Critical Skill 4: Part 2-Designing a Complex Process

April 30, 2006 by Liz

One GIANT Flow Chart

It was an interview with the Chairman of the Board of a publishing company. We had just taken a break. I came back from stretching my legs to find six 4ft. x 8ft. foam core boards that made one GIANT flow chart, supposedly outlining the publishing process in complete and total detail.

I thought, “Ohmygod. They’re one of those kinds of companies.”

He said, “So, what do you think of that?”

I said, “I believe it was very useful for the folks who put it together.”

I usually think of work situations like I would a dating relationship You don’t date a guy thinking you’ll change him. That I took this job thinking I could change this company was just wrong. [Read more…]

Critical Skill 4: Part 1-Process Models

April 20, 2006 by Liz

Don’t Fear the Process

I was at a company where the core competencies were the highest I’ve ever seen. In three seconds, we could strategize where to sit in a meeting to make it more productive. We could layout a trade booth to maximize traffic flow and product exposure, leaving room for fun and improvization. We knew where we stood in the market and against our past performance on a minute-by-minute basis. We ate the low-hanging fruit for breakfast, and shot down our competition at lunch. We were good.

This day there was an executive strategy meeting — like we needed one. As you might guess, there was a new guy in charge, and HE needed one. My usual Pollyanna attitude didn’t have room for this interruption. There was real work that needed to get done. I resented this pretend work that was getting in the way.

“If he asks us to spell strategy, I’m out of there,” I said to another VP on the way in. It was worse than I thought. He flipped a chart and started talking about SWOT — Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats — which, by the way, is analysis not strategy. We needed that even less. [Read more…]

Critical Skill 3: Fluency: with Ideas

April 9, 2006 by Liz

Stop Not Having Ideas

The first part of fluency with ideas is having them–LOTS of them. There she goes again. What is she talking about? She might have lots. Right now I’d be happy with one.

The trick is get to learn how to stop not having lots of ideas.

That’s not a typo. You can stop not having ideas.

Open the Valve

Ideas are being stimulated constantly in your subconscious so often and at such a rate that, if you let them all in, you wouldn’t be able to pay attention to anything else. You would literally be aware of stimuli that you have no need for, such as the feel of your shoes on your feet or the chair that you’re sitting on. That’s why we come equipped–at no extra charge–with a filtering unit, a valve-like screening device at the base of our brains–the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS allows us to filter out most of that unwanted stimuli. It serves as a closed door allowing only life-skill information into our consciouness. Unfortunately with the door closed we don’t have access to some great ideas.

The good news is that the RAS can be trained. Firemen can make it let through the sound of the fire alarm. You can can use it to access things you forget that are still in your brain– great ideas when you put them together again. Ron Daugherty offers some ways to expand and explore your ability to open the RAS in his article, Understanding the Mind: 5 Keys to a Writer’s Creativity.

With Access Comes Fluency

With a little practice you’ll be able to access more and more ideas. Seriously, believe that they’ll come. Relax and make room for them, and they will. Getting them is just the first step toward fluency with ideas. To follow a language metaphor, the ideas are just your vocabulary. Now you have to be able to use them–pull ideas to match three basic scenarios. Here are ways you can practice to build up your fluency.

Brainstorming wild lists. When you have a few minutes waiting in traffic, pick an everyday object such as a plate. See whether you can come up with 25 things you might do with that object, silly or otherwise. As blogger, you should be pretty good at this. After all bloggers know a thing or two about making lists. Don’t edit. Be as wild and creative as you can. When you reach 25, try for another 10.
Freewriting. When you’ve got a few minutes and some paper and pencil, write without stopping about a simple pleasure, such as drinking coffee or running. Explain all of the impacts and outcomes it’s had on your life. Try to write 15 minutes without stopping.
Problem solving. The next time you or your child has a problem don’t begin to address it until you’ve identified at least five solutions. Not every solution needs to be doable or practical, but all of them need to fix some aspect of the problem, using facts that you know. Allow for an outrageous solution or two. Outrageous solutions often lead to extremely solid ones, once the outrageous solutions have been talked about. Think through what the impact of trying every solution would be and name all of the possible outcomes that could occur if you tried each one.

