Blogging on Business Update from Bob Morris (Week of 2/18/13)

I hope that at least a few of these recent posts will be of interest to you:

BOOK REVIEWS

Success Under Stress: Powerful Tools for Staying Calm, Confident, and Productive When the Pressure’s On
Sharon Melnick

The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership
Bill Walsh with Steve Jamison and Craig Walsh

Who Says It’s a Man’s World: The Girls’ Guide to Corporate Domination
Emily Bennington

The Genius Machine: The Eleven Steps That Turn Raw Ideas into Brilliance
Gerald Sindell

The Art of Explanation: Making Your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand
Lee LeFever

This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works
John Brockman, Editor

INTERVIEWS

Lily Kanter (Serena & Lily) in “The Corner Office”
Adam Bryant
The New York Times

Lina Echeverría

Achim Nowak

David Goldsmith: Part 2

COMMENTARIES

“7 Tips for Handling Criticism”
Gretchen Rubin

“How Companies of All Sizes Are Moving Beyond Command and Control Cultures”
David C. Forman and Friso van der Oord
Talent Management

“Tim Ferriss: How to develop ‘reality distortion field’ charisma”
Jessica Stillman
CBS MoneyWatch

“Why the Best Managers Ask the Most Questions”
Nadia Goodman
Entrepreneur

“Top 10 Famous Stutterers”
El the erf
Listverse

“Death To Core Competency: Lessons From Nike, Apple, Netflix”
Austin Carr
Fast Company

“Making Star Teams Out of Star Players
Michael Mankins, Alan Bird, and James Root
HBR

“How to Defuse Difficult People”
Management Tip of the Day
HBR

When It Comes to Content Strategy, Spreadable Is the New Sticky
Sam Ford
Fast Company

“The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data
Alon Halevy, Peter Norvig, and Fernando Pereira
iEEE iNTElliGENT SYSTEMS

“The startling cost of inefficient collaboration”
Editors
MIT Sloan Management Review

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Book Review: The Genius Machine

The Genius Machine: The Eleven Steps That Turn Raw Ideas into Brilliance
Gerald Sindell
New World Library (2009)

Sindell observes, “The terrible gap that lies between existing knowledge and the persistence of ignorance – and its concomitant poverty, illness, and suffering – drives me crazy…This book is about a third kind of thinking, one that is directed toward improving an existing idea, thinking through a complete issue, or creating something new.” wants each of his readers to become what a calls a “genius thinker” but that said, he fully realizes that a reader’s IQ (or whatever else may be the metric of choice) will not take off like a Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) after reading his book. With regard to the title, it may also cause some misunderstanding. It refers to the fact that his clients have used the term to describe Sindell’s mind when activated. Over time, he developed a system to create intellectual capital (ideas) and called it the “Endleofon (END-leo-fahn), an old English word for ‘eleven,’ and some of my clients call it the Genius Machine.” Why eleven? Because the Endleofon system is based on eleven core principles. He devotes a separate chapter to each.

According to Sindell, “genius thinkers” look at what everyone else does and see something different; they know who they are (and aren’t) and what they are driven to contribute; they know that nothing exists in a vacuum; they know that the only way to be certain something works is to discover the test that would prove the opposite; they also know they are “standing on the shoulders” of others; and they recognize that, when they have created something of value in any one area, it will probably be of value in many areas; when working with something new, genius thinkers step from time to time and ask: What are the underlying principles operating here? Or are we using new rules, and if so, can they be pulled together into a coherent group or body of law?; they complete their work by answering two questions: Can it stand on its own? Have I provided enough additional information so that what we have innovated can be replicated or continuously improved?; genius thinkers enter the frame of reference of the intended user and ask, “Have I done everything possible to ease the learning curve?”

Somehow, Sindell succeeds in explaining quite well how to do all this in only 129 pages and then concludes his book with the provision of an immensely valuable mechanism, “The Endleofon Questions.” All of these questions need to be answered so that innovations can be developed to their highest possible level; the answers will also facilitate acceptance of the innovations by the people who would benefit most from them.

