A Whole New Mind: A Discussion Guide for Associations

Dan Pink's new book, Drive, is getting all the buzz right now, and deservedly so given the solid case Pink build that we continue to engage in motivation malpractice in the workplace. His TED Global talk highlights some of the book's key assertions, and is an exemplary model of best practices in 18-minute presentations.

Yet many individuals and organizations have yet to fully digest and operationalize his previous work, A Whole New Mind. The book itself contains a portfolio of exercises that bring its exploration of six right-brain direct aptitudes to life, and Pink himself has provided two AWNM discussion guides on his web site, one for businesses and one for educators.

While both guides contain questions associations and professional societies will find valuable, they don't quite address all the possibilities these groups may wish to consider. To that end, I've created a two-page discussion guide (unofficial and unauthorized) that provide more than a dozen questions to guide associations in wringing the most value out of Pink's insights. You can download it here.

You can see and hear Pink in person at ASAE & the Center's Great Ideas Conference, March 7-9 in Colorado Springs.

Engaging Stakeholder Interest and Loyalty Through Better Polling

You show me yours,
But I won't show you mine.

Huh?

We all know the deal is this: You show me yours, and I'll show you mine. It's an even exchange in which one party goes first.

But when it comes to how associations and companies poll/survey their stakeholders, it's a one-sided bait and switch. We're asked to show our thinking, to give our insights, but generally get nothing in return: no summary of the survey results so we can learn what others were thinking, and no explanation of what actions will be taken in response to the input.

While not everyone will want that information, many might find it desirable. And you have nothing to lose by sharing it unless ... and here's the big if ... nothing is going to change.

To receive more input, provide more output. Close the loop. If you want others to show you theirs, you need to show something in return. Doing so may create more loyal and engaged customers and members because they know their input matters, it influences decisions.

But you'll never know if you fail to show.

Are You the Little Engine that Can't?

I think I can't.
I think I can't.

What happened to the little engine that could? It stalled. It got hung up with self-censorship and doubt, questioning its insights, its ideas, and its ambition.

Perhaps you, too, fall prey periodically to the insidious little voices inside your head during the creative process. If so, you're quickly on a high-speed train to stagnation, frustration, and disillusionment.

I think I can, I think I can is a nice chant for a children's story, but it alone won't get you through a creative block and silence your inner critics. Ironically, the antidote lies within the act of creating itself.

Remember, an object in motion stays in motion. Instead of thinking your way into a new manner of acting, act your way into a new manner of thinking. To be more creative, to break through your block, simple start creating ... doing ... anything. Your brain becomes engaged in the activity, and it has less time for listening and self-doubt.

More content on this topic:

My two-page FORUM article,
"Imagine the Possibilities: Silencing the Negative Voices in Your Mind."

An Association Forum video interview
in which I answer a few questions about overcoming obstacles to creativity.

A great TED Talk by author Elizabeth Gilbert about genius and the muse in the creative process.

We All Have to Connect the Dots

President Obama today said that intelligence agencies failed to connect the dots, disparate pieces of information that when woven together should have triggered more alarm.

In reality, all of us live surrounded by an increasing number of disparate pieces of information: a blog post here, a few Tweets over there, that newspaper article from yesterday, that book on your Kindle, the headlines on your web browser, a conversation overheard at Starbucks. The list goes on and on.

Developing strategies, both individually and organizationally, to monitor, aggregate, analyze, interpret, and apply all this data is an increasingly valuable capability. It's what we have to do as agents of our own intelligence.

And at its best, we'll do more than just connect the dots, but we will blend them to create new meaning and new innovations ... just as the great Impressionist painters like George Seurat formed colors in their masterpieces from a complex array of overlapping micro burst of distinct and separate colors.

Beware of Combover Creativity

I'm 46. Into my 30s I still had the repulsively full head of hair I grew up with, the one in which rabbits could hide. And now? Not so much.

When you have a lot of hair, it covers up many things going on underneath: sweating, bad skin, etc.

