About a year ago I ran across a NEWSWEEK article that still moves me on the subject of creativity and why we are losing our grip on it. “Oh, it’s part of the usual cutting of arts and music programs in schools” and “creativity is regarded as the purview of the arts” and no one else are what many say and are thinking. But I disagree. We can’t let the lack of that support affect us anymore than it already has.

It is the purview of business, of government, of life itself. That means there is application for training and developers–especially in the area of promoting tests of creativity in the workplace and encouraging the idea that creativity is not only the key to higher productivity, but also innovative products and services.

The article: The Creativity Crisis by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman July 10, 2010

“For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong—and how we can fix it.”

Designed by Professor E. Paul Torrance, he had a group of psychologists administer a creativity test to 400 students back in 1958. The article mentions one child in particular, eight-year-old Ted Schwartzrock, who is given the task to examine a toy firetruck and asked, “How could you improve this toy to make it better and more fun to play with?” He immediately rattled off 25 improvements.

Creativity is defined in Wikipedia as “the phenomenon whereby a person creates something new (a product, a solution, a work of art, a novel, a joke, etc.) that has some kind of value. What counts as “new” may be in reference to the individual creator, or to the society or domain within which the novelty occurs. What counts as valuable is similarly defined in a variety of ways.” Even though this is only the Wikipedia definition, I think it hits home rather well. There’s more.

“Torrance developed the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking in 1966. They involved simple tests of divergent thinking and other problem-solving skills, which were scored on:

What’s important here is that Schwartzrock, one of the subjects of this test, was not known to be a “creative.” In fact, he was destined to be come a doctor. But that isn’t all. From the article:

“Today, Schwarzrock is independently wealthy—he founded and sold three medical-products companies and was a partner in three more. His innovations in health care have been wide ranging, from a portable respiratory oxygen device to skin-absorbing anti-inflammatories to insights into how bacteria become antibiotic-resistant. His latest project could bring down the cost of spine-surgery implants 50 percent. ‘As a child, I never had an identity as a creative person, ” Schwarzrock recalls. ‘But now that I know, it helps explain a lot of what I felt and went through.’”

The value of creative tests as compared to IQ tests is still debated, but what can not be debated is that our creativity quotient, if there is one, is going down. We are simply not producing the same level of creatively producing individuals. It also means creativity is not just for the arts, but is found in many professions. For example, engineers, architects, and musicians score similarly in the creative areas so that explains the innovative nature of their work. The fact that scientists are every bit as creative as artists is hardly in question. In fact this is the subject of Steve Martin’s critically acclaimed play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, where Picasso and Einstein meet. The essential element they share is creativity–the ability to demonstrate “fluency, originality and elaboration” as described by Torrance.

Because of the economy, we have shut out many of the arts programs in our schools, opting for the knowledged-based traditional subjects, and for some students their only access to exercises and learning to enhance creative thinking is through the arts. It makes a lot of sense on the surface, but let’s do something to make those other classes promote creativity as well.

But the arts aren’t the only key to innovation, courses that use problem solving, that reward innovation also help us train our brains to bring in the “right” brain to solve problems sooner. It seems we use our “left” brain first, looking at logic, taking a part the problem and seeking a direct approach; while it is the “right” brain that comes up with innovation.

Now, if you’re thinking “our kids all do video games and surely, this must have an effect.” It does, but not what you think. Television and video games have done just the opposite. In many ways, both media represent the results of creative thinking by others, it doesn’t force innovative thinking on the part of viewers or participants. Video games asks participants to make choices not come up with creative solutions. In fact, tests have shown the opposite: video games in particular may enhance thinking reaction time, but that’s not the same thing. The electronic media is making our kids less dependent on figuring out unique solutions and does not enhance their creativity.

Here in the U.S. we seem to be a little slow in recognizing the value of instilling creativity in the classroom with problem solving and other exercises that require our students to think creatively; however, for the few schools who have tried it, their National test scores on the standardized tests overall have improved greatly.

There’s not enough information out there to make a broad determination scientifically, but it makes sense to try. Europe and China already are engaged in these activities. Are they recognizing the importance faster than we are? If so, that means more productivity and innovation coming from that direction in competition here. Maybe we should be worried.

