November 2004
Newsletter
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Volume 1, Issue 6
| Contents Courage Innovation Commons Network Unique and Creative Gifts for Individuals Marketing Without Media Unique and Creative Gifts for Groups and Promotional Items New Blog Entries Prisoners of Our Thoughts |
"Leaders are like teabags. The longer they are in hot water, the stronger they get!" Patricia Wallington "If it does not kill you it will make you stronger." Quoted by Parry A~ "Fast-paced decisions, though expedient at the time, often ignore the long-term implications. What does the decision mean for employees? How does it fit with the organization's overall strategy and direction? What is the long-term cost vs. the short-term benefit?" Chuck Martin "There's an old test for insanity that I've heard about: You put a person in a room with open faucets spewing water and a mop to clean up with. There are no drains in the room so the water starts to fill up the room. A lunatic will grab the mop and start mopping – a sane person will turn off the faucets." Michael Alter Quoted by Ben Bradley "There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown helpless about them." Clare Boothe Luce Quoted by Patricia Wallington Prisoners of Our Thoughts A very powerful and insightful book. Look for extended review in the next edition of The Innovation Road Map Magazine. Tech Tv's Catalog of Tomorrow One of the best books I've read for an overview of change in our future. |
| Courage In my scanning and reading for the last edition of the Innovation Road Map Magazine, I found six recent articles on courage. I thought this curious until I realized, of course, there are many reasons to talk about courage in today's environment. It requires courage to hold a long-term perspective in an environment that thinks the future is next week. To see and then react to improprieties in companies, nonprofits or governments, and to correct what's wrong, requires courage. Courage is needed to standup to a board and tell them the truth. It requires courage to tell the emperor that he has no clothes in spite of fawning advisors. To stand up for your beliefs and values can be courageous. To delay action until more is known or to act, when others advise not to, because you have a superior understanding of capabilities and confidence, requires courage. To embrace personal change and creativity is very courageous. To embark on a journey of innovation is a courageous. "The very word comes from the heart. Coer is the French word for heart. It's important to remember that this isn't stuff that comes from the brain; it also comes from the gut. You don't work through a set of decision-tree steps to get to it," are words of Warren Bennis. The roots of the word courage actually goes back further in time. The Indo-European root word was kerd from which Greek got khardia and the Latin got cor. Both roots are active in English - cardiac and courage. Accord or concord are hearts beating as one, and discord the opposite. Record is to write on the heart. The suffix -age means pertaining to. So courage is something pertaining to the heart. The suffix -ous means to be full of. So courageous is to be full of things pertaining to the heart. We generally equate the heart to love. The question is, love of what? Self, things, others, ideas? Our society is dominated by Narcissism and Materialism (love of self and love of material goods). Do we consider someone who acts out of love for themselves courageous? Probably not. Do we consider someone who acts out of the love of things courageous? Quite often we do, witness all the reality shows that are popular. How about acting out of love for others or ideas? Yes, in general we consider those people courageous. However some would call them foolhardy (the cynics at least). Corporate malfeasance is the result of people acting out of love for things and a love of self. These criminals are not courageous even though they take big risks. However, the opposite is true. "There's no such thing as safe risk. That's an oxymoron. All courage is risk. None of it is safe. The only way to decide is through the shining ether of time," commented Warren Bennis. "Whistle blowers possess courage. But they also possess a moral compass that allows them to recognize wrongdoing when they see it," writes John Renesch. "What allowed the most recent Wall Street scandals to occur, and what allows unreported wrongdoings to continue, is the fear-based silence and complacency of all those who sit by while the books are 'cooked', fraud is committed and executive compensation reaches obscene proportions. While a few people might be the perpetrators of the wrongdoing, there are much greater number numbers of 'co-conspirators' who enable the perpetuation through their silence or the absence of dissent." He evokes Martin Luther King's statement, "A time comes when silence is betrayal" to encourage people in large corporations to speak up. He concludes with "Workers can either embrace this 'vocation of agony' and speak out now or condemn their children to a future of global agony and a dis-civilized society. It's a choice facing everyone who works these days." According to Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, there is reason to hope that changes in our society are afoot, "The boldness being recognized today is cautious and thoughtful. Boldness was being distorted by that generation of swashbuckling acquirers: deal-a-day Dennis Koslowski at Tyco, Ken Lay at Enron, WorldCom's Bernie Ebbers. They were intoxicated with churning up the waters, making a big splash. There was no logic to it, and there was no business courage behind it." However, later