Interview: Gerald Sindell

Gerald Sindell

A co-founder of Thought Leaders International (TLI), Sindell guides leaders and organizations of all kinds to maximize their return on the most precious capital of all: their capacity. Whether it is the skills or idealism of a leader, or the enormous latent human capital typically underused in even the greatest organizations, becoming an innovative person or inculcating a culture of innovation in an organization is the best long-term strategy for living a life or creating a thriving company. He is an award-winning Hollywood film director and as a book developer, editor, and eventually founder and publisher of Tudor Publishing and Knightsbridge Publishing, Sindell has helped shape many books and careers, having put more than 75,000,000 books in print. The ideas and methodologies Sindell develops with his clients reach most of the Fortune 500 and the Global 2000 directly or indirectly. From GE to State Farm, Alcoa to InBev, Yahoo! to Booz Allen, TLI’s clients are changing the world every day by providing thought leadership that improves lives. His book The Genius Machine: The 11 Steps That Turn Raw Ideas into Brilliance was  published by New World Library.

Morris: Before focusing on The Genius Machine, here are a few general questions. You have an extensive background as a film producer, director, and writer. How has that experience contributed to the development of your career?

Sindell: Learning about life and work in the film business was the best training I could have had for everything else I’ve attempted to do. As a young production manager at 22, I learned what professionalism was. It kind of spoiled me for the real world. In film, when 120 strangers are told that the first day of production will begin at street corner X at 5 in the morning, everyone shows up, everyone knows their job and is ready to contribute, and the team meshes within minutes.

I also learned about critical path method, and most important, how to achieve creativity on time and on budget. Finally, I learned about marketing from one of the great geniuses in film marketing who came out to Fox from P & G and created the strategy behind Star Wars.

Morris: And now the same question but this time with regard to your extensive background in publishing the works of others and the experience those associations provided.

Sindell: In publishing I learned, first of all, that the marketing lessons I learned in film apply to books. When I first started in publishing, I had my first NY Times bestseller with my first book that I developed. Then when I started my first publishing company we had a 2 million copy bestseller within 6 months. I was basically playing by my mentor’s movie rules in the publishing world.

Morris: When and why was Thought Leaders International (TLI) founded? What was its original mission?

Sindell: It started in 1995 when I had one of those Shazam! moments. I was living in Aspen and publishing a newsletter for skiers — The Skiers Edge — and at the same time helping people in the area figure out how to get along with their publishers, and how to get successfully published. I suddenly realized there was a whole bunch of people who needed to get published successfully for the sake of their careers. These were primarily business consultants and business leaders. I felt that they needed to understand how to use the system for their own success, not just to make a publisher happy. The business clicked from the first few weeks, and the clients from that first year are still friends and some are still clients.

Morris: To what extent (if any) has that mission changed since then?

Sindell: It adjusts to the ever-higher bar set by major publishing. All we hear today from publishers is platform, platform, platform, so we begin with our clients getting their blogs rolling, getting them speaking, looking for ways to build their profiles long before the book goes to submission.

Morris: Presumably TLI has what Marty Neumeier has characterized as a “radical differentiator” that sets it apart from the firms with which it competes. Is that true?

Sindell: Nah, we’re just like everyone else. (Is joke.) We created our niche in 1995 and now there are quite a few people helping others get book proposals done. What radically differentiates us is how we work with our clients to develop their intellectual property. Most of our clients find that their greatest challenge is getting to the truth of what they know, and understanding how they are intrinsically differentiated from their competition. The comments on our website are typical — our clients really get to their truth through our process. It’s a life-changing time of their lives.

Morris: Now please focus on The Genius Machine and explain its title.

Sindell: A number of clients felt that whatever it was I took them through would be valuable for others if I could capture it. For some years I wasn’t clear that I could really capture it. Finally one client asked to turn the tables on me and interview me! That got me started.

Morris: Why did you select Endleofon (END-leo-fahn) for the name of the system you devised for developing intellectual property?

Sindell: When I had gathered all the dozens of things that I think are important to consider when we’re thinking through something, I gathered them into categories, like distinctions, or testing, or advocacy. When I had crunched them down to the absolute minimum numbers of groups, I had eleven. Any smaller number of buckets and it would have been blurring important distinctions, so eleven became the irreducible number. I looked around for a way to name this eleven-dimensioned process, found an old English word for eleven, endleofon, and made it mine. The dot com URL was available, so that iced it for me.

