Charles Dickens, Twyla Tharp, Steve Jobs – Focus; Focus on the Core, the Spine

The first steps of a creative act are like groping in the dark:  random and chaotic, feverish and fearful, a lot of busy-ness with no apparent or definable end in sight.  There is nothing yet to research.  For me, these moments are not pretty.  I look like a desperate woman, tortured by the simple message thumping away in my head:  “You need an idea.” 
You need a tangible idea to get you going.  The idea, however miniscule, is what turns the verb into a noun – paint into a painting, sculpt into sculpture, write into writing, dance into a dance.
…Spine, to put it bluntly, begins with your first strong idea.  You were scratching to come up with an idea, you found one, and through the next stages of creative thinking you nurtured it into the spine of your creation.  The idea is the toehold that gets you started.  The spine is the statement you make to yourself outlining your intentions for the work…  If you stick to your spine, the piece will work. (emphasis added). 
Twyla Tharp — The Creative Habit:  Learn it and Use it for Life (A Practical Guide)

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Charles Dickens

I was listening to NPR the other day.  It was the 200^th birthday of Charles Dickens.  Any author that receives a segment on his 200^th birthday (plus a birthday party at Westminster Abbey) qualifies as a significant author.  But we didn’t need NPR to tell us that.

In the midst of the story by Linda Wertheimer (Dickens At 200: A Birthday You Can’t ‘Bah Humbug’), this paragraph jumped out.

Novelist Jennifer Egan is a fan who came back to the books and unexpectedly found that Dickens felt modern.
“The way that Dickens structured his books has a form that we most readily recognize now from, say, the great TV series, like The Wire or The Sopranos,” says Egan. “There’s one central plot line, but then from that spin off all kinds of subplots. And so he would go off in all sorts of directions and create these amazing secondary characters who would go in and out of focus. But then there was also this sort of central spinal column of a plot that he would return to.”

“This sort of central spinal column of a plot…”  When I heard this, I remembered the section about “spine” from Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit.  To Tharp, you need an idea!  And then, that idea has to be attached to the “spine,” and the “spine” is what centers the piece, centers the project, centers the “idea.”

This idea of “spine” reminds me of the Steve Jobs decision, upon his return to Apple.  Apple had too many products in the pipeline.  They were too unfocused.  They had lost their spine.  Jobs got rid of practically every project except the core two or three.  Jobs helped them re-find and remember their spine.

Call it backbone, but don’t think just of courage; think of connection to the core, connection to the central idea.  Consider the dictionary definition of spinal column:  “constituting a central axis or chief support.”  Everything is connected to, and supported by, the spinal column.  You can’t have a body, a structure, a company without that central axis or chief support.

The word spine is also the word used to hold the pages of a book together.  No spine, no book – just a loose connection of pages.

Business books use many words to describe this concept:  focus; core product…  but here is the clear principle:  have a solid, sound, unshakeable core.

In the devotional classic, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the main character, Christian, is trying to cross the river.  The water is moving rapidly; the water is rising, and he is about to go under. But Hopeful calls out from the midst of the same dangerous river:

Then they addressed themselves to the water, and entering, Christian began to sink, and crying out to his good friend Hopeful, he said, I sink in deep waters; the billows go over my head; all his waves go over me.
And Hopeful calls out:  “Be of good cheer, my brother, for I feel the bottom, and it is sound.” 

“Feel the bottom.”  Get the spine right.  Get the core product, the core principle, the core service right.  Don’t go off chasing anything that is not utterly connected to your core – your spine.

Dickens, and Tharp, and Jobs, and Bunyan had it right.

What is your spine?

“A Citizen-Centered Organization” – Thoughts on the Importance of Focus

“We are a citizen-centered organization.”
Lynda Humble — City Manager, Rowlett, Texas

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Focus…  What are you “centered on?”  This may be the first lesson in business success.  You have a better chance of accomplishing what you focus on, and little chance of accomplishing what you don’t focus on.

Lynda Humble of Rowlett is clear about her focus, and she is constantly pointing her people to that focus.  “We are a citizen-centered organization.”  Clear.  To the point.  And if this is truly lived out, this is the corrective needed when people go off track.  (And people will go off track!)

