Creativity

Overcoming Personal Constraints is a Key to Success

August 14, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Why do some people reach ever-higher levels of achievement, while others struggle or just plug along?

Norman Vincent Peale, the doyen of the think-positive mindset, provides a particularly illustrative example in You Can If You Think You Can (1987):

In Tokyo, I once met an American, an inspiring man, from Pennsylvania. Crippled from some form of paralysis, he was on a round-the-world journey in a wheelchair, getting a huge kick out of all his experiences. I commented that nothing seemed to get him down. His reply was a classic: “It’s only my legs that are paralyzed. The paralysis never got into my mind.”

No matter how formidable your talents, you’ll be held back by certain attitudes and behaviors that limit your achievements.

Your personal constraints—some of them beyond your control—will determine your level of success. Identify those constraints and make a plan to triumph over them.

Idea for Impact: The more you can reframe your attitudes toward the past, future, and present, the more likely you’ll find a meaningful life. Don’t let your constraints lay down what you can achieve.

Leo Burnett on Meaning and Purpose

June 15, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Adman Leo Burnett (1892–1971) founded a global advertising agency that ranks among the titans of the trade. Burnett and the company that bears his name produced such famous brand icons as the Marlboro Man, Tony the Tiger, Jolly Green Giant, Maytag Repairman, and Pillsbury Doughboy.

Burnett pioneered the ‘Chicago School’ of advertising, wherein product campaigns centered on the inherent appeal of products themselves. Burnett’s advertisements used meaningful visuals to evoke emotions and experiences. This approach contrasted the time-honored use of catchy catchphrases and clever copy describing the products’ features. The models in Burnett’s campaigns resembled ordinary people rather than celebrities.

“When to Take My Name Off the Door”

After 33 years at the helm of his company, Burnett officially retired at age 76. He delivered a remarkable valedictory (film clip,) reminding his colleagues of his advertising agency’s core values and its high creative standards.

Let me tell you when I might demand that you take my name off the door.

When you lose your itch to do the job well for its own sake—regardless of the client, or the money, or the effort it takes.

When you lose your passion for thoroughness…your hatred of loose ends.

When you stop reaching for the manner, the overtones, the marriage of words and pictures that produces the fresh, the memorable, and the believable effect.

When you stop rededicating yourselves every day to the idea that better advertising is what the Leo Burnett Company is all about.

When you begin to compromise your integrity—which has always been the heart’s blood—the very guts of this agency.

When you stoop to convenient expediency and rationalize yourselves into acts of opportunism—for the sake of a fast buck.

When your main interest becomes a matter of size just to be big—rather than good, hard, wonderful work.

When you lose your humility and become big-shot weisenheimers … a little too big for your boots.

When you start giving lip service to this being a “creative agency” and stop really being one.

Finally, when you lose your respect for the lonely man—the man at his typewriter or his drawing board or behind his camera or just scribbling notes with one of our big black pencils—or working all night on a media plan. When you forget that the lonely man—and thank God for him—has made the agency we now have—possible. When you forget he’s the man who, because he is reaching harder, sometimes actually gets hold of—for a moment—one of those hot, unreachable stars.

THAT, boys and girls, is when I shall insist you take my name off the door.

Idea for Impact: Leaders are Meaning-Makers

Burnett’s valedictory is a potent reminder of the power of meaningful organizational values and a leader’s role in upholding his company’s principles-based DNA.

Organizational values are at the heart of the long-term success of a company. When these values grow fainter, the company may no longer reflect the intended culture. The organizational values will no longer clarify, inspire, and bind the company’s customers, employees, partners, investors, and other stakeholders.

As the steward of a company’s culture, a leader is responsible for institutionalizing—not merely individualizing—a sense and meaning in the workplace. And, as Burnett demonstrates, an effective leader passionately expresses what the company stands for and shares personal lessons learned in that process.

Burnett’s name is still on the door.

Howard Gardner’s Five Minds for the Future // Books in Brief

May 8, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

In Five Minds for the Future (2006,) developmental psychologist Howard Gardner argues that succeeding in a rapidly evolving world requires five proficiencies:

The Disciplinary Mind: “Individuals without one or more disciplines will not be able to succeed at any demanding workplace and will be restricted to menial tasks.”
The Synthesizing Mind: “Individuals without synthesizing capabilities will be overwhelmed by information and unable to make judicious decisions about personal or professional matters.”
The Creating Mind: “Individuals without creating capacities will be replaced by computers and will drive away those who have the creative spark.”
The Respectful Mind: “Individuals without respect will not be worthy of respect by others and will poison the workplace and the commons.”
The Ethical Mind: “Individuals without ethics will yield a world devoid of decent workers and responsible citizens: none of us will want to live on that desolate planet.”