Can we train creativity? Certainly, but not to the point we are making creative geniuses. We can train to make the ordinary man and women who is more “left” brain than “right” brain by giving them unusual problem solving exercises that make the “right” brain activate sooner. We also can apply testing that identifies those who already exhibit higher levels of creativity and nurture it. If we want a dynamic company full of innovative ideas and products, we need to do this.

Schwarzrock, say our authors, “was hardly on track to becoming the prototype of Torrance’s longitudinal study. He wasn’t artistic when young, and his family didn’t recognize his creativity or nurture it. The son of a dentist and a speech pathologist, he had been pushed into medical school, where he felt stifled and commonly had run-ins with professors and bosses. But eventually, he found a way to combine his creativity and medical expertise: inventing new medical technologies.”

Feeling unappreciated? Maybe it’s because your creativity is being stifled like Schartzrock. If you don’t know if you have creative tendencies, there are tests out there you can take independently to see. I’m not suggesting you change your job, but maybe it’s time to change tactics in how you approach common problems at work. Hopefully, companies will recognize this human potential use it to its advantage.

Again from Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman: “Creativity has always been prized in American society, but it’s never really been understood. While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses. The problems we face now, and in the future, simply demand that we do more than just hope for inspiration to strike. Fortunately, the science can help: we know the steps to lead that elusive muse right to our doors.”

As for trainers and training developers, it’s up to us to be ready when the call comes for us to deliver the innovative thinkers and creative solutions. I think it’s long overdue.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

Creative trainers can make a difference. That’s my opinion. My intention is to stimulate ideas, even opposition, so please respond at will. More of what I have to say can be found on my website, which of course is a full-blown creative solution to your training needs, he says with a smile. Check out my new book, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development, an innovative way to look at training by looking at from a different perspective. Happy training.

The field of personal and professional coaching has grown rapidly in the past 15 years and, as with most fields and professions that experience this kind of growth, there are many different perspectives on coaching. Here’s a definition that perhaps most people would agree with.

Coaching involves working in a partnership between coach and client(s) to provide structure, guidance and support for clients to:

1. Take a complete look at their current state, including their assumptions and perceptions about their work, themselves and/or others;
2. Set relevant and realistic goals for themselves, based on their own nature and needs;
3. Take relevant and realistic actions toward reaching their goals; and
4. Learn by continuing to reflect on their actions and sharing feedback with others along the way.

Coaching can be especially useful to help individuals, groups and organizations to address complex problems and/or achieve significant goals and to do so in a highly individualized fashion, while learning at the same time.

Many people believe that coaching is different than training and might describe training as an expert convey certain subject matter to a student in order for the student to do a current task more effectively. Those people might add that training isn’t as much of a partnership as a coaching relationship. Many might also believe that coaching is different than consulting and might describe consulting as an expert helping another person, team or organization to solve a problem. Others might assert that a good consultant would use skills in training and coaching, depending on the needs of the client.

Many people assert that coaching is a profession, while others assert that it is a field, that is, that coaching has not yet accomplished a standardized approach, code of ethics and credibility to be a profession. This topic in the Library alternatively refers to coaching as a profession and a field.

To learn more about coaching, see these resources:

• Free Management Library topic on coaching
• LinkedIn discussion group on basics of coaching

(This post starts a series about the basics of coaching.)

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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, and Strategic Planning.

Design Thinking is qualitatively different from other thinking styles. Regardless of how you use Design Thinking it communicates in unique ways, weaving together visual, verbal, and kinesthetic knowing. In this way thoughts, ideas, imaginings, AND planning, product concepts, and even goals become NeuroIntegrated^® – inviting the whole human system (body, brain, mind, language) into the work.