Morris: The book’s subtitle refers to “the 11 steps that turn raw ideas into brilliance.” Where do these raw ideas come from and how are they generated?

Sindell: When I finished the book and once the publisher and I had settled on the title, I spent a bit of time puzzling about the machine nature of the process — was the process in the machine? Could we really drop our ideas in it, turn the crank, and get brilliant solutions? I think at first that the book functions that way — the process is outside of us. But as many reviewers, including you, observed, the book just seems like so much common sense. And I like that reaction. It means there’s something in our gut that tells us this makes a lot of sense.

So the use of the book then begins to enter a second phase. And it starts almost from the beginning. Before long I think people will be checking back to the book less and less, since they will have internalized the process. It will simply become the way they think.

That’s when I began to wonder if the book would make people smarter, since they would now be thinking things through more thoroughly. I’m planning to give seminars about the book and helping people internalize the process. I think the Endleofon process can make people smarter — a lot more acute in their thinking — and we can do it in a one-day workshop.

Q #85: What are “business incubators”?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

Opinions vary because definitions of the designation very. Some business historians claim that the formal concept of business incubation began in the USA in 1959 with the Batavia Industrial Center in a Batavia, New York, expanded in the U.S. in the 1980s and then throughout the UK and continental Europe in various related forms (e.g. independent innovation centers, pépinières d’entreprises, science parks, etc.). Other business historians include corporate research centers such for Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs (commonly identified as the “Skunk Works”) that was founded in 1943 and given the assignment to design the XP-80 “Shooting Star.” The P-80 was introduced in 1945 and the first operational jet fighter used by the United States Army Air Force.

With all due respect for the historical significance of these initiatives, I am among those who think it is more important to think about business incubation as a process rather than as a physical location. In fact, idea generation can occur anywhere if, as experts on the subject agree, certain conditions exist:

1. Constant and prudent experimentation. Everyone is strongly encouraged (if not required) and full advantage is taken of each “failure,” viewed as a precious learning experience.

2. Brainstorming. Sessions are frequently scheduled, with cross-functional representation (i.e. management, accounting, marketing, sales, production), to solve one specific problems, answer one specific question, or discuss one specific opportunity. (Only one per session.) Workers are also strongly encouraged to conduct informal brainstorming sessions.

Note: Over the years, I have helped client companies to establish a program for what I call “brown bag brainstorming sessions.” These are informal and can be scheduled by anyone, usually during the lunch hour in a room provided by the company.

3. Recognition and rewards. More than 85% of the improvements of Toyota’s processes (i.e. design, production, and distribution) are suggested by its workers and a majority of those workers are on the production line.

4. Workplace Environment. In The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation, Thomas Kelley explains how and why his firm, IDEO, created a workplace environment that is most congenial to and supportive of innovative thinking. Excellent advice can also be found in Gerald Sindell’s The Genius Machine, Michael Michalko’s Thinkpak: A Brainstorming Card Deck, Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, Doug Hall’s Jump Start Your Business Brain, and Paul Sloane’s The Leader’s Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills.

One final point: Keep in mind Ben Hogan’s assertion that golf is played between the ears and that is where competition is won…or lost. The human mind is the best business incubator and always will be. With innovation as with almost all other human initiatives, most limits are self-imposed.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob

Q #54: Which exercises do you recommend for brainstorming?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

Here’s an exercise (inspired by Edward de Bono’s ideas) which will work very well with those who have been required to read de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats prior to getting together to brainstorm. Buy several of those delightful Dr. Seuss hats (at least one of each of the six different colors, more if needed) and keep the hats out of sight until everyone is seated. Review the agenda. Review what de Bono says about what each color represents. Then distribute the Dr. Seuss hats, making certain that at least one person is wearing a hat of each color. Proceed with the discussion, chaired by a person wearing a Blue or White hat. It is imperative that whoever wears a Black hat, for example, be consistently negative and argumentative whereas whoever wears a Yellow must be consistently positive and supportive. After about 15-20 minutes, have each person change to a different colored hat. Resume discussion. Thanks to de Bono and (yes) to Dr. Seuss, you can expect to have an especially enjoyable as well as productive session.

In a previous Q&A (#53), I identified several ways to ruin a brainstorm session. One of the most common is “homogenous” group membership. Wearing several hats of different colors and making each participant think according to the color of hat worn will ensure a variety and diversity of points of view.