Cities, and companies, and organizations, can focus on many things.  And whatever gets the focus gets the attention, the resources, the innovations, the upgrades – and the loyalty and possible gratitude of the “customers.”

If you are a city government, then focusing on the citizens seems like the right call.  But many cities lose this focus.  The pull of the universe is a pull to get us all off focus.  We have to resist that pull – all the time!

So what are you centered on — what is your focus?  When you are  pulled away, how do you get back (to) your focus?  These are not unimportant issues…

The Dragonfly Effect: A book review by Bob Morris

The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Social Change
Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith with Carlye Adler
Jossey-Bass/A Wiley Imprint (2010)

In this book written with Carlye Adler, Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith explain how to “leverage the power of the new social media to do something that really matters.” They invoke the dragonfly both as a symbol and as catalyst: “The dragonfly is the only insect able to propel itself in any direction – with tremendous speed and force – when its four wings are working in concert. This ancient, exotic, and benign creature illuminates the importance of integrated effort. It also demonstrates that small actions can create big movements. To us, what we call the Dragonfly Effect is the elegance and efficacy of people who, through the passionate pursuit of their goals, discover that they can make a positive impact disproportionate to their resources.”

Others have their own reasons for praising this book. Here are two of mine. First, Aaker and Smith make skillful use of reader-friendly devices inserted throughout their narrative that focus on key points while offering rock-solid practical advice. For example, in the first three chapters:

• Harnessing the Power of Blogging (Page 11)
• Embrace: How Design Thinking Works (22-23)
• Cultivating a Human-Centered Approach (25)
• Go Where People Are (39)
• Three Tips for Facebook Presence (43)
• Grabbing Attention Immediately (59)

In certain respects, the dragonfly symbolizes the “what” of leveraging the new social media to do “something that really matters” but the dragonfly also serves as a catalyst for the framework within which Aaker and Smith explain the “how” and, when appropriate, the “why” of achieving that worthy objective.

I also appreciate how skillfully they use acronyms to organize their examination of the four “wings” that provide speed and power to the transformation process. The Dragonfly Model is Focus + GET and these are the acronyms for each of the four wings.

HATCH: Humanistic, Actionable, Testable, Clarity, and Happiness  (Focus, Page 32)
PUVV: Personal, Unexpected, Visual, and Visceral (Grab Attention, Page 66)
TEAM: Tell a Story, Empathize, be Authentic, and Match the media (Engage, Page 101)
EFTO: Easy, Fun, Tailored, and Open (Take Action, Page 139)

Aaker and Smith have an insatiable curiosity to understand what works, what doesn’t, and why. Clearly, they are determined to something “that really matters”: to share what they have learned with as many people as possible. That is why they wrote this book, with Carlye Adler, and why they urge their readers to check out all the resources at http://www.dragonflyeffect.com/blog/. I agree with Michael O’Malley that there is much of value to be learned from bees. As Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith brilliantly explain in this book, the same is true of dragonflies.

Clarity; Focus; Definition; “What kind of company do you want to be?” – observation/insight from Farhad Manjoo

The incoherence, I think, is a sign of something deeper: Research in Motion doesn’t know what kind of company it wants to be.
Farhad Manjoo, What on Earth Happened to BlackBerry?:  Research in Motion’s new tablet is a misguided mess.

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I know practically nothing about technology.  I use a Mac, an iPhone, and I’m on a waiting list for the iPad 2.  These are made for a non-techie like me.

But I like to read Farhad Manjoo on Slate.com.  He teaches me, enlightens me, and though he must be some kind of techie genius, he writes in language I can understand.

In an article on the current state of Research in Motion (Blackberry), this quote jumped out at me:

The incoherence, I think, is a sign of something deeper: Research in Motion doesn’t know what kind of company it wants to be.

Of course, it reminds us of Peter Drucker’s famous first question:

“What is your business?” 
(Drucker’s other two questions:  “Who is your customer?  What does your customer consider value?”)

Clarity; focus; definition.  These are not “modern,” innovative” concerns.  These are always absolutely required for business success.

What kind of company do you want to be?  Start there, and start building. And if you ever forget this — if you can’t answer this in a crisp, short, coherent, sentence — then it’s time to start over.