• Design Thinking communicates the value participants bring to their work. By making visual/kinesthetic what people struggle to articulate, Design Thinking can explore non-conceptual ideas. Least this sound too intellectual, before Sony the “Walkman” was a non-conceptual idea – there was no concept in the market of a radio that you wore as a headset. Before Napster, music was a physical product that you bought from a store. Kindle and iPad went way beyond books-on-tape to create a whole new venue for self-publishing (not to mention the digital books they created). All great breakthroughs, and here I use the word “all” comfortably, began as a non-conceptual desire for something that didn’t yet exist. Then, as the inventor, designer, or imaginer worked to give form to that desire a new concept was born. Design Thinking is the midwife of this process.
• Design Thinking communicates the value that surrounds the product or service offer. Let me use a personal example of this. I have been a crackberry for years. The last one I had was the Storm, RIM’s answer to the iPhone. It was a dreadful experience – I couldn’t type, my Pearl was gone and I couldn’t navigate, the value that previously surrounded the phone was gone. I traded this experience for an iPhone, which emblazoned this point forever on my mind. Wow, I get it!! I may be the last to get on the Apple bandwagon, but this is Design Thinking that produces value at its best. And the apps are a very small part of it. Experiential consultant Lou Carbone, author of Clued In and founder of Experience Engineering, is a master at finding and amplifying the hidden value in the contextual design of hospitals, schools, business, and retail stores. When was the last time you evaluated that aspect of your business.
• Design Thinking communicates persona, meaning, and character. Today consumers are faced with so many good product and service choices that they can choose to buy where values and beliefs align. Does your persona reflect back to your clients what they perceive to be their best attributes? This is not the same as good market segmentation -this is more like being a best friend. Lou Carbone is aligned with Lockwood when he advocates moving “from delivering a haphazard, undifferentiated customer experience to an intentional, highly signature experience based on how customers want to feel.” This is the underlying force that drives the consumers desire for corporate responsibility and sustainability, a monster wave that all businesses will have to ride sooner or later. If you are looking for opportunity, white space, places to innovate, start here. Amazon has a persona that is like a friendly librarian, recommending books that I might like based on my tastes and those in my virtual “book club.” Lately they have moved into Internet marketing for cities, which I don’t want. Even their unsubscribe text reflected the persona that keeps me buying books on line. It was so different than most that it caused me to pause and reflect on the fact that someone took the time to craft even that small public communication. This is Design Thinking carried out across multiple levels of contact. An example to track for your own learning is how the Apple persona changes with the death of Steve Jobs – or will it? Can the Design Thinkers at Apple communicate that their mojo lives on unchanged? We’ll see.

To conclude this mini-series here is a list of books that will have you thinking like a designer in no time flat:

Design Thinking – Thomas Lockwood

The Design of Business – Roger Martin

Change by Design – Tim Brown

The Paradox of Choice – Barry Schwartz

And one I haven’t read yet – a Kindle Collection of three books

As you can tell from the title, this is Part II of my previous blog on the subject.

In our search for qualified people, we need to look beyond the direct hiring application and see if there are other qualities or experiences that a new person might bring to the company even if they need to be trained to do the specific job. Once trained they will more than complement the company workforce; they will enhance it. This can be accomplished by Human Resources screening, or simply by seeking certain qualities–success indicators and provide company training to provide specific job training.

It seems we do the opposite in looking for the perfect job fit, then we add in company fit factor and expect immediate success. In fact, in Training and Development we often try to bring out or discover the same success qualities in those already on staff–those hired long ago under different circumstances. Why not look at some employees (we already do for key employees like CEOs or Presidents) as having “more” –as in that more than what the job calls for–special talents we may be able to use in the future? Workers actually appreciate someone noticing they have other talents than what specifically they were hired for. Just ask them.

I’m sure many a qualified worker has gone through what I did nearly 25 years ago. I was a well-trained and educated public affairs officer with an excellent record, a master’s degree with post-graduate journalism courses, award-winning writing samples, and increasingly responsible service. There was only one problem: My experience was in the military. The fact it was considered the “least military” of the services and the most professional in the field of public affairs made no difference.

I had left the service early so I wasn’t even of retiring age (which can be late 30s in the military) so I was hardly an old man. I felt I was infinitely more qualified than many coming fresh out of school, but other factors made it difficult. There were other issues as well, and they made sense–even to me, but it still didn’t help the fact I needed a job and I was well-qualified.

1. The global misconception that anyone involved in the military cannot relate to the civilian world of business.
2. For those who might hire the military, they looked for women with less experience to fill the expected managerial void for women. Of course it came with a glass ceiling, but a woman could make it to the top of the public affairs or public relations game.
3. Or, hiring a retired public affairs officer willing to take less money because he or she was, in fact, retired already with benefits.