Gardner is best known for his work on multiple intelligences—the theory that cast serious doubts about the simplistic concept of a “single” intelligence, measurable by something like IQ. Gardner’s notion that “there is more than one way to learn” has transformed education in the U.S. and around the world.

Recommendation: Speed-read Five Minds for the Future. Written through the lens of a skills-development policymaker, Gardner’s theses and prescriptions aren’t ground-breaking but make for thoughtful reflection. Complement with Gardner’s The Unschooled Mind (1991; summary.)

Make ‘Em Thirsty

May 6, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Sony’s Akio Morita, like Apple’s Steve Jobs, was a marketing genius. Morita’s hit parade included such iconic products as the first hand-held transistor radio and the Walkman portable audio cassette player.

Key to Morita’s success was his mastery of the art of the pitch. Morita pushed Sony to create consumer electronics for which no obvious need existed and then generated demand for them.

The best marketing minds know how to create a customer—previously unaware of a problem or an opportunity, she becomes interested in considering the opportunity, and finally acts upon it.

Coca-Cola marketers are but creating a thirst by showing the fizzle a freshly poured glass in Coke ads. “Thirst asks nothing more,” indeed.

The marketing guru Seth Godin has said, “So many people are unhappy … what they have doesn’t make them unhappy. What they want does. And want is created by the marketers.” Recall the old parable,

A sales trainee was trying to explain his failure to close a single deal in his first week. “You know,” he said to his manager, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”

“Make him drink?” The manager sputtered. “Your job is to make him thirsty.”

Idea for Impact: Whether you realize this or not, you’re in marketing, as is everybody else. You’re constantly pitching your ideas, skills, time, appeal, charm, and so forth. Study the art of the pitch. Master the art of generating demand for whatever it is you have to offer. Learn to “make ’em thirsty.” Marketing is everything.

How to Have a Eureka Moment during the Coronavirus Lockdown

April 23, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The best solutions to problems sometimes come about suddenly and unexpectedly when people aren’t actively working on their issues.

Psychologists call this phenomenon “incubation”—a brief shift away from a problem that could trigger a flash of insight as if from no additional effort. [Incidentally, “incubation” is very much a term in vogue during the current epidemic.]

Abundant anecdotes evoke creative breakthroughs made when inventors took breaks from working on their problems after many failed attempts to solve them.

‘Eureka Moments’ happen all the time

Perhaps the best-known case in point of incubation is that of the ancient Greek polymath Archimedes.

It’s plausible that Archimedes realized that he could investigate the suspected adulteration of Hieron II’s votive crown (“corona” in Italian/Latin, incidentally) by weighing it in water. The legend doesn’t appear in any of Archimedes’s known works.

That Archimedes leaped out from the bath in which he purportedly got the idea and ran home unclothed is likely a popular embellishment. The Roman architect Vitruvius first mentioned this spin to the story some 200 years after the supposed event:

[Archimedes] happened to go to the bath, and on getting into a tub observed that the more his body sank into it, the more water ran out over the tub. As this pointed out the way to explain the case in question, he jumped out of the tub and rushed home naked, crying with a loud voice that he had found what he was seeking; for he as he ran he shouted repeatedly in Greek, “Heúrēka, heúrēka.” meaning “I have found (it,) I have found (it.)

Millennia later, the scientific world is replete with the exclamation. In fact, the prospectors of California’s gold rush were so keen on the expression that it has appeared on the state seal since 1849, becoming the state’s motto in 1963.

Idea for Impact: To overcome a mental block, take your mind off the problem

After a period of conscious work, if you’ve reached an impasse that is blocking (“fixation”) your awareness of the solution to a problem, set it aside.

Remove yourself from the task. Take your mind off the problem. Go for a run, play with your dog, play an instrument, indulge in your favorite video game, take a shower, or embark on some optimally distracting hobby.

Creativity involves putting old ideas together in new ways. Your mind may be shuffling information at all times, even when you’re not conscious of it. You may just hit upon a solution during either your time away or when you return to the problem after the incubation period.

The Myth of the First-Mover Advantage

February 20, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If you’re an entrepreneur entering a new market with a product or service that nobody else offers, you’ll seek the first-mover advantage.

You’ll move quickly to get established as a market leader. If your business idea has the potential to succeed, other entrepreneurs are possibly working on it at the same time or will be quick to emulate when they see what you’re doing.
You’ll validate your concepts quickly by identifying and partnering with a few enthusiastic “guinea pig” customers who can test your product or service early on and give you feedback regarding what customers really want.
You’ll create some barriers (“establish an economic moat” in Warren Buffett-speak) to inhibit other aspirants from entering the market—you’ll secure patents on your intellectual property, lock-in key locations, or negotiate longer-term contracts with customers.

Alas, many first-mover advantages are not sustainable, and many first-movers are as successful as what the superstars will have you believe.