In my opinion, the best sources for information and advice about brainstorming include two books by Thomas Kelley, The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation. Also, Gerald Sindell’s The Genius Machine, Michael Michalko’s Thinkpak, Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, Doug Hall’s Jump Start Your Business Brain, and Paul Sloane’s The Leader’s Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob

Q #53: What are some of the most effective ways to ruin a brainstorming session?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

According to the experts, these are among the most effective:

1. The CEO or some other C-level executive chairs the session. The discussion requires a facilitator who is totally neutral, whose sole purpose is to keep the discussion moving along in an orderly, unhurried fashion. Preferably someone who has mastered the Socratic method of asking questions, not making statements.

2. There are no clear objectives and “ground rules.” At the outset, there should be a problem to solve, a question to answer, or a new opportunity to pursue. In other words, an ultimate “destination.” Otherwise, the discussion will resemble an aerosol spray of opinions.

3. The group membership is “homogenous.” The best brainstorming sessions resemble a “crucible” to which an idea is subjected to scrutiny by quite different backgrounds, perspectives, values, and temperaments. Only the best ideas survive but not until all ideas have been shared.

4. Allowing early criticism. In the spirit of “the only dumb question is the one not asked,” everyone involved should agree that “the only bad idea is the one not shared.” All ideas should be welcomed without criticism until everyone has had a chance to respond with questions or comments.

5. Settling for only a few ideas. In fact, the most productive brainstorm sessions generate lots of bad ideas to get one OK idea, lots of OK ideas to get one excellent idea, and lots of excellent ideas to get what Steve Jobs characterizes as an “insanely great” idea.

6. No follow-through. If there is no follow-through, why have the session? See #2.

In my opinion, the best sources for information and advice about brainstorming include two books by Thomas Kelley, The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation. Also, Gerald Sindell’s The Genius Machine, Michael Michalko’s Thinkpak, Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, Doug Hall’s Jump Start Your Business Brain, and Paul Sloane’s The Leader’s Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob

Q #21: How to generate great ideas?

In this series, Bob Morris poses a key question and then responds to it with material from one or more of the business books he has reviewed for Amazon and Borders.

Predictably, opinions vary about the process but all experts agree that there must be a lot of ideas to get a few good ideas and a lot of good ideas to get a few excellent ideas and then (you guessed it) a lot of excellent ideas to get one or (maybe) two “insanely great ideas” as Steve Jobs characterizes them. I’ve just read a book by Gerald Sindell, The Genius Machine: The 11 Steps That Turn Raw Ideas into Brilliance, that may be of interest and value. He shares his insights about thinking “that is directed toward improving an existing idea, thinking through a complete issue, or creating something new.” The eleven “steps” to which the subtitle refers are in a sequence devised by Sindell. He devotes a separate chapter to each. They are: Distinctions, Identity, Implications, Testing, Precedent, Need, Foundation, Completion, Connecting, Impact, and Advocacy. Obviously, the sequence suggests a specific process by which to subject an existing idea to rigorous and relentless pressure, to a “crucible” of scrutiny and evaluation.

So, the best way to generate great ideas is to generate lots of ideas, then lots of good ideas, and then lots of excellent ideas (subjecting each to a process such as the one Sindell advocates) and hope that eventually one or two great ideas survive that process. There are other sources worth checking out, notably Tom Kelley’s two books (The Art of Innovation and The Ten Faces of Innovation) in which he explains the brainstorming process at IDEO, a design and innovation firm based in Palo Alto that he and his brother David founded in 1991. With regard to generation of ideas, I also recommend Tim Hurson’s Think Better: An Innovator’s Guide to Productive Thinking and Making Innovation Work: How to Manage It, Measure It, and Profit from It co-authored by Tony Davila, Marc J. Epstein, and Robert Shelton.

It is important for everyone involved to remember, including CEOs and other senior managers, is that the process of generating and evaluating ideas, and then (perhaps) producing one or two great ideas inevitably involves lots of failure, is messy and frustrating, takes time, and requires sustained support. Potentially great ideas are like seedlings. They do not respond well to being pulled out of the ground to see how well they’re doing.

Comments, questions, requests, or suggestions? Please share them. They will be most welcome and I thank you for them. Best regards, Bob