The exceptions I believe can be compelling–especially if you fit into one of these categories.

1. Companies and other organizations benefit, in some cases–by hiring military “brats,” who have been around world and understand diversity and cultural differences, who know how talk with people and show respect. Those I have met and worked with have a global sense of reality and they do understand people and cultural diversity better than most.
2. There are, of course, some technical areas you could argue don’t make a direct correlation, i.e., the Beltway Bandits–those in high tech or high security positions who can make that immediate transition to government contractors.

I would maintain we need to look beyond direct application and see if there are other qualities or experiences that may complement the company. Don’t we promote that as trainers: that outside experience can be beneficial?

Here I was impressively qualified having been an officer in public affairs, personally briefed a president and vice-president and a host of other VIPs, taught at the prestigious Air Force Academy and ran the tour program inside Cheyenne Mountain. So, after the service, off I went to write the Great American Novel at home and work at Sun Glass Hut just to get out of the house.

As attractive as that situation seemed at the time, financially I’d much rather had a real job. I did get an offer teaching at my alma mater for a third of what I had made as an Air Force captain–and that position was temporary. My welcome to the real world, I guess.

However, life’s priorities being what they were at that time, at the time I felt I could give up my military career. As far as I was concerned I had held some interesting jobs and what was left to do career-wise could easily be rather routine in comparison. Of course my goal had been to keep the marriage together, but it wasn’t meant to be either.

Now, financially ill and without a job, I found circumstances favored retired public affairs officers since they didn’t demand as much money to live on, and younger female public affairs or public relations professionals were preferred. I cost too much as middle management and didn’t have any extra advantageous like checking an HR special box.

It was, of course, one solution for employers to address topic of the day–the glass ceiling was by hiring a woman for the jump–even one less qualified; the field is about 50/50 or it used to be. I don’t know what the figures are today, but even so it was perceived in many ways like training today–a function that isn’t critical to company operations. I think we understand better these days.

I found two avenues of employment, besides retail and other sales options, that welcomed diversity and where a military background was not scorned so much: government and education. No real complaint there, just reality. I found my way into government actually by using my Reserve commission to land a job as an Air Reserve Technician–basically a full-time Reservist. A caretaker of sorts, but a decent job, combining civil service and military, complete with uniform. Less pay, but nothing to quibble about in those days.

This led to working for the Federal government without the uniform, a job I found interesting at times but lacking in creativity opportunity; I retired from it anyway, but I felt my potential was wasted. It could have been I just didn’t have the right job either, but nobody ever tried to determine how my other talents could be put to use unless I initiated it and made it happen. Not everyone does that or should do that if a company is wise and thoughtful about its hiring and training process.

It’s about survival for company and individual alike, but here is the cautionary tale: look at all the possibilities. Another cliché: don’t leap before you look. While employers can choose from the obvious best, don’t forget that hidden among them may be someone not so obvious who can bring the company something new and different. Different in today’s world can be mean success.

I’m sure my tale of woe is not without a story behind the story that the companies tell; I can only tell it from my perspective. I don’t know any expert in HR who will tell you to dress like an individual and tout the reasons you are unlike the company you are applying for. All the advice points to make sure you fill out the application to say exactly what the company wants you to say or you’ll be eliminated. The only way to get something else in there that someone may or may not notice is risky for the applicant. Just as the company is playing it safe so is the applicant who has more to lose personally.

It just seems to make sense looking early for diversity and individual differences/talents that may prove useful. HR can do it, too, if they have the people. Trainers can always train the company way. While they can refine talent, and they can help identify it. And they can train a company how to manage and get the best resources from that talent.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

Enough grousing on my end. The Cave Man strikes a second time on this topic. Check out my website and my eBook, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. In these places I look at training and development from a little different perspective. You’ll find more of What I Say under that category. I even review plays. Imagine that! Times change and perspective needs to follow.

Hope you found something useful in my grousing commentary. Happy training.

My workers are complaining they have too much to do and too little time to do it. I know we are short two staff people but we are under a hiring freeze. Also I feel, that with economy the way it is, they should be putting in 110%. What can I do?