You Get What You Pay Attention To — Consider Brazil’s Focus on Extreme Poverty

I have written before about this simple concept:  you get what you pay attention to.  (read this earlier blog post).  I am convinced that this is as true a maxim as you can find.  What gets attention determines the areas in which progress is made.  What is ignored goes downhill…  pretty quickly.

My friend, Larry James, is a genuine expert on poverty issues.  The CEO of CitySquare (formerly Central Dallas Ministries), Larry has a terrific blog.  (Larry James Urban Daily:  read it here).  In a recent post, he excerpted an article about the fight against poverty in Brazil.  Here’s a key portion:

Today, however, Brazil’s level of economic inequality is dropping at a faster rate than that of almost any other country. Between 2003 and 2009, the income of poor Brazilians has grown seven times as much as the income of rich Brazilians. Poverty has fallen during that time from 22 percent of the population to 7 percent.

Contrast this with the United States, where from 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent of earners.

Dilma Vana Rousseff, a Brazilian politician of Bulgarian origin, has formally been inaugurated as Brazil's 36 President.

Why is Brazil making such progress in its struggle against poverty?  Because… this is what they are paying attention to.  The people at the top pay attention to this problem – with serious focus.
Consider this portion of the inaugural address from the new President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, delivered Saturday, January 1, 2011. (find the full text here:
)

My Dear Brazilians,
My government’s most determined fight will be to eradicate extreme poverty and create opportunities for all.
We have seen significant social mobility during President Lula’s two terms. But poverty still exists to shame our country and prevent us from affirming ourselves fully as a developed people.
I will not rest while there are Brazilians who have no food on their tables, while there are desperate families on the streets, while there are poor children abandoned to their own devices. Family unity lies in food, peace and happiness. This is the dream I will pursue!
This is not the isolated task of one government, but a commitment to be embraced by all society. For this, I humbly ask for the support of public and private institutions, of all the parties, business entities and workers, the universities, our young people, the press and all those who wish others well.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff at her inauguration

What do you pay attention to?  Whatever it is, it is likely that that is the area where you will make the most progress.

Clutch: A book review by Bob Morris

Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t
Paul Sullivan
Portfolio/The Penguin Group (2010)

According to Paul Sullivan, “Clutch, simply put, is the ability to do what you do normally under immense pressure. It is also something that goes far beyond the world of sport. And while it has a mental component, it is not a mystical ability, nor somehow willing yourself to greatness…Being under great pressure is hard work. This is part of the reason why we are so impressed by people who seem immune to choking. These people come through in the clutch when others don’t…Just because someone is clutch in one area of his life does not mean he will be clutch in others…Transferring what you can do in a relaxed atmosphere to a tenser one is not easy – or else everyone would be clutch.”

That said, we now understand why Sullivan wrote this book: To share what he learned while seeking the answers two questions: First, “Why are some people so much better under pressure than other, seemingly equally talented people?” In response to the first question, Sullivan organizations his material according to six themes (Focus, Discipline, Adapting, Being present, Fear and Desire, and Double Clutch) and devotes a separate chapter to each. Then in Part II, he shifts his attention to explaining why some people choke and others don’t…why people choker in some situations…and nit in others. He also examines the implications and possible consequences of “overthinking.” Then, “Can people be clutch if they are not regularly in high-pressure situations?” Sullivan devotes Part III, “How to Be Clutch,” to answering the second question.

I especially appreciate how Sullivan anchors his observations and insights in a human context. For example, there is much of great value to learn from his discussion of the renowned attorney, David Boies, in the first chapter. “Early in his career, he started to focus on the same two questions for every trial. ‘First, what are the facts,’ he told me. ‘And then, second, what are the basic principles of the law here – not what were the detailed holdings of fifty cases, but just what are the basic principles of law that apply to this area’…Boies’s focus on having a clear understanding of the issues and laws creates a solid foundation. He builds the morality play around that.  However, it is not the play that helps him excel under pressure but his focus on telling the story in court. This ability allows him to withstand the immense pressure of any high-profile trial.”

