It Doesn’t Take a Magic Mirror to See the Past in Your Face

Posted on by
courtesy Paulin'a CC

courtesy Paulin’a CC

Whose face do you see when you look in the mirror?

Recently I went on a business trip that’s took me through 4 airports, 3 rental cars, a subway ride, 3 hotels, and more lines than I care to recall. While I was waiting in those lines, I looked in a lot of faces, and heard lots of conversations. One conversation in particular stands out – two young women in their early 20s were behind me talking about another person. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but voices in a jet way are quite clear. The comment that stopped me? “Yeah, he’s 35 you know, and that’s like, you know, old.”

I’m over two decades past the age of 35, and I obviously have a different outlook on life than those two young women. Or do I?

I’m not normally the type that looks at myself in a mirror. But this comment, along with comments from my colleagues I had not seen in several months made me look in the mirror in the hotel that night. Just who was that looking back at me?

The face I saw was that of my father. Even though he passed away four years ago, I still have vivid memories of him. Going places he’d been, seeing things he had talked about, reading about things he was interested in – my memories are constant, and good.

This morning, I looked long in the mirror and the vision I saw was that of my father, coming into focus like a picture being developed right in front of my eyes.

Thought of another way, however, that familiar face embedded in my mind morphed into my son’s and then into his son’s – my grandson. Like a modern day mashup, those collections of lives lived, and yet to live, offer a considerable span of history. A long life lived, a life at halftime, a life in early adulthood, and a life just beginning – that’s quite a few faces in the mirror.

It doesn’t take a magic mirror to see the past in your own face, or wonder about the future in the face of your children and grandchildren.

Who knows when you will glance into a mirror and meet a past you hadn’t expected and weren’t ready for, or a future that is yet to come.

Look in the mirror – what do you see?

Using a Systems Thinking Approach to Innovation

Posted on by

How a conversation with Flik reminded me that innovation and systems thinking aren’t mutually exclusive.

AK-Flick1

If you’ve never seen A Bug’s Life, it was the 2nd Pixar film released following the amazing debut of Toy Story. If you haven’t seen it at all, or recently, I recommend you watch it for pure enjoyment and the lessons it contains.

Flik is a entrepreneurial ant (that paradox is a leadership book in itself!) whose latest invention is a machine that allows ants to do more faster, thus satisfying the demands of their grasshopper overlords. It works for a while, but then disaster strikes and Flik has to scramble to come up with new solutions to save the colony.

That’s all the storyline I’m going to give you; I hope it whets your appetite to view the movie.

A recent encounter with a life-sized Flik at Disney’s Animal Kingdom brought to mind this fact:

When you’re working on a project, things always go smoother when you have the right tools at hand.

If your mind is working on something innovative, the same is true. The mind is full of ideas from past experiences and from observations gained through conversations, movies, television, etc. While you may chose to rely on your subconscious mind to access these ideas, why not take a more structured approach, using specific tools and techniques?

In her book “The Seeds of Innovation”, Elaine Dundon has created a systems thinking approach to innovation. At first those two thoughts seem contradictory, but in reality it can become a very powerful synergy. For example, here’s a “toolkit” you can dive into when you are faced with a challenge in your ministry.

Rummaging in the Attic – elements of previous solutions or ideas can prove to be very valuable fuel for jump-starting your idea engine. Find old ideas, dust them off, and reconnect them in new ways to your current problem or opportunity.

Cultivating Obsession – a great way to find new ideas it to become obsessed with the challenge that confronts you. It means you have to immerse yourself in the challenge, to seek out all the information you possibly can. Obsession will lead to better insights.

Analyzing Frustrations – one of the most fertile areas for identifying new ideas is discovering what frustrates others about the current problem. Focusing on what is not working will sometimes be the origin of a new breakthrough idea.

Identifying the Gold Standard – no matter what the challenge you are facing, someone else has already been down that road. Seek out these people or organizations that have solved a similar challenge in an outstanding way. Make a list of the elements of the process or program that made it work for them, and relate this list to your situation.

Adopting and Adapting – great ideas already exist all around you. Find them out and adopt them as your own. Look within the category of your opportunity, but also look outside the box. Innovators look beyond the borders of their own situation to find new ideas to adopt and adapt.

Combining Ideas – innovative thinking is a little like a cake you bake: take a little of this, a little of that, put them together and you have a delicious dessert. Creative thinkers are aware of the objects and ideas around them and look for new connections by combining diverse ideas and objects.

Finding Similarities – think of other challenges that might be similar. Draw analogies to similar situations, let your mind wander, and you will most likely discover a new connection from an unlikely source.

Breaking Down the DNA – what if your problem is overwhelming? Break it down into its component parts and focus on it bit by bit. Analyzing every step in the process will allow you to discover new answers.