Some people can be very productive when they’re under pressure and are juggling multiple tasks with tight deadlines. But project loads, that are consistently unmanageable, can lead to burnout and the associated problems of reduced employee morale, high turnover, and increased inefficiencies and mistakes. You, as a manager, need to do more than acknowledge they are stretched too thin; you need to come up with viable solutions.

1. First, talk to staff.
Get a realistic handle on the situation. How do employees view their responsibilities? Are unrealistic deadlines impacting the quality of their work or level of job satisfaction? Perceptions may vary from person to person.
2. Ask for activity reports.
Review each employee’s tasks to determine which projects are taking the most time. Make sure the most critical initiatives are getting the majority of resources.
3. Reward smart work habits.
Someone who is putting in long hours may be working hard, but is he or she also managing time wisely? Clarify your expectations with employees, and take steps to recognize teamwork, innovative ideas and problem-solving skills.
4. Get help.
Bringing in temporary staff to assist during periods of peak activity or for special projects can alleviate some of the burden on full-time workers.
5. Keep your door open.
Maintain an environment in which employees are not afraid to ask for help when workloads become too heavy. Be willing to reallocate resources as needed.
6. Finally, feed the lighter side.
Bring in food, cartoons, motivational sayings and fun activities often go a long way in letting your staff know you care.

Management Success Tip:

Lead by example. Sometimes you need to show employees that everyone has to pull their weight including you. Stay late with your team; make the coffee when the pot is empty; participate in the fun events. And most important celebrate successes, large and small. Those who have a good time together work better together.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

It seems no one wants to hire an exemplary person, but someone just to do the job. By “exemplary” I mean someone who has more than the obvious talent, education or experience for the job. It’s definitely easier to train an new employee to do the company job, than to discover hidden talents of an already established employee; if they had them, why didn’t they exhibit them up to this point. What’s harder is getting an employer to see how a potential employee solves problems, works well with others, leads a team to accomplish a creative task, or come up with fresh new ideas unless we look at his or her record or at least the resume.

I understand that companies are afraid to invest more than they have to in this economy, but it comes down to a series of clichés and euphemisms. “You get what you pay for.” “Why have a fancy shake when you can have plain milk?” “Hamburger, when you can have steak?”

Enough clichés, but hiring the staid, perfect fit seems to be the latest trend. Businesses are afraid to explore people options fully, and it may be up to us through leadership training or employee training to show companies and other organizations what they can be missing–potential creativity, new ideas, new methods.

Today we are told by the Human Resource experts that people tend to have several careers these days instead of one. In fact, many have several jobs and multitask unbelievably well. For some of those folks, getting a single, well-paying job is not going to happen since they’ve been…well, too diverse. Since when is being too diverse a problem?

All the geniuses I’ve ever heard of who went on to do great things in pretty much any field have been diverse in their experience. I could spend the entire blog making a list. So can you. Think of someone who has done “great” things, not just made a lot of money, but made a great contribution to society and you’ll find someone who has been around.

I’ve been in the job market more than 30 years and grant you, my resume shows a lot of experience and its varied. I think I did that before it was fashionable. Perhaps my special talent is that I’m pretty adaptable. I’m also not talking about a string of unrelated jobs, which doesn’t help when looking for a job. My jobs were all very related to communication; however, employers get very specific. Companies I talked to (if I got a response at all) didn’t want a talented communicator–not someone who adapted communication creatively all the time. Or, was it the military thing? No, they needed someone without training who had been doing the same job before. Or, so it seemed. Could it be the creative talent others saw in me and rewarded me with numerous, high-visibility projects was my downfall? Should it have been?

It seems we want just what we want and no more. We don’t want to invest to see beyond the obvious to find someone who might have potentially more valuable to offer the company in the long run. It’s a short-term business decision, but one that could be missing tremendous opportunity for a little investment. If you are a hiring manager: have you not hired someone who was outstanding on paper, and could have been easily trained for the job at hand, but the instruction came down that “no, we need someone now?” No training necessary. It could be a rush to mediocrity.

Just look at the specific job descriptions. Sometimes an organization is just following the regulations and it already has someone in mind for a position. It’s not really being competitive, but hundreds have wasted time applying–especially in this economy. I understand weeding out the ones who aren’t even close, but when a job is already locked, it doesn’t seem fair to waste the time of someone looking for a real opportunity.