If you want to be truly future skilled, you’ll do each of these things verbally and in writing too.

Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking the Language of Ideas

The more you practice with your vocabulary of ideas. The more fluent in the language of ideas you will be. That means you’ll not only be good at speaking and writing your own ideas. You’ll also be good listening and reading other folks’ ideas too. You’ll get really quick at telling a great idea from a loser when someone else offers one.

Imagine the time and money a business might save when they know you can tell a solid idea from pipe dream that just sounds really good. AND that you can explain in writing how you know. Now there’s a concept on which you could promote your business and yourself. That would be an added value idea plus.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Critical Skill 2: Mental Flexibility Test

April 3, 2006 by Liz

For those of you who like to test your mental flexibiity, or for those of you who want a little more practice. Here’s a test that’s been around for a while you might try for yourself. Think of the test as a personal challenge. It’s not a test of intelligence or creativity. You might find that the answers you don’t get right away will come to you over the course of the next few days when you least expect them to. To access the test and give it a try click the screen shot below.

A score of more than 16 is supposed to be genius, but if you go for days you should be able to get them all. Personally I think there’s a genius in all of us. . . . No one has described what a genius is yet.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Critical Skill 2: Mental Flexibility

April 3, 2006 by Liz

Mental Habits

Just this morning, a friend shot me an email. It asked whether I had time to write up a quick press release. I replied that I probably could and asked the three questions I do to size the time it will take to get the job done.

What is it for?
When do you need it?
Do you have a model for what you want?

I got a response from my friend that was an apology. Apparently my last question reminded him of the press release he had from last year for the same event. He could just brush that off, rewrite it, and use it again.

His habit was to start from scratch on everything. My questions had pushed his thinking.

Flexing Your Thoughts

When I look over the original article for this series, The 10 Skills Most Critical to Your Future, I keep coming back to the idea that mental flexibility might be the one skill that has the most initial impact. This is the crowd pleaser–the hero. Mental flexiblity unbends the bent, unties the knot, and unsticks the stuck. People notice that kind of thing right away.

If you can do that and they cannot, they think you’re really something.

Like it’s name implies, mental flexibility is a matter of being in shape. Flexing your mental abilities isn’t that different than flexing your muscles. Warm up and try them out one at a time. Know your limits and know your goal is to broaden your scope. These are some ways to stretch your mind, to make your thinking more flexible.

1. Listen to people that you disagree with. Take in their arguments and follow their logic. Try it on for size. Work to see things entirely from their point of view.

2. Look in opposing arguments for the places where you are in agreement. No two arguments are totally opposite. Find the core of the matter where the arguments are the same.

3. Try to put two opposing ideas into one picture and make them work together. This works more often than you might think it would. Get to the core of each argument, keep each primary goal in tact, and then look for a way to make a new whole.

4. Stay in the 30,000 foot view. Don’t get caught in sematics or in details. Words aren’t your friend when you’re looking for flexibility. Words tie things down in a precise detailed fashion. Words can also confuse rather than add clarity–for example, your shade of blue might be more green than mine. If you use many words for the same thing . . . So the blue, azure, sapphire, teal, sky-colored logo would sit here . . ., then you can keep the thinking big picture and flexible.

5. Give weird ideas their voice. Runners push past the wall. So do flexible thinkers. Let other folks have a chance to share their kookie plans. Try them out. You might decide that you like one a lot.

6. Make a new habit of questioning yourself. Why am I doing this? Is there another approach? Is this my own thinking or a habit I’m used to? Does this situation call for action at all? The hardest part is remembering to question yourself. Doing it is actually fun. Once you get in the habit, you’ll not only gain flexibility. Your productivity will also go up.

7. Evaluate every argument. Don’t take anything on face value. People pass opinion as fact frequently, in the media and in person. Many folks just accept such information and repeat it as true–as if they are still in school. Flexible thinkers do not. When someone quotes statistics to you, be prepared to say, “You’re making that up.”