Listing and Twisting – this is actually a follow-on step from the previous one. Once you have listed the steps in the process, you can “twist” them around to find new ideas.

Become a Visual Thinker – something happens when we move away from a linear process of thinking and start to doodle or draw. I’m a big fan of this method; I have a 4’ x 8’ whiteboard on my office wall that I’m constantly stepping up to and sketching out an idea. It seems that your subconscious mind takes over and new connections begin to appear.

Whether you use a process like the ones above, or just pull up a chair with a cup of coffee in hand to think, the point is that innovation is a process. You know where you are; hopefully you know where you want to be. Let your imagination run wild in the space between, and before long you and your team will have a plan to move forward.

At Chick-fil-A, HATCH Comes First – Even Before the Chicken or the Egg

Posted on by

At some point in the future, you will be going to a Chick-fil-A restaurant that looks and works a lot different from the one you are familiar with today. It might even have different menu items, or the food might taste a little different.

Guess what? 

The Chick-fil-A restaurant of the next decade already exists, but you will only find it inside HATCH, Chick-fil-A’s Innovation and Learning Center located on their Atlanta campus.

HATCHWelcome

I have been fortunate to be part of a group learning session at the Innovation Center. This 80,000 square foot facility located near the company’s headquarters is dedicated to helping the company invent its way forward. Inside Nest, the Pen, and other cleverly named spaces, CFA is building the next generation of customer experiences and the capabilities that make it possible.

The session gave me a front-row seat where corporate innovation is headed and allowed interaction with CFA leaders on how innovation and creativity are solidly in the center of their company culture.

Launched in late 2012, HATCH is aimed at strengthening the customer experience, the brand, and enriching the company’s culture.

HATCHLobby

In a converted warehouse, restaurant operators, researchers, designers, and staff gather to collaborate and develop whatever the Chick-fil-A brand and its customers need next. Space is divided into cleverly named work areas:

  • Feeder – cafeteria
  • Nest – learning spaces
  • Coop – working prototype restaurants
  • Incubator – collaboration area
  • Pen –  work spaces for architects and designers

This award-winning space has been purposely designed to foster the interchange of ideas and new opportunities for people who work in different areas of the company to get to know each other.

HATCH even includes a virtual simulator, which is used to very inexpensively prototype new restaurant concepts, technologies, and even kitchen operations. During my session, one of our team donned a headset and experienced the 3D world of a new store concept while the rest of us were able to observe what he was viewing on a 2D screen in the room.

VirtualReality2

 What can ChurchWorld leaders learn from Chick-fil-A and their HATCH Innovation Center?

It’s unlikely that any church would invest a fraction of the resources that Chick-fil-A has on innovation, but that doesn’t mean innovation is beyond the reach of churches.

Larry Osborne is Senior Pastor at North Coast Church near San Diego, CA. North Coast is widely recognized as one of the most influential and innovative churches in America, and Osborne’s book Innovation’s Dirty Little Secret provides a wealth of information that church leaders who want to be innovative in ministry can easily access.

Early in the book, Osborne states that many churches have a natural tendency to protect the past at the cost of the future. His solution: Find ways to identify and release the gifted innovators in your midst.

It’s like creating a mini-HATCH environment in your church.

Osborne thinks that in order to identify these types of innovators in your midst, you must first understand how they think and see the world. He has identified 3 telltale traits that set them apart from others:

  1. A special kind of insight – an uncanny knack for predicting what will work and what won’t work and how large groups of people will respond to new ideas.
  2. A unique form of courage – the ability to take carefully calculated risks by trusting their carefully crafted mental models of what could be.
  3. Extraordinary flexibility – the ability to quickly turn on a dime; a master of mid-course correction.

If you’re going to innovate in ministry, you will have to find ways to identify the fledgling innovators in your church and then find ways to support some of their seemingly crazy ideas.

Like the chicken sandwich…

 

A quick note: I will be returning to the HATCH Innovation Center in a few days as a part of a networking group learning experience. Look for an update soon!

If you liked this post, you might also like:

Isn’t About Time You You Made the Ordinary Extraordinary?

Posted on by

Anyone can dream…

But Disney’s Imagineers dream and do.

Since 1952, the Walt Disney Imagineers have been turning impossible dreams and schemes into magical rides, shows, and attractions for Disney theme parks around the world.

What is their magic?

It’s all about making the ordinary extraordinary.

Take this building in Hollywood Studios, for instance…

HS012914Bldg2

It’s a beautiful building, right?

Not really…

HS012914Bldg1

It’s really just a facade – an excellent example of how the Imagineers use a combination of imagination and engineering to make magic come to life at Disney.