Hiring the handicap or socially-economically disadvantaged may be the greatest diversity tool in business. It forced employers to look beyond the perfect fit–even at companies like IBM where people jokingly referred to being able to spot an IBM by his clothes and haircut alone. Diversity does go beyond the obvious and we’re foolish when we don’t see the hidden talents of our people.

What if we trainers through activities and testing could determine someone has much desired character traits for success? What if we could identify other talents a person has besides an ability to do the job? Wait, we can do that! What about exercises that demonstrate a person’s problem-solving ability, or the ability to think fast on their feet, or communicate the company’s needs to the max?

So, we already can and do those things–or at least we used to. Problem is: especially with the larger companies, we are looking only to fill a specific job and we have hundreds, sometimes more, applicants who have varying degrees of specificity or have less ability than that and barely reach the bar.

My experience in getting a job after the Air Force was totally different, but in some ways still showed the stereotype of hiring around a budget or for the wrong reasons may not always be in the company’s best interest. Of course, anyone could argue, the decision they made at the time was the right one. It just seems a waste of talent and energy.

Stay tuned for Part II coming soon…if it’s not already here.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

Enough grousing on my end. The Cave Man strikes again. By the way, I’m debating on a new name for my company. Cave Man Training and Communication, or Training Smarts–after my Acting Smarts company, which I’m setting aside to focus on training and development. What do you think? Check out my website and my eBook, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. In these places I look at training and development from a little different perspective. You’ll find more of What I Say under that category. I even review plays. Imagine that! Times change and perspective needs to follow.

Hope you found something useful in my grousing commentary. Happy training.

I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase: God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason – to listen first, then talk! So, as a leader, how good a listener are you?

Many people take their listening skills for granted. We often assume we’re listening and others know they are being heard. But many times that’s not the case. Then without warning there are misunderstandings, hurt feelings and conflicts that prevent people from working well together.

How many of these 10 behaviors can you say yes to?
1. I ‘m doing several things at once while others are talking to me.
2. I have a hard time concentrating on what is being said.
3. I am annoyed when someone slows me down.
4. I think what I want to say next rather than is being said.
5. I don’t like it when someone questions my ideas or actions.
6. I’m impatient waiting for the person to finish talking.
7. I give advice before the other has fully explained the situation.
8. I tend to talk significantly more than the other person talks.
9. I don’t know at the end of some conversations what it was about..
10. I’m uncomfortable and don’t know what to do if the speaker expresses emotions.

Scoring:
1-3: Take a bow. You appear to be a good listener. But don’t rest on your laurels. Continue being attuned to others
4-7: Push forward. You doing OK but can improve. Pick one or two of the above statements to work on and 1 or 2 of the tops below to practice.
8-10: Don’t lose hope. You can become a good listener. First it takes intention (realizing it’s an important skill for leaders ) and then practice (applying the tips below on a regular basis.).

How to boost listening skills:
1. Limit distractions. Silence technology and move away from distraction so that you can pay full attention to the other person.
2. Focus on the moment. Pay attention to what is being said, not what you want to say. Set a goal of being able to repeat the last sentence the other person says.
3. Be ok with silence. Count to ten or twenty before replying. The other person may continue and it also gives you a chance to collect your thoughts.
4. Ask before you tell. Encourage the other person to offer ideas and solutions before you give yours. And be open to other perspectives.
5. Summarize. Restate the key points to make sure what you heard are accurate. “You suggested……is that correct?”
6. Ask for clarification. If you don’t understand or are confused, don’t just nod your head and smile. “I’ve missed something, somewhere; can you go back to …”
7. Remember, follow the 80-20 rule. Do 80 percent of the listening and 20 percent of the talking.

Management Success Tip:

Listen actively to people around you, especially those who challenge your ideas. “I listen carefully even to the opinions that totally contradict my own beliefs. i want to make sure that when I make my decisions, I hadn’t missed anything.”

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

Understanding collaboration begins with the definition of the word itself. Collaboration requires more than telling each other what we are doing (communication), is more involved than planning our work together (coordination) and it is also different from its most common substitute, cooperation (working or acting together for a common purpose or benefit). The definition I am using comes from the on-line source, Dictionary.com:

Collaboration: to work one with another, especially in a joint intellectual effort

Today we work in a world that requires collaboration because we are being called to think and act together as a collective. Collaboration is a struggle without the glue of clear common purpose and benefit (cooperation), the ability to plan face-to-face and with time to explore consequences and contingencies (coordination), and being co-located or even in the same time zone (which impacts communication), conditions that usually existed in the past.