8. Use your entire brain, not just the logical left. Test things out with your perception and your intuition, as well. Don’t leave any information source on the table. Use everyone else’s brains too. Stretching your flexibility means stretching in every direction. There’s a world of new information waiting to be put together.

9. Find the humor and laugh some. There is something funny about almost everything, if you open yourself up to it. Give yourself room to laugh, and you might find other ideas come easier too.

10. Rewrite reality and have a few fantasies. Take that habit of Stephen Covey’s “Change your Paradigm” totally outside of the box. Don’t just make a slightly newer reality–blow your ideas out of the water. Imagine the problem as a dating situation, how would you deal with it then? Suppose it were happening on an alien world . . . and your kids were in charge?

Push your thinking in every direction you can. It doesn’t hurt, and the investment pays off in your ability to think in places where other folks can’t.

Every Company Needs You

Think of your mind as a room filled with drawers and doors, each of which leads to piles and stacks of information that you can access and use. Mental flexibility solves problems when other folks can’t because it allows you to open those drawers and doors to find answers to questions. Most folks don’t have any practice at doing that.

That’s why flexible thinkers get noticed so quickly. They give answers that aren’t the usual ones, and the answers they give are answers that work.

Imagine the impact on your personal brand when folks start seeing you as someone who always asks the right question, gets to the core of things, and fits ideas together. In other words, you have added flexible thinking as a big idea to your personal brand, a core competency of your skill set. It’s one more way to bring the uniquely Brand YOU to the business table.

Flexible thinking is a skill every company needs desperately. Companies can’t problem solve, innovate, or grow organically without it. Why not be the one who shows them does it for them?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Special thanks to: Mental Flexibility for motivating me when I was tired.

Critical Skill 1: Strategic Deep Thinking

March 23, 2006 by Liz

No More Faster, Faster

We live in fast food culture, where now and yesterday seem to be the timing of every answer. “Faster, Faster,” was great when I was at the carnival as a child, but I’m not sure it’s the best answer for making decisions about my business or my future. I’m all for doing strategic deep thinking about important decisions, but our environment doesn’t do much to support or even to teach how to think deeply or strategically.

We sort everything into top ten lists. We find out the what of things and sometimes the how, but hardly ever the why. We ask for things done, but not necessarily done right. We stop looking as soon as we find the first answer. These are not the traits of a deep, strategic thinkers.

Thinking Deeper

Thinking deeply and strategically isn’t popular, but it is valuable. The folks who can do it are prized and sought after. They are also incredibly secure. How do they get to the thoughts that are past the surface? Here are some of the things that strategic thinkers do. These are all things anyone can do.

Go past the first answer. When you’re faced with a problem, once you find answer 1, keep looking for answers 2, 3, and 4.
Get a friend to find the holes in your thinking. Pick someone who wasn’t involved in finding the solution. Anyone involved in the thinking can’t see the flaws in it.
Set your thinking on the back burner and revisit it in an hour or so. This is the same concept as letting yourself sleep on it. Research has proved that it works. Tell yourself that you’re going to put the idea in your subconscious to work on it. I always touch the back of my head when I do this. When I return to the problem later, I find new information to work with.
Try on your thinking as you try on your clothes. Remember, we’re outside of the box here. This might sound silly at first, but it works. Take an inventory of how the idea feels in your gut, in your fingers, and in your toes. If something doesn’t feel right, explore what that is. You’d be surprised how much knowledge you carry in the cells outside of your brain.
Discount the obvious, and look for the invisible. Ask yourself outright, “What am I missing here?” When you find it, adjust your old solution to cover the new information too.
If someone disagrees with your solution, include his or her thinking as part of the problem. This IS one case where two ideas can work to become more than the whole. Keep your own goal, but add the new ones to the mix. You’ll find the new solution stronger than the one you originally reached.

These are just a few ways to take your thinking deeper than what I call the “skin of the pudding.” I like to think deeply, because I like to know that my answer will stand when I have to defend it.

It might not be faster, faster, but it’s worth it to know that the answer will last and last.

What parts of your brand could use some strategic, deep thinking?

–ME “Liz” Strauss