Boies and other exemplars throughout the book commit years of time and effort to becoming able to excel despite indescribably severe pressure in one or two domains of their lives…but not in all. Tiger Woods is clutch during competition in golf but has encountered well-publicized problems in other areas. Few (if any) of those who read this book will be sufficiently talented to achieve success in competition with Boies or with Woods but everyone who reads this book can – over time and with sufficient concentration – manage more effectively stress and the pressures that create it. One final point: What Paul Sullivan learned and then shares in this book will be of substantial benefit to those who wish to alleviate or isolate and block out stress as well as to those who must cope with it.

You Get What You Pay Attention To – Consider the Astonishing Safety Record of the United States Air Force

(personal note:  be sure to read to the bottom of this post for a “personal” note)

(1935 – re. the Boeing Model 229, the B-17, the “Flying Fortress”) — The test pilots made their list simple, brief, and to the point – short enough to fit on an index card, with step-by-step checks for takeoff, flight, landing, and taxiing.  It had the kind of stuff that all pilots know to do…  With the checklist in hand, the pilots went on to fly the Model 229 a total of 1.8 million miles without one accident.
The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande

I know nothing about flying.  I only know this – if I’m on a plane, I want to walk out on my own two legs at approximately the time I was scheduled to arrive.  But after reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, I have a little more appreciation for the job it takes to keep airplanes traveling safely.  So, I read this article with interest: Safety Against the Odds:  Despite its futuristic arsenal and high-stakes missions, the United States Air Force had a safety record in 2009 that approached perfection. The truth is, zero accidents is precisely the goal, by Robert Goyer.  It is from Flying Magazine, apparently the magazine for the industry.

Here are some excerpts:

The e-mail we received here at Flying from “Scroll,” chief of aviation safety at the United States Air Force Safety Center, was a little hard to believe. “Last year (Fiscal Year 2009),” the e-mail read, “was the USAF’s safest year in aviation safety, with 17 Class A Aviation Flight Mishaps for a 0.8 rate per 100,000 flying hours.”

Somehow, the Air Force seems to have hit upon a formula for safety that last year approached perfection.

Just how good a rate is 0.8 per 100,000 flight hours? It’s, in a word, remarkable. The rate compares favorably with the fatal accident rate for general aviation, which is around 1.17 per 100,000 hours. Remember, most of the Air Force’s Class A Mishaps don’t involve fatalities, and many of them don’t involve injuries.

The more pertinent figure from GA, the overall accident rate, in 2008 was 7.1 per 100,000 hours, which is approximately nine times that of the Air Force’s mark. In fact, the Air Force’s safety record for 2009 compared favorably with every segment of civil aviation in the United States (based on 2008 figures) except for the scheduled airlines. Scheduled Part 121 flying, as one would hope, is considerably safer. Then again, the airlines aren’t flying high-speed, low-level training missions through mountainous terrain.

While 2009 was the safest year on record for the Air Force, the trend of safety is not new. Since the early part of the new century, accident rates have been lower, substantially lower, than historic trends have been.

Every Airman a Safety Officer:  I went to Albuquerque to discover the secret of how the Air Force has achieved such a remarkable safety record. I came away understanding that there is no secret. It takes a commitment to safety and all that that implies from the top down.

Every person I met at the Safety Center seemed to believe that safety is a dynamic, ongoing process that requires everyone involved to take an active role in the safety process. And it has worked. The results are quantifiable. While it’s unrealistic to expect that general aviation can cut accidents to the level the Air Force has attained, there’s surely much we can learn, starting with the belief that safety requires hard work, a good look in the mirror and the belief that one person can make a difference. The results of those attitudes have paid off for the Air Force, and its safety success can be measured not only in dollars and cents, but also, and far more importantly, in fewer lives lost.

First, the lesson.  You get what you pay attention to.  The Air Force clearly has a team of people who pay very careful attention, over the long haul, to safety.  It is a life-saving, money-saving focus.  One they have gotten very good at.

Flying's Robert Goyer (far right) is welcomed at the Safety Center by (l-r) Lt. Col./Dr. Karen Heupel, chief of human factors; Maj. Gen. Frederick F. Roggero, chief of safety; and Col. Sid Mayeux, chief of aviation safety.

