yesterday I heard it used multiple times in two different conversations, with teams in two different businesses, in two different parts of the U.S., to refer to issues they are addressing.

A pattern defines a game.

This is what a burning platform looks like:

BurningPlatform1

What’s the story here? Well, let’s see…it’s an environmental disaster…lives are no doubt endangered (many have already escaped in lifeboats, jumped or been killed (e.g. ‘fired’)…the focus is on containment instead of productivity…the PR spinning is beginning…a hundred lawyers are circling…Wall Street is manipulating markets based on shareholder emotions…the media is fanning the fear…the government is organizing committees that will haunt and impede productivity for years to come…cities, states and municipalities are seeking reparations. Whatever good can emerge from this mess will be years, maybe a generation, in coming.

Metaphors like ‘burning platform’ represent a level of meaning that accompanies all communication, the Meta level. (The other two are Cosmetic and Emotional). The Meta level contains metaphor, symbolism, allegory, parable, analogies, etc. Meta meaning is powerful stuff and should be chosen with great care. It’s why brands work so hard, at such great expense, on their identity. Those symbols mean a lot.

At GameChangers, we practice what I call the science of narrative. This science requires specific, deliberate and objective choices about what metaphors we put into play.

The Center for Public Policy and Administration defined the phrase ‘burning platform’ in 2005. ‘Burning platform’ according to the CPPA, came into meaning when a driller on a burning offshore oil-drilling platform calculated that his best chance of survival was a 150-foot jump that he’d never make under normal conditions. A burning platform came to mean an ‘urgent condition requiring bold choices.’ All good, and useful. Context is huge, however, and after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the context for this phrase changed and, along with it, its meaning. Now it means ‘unmitigated disaster.’

Look at the photo again. That’s the image of a burning platform most of your audience will conjure when this phrase is used. Whatever changes come about because of the pictured scenario promise to be painful, litigious, lengthy and costly. This is not what we want when we change the game. We want change that is productive, agreeable, fast and inexpensive to implement.

Clearly, we need a new metaphor to capture this meaning.

It’s like that old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon intro, where Bullwinkle pulls a monster out of a hat and says “No doubt about it, I’ve gotta get another hat.”

We’ve gotta get another hat.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Agreement Principle, Communication, Environment, Levels of Meaning, Metaphor, Narrative, Photos & Videos, Problem Solving, Scenes, Speed, story | 2 Comments »

The Brown M&Ms Game

Saturday, July 30th, 2011

EddieVanHalenM&M1Van Halen famously had an item in their concert contracts that required brown M&Ms removed from the rest of the M&Ms in their dressing room and backstage.  “No brown M&Ms’ has been often re-interpreted by pop psychology as narcissistic indulgence or obsessive control. It is remembered as a demand associated with rockstar vanity.

In reality, it was no such thing.

In reality, as David Lee Roth describes in his 1998 autobiography Crazy from the Heat (first edition paperback selling  for $123.41 on Amazon?!), and Ira Glass documented in a story that first aired July 24, 2009, on This American Life, the fine print about the M&Ms was a game designed by Van Halen  to make sure every part of its contract was read and observed by the local promoter and crew, especially the details of stage and stadium safety. Early in the stadium concert era of the 1970s, there was a lot of variance in stadium electrical systems and construction, and the supergroup, who traveled with 9 semi-trailers of equipment, wanted to make certain their concerns about safety were addressed with the same focus and attention to detail that goes into separating the brown M&Ms from the rest.

In the words of Jeff Bartsch on Editmentor.com:

“If the band rolled up to the next venue and found brown M&Ms in the backstage candy bowl, they immediately demanded a full line-item review of the entire rider contract.  Eddie Van Halen specifically buried the M&M Clause, because concert promoters who don’t pay attention to one part of a contract usually don’t pay attention to the rest of it, and resulting technical issues could be disastrous, even deadly.”

In a 2010 Fast Company article, the Heath Bros. describe the brown M&Ms as a ‘canary in a coal mine.’ They interpret it as a kind of red flag used by David Lee Roth to catch careless oversights of details in their contract.

We see it as a game.

The brown M&Ms were the anomaly that defined a game, a game whose objective was to eliminate brown M&Ms, and whose result was safety.

Note that there’s a big difference between the objective of a game and the results achieved by playing it! For example, the objective of chess is to checkmate the opponent’s king. The results of playing it are strategies and counter-strategies, study, focus and the testing and extension of one’s abilities.