he warned, "A balance of power, a legal conception of governance, doesn't encourage nimble risk taking." John Kotter comments, "What we label courage is a strong emotional commitment -- and the key word is emotional -- to some ideas. Those ideas could be called a vision for where we're trying to drive the enterprise, they could be called values for what we think is important in life, they could be called principles of what is right and wrong. When people don't just have an intellectual sense that these are logically good, but are deeply committed to them, they're developing courage. When you run up against barriers that keep you from those ideals, the stronger your commitment, the more likely you are to take action consistent with those ideals. Even if it's against your short-term best interests. And other people will look at that and say, 'Wow, that's courageous'." Bennis gets at courage as the result of the love of others by commenting, "Except at the margins, courage is not a product of individual behavior...Courage is a function of feeling part of the social fabric, of a network that's going to do something that has never been done before. People do gutsy things when they are in a group." One of the dangers lies in today's fast paced environment. Quick decisions, made without a moral compass or ethical consistency, can lead to actions that are not courageous. "When you have to make fast decisions with significant stakes, you better know what you stand for, because the temptation to violate your basic commitments in life can be large because of the stress of the moment," is the advice from Michael Useem. Warren Bennis advises, "Courage is the capacity to wait until you've learned as much as you can and then take action." "The textbook example is when Eugene Kranz said, "Failure is not an option" when bringing home Apollo 13. He was confident because he had enough experience. He knew the staffing down there in Houston; he knew all the moving parts. And by looking at his resources and relying on his prior mission directorships, he could draw the concrete assessment that the mission would successfully return to Earth," was the example Michael Useem gave. Chuck Martin warns, "...if not all stakeholders are considered in that too fast decision, your customers might not recognize any benefit, making that decision essentially a waste." Patricia Wallington advises the following to deal with fast decisions and crisis, "Start with a positive attitude to inspire confidence within your organization." She advises five steps - see, think, tell, do and review. Can you learn courage? The articles were not heavy on helpful advice, but a couple of things surfaced. Prepare yourself. "...you can do it through meditation, through reading history, and most important, through repeatedly putting yourself to the test and learning from it," summed up Michael Useem. Exercise your courage muscle. Like the Grinch whose heart grew ten times, try being courageous. "Because of the struggle we become stronger. We stretch the boundaries of our perceived limitations. We push ourselves a little further and expand our potential as a result," is the advice of Perry A~. "The power of believing is a mighty force. It can propel you beyond your perceived limits. Encourage exploration. Do a little more than you think you can. You will be stronger for it." Or, as Michael Useem put it, "...put yourself in situations that can get you out of your comfort zone... the more you can force yourself to do things 30% different from what you've already done, again and again, the better you'll be prepared to stretch under huge duress." Review your actions. "Elements of your review should include how you could have seen the situation coming faster, how you can avoid it in the future and the effectiveness of your response. To ensure the review focuses on improvement, avoid the blame game. Otherwise, you lose the ability to get the level of candor that will fuel improvements to processes or operations," advises Patricia Wallington. Don't fake it till you make it. No. "...you can't fake anything in a leadership position. People sense it. They smell it. In about eight seconds, everyone knows it," was the comment of Michael Useem. What's the greatest enemy of courage? Groupthink! References Five Thoughts About Making the Right Mistakes, Ben Bradley, Darwin Magazine Agility in Adversity, Patricia Wallington, CIO Help Wanted: Vice President of Courage, John Renesch, Newsletter Measure Twice. Cut Once, Chuck Martin, Darwin Magazine Gaining Strength Through Failure, Perry A~, Newsletter Everything You Wanted to Know About Courage --- But Were Afraid to Ask, Warren Bennis, Michael Feiner, John Kotter, Marian Krauskopf, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Noel Tichy and Michel Useem, Fast Company To Read Articles Innovation Commons Network The online group - The Innovation Commons Network - has been launched. Over 60 people have volunteered to work together via the Internet and phone to develop the principles of a successful innovation commons. The tools being used are a blog, web site, survey and teleconference. It's not too late to join. Join the Group Unique and Creative Gifts for Individuals Visit our store for unique and creative gifts for individuals - books, videos, posters - that encourage creativity and innovation. We also have gifts for children. And, we even have a gift to help someone who is wheelchair bound. Visit Our Store Marketing Without Media "I think we've had our fill of ads. And by "we," I mean the entire population of the twenty-first century. That's a dangerous and controversial statement coming from a man known as The Wizard of Ads, wouldn't