Now, the personal.  The e-mail to Flying Magazine came from  “Scroll,” the chief of aviation safety at the United States Air Force Safety Center.  When he was just a kid, he went to an air show put on by the Confederate Air Force (flying vintage World War II planes) in Harlingen, Texas.  He announced to his family that he intended to become a pilot.  Well, he did.  He has participated in fast and dangerous missions in conflict zones, and now he has put his focus on safety world-wide.  He is also my brother, Colonel Sid Mayeux.  Congratulations on your safety accomplishments, Sid.

Aaron Sorkin Reminds Us To Keep Our Focus

Folks, a lot of people got killed last night. Let’s try to keep our eyes on the ball, okay?
(Fictional President Andrew Shepherd, The American President, after the press corps wants to know more about his private life than about the international incident that prompted the press conference).

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Aaron Sorkin -- could somebody please talk him into writing a business book!

If Aaron Sorkin wrote a business book, I would immediately buy it, consume it, and then most certainly put it at the top of any list I compiled as the best business book ever.  Not because he knows much about business (I don’t know if he does or not), but because I am addicted to anything/everything he writes and puts on the screen.  Take your pick:  The West Wing, A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson’s War, and of course the greatest program in the history of television that never found enough of its audience, Sports Night.  (and this is not all).

I realize this is a business book and business issues blog.  And I’m quoting from an article by Sorkin written about quite a controversy regarding a Newsweek contributor’s opinion regarding a gay actor playing straight — definitely not on subject for this blog.

But…  the article is Now That You Mention It, Rock Hudson Did Seem Gay, written for the Huffington Post. And, here’s the paragraph:

When I need the audience to know that a piece of information they’re about to hear is important, I can use words, a close-up, a push-in, music… when the authors of the no-longer-private-lives “A” story want the audience to know that something’s important, it shows up on our Yahoo homepage. (The third story on my homepage yesterday was that Britain, our closest ally, has a new Prime Minister. The first story was about Justin Bieber. Unless the new Prime Minister is Justin Bieber, something’s obviously gone wrong.)

And here’s the lesson.  It is an old lesson.  A society that becomes consumed with trivia is a society that really does need to pay attention to the right issues.  And Sorkin rather passionately makes that argument in this article.

And for business people, the lesson is this:  focus on the right things, and do not, ever, get bogged down on the wrong things.  Your moments are incredibly precious.  Do not waste any of them on inconsequential trivia.  You’ve got important matters to think about and plan and implement.  Stay focused and get to it!

Let’s try to keep our eyes on the ball, okay?

Ten Lessons about Business and Personal Success from Temple Grandin (the person, and the movie)

The Real Temple Grandin

For years, I have listened to interviews with Temple Grandin.  (Here is a great program, with excerpts of a series of earlier interviews, conducted by Terry Gross of Fresh Air on NPR – broadcast on February 5, 2010).  She has an amazing personal story.  Autistic, did not speak until age four, she made it through high school, college, and two graduate degrees.  She is renowned for her lectures on autism and the treatment of cattle, and for her breakthrough recommendations on the care of cattle.  In fact, over 50% of slaughterhouses in the United States use designs that she created or inspired.

Claire Danes as Temple Grandin

HBO produced a new movie about her life and career, called simply Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes.  I sat transfixed as I watched it (great acting job by Claire Danes), and have not been able to get the movie out of my head.

Temple Grandin does not think, or “see,” like the “normal” among us.  She thinks and sees in pictures.  And this ability helped her develop her breakthrough recommendations regarding the treatment of cattle.

As I thought about the movie, I came up with ten lessons we can learn from Temple Grandin – for business success, and life success.  (I know that 10 is a big number for such a list – but I could not leave any of these out).  All of these I have covered in an array of business books over the last decade.  But here they are, wrapped up in one remarkable human life.

1)  Success requires absolute focus. When Temple Grandin takes on a task, she gives it her undivided attention with a focus that is remarkable and unwavering.

2)  Success requires prolonged and intense observation. Temple Grandin truly looks at things – every-thing – with an observers eye unlike any other I have ever seen.  The movie captured this with great visual images.  Try to see it for this reason, if for no other.