Disney’s Imagineers are a highly creative group – one that isn’t slowed down by the impossible.

There are hundreds of stories about Imagineers who didn’t realize what they were capable of until they started doing it. They don’t want your fear of taking the first step get the best of you – they want to let your project get the best of you.

Imagineers try and fail and keep trying until they make magic.

Isn’t it time you got started?

Go ahead. Tackle that creative challenge head-on. Allow the spark of an idea to ignite your creativity and passion. Make the ordinary, extraordinary.

Don’t just sit there – dream and do!

 

Inspired and adapted from The Imagineering Workout

TheImagineeringWorkout

The Disney Imagineers

Imagineering logo

Starting at the End

Posted on by

TheImagineeringWorkout

inspired by and adapted from The Imagineering Workout, by the Disney Imagineers

– Peter Steinman, General Counsel, Disney Imagineering

Working from the back-end is finding the lessons that you don’t want to learn in the midst of your project. 

This practice of back-end visualization is essential to almost everything we do and can be adapted to any project. 

Next, consider how you could minimize these challenges so they do not negatively impact the project, and take necessary preventive action. This might be done through a contract, through people you might hire, materials you might use, or by adjusting a schedule.

Imagine all the reasonably possible outcomes of the project, select one that best meets your needs, think through all things that could delay, detour, or diminish your outcome and write them down.

Anticipating the possible outcomes of everyday decisions before you make them helps you avoid calamities, not to mention inconveniences.

WDVision

It takes a special kind of vision to see the end before the beginning.

“Of course he did,” recounted his wife Lillian. “If he had not seen it then, we would not be seeing it now.”

After being around Disney cast members for several days this week, the story of people lamenting the fact that Walt died before Walt Disney World was built was recounted several times.

Being onsite at a Disney theme park always heightens my awareness of Walt Disney and the vision he had to bring so much to our world – groundbreaking animation, the concept of the storyboard creative process, live action/animation  movies, and especially the concept of theme parks.

January 31, 2016

A celebration of National Backwards Day

It’s Time to Go Out and Play

Posted on by

The Recess Test – How Playful is Your Organization?

9583479718_7eb58c26c7_z

  • Is it common to hear laughter coming from your employees?
  • Does the laughter stop or diminish when management is around?
  • Is the workplace humor good-natured constructive ribbing rather than destructive sarcastic criticism?
  • Does your boss usually have an optimistic and happy attitude?
  • When something gets screwed up, can team members step back and laugh at their own mistake?
  • Do you have fun celebrations on a regular basis?
  • Is the physical workplace conducive to fun?
  • Do you engage your customers (internal or external) in your fun environment?

If you answered “no” to two or more of these questions, your organization may be suffering from terminal “sobriety flippancy” (abstinence from humor).

At least that’s the point authors Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson make in their book Innovate the Pixar Way. In the book, Capodagli and Jackson reveal how Pixar has reawakened the innovative spirit at Walt Disney. In stark contrast to the crippling short-term mentality that eats away at many organizations today, the Pixar organization honors the legacy of Walt Disney by refusing to take shortcuts, by fulfilling the promise of bringing the story to life in each and every movie they make, and by championing a simple formula espoused by the chief creative officer of Pixar and  Disney Animation Studios, John Lasseter: “Quality is the best business plan of all.”

Throughout the book, the authors encourage you to think like a child. They have shown Pixar to be a “playground” that will inspire you to:

  • Dream like a child.
  • Believe in your playmates
  • Dare to jump in the water and make waves
  • Do unleash your childhood potential

Do you have the capacity to do that? If not, here are seven actions the authors recommend you take to fire up your workplace:

  1. Create a unique playground – Pixar’s main building is designed for natural interaction of all team members and includes the freedom to decorate your own space; if you want to be innovative, make your workspace a home-away-from-home.
  2. Think play – each month, assign a “recess team” to dream up a fun experience.
  3. Allow personalized work space – encourage employees to demonstrate their creativity by decorating their individual offices, cubicles, desks, or work areas.
  4. Celebrate – make time for celebrations to note life’s milestones: a birthday, an anniversary, a graduation.
  5. Grant employees permission to be recognized for their work by “outsiders” – encourage employees to join professional associations in which they have an opportunity to display their work, gain peer and industry recognition for their accomplishments, and most of all, have fun.
  6. Be a role model for mutual respect and trust – the level of mutual respect and trust in your workplace is directly proportional to worker’s attitudes regarding play and fun.
  7. Laugh at yourself – leaders who demonstrate self-deprecating humor set the tone for workplace play and fun.

Fun and play are imperative to strengthening one’s imagination, creative abilities, and most of all, innovative thinking.

Isn’t it time to ring the bell for recess at your place?