A canary in a coal mine doesn’t really define a game, because the results are, for the most part, binary. The canary lives, or the canary dies. The canary in the coal mine tests only one thing—the presence of lethal gas. No fresh dialogue results from it, no unexpected discoveries, the processes following either outcome have already been scripted. The Heaths’ analogy is weak, because a productive game like ‘Brown M&Ms’ has a nearly infinite number of possible outcomes.

Variations of this game can work for any team involved in QA, Safety, Compliance, Supply Chain, Facilities Management, Engineering, etc., where there’s little or no tolerance for error. It’s not a game you can play too often. Played too often, your ‘brown M&Ms’ will no longer be an anomaly, and the game will lose its bite.

The advantage of playing a game like this is that it brings every imaginable detail into play, not just those you and your legal team can stipulate in a contract or manual. When you call attention to the ‘brown M&Ms,’ you initiate a dialogue about the details of your working relationship that holds far more possibilities for problem-solving in real time than the necessary, but inevitably frozen-in-time terms of a contract.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Dialogue, Focus, Games, Initiations, Objectives, Problem Solving, Relationships | 1 Comment »

Leave it to Jobs

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Over the past three and a half years at GameChangers, we have gone through Cirque du Soleil-like contortions  to explain improvsiation and its value to business in the Networked World.

We have defined it as “A process for producing consistently positive outcomes from unforeseen circumstances.” We call it “serendipity by design.” “A game, a theme, and an exploration.” “Collaborative problem solving.” “Acting on environment and letting environment act on you.” Listening, Learning and Transformation.” “Agility + Ability.” “Freedom within Structure.” “Creating a cosmos out of chaos.” “Openness to opportunity.” “The Big Yes-And.” “Flexible Vision.” “How Tina and Amy Got Their Grooves,” and “Not comedy.”  Among others.

Leave it to Steve Jobs, interviewed in The Pixar Story, Leslie Iwerks’ 2007 feature documentary, to phrase it with the assured elegance of an Apple design.”Unplanned collaboration” is the phrase he uses.

“We wanted a place that would encourage unplanned collaboration,” said Jobs in describing the design of Pixar’s new studio. He repeatedly cites this this as the architecture’s objective.

He didn’t connect this phrase to improvisation, per se, but it’s as good a definition as we’ve heard. Improvisation is unplanned collaboration. And even though it’s unplanned, it’s all part of the design. In the architecture of improvisation, you fully expect to run into someone unexpectedly. When you do, you are prepared to exchange information, find an agreement, and build a scene together or continue one that had begun earlier. You expect that others might jump into this scene with you, and you are prepared for anything they might add. Through this process, in thousands upon thousands of such unplanned increments, each filled with its own unique potential to be productive, you move your narrative forward.

It’s hard to imagine a better case study for the value of improvisational design than Pixar’s studio, or a better model of what it means to be a GameChanger than Steve Jobs.JobsCirque1

Jobs also said it took ten years for Pixar to make any money. We’re just going to ignore that one. Play on.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Additions and Edits, Agreement Principle, Communication, Environment, Listening, Narrative, Networked World, Objectives, Problem Solving, Scenes, Social Media | No Comments »

Complex vs. Simple, Cont’d

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Riffing on yesterday’s theme of ‘Complex vs. Simple Process,’ take a look at the COIN (Counter-Insurgency) Plan drawn up by the U.S. Military command for its Afghanistan campaign…266458_10150253355164025_717704024_7179935_4628835_o

Looks like the narrative for Prince Harry’s outfit at the Royal Wedding, doesn’t it?

Now take a look at the plan Herb Kelleher, the founder of Southwest Airlines, drew up for how Southwest was going to enter the airline business 40 years ago, in 1971…SouthwestNapkin1Looks like the design for Pippa Middleton’s outfit at the Royal Wedding. Simple. Elegant. Easy to understand. Ultimately, appreciated by all. Beneath this design, of course, was a lot of complexity–but the business problem, as Herb Kelleher saw it, was as simple as how to build a triangle.

Kelleher continued this tradition of drawing up Southwest’s year-to-year strategies on a napkin over a lunch with his key executives. This structure allowed the company’s employees to improvise solutions to every problem they encountered.

The U.S. Military command, by comparison, finds itself in the business of trying to tie a bow–or create any recognizable design for that matter–out of all those threads.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Communication, Issues, Leadership, Narrative, Problem Solving | No Comments »

« Older Entries