The good folks at xkcd always have something useful to say. Too many problem solving efforts are sabotaged when someone decides to redirect the conversation towards “being realistic.â€Â
I’m planning on posting this little gem somewhere close by to remind me to view these requests more skeptically.Â
When is a request to “be realistic†an honest effort to advance a problem solving effort and when is it a covert effort to derail or delay?
Still here. Not so many posts here over the past twelve months.
Working on making that change.
When I started this, blogs were pretty much the only way to share your thinking. A lot more choices today, although of late the emphasis seems to have shifted more toward ‘sharing’ than ‘thinking’. Both make the world a better place; striking the balance isn’t magically easy.Â
Two efforts have cut into my capacity to share here. Each is moving into a phase where the balance is shifting to a more even split between thinking and sharing. Each will generate footprints here.
The first was finishing and publishing Think Inside the Box: Discover the Exceptional Business Inside Your Organization (WCG Press, 2013). This was a joint effort with my friend Tim Nelson.
My favorite (i.e. most ego gratifying) bit of feedback so far came from Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Principle, in a review in the Huffington Post. Here’s what Koch had to say about the book:
I’m really excited! I’ve just stumbled across the best new technique for boosting the performance of any business. And guess what — the method is brilliantly retro. But even trend-setters and worshippers of the new new thing can’t afford to ignore the technique. Quite simply, it’s the best strategic display since the BCG Growth Share Matrix.
Richard Koch, Author of The 80/20 Principle:
review in the Huffington Post  - 08/05/2013
You can learn more about the book and the work behind it at Insidethe8020box.com.
The second effort has been work on developing a business/service concept called Collaborating Minds. It’s an effort to create a hybrid between what we know about large technology-augmented groups and high-performance teams.Â
So, stay tuned.Â
I discovered this in the usual way—by ignoring the advice and following a trail of breadcrumbs that started on Facebook. I’ve paired this talk by Neil Gaiman with a related one by Ira Glass below. I wanted to have both of them ready to hand when I needed some encouragement and a kick in the ass.
Gaiman’s closing advice: ‘Be wise, because the world needs more wisdom. And if you cannot be wise pretend to be someone who is wise — and then just behave like they would.'”
Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012 from The University of the Arts (Phl) on Vimeo.
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Here is Ira Glass with a similar set of observations and advice:
Here is a brief clip from an interview Steve Jobs did in 1995 while he was at Next. It neatly captures an important attitude about dealing with complex systems:
Whenever you poke at a system, the system pokes back. If you grew up with siblings, you learned this at a visceral level.Â
Too many of us take a limited lesson from those experiences; we come to believe that we are powerless in the face of a larger, more powerful system (or sibling). The better lesson, which Jobs embodied in his life, is to seek places and directions to poke where your impact can be amplified.