Our communication is no longer that of lengthy letters, salons, and slow days of collegial contemplation and inquiry. We tweet and twitter, email, voice mail, socially meet on-line, have three concurrent meeting booked at work, wildly multi-task and communicate while driving, eating, playing – all the while wondering why real collaboration remains just out of reach. Check out any successful design company, they stress a collaborative style that is the equivalent of full body contact compared to that we see in Fortune 500 companies. How can we achieve this without wrinkling our suit? You guessed it – Design Thinking.

• Design Thinking links your business to your stakeholders, especially your customers. Lockwood points out that design thinking is built on the concept of community – not job description, raw accountability, and silo departments. Community is not something that most business folks think about beyond corporate responsibility. Community, Peter Block and Meg Wheatley write eloquently on this subject, is a way of being together that recognizes all the stakeholders and the value they add to the work. Community identifies who your collaborative partners are and then invites them into the conversation. When we are aware of the community of practice (see Etienne Wenger’s work here) that supports our immediate work, we become aware of where the knowledge and expertise resides within our organizations. Using the graphic representation of Episodic Thinking (Figure 1), we can see how design thinking takes us on short periods of divergent exploration or quick periods of co-creation with key stakeholders without loosing track of the sequential backbone of the project or process.

• Design Thinking uses rapid prototyping for products, processes, and ideas to unleash creativity and collaboration. Synergy is the name of the game in design thinking, consider every idea, product, or process half-baked when presented and suddenly someone can improve on it. When business operated solely in the simple and complicated domains of knowledge management, we could take our time and rely on “invented here” to guide us. Well, the world is now complex and in the words of Pixar cofounder Ed Catmull (HBR September 2008, p 65): “complex product development [requires] creativity [that] involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many problems.” Rapid prototyping for Pixar occurs in the safe space of give-and-take conversations with the “brain trust;” eight directors who come together to support, challenge, and provide feedback to the team requesting their help. Catmull also points out the half-baked nature of rapid prototyping at Pixar, each day teams present their unfinished work to each other. This “liberates people to take risks and try new things because it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time.”

• Design Thinking and Design Teams generate organizational resilience. When collaboration becomes the way we work and Episodic Thinking is a core competency, organizations can harvest adjacent spaces in the market, capture value outside of the product offer, and close the gap between customer and company. Agility, the result of organizational resilience, is the foundation for sustainability. Consider that both the jobs and the products we take for granted today didn’t exist 10 years ago. Who can predict what is needed for even the 5-year future? Without Design/Episodic Thinking our ability to be proactive in the volatile world we face is severely limited.

Next week the third aspect of Design Thinking: Communication.

“I’ve fallen into this trap too many times. In my mind, I tell myself if I’m busy, I’m adding value. The reality is that we can be busy about the wrong things. And, if we don’t discipline our lives, we’ll find ourselves investing a lot of our time with little impact.”

Some leaders have this ailment called activity addiction. Do you? They think that having their plate overflowing each day means that they are excelling at their job. Being busy is not the same as being effective. Truthfully, some highly effective people are not overly busy. They have learned to focus on priorities, not activities; to delegate but not micro-manage; and to know when to act and when not to.

The most effective managers today are not addicted to being busy; rather, they are addicted to producing measurable results by doing the right things, in the right way and at the right time.

YES or NO!

People think focus means saying yes to the things they have to work on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. So pick carefully. Get together with your boss, team or board in the next week and answer these 6 questions:

1. What are the key things we have to accomplish this quarter?
2. Which are the most important or has the highest priority?
3. Why are they important to our team or organization?
4. When are our deadlines? How firm or how flexible?
5. Who are the key people or groups we must satisfy?
6. When faced with competing tasks or requests:
   – What do we say yes to?
   – What do we say no to?
   – What do we put aside to later?