First-to-Market is often First-to-Fail

New ventures have higher failure rates than more established businesses.

Creating market awareness, sustaining market acceptance, fending away aggressive competitors are often easier said than done for many new ventures, not to mention lining up suppliers and distributors. Besides, unless you’re well-capitalized by patient investors, you’re likely to face higher-than-foreseen marketing costs on top of lower-than-anticipated sales.

Instead, if you are the second—or later—entrepreneur to market, you’ll stand a better chance of success by learning from the forerunner’s mistakes. You’ll also earn better credence from your customers, suppliers, distributors, employees, and investors to help create a better product or service.

Idea for Impact: There’s an American adage that “many pioneers died with arrows in their backs.” The best time for an entrepreneur to offer a new product or service is after others have already gotten there and laid some groundwork.

Better Than Brainstorming

February 8, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Most brainstorming sessions suck. Facilitators aren’t often skilled enough to direct the creative process and overcome interpersonal and intrapersonal barriers to idea-generation. Participants are not as organized as they need to be. One or two “meeting-hogs,” who lack self-awareness and self-control, dominate the conversations with their pet ideas and shut everyone else down. And then there’s groupthink and self-censorship based on responses to earlier suggestions by others. Consequently, bold ideas seldom survive a group discussion.

If you want to buck the odds, try “brainwriting” instead of brainstorming.

In its simplest form, brainwriting has the participants quietly reflect upon an open-ended prompt of appropriate scope, for example, “how could we improve our design process,” and write down their ideas. A group leader can organize the responses by combining identical ideas, grouping thematically-related ideas, and posting them on a wall for the group to appraise them further. Then, the participants vote on their favorites, and the top ‘n’ number of ideas or priorities are identified for future discussion and exploration.

Idea for Impact: Teams Don’t Think—Individuals Do

In essence, brainwriting isolates idea generation from the instantaneous discussion and evaluation that can hamper the creative process.

Brainwriting, when followed by discussion, combines the benefits of both individual and group creativity. Studies have repeatedly shown that people think of more new—and practical—ideas on their own than they do in a group.

In my experience, this creative thinking process is inclusionary, engaging, time-effective, non-judgmental, and mostly free from pressures to conform to others’ ideas. Brainwriting is particularly useful with a group of people who are reserved and would be unlikely to offer many ideas in an open group session.

Inspirational Mess, Creative Clutter

January 27, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Biographer Roland Penrose (1900–84) writes in Picasso: His Life and Work (1958,)

Disorder was to Picasso a happier breeding ground for ideas than the perfection of a tidy room in which nothing upset the equilibrium by being out of place.

Once when visiting Picasso at his flat in the rue la Boétie, I noticed that a large Renoir hanging over the fireplace was crooked. “It’s better like that,” he said. “If you want to kill a picture, all you have to do is to hang it beautifully on a nail and soon you will see nothing of it but the frame. When it’s out of place you see it better.”

Studies suggest that, for some people, messiness can boost creativity by spurring inspiration flow and helping them explore different avenues. One researcher explained, “Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights.”

But don’t use this concept as a crutch to defend your clutter.

What James Watt and the Steam Engine Teach You about Creativity and Invention

December 9, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

The arc of development of the technique to harness the properties of steam to power mechanical devices embodies the notion that “necessity is the mother of invention” (Latin: “necessitas ingenium dedit.”)

Towards the end of the 17th century, Britain faced the problem of pumping and draining water out of mine shafts. In response, the military engineer Thomas Savery (1650–1715) invented an “engine to raise water by fire” in 1698. However, the “Savery Pump” was limited in practical usage to 20–25 feet of suction. Savery’s rudimentary pressurized boiler was liable to explode, particularly under high-pressure steam (over 8 to 10 atmospheres.)

Independently, and later in partnership with Savery, blacksmith Thomas Newcomen (1664–1729) developed the more practical—and more successful—atmospheric-pressure piston engine in 1698. Newcomen’s engine solved the limitation of the Savery Pump by having atmospheric pressure push the cylinder’s piston down after the condensation of steam had created a vacuum in the cylinder. Therefore, the pressure of the steam did not limit the intensity of pressure.

For five decades, Newcomen’s engine was the most complex technological object of its time anywhere in the world.

Difficulties Compel People to Found Creative Solutions to Problems

Then came along the Scottish instrument maker James Watt (1736–1819.) At age 21, Watt opened a shop in 1757 at the Glasgow University to make quadrants, compasses, scales, and other mathematical instruments.

Watt was tasked with repairing a Newcomen Engine at the university for a lecture-demonstration. He initially had difficulty getting the Newcomen Engine to work because its parts were poorly constructed. When he finally had it running, he was surprised at its efficiency. However, the engine was constantly running out of coal because every cycle required the heating and the cooling of the cylinder, thus resulting in a large waste of energy.