you say? My staff and I have been quietly studying this dilemma for the past 29 months because our clients depend on us to help them attract new business. That's how we make our living. You'll recall that I first mentioned this problem 6 months ago in a May 24 memo entitled The Future of Advertising and in a sequel the following week, Media's Missing Mass. But now the cat is out of the bag. Look at the front page of the Money section of USA Today – Thursday, November 18, – and you'll find a story about how America's television networks are lobbying congress to pass a law that would require us to keep watching their ads. Seriously. I'm not making this up..." Roy Williams The Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo, 11/22/04 Wizard Academy Unique and Creative Gifts for Groups and Promotional Items Visit our store for unique and creative gifts and promotional items for groups, teams, organizations and customers. The message in all these products is creativity, innovation, leadership and strategy. These are useful, insightful and fun ways to help convey the message of innovation and change. We have posters, videos, books, t-shirts, coffee cups and calendars. If you live in Central Texas, we have a special calendar with pastel scenes from the area (with inspirational hidden messages). A truly unique and beautiful gift for your customers or your organization's members! Many can be customized with your logo and message. Order a license for your organization and give access to all the people in your organization at a location to The Innovation Road Map Magazine. Talk to us about customization or to provide for your customers. Send an e-mail. Shop Our Store New Blog Entries November Innovation Commons Collaboration Creative Productivity Read the blog Prisoners of Our Thoughts Grow Where You're Planted "This summer, while kayaking on a placid alpine lake, I was looking at the stunted junipers twisting up out of the granite crags in the cliffs. Kayaking is one of those activities that wipes the slate of the mind clean, making it almost impossible to hold a thought. It is almost a pure state of just being, so it was memorable when a thought showed up almost like a caption in a cartoon, 'Grow where you're planted.' I spent a few moments contemplating that wisdom and later noted it in my journal and moved on. When Alex Pattakos sent me the copy of his new book, Prisoners of Our Thoughts, Viktor Frankl's Principles at Work, it reminded me of how influential Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning has been in my life, as it has been to millions of other people around the world. As I finished Alex's very worthy connection of Frankl's principles to the world of work, I thought back to that alpine wisdom: 'Grow where you're planted' and realized that it echoed the essence of Frankl's message. Frankl experienced the horror of life in the Nazi concentration camps but his spirit would not be dampened. He deliberately chose to find meaning even in the traumatic circumstances of the camp and later wrote, 'I am convinced that, in the final analysis, there is no situation which does not contain the seed of meaning.' Every life experience offers us the opportunity to learn, grow and find meaning. Alex was deeply touched by Frankl's work and decided to meet him and discuss the possibility of creating a book which would help people incorporate the principles in the world of work. This led to the newly released book and to the seven core principles which he synthesized from Frankl's work: 1. Exercise the freedom to choose your attitude in all situations, no matter how desperate they may appear or actually be, you always have the ultimate freedom to choose your attitude. 2. Realize your will to meaning -- commit authentically to meaningful values and goals that only you can actualize and fulfill. 3. Detect the meaning of life's moments -- only you can answer for your own life by detecting the meaning at any given moment and assuming responsibility for weaving your unique tapestry of existence. 4. Don't work against yourself -- avoid becoming so obsessed with or fixated on an intent or outcome that you actually work against the desired result. 5. Look at yourself from a distance -- only human beings possess the capacity to look at themselves out of some perspective or distance, including the uniquely human trait known as your 'sense of humor.' 6. Shift your focus of attention -- deflect your attention from the problem situation to something else and build your coping mechanisms for dealing with stress and change. 7. Extend beyond yourself -- manifest the human spirit at work by relating and being directed to something more than yourself. Stephen R. Covey provides an eloquent introduction to this book, ending it by encouraging readers to practice and share the principles, reminding us, 'life is a mission, not a career.' Telling us how to live life as a mission was Frankl's legacy to us. Alex Pattakos' gift is this book which clearly outlines Frankl's principles to help us find meaning in our life at work. For most of us, work is one of the dominating themes of our existence. Finding meaning in our work is a critical aspect of living life as a mission and this book is a powerful guide for the journey." Joyce Wycoff Innovation Network Newsletter, 10/25/04 Joyce writes perceptive and powerful messages. If you're not already subscribing to this free service, you should. Visit her web site and subscribe to her newsleter. |
| Paul
Schumann Editor & Publisher The Innovation Road Map Newsletter 4512 Autumn Leaf Hollow, Austin, TX 78731 PO Box 26947, Austin, TX 78755 512.302.1935 Visit The Innovation Road Map Web Site |