 

Inspired by Innovate the Pixar Way, by  Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson

InnovatethePixarWay

 

The Top 15 Books of 2015 – from My Perspective

Posted on by

Each year during the last week of the year, the posts here at 27gen usually focus on the topic of books. My last post of the year features my top books of the year. Here’s the deal:

It’s a very subjective list – okay? The only thing all the titles have in common is that they were published in 2015. That, and each book spoke to me in a meaningful way.

As mentioned in a previous post, I read a lot – but usually focus in four areas. Naturally, my Top 15 choices are going to come from these areas.

There are some really good books out there that I am aware of that did not make it into my reading cycle, so they aren’t included. It doesn’t mean they weren’t great books, just that I didn’t read them.

Here, then, are my Top 15 Books of 2015, in no particular order.

The Experience: The 5 Principles of Disney Service and Relationship Excellence, Bruce Loeffler and Brian Church

Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others, Cheryl Bachelder

Yes, And: How Improvisation Reverses, “No, But” Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration – Lessons from The Second City, Kelly Leonard

Communicate to Influence: How to Inspire Your Audience to Action, Ben Decker

Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, General Stanley McChrystal

Reframe: Shift the Way Your Work, Innovate, and Think, Mona Patel

X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, Brian Solis

Before Ever After: The Lost Lectures of Walt Disney’s Animation Studio, Don Hahn

The Wright Brothers, David McCullough

Rising Strong, Brené Brown

How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery, Kevin Ashton

The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life, Bernard Roth

No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness, Michelle Segar

Brand Flip: Why Customers Now Run Companies and How to Profit From It, Marty Neumeier

Gaining by Losing: Why the Future Belongs to Churches That Send, J.D. Greear

Today we close out 2015, tomorrow ushers in 2016, and whole new worlds are waiting to be discovered – in books.

EinsteinonBooks1

Lessons in Leadership from a Solar Paradox

Posted on by

Last night the Winter Solstice occurred at 11:48 PM ET, making today the first day of Winter in the U.S., and the shortest day of the year. This is a typical day for me, in that I see both the sunrise and the sunset. Reflecting on this, a question popped into my mind:

Why does the dawn “break” but the sun “sets”?

From the science perspective, they are equally defined: when the upper edge of the sun appears (or disappears) on the horizon, that’s the sunrise (or sunset).

In our language, however, the dawn appears in an instant (breaks) while the sunset takes its time (sets).

I’m no scientist, but I think it’s a matter of visual contrast. In the darkness before dawn, the world is hidden. Unless our eyes have adjusted to the darkness, everything is hidden to us – until the sun illuminates it in a flash. At that instant, everything becomes clear.

As the day winds down, we are cognizant of our surroundings even as the light fades into darkness. We are comforted by what we see, even when we can’t see it any longer. The memory of what we saw remains even when we can’t see it.

As a leader, we often have both dawn and sunset moments. Sometimes we sense things around us but only see them when something “breaks” – an idea, or a comment, or a situation. Other times, we are so familiar with the visible that we “see” it even when it’s not there.

A wise leader knows the difference, and can utilize both “breaking” and “setting.”

 

 

I’m Learning What Makes Me Fascinating to Other People – And You Can Too!

Posted on by

This post isn’t about me. It’s about YOU.

How cool is this? I just got a gift code that allows me to invite 100 people to take the Fascination Advantage assessment for free.

I want to share my code with YOU, so that you can discover what makes you most fascinating to others.

As a part of this project, Fascination author Sally Hogshead has given me a special code – JOY-VRC2015 – to share with to you. The first 100 people who use it to take her Fascination Advantage® assessment will receive the assessment for free!

The best part is, you will trigger a chain reaction—a pay it forward situation. When you take the assessment using , you will receive 100 assessments to share with your circle for free, too!

That’s $1,000 of free market research at your fingertips!

So how do you take the assessment? Simple.

  1. Go to HowToFascinate.com/you and use code JOY-VRC2015.
  2. Once you’ve taken the assessment, Sally’s team will load 100 assessments into your new account. Rinse and repeat.

That’s it. Now you’re ready to discover how your personality is custom built for certain situations, and which situations you should learn to avoid. And it only takes 5 minutes (you can even do it on your phone!)

28 questions. 5 minutes. A whole new way to communicate your value.

FascinateSally Hogshead

Your Fascination Advantage® Report is the first big step towards knowing how you can be heard and remembered in an overcrowded market. Sharing the assessment will help others do the same. I want to help you see the very best in yourself, so you can feel confident and captivating, every time you communicate. Take the assessment today and encourage your friends and followers to do the same.

Here’s a sneak peek at what the archetype from my Fascination Advantage Report looks like:

FascinateArcher

What do you think? For those of you who know me, a comment below would be awesome!