Management Success Tip

Make sure your time is used to its best advantage. If you’re like most hard-charging managers, you have a long to-do list and feel proud of it. Now take another look. Start a stop-doing list. Effective leaders have developed the discipline to stop doing anything and everything that doesn’t lead to the results they want.

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• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

Last week I had the opportunity to hear Thomas Lockwood speak about design thinking at the ODN Conference in Baltimore. His ideas support those of others writing on this topic as well as Cairn Consulting’s Situational Thinking. To start let me reinforce his comment that design thinking is not the same as “design,” the former being a mindset the latter a work process. In Situational Thinking, design thinking links the linear and non-linear mindsets. I call it “Episodic Thinking” because it alternates between left and right brain cognition. Episodic Thinkers are contextually aware of their situation, which allows them to adapt their thinking style quickly and experiment by taking small actions. From Tom’s talk I distilled three additional key attributes of design thinking that highlight how they link together the two ends of the Situational Thinking Continuum:

• Design thinking is strategic (covered this week)
• Design thinking is collaborative (November 22^nd)
• Design thinking communicates (November 29^th)

Design Thinking is Strategic

• Design Thinking identifies the right problems and asks the right questions about them. This mindset opens us to the entire conversation continuum (See Figure 1) – dialogue, dialectic, and discussion. Strategy begins by identifying the right challenges and questions, and understanding them through dialogue. After exploring the complexity of the situation (divergence), we can test our assumptions and options with dialectic conversations and move to action (convergence) knowing that our tactics have emerged from the breadth of our conversation and the depth of our understanding.

• Design Thinking seeks unarticulated needs by seeing the whole system. The story Tom told was the design of Swifter^®, a product that I have never liked. What is curious to me is that now that I understand the design thinking that drove its development, I will begin to use it! So, while the design mindset was instrumental in creating a product that saved time, reduced water consumption, and improved the cleanliness of the home, I am not sure that the promotion of the product contained the same mindset. This points out that design thinking must be used throughout the product development and commercialization process.

Rule of Thumb: Design/Episodic Thinking should be employed anytime you are moving from linear to non-linear thinking (How do we innovate the process of washing the floor?) and from non-linear to linear thinking (How can we make homeowners aware of the design benefits of Swifter^®?).

• Design Thinking harnesses abductive logic in order to adapt to constantly changing market environments. Design Thinking encourages innovation by understanding the practical value of the product as well as its contextual and experiential value. This bundled value is achieved using abductive logic (Figure 2). I loved the way Tom explained abductive logic, placing it between the deductive logic of business tactics (100% Reliability) and the inductive logic of pure design (100% Validity). This provides a way for leaders to understand and use it.

• Pure business logic, deductive in nature, seeks to be 100% reliable – measurable, repeatable in many different environments and situations, predictable, consistent, and having a low degree of variability. Importantly, reliability does not imply validity; you can reliably measure the wrong thing.

• Pure design logic, inductive in nature, seeks validity – disambiguation, understanding the need beneath the need, the extent to which a product, service, or idea corresponds to a need or desire in the “real” world (i.e. that of the customer). Design requires experimentation, contextual research, prototyping, co-creation, and fast failure. It seeks to tailor product to customer need and is best for niche markets or personalized customers.

• Abductive logic recognizes multiple causes or explanations for situations, challenges, and environments (lumped together we could call these “reality”). This expands use and benefit beyond niche or personalized needs. Using hypotheses generated through observation, abductive logic tests for validity and reliability using action research – small steps that encourage feedback from the “reality” being tested in order to integrate the responses into the next prototype. In this way we can orient ourselves within the current reality, picking the best option for moving forward and eliminating those that are less desirable.

Design / Episodic Thinking uses inductive and deductive logic to gain validity for the widest range of target customer possible in order to increase reliability. The iterative process is abductive; it links successive approximations of “reality,” rapid prototyping your way forward. From physics we can borrow the idea of the wave-particle duality – our multiple and varied options exist as a wave of potential actions, which only collapses when we choose one to act on (particle). In a sense abductive logic only partially collapses the wave, keeping us connected to all the possibilities available to us while maintaining agility and resilience.

Next week the second aspect of Design Thinking: Collaboration.

Dr. Carol Mase is a consultant, coach, and small business manager. Contact her at 215.262.6666 and visit www.CairnConsultants.com for more information.