In 1769, Watt devised a system whereby the cylinder and the condenser were separate, making it unnecessary to heat and cool the cylinder with each stroke. Watt’s invention of the separate-condenser steam engine (also called the “double-acting” steam engine) decreased fuel costs by 75 percent.

Watt’s “steam engine” was able to produce continuous rotary motion and expanded its use far beyond pumping water. Continuous rotary motion sparked the transition from hand-production methods to machine-power and became the driving force of the Industrial Revolution. Playwright George Bernard Shaw even declared in Man and Superman (1903,) “those who admire modern civilization usually identify it with the steam engine.”

The steam engine continued to power industry and transportation during much of the 19th century and early 20th century, at the same time as engineers developed the internal-combustion engine. Towards the end of the 19th century, with the invention of the first practical steam turbine by English engineer Charles Parsons (1854–1931,) turbines started replacing reciprocating steam engines in power stations.

Reference: Richard L. Hills’s Power from Steam: A History of the Stationary Steam Engine (1989.)

Many Businesses Get Started from an Unmet Personal Need

October 21, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi 2 Comments

Many successful entrepreneurs never set out with the goal of launching a large company, let alone hiring scores of people. They are motivated enough to develop solutions to a direct problem they are facing. Before long, they discover that they are not the only ones with that problem—and, like so, a successful business is born.

How “The Cult of Lulu” Got Started

Consider the genesis of Lululemon, the Canadian athletic apparel company (from The Atlantic‘s narrative of how sports changed the way Americans dress.)

In 1997, a retail entrepreneur in British Columbia named Chip Wilson was having back problems. So, like millions of people around the world, he went to a yoga class. What struck Wilson most in his first session wasn’t the poses; it was the pants. He noticed that his yoga instructor was wearing some slinky dance attire, the sort of second skin that makes a fit person’s butt look terrific. Wilson felt inspired to mass-produce this vision of posterior pulchritude. The next year, he started a yoga design-and-fashion business and opened his first store in Vancouver. It was called Lululemon.

[Yes, that’s the Chip Wilson who gained notoriety for blaming in-poor-shape women for ruining their Lululemon yoga pants by rubbing their thighs together too much. “Quite frankly, some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for it [his apparel],” he condescendingly declared on Bloomberg TV.]

At present, Lululemon has the highest sales-per-square-foot of any American apparel retailer. Its pricey workout clothing has become a wardrobe staple, prompting other retailers to launch competing apparel lines to cash in on the growing market.

Lululemon kindled the prevailing fixation on a healthy appearance. Its brand continues to be an elite fitness status symbol for the skinny and wealthy set. More broadly, over the last two decades, Lululemon has redefined how the current generation dresses and lives. The company pioneered the “athleisure” fashion revolution, which has blurred the lines between yoga-and-spin-class outfits and regular street clothes.

Sara Blakely’s Personal Undertaking Morphed Spanx into a Big Business

In a similar vein, entrepreneur Sara Blakely started the Spanx hosiery company after searching for a solution to improve the way she looked in a pair of her cream-colored pants. Blakely started her wildly successful entrepreneurial journey by making sure that the specific type of undergarment she ideated to solve her clothing problem did materialize commercially. From her biography on Wikipedia,

Forced to wear pantyhose in the hot Floridian climate for her sales role, Blakely disliked the appearance of the seamed foot while wearing open-toed shoes, but liked the way that the control-top model eliminated panty lines and made her body appear firmer. For her attendance at a private party, she experimented by cutting off the feet of her pantyhose while wearing them under a new pair of slacks and found that the pantyhose continuously rolled up her legs, but she also achieved the desired result.

Idea for Impact: Learn to Pay Attention to the Subtle Clues to Opportunities All-Around

Many entrepreneurs initially got their start by first recognizing and responding to a personal need or a localized problem and later discovering that they struck a universal chord.

If you want to become an entrepreneur, find out if you can solve a problem that you’ve personally experienced. Uncover opportunities that you may otherwise have missed by asking, “Does this have to be time-consuming, arduous, expensive, or annoying?” “How can I improve on this?” and “Can I do this better or different from the other fellow doing it over there?” Then expand your opportunity by asking, “Who else may be experiencing the same problem?”

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Creativity

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“When to Take My Name Off the Door”

Idea for Impact: Leaders are Meaning-Makers

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‘Eureka Moments’ happen all the time

Idea for Impact: To overcome a mental block, take your mind off the problem

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First-to-Market is often First-to-Fail

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Idea for Impact: Teams Don’t Think—Individuals Do

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Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Difficulties Compel People to Found Creative Solutions to Problems

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How “The Cult of Lulu” Got Started

Sara Blakely’s Personal Undertaking Morphed Spanx into a Big Business

Idea for Impact: Learn to Pay Attention to the Subtle Clues to Opportunities All-Around

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