3)  Success requires a bias for action. In the movie, Temple Grandin sees something, decides to tackle it, and goes to work – right then.  She acts, with speed and determination.

4)  Success requires crystal clear and precise communication. The mini-speeches by Temple in this movie are captivating.  Once, she was in a room of skeptical slaughterhouse executives, and she simply and throughly persuaded them that not only was her plan more humane for the cattle, but would save money.  Yes, her design was more expensive – but it would actually save money.  It was a great example of “to the point” communication.

5)  Success requires “suck-up” skills. (phrase borrowed from Carville and Begala).  Because of her autism, Temple Grandin did not understand the value of sucking up, and it did not come naturally to her.  Apparently (this is assumed more than stated or demonstrated in the movie), her mother and aunt had drilled into her the value of simple, polite manners.  (“My name is Temple Grandin.  Pleased to meet you.” And then, right away, she would launch into her real question or message).  And though she sounded impersonal in her use of such everyday politeness, she made herself do it.  What a testament to the need to develop what we now call networking skills.

6)  Success requires the courage to go it alone. Temple Grandin would do what she thought, what she knew, to be right – regardless of what others thought.  She built her own “hugging machine,” and the movie captured the kind of courage she needed to stick to this project and then to actually use her hugging machine..

7)  (But also), Success requires the help of others – you simply can not do it alone. In the movie, a teacher and an aunt, along with the amazing persistence and faith of her mother, made all the difference.  And at one key moment in her college career, that high-school teacher saved the day with advice and counsel.  If you have ever doubted the value of a good teacher, watch this movie!

8)  Success requires genuine empathy. Temple Grandin put herself in the place of the cattle.  Literally.  She would crawl through cattle chutes, seeing what they saw and feeling what they felt.  She saw what bothered the cattle.  Apparently her first published articles were about the messages contained in the loudness of the different moos of cattle.  Her empathy was astonishing.

9)  Success requires a decision to (and the discipline to) keep learning. And with Temple Grandin, learning was very tangible.  She needed to learn how to create drawings of cattle-care devices, so she watched a draftsman at work, bought the tools, and simply taught herself how to do such work.  She is perpetually learning.

10)  Success requires the ability to “keep going” in the face of ridicule and opposition. She never had it easy.  “Normal” people, ridiculed her, were cruel to her, all the way though – from her school days to her days at the cattle pens.  But she simply kept at it.  She “self-medicated” with her “hugging machine,” and went right back out there.

I don’t believe I have ever seen a better movie about business and life success than Temple Grandin.  I hope you find a way to see it.

About that multi-tasking expertise…

A person using a computer experiences “cognitive drift” if more than one second elapses between clicking the mouse and seeing new data on the screen.  If ten seconds pass, the person’s mind is somewhere else entirely.  That’s how medical errors are made.
Levitt and Dubner, Superfreakonomics

The books say that women are better at multitasking than men.  Maybe so.  But I’ve got a theory that all of us have trouble multi-tasking.  In fact, I would argue that focus is lost by most attempts to do multi-tasking.  Some call the problem Adult ADD, but I think I would call our era the era of focus deficiency syndrome.

The quote above from Superfreakonomics jumped off the page at me.  The quote comes from a section of the book discussing medical errors.  But it’s the first part that grabs me:
A person using a computer experiences “cognitive drift” if more than one second elapses between clicking the mouse and seeing new data on the screen.  If ten seconds pass, the person’s mind is somewhere else entirely.

This rings true – to me.  I had not heard of “cognitive drift,” but the phrase certainly describes me — a lot; frequently; maybe constantly.  My mind is constantly drifting.  I will look something up/do a google search, and as I am waiting for it to load (and, yes, I do have a fast-speed connection) my mind has already gone elsewhere, and it may or may not make it back to where it was just a few seconds earlier.

For my own life, I have found that to read a book effectively – you know, with focus — I have to turn my phone off, my e-mail off, and keep my sight lines relatively clear of anything but the pages of the book.  Otherwise, I find myself constantly facing the problem of “my mind is somewhere else” entirely.

The ability to focus on one thing at a time — the ability to single-task — may be a new necessary job skill.  I know that it’s a skill that I definitely need to master.