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If you haven’t read A Whole New Mind, by Daniel Pink, run out and get it now. Or have Amazon expedite it to you. It’s the book Po Bronson, Tom Peters, Seth Godin, and scores of other leading edge thinkers are raving about. It explains how the era of “left-brain” dominance - and the Information Age it engendered - is giving way to a new world in which artistic and holistic “right-brain” abilities distinguish between tomorrow’s winners and losers. In this new world - one of high concept and high touch - creators and empathizers end up with the long end of the stick.
If you haven’t yet tried meditation, Pink is another in a growing army of authorities saying that it is a powerful tool in driving right-brain functionality. |
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Method's attack on P&G territory (see February 19, 2008 post) is all the more impressive when you consider that P&G is not your normal, staid, wallowing-blindly-in-the-mud corporate behemoth. After its stock tanked in 2000, chief A.G. Lafley figured he had to discover a way to innovate faster. So he launched the Connect + Develop program that encourages the work of outside developers. According to Fast Company's March 2008 issue, today 42% of P&G's products have an externally sourced component. And P&G is doing very well. |
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If any single feature defines organizations in the twenty-first century, thus far anyway, it is the need for innovation. Regardless of the arena, an organization must innovate just to survive, let alone thrive. Every organization — corporate, nonprofit, government, military, sports franchise, you name it — will lose out to competitors who are more innovative.
In the whole innovation process, though, there lies a trap for the unwary. Innovation is the commercialization of creativity. Creativity is the ability to discover connections in our existence, connections that already exist. Openness, being receptive to all that exists, is all that is required to stimulate creativity and see the connections around us. Here’s the innovation trap: the moment one thinks about the prospects of commercialization is the moment resistance occurs in the process, openness is compromised, and creativity is limited.
How to get around it? Compartmentalize the process. Be open and create the majority of the time, without any thoughts about commercialization. Then set aside times for discerning whether what was created in those creative times is commercially viable.
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Who would have guessed that one of the most creative people around is running old, staid United Way of America? And United Way will ultimately owe its survival to Brian Gallagher and his creativity. United Way is one of the nation’s oldest and best-known non-profits assisting health and human services providers. Its original purpose was to collect money from donors and disperse it to agencies that actually provide the services. In essence, they aggregated charitable donations. This worked well when the provision of services was largely opaque and donors had no idea how to best help the community. In recent years, however, the Internet and a lot of other technology have, to use Tom Friedman’s terminology, flattened the world. Individual donors don’t really need United Way. They know what agency is doing what. They know how to get money to those agencies.
Gallagher, a 24-year veteran of United Way, assumed the C.E.O. position in 2002. Recognizing that United Way was rapidly becoming irrelevant, he began working with the nearly 1,900 local, independent United Way chapters to redefine the organizational mission and its operations. He didn’t force an agenda. Instead, he looked at the seeds that were being spread by what Joseph Schumpeter called "the gales of creative destruction" and allowed them to germinate. He found that community problems weren’t improving. Perhaps United Way could use its good brand name and reputation and get involved on the problem-solving side. Even though this was not an area in which United Way had engaged beyond funding, Gallagher took what the universe gave him. Specifically, he encouraged the local chapters to begin working with its agencies, community leaders, and government entities to set community impact objectives, design and execute specific programs to achieve that impact, and then carefully monitor the performance of the programs. He asked local chapters to become community leaders in effecting positive changes in communities. In less than four years, over half the United Way chapters, each of whom have no requirement to follow Gallagher’s lead, are now doing this. In his absence, United Way may well have died a slow death. While it still has challenges, it is Gallagher’s creativity – his originality and openness – that will assure the organization’s relevance, at least in those communities where it has been embraced.
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| The December issue of "Fast Company" (my favorite biz mag) talks about the MacDowell Colony, one of the nation's most popular artist retreats in the wilds of New Hampshire. Each year 1,500 artists apply for one of 250 fellowships that involve weeks or months combining solitude with interaction with other artists. Since 1907, its alumni have won 65 Pulitzers, 12 MacArthur Foundation "Genius Awards", and many Academy Awards, Grammys, Guggenheims, and National Book Awards. The idea is this: let artists interact with other artists from other disciplines, and they'll pick up new ideas. Give them space and time to work, and their creativity will soar. Apparently, there are 250 colonies such as this in the U.S. Well, leaders are nothing if not artists. In today's world, innovation carries the day. Where is that MacDowell app? |
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| Straight from the pen of Tom Kelley, General Manager of Ideo and author of the just-released The Ten Faces Of Innovation. And isn't he absolutely right? Isn't the devil's advocate the biggest innovation killer in America? Innovation is the lifeblood of all organizations, and the devil's advocate is a toxic agent. All of us leaders still playing primarily with the left part of our brain still want to say, "Yes, but, but, but...", but as our global race intensifies, it's probably time to put a muzzle on the devil's advocate and take it off only way down the road. When resources are being allocated between competing ideas and Darwinian selection takes over. |
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| Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, a cult guide to developing the artist within, says that an artist merely channels universal energy. Thus, when nine out of ten people in the corporate world tell me, "I really don't have any artistic talent," I agree. I say, "You don't. None of us do. Creativity is a basic condition of the universe. The real question is whether you are open to it. If you are not, then you are defying the basic nature of life. This resistance will tire you out and you will die younger than you should and completely frustrated. If you are, the energy of the universe will flow through you, infusing you and everyone around you with energy and growth." Until I was forty years old, I was convinced I was not an artist. Then one day, a dear friend said, "Yes, you are, and here are some brushes, canvases, and paint." Within a few days I opened to the possibility that I was an artist, and a year later I was selling my paintings for thousands of dollars. |
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