When less plump in the follicle department, every strand becomes a critical part of Team Good Looks. No one can sit on the bench and maximum performance is required. That's a lot of pressure.

The same can be true for ideas. When you have a lot of them, the sheer mass covers for those that aren't going to be home runs. Enough winners are on top to carry the day.

But when your ideas and creativity start receding ... well, you understand.

Moral of the story: the most innovative organizations generate more ideas and experiment more freely. So if you want to avoid a visit from the Hair Club for Creatives, you know what to do.

Managing the Human Side of Volunteer Transition

“There’s a human component to every system. If you’re not managing the human aspect, you’re not managing half of the system. You may be getting results, but you’re driving only half the car; the other half goes wild in any direction.”

—Fred Kofman, former MIT faculty member and part of
Peter Senge’s original Center for Organizational Learning at MIT.

January brings a major moment in the human component of associations: leadership transition. In turn, a common question will soon surface: why won't they just let go?

While some outgoing leaders indeed have real control issues and impede a smooth transition, the story is more complex with others. Their head and hands are ready to let go, but their heart wants to hang on to several human dimensions of their role: the deep relationships they've developed with colleagues, the efforts underway that align with their passions and interests, and the opportunity to remain a part of the inner circle.

Instead of trying to cut that string of caring and commitment, we need to tie a new knot that allows these individuals to transition gracefully out of their previous role, but still remain connected in meaningful ways. I explored this topic in-depth several years ago in an article available online from ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership.

Calling Presenter Audibles: Maximize Your Options

Note: I’m writing a book on how to present/facilitate with presence. Blog readers get an early preview of the book’s concepts as posts throughout the year will flesh out some of my thinking. This is the first of what will be many installments on the topic and builds on posts done in mid-2009.

In teaching presentation design and delivery to a variety of subject matter experts, one thing stands out for me: many take a very linear approach to their talks: A leads to B followed by C and don’t even thinking of skipping D before moving on to E.

So what’s the problem? You identify your outcomes, select the appropriate content, and then outline your talk in the most logical order. Then off you go, right?

Think of your talk as a road trip. If you have only one route to get to your planned destination, what will you do when caught in a massive traffic backup or when you encounter an unexpected detour? What about the need for rest stops at times other than your planned breaks? Or how would you respond to seeing a billboard for an interesting site, one requiring a detour from your path?

A presentation’s road trip with participants often doesn’t unfold as planned either. They know more (or less) than anticipated. They want to ask questions at a time we weren’t planning on taking them. They show up in numbers greater (or fewer) than envisioned. If you’ve only prepared for one path to get you from A to Z, it’s going to be a very long ride through the alphabet.

Professional and more frequent speakers tend to prepare for real-time adjustments, a tactic anyone who addresses groups of people should consider. A quarterback who sees the defense line up in an unexpected formation might call an audible to adjust the offensive play. So should speakers prepare to adjust their outline, format, and flow based on what the participants reveal to them as a session unfolds.

But wait, shouldn’t speakers just go in and deliver their talk as planned and let people take it as presented? In some settings or roles this indeed is appropriate. But in general, we must bridge our content with what participants want and need. If we only have one planned way to do so, we are unlikely to be successful.

For every teaching format I envision using, I’ve pre-planned other possibilities. My slide deck often includes additional content I can turn to if the participants' needs or knowledge levels differ from what I expected. I plan to manage the clock so I can allow for interesting detours from the planned path. Doing all this requires having content knowledge that is deep in your muscle memory: you can call on it reflexively. This allows your real-time attention to focus not on your notes, but on the participants' needs and interests.

So do outline your workshop and chart a preferred path, but also maximize the pre-planned options you can select from to appropriately deviate from it. Participants will appreciate your flexibility in addressing their needs, and you’ll bend almost effortlessly because of your extra work upfront.

The Many C's of Community

The idea of community became pervasive in recent years, expanding significantly from its generally understood reference to people residing in a particular geographic area. We have online communities, companies creating customer communities, and professional or industry communities as parts of nonprofit professional societies. And each of these communities has many smaller niche groupings within it.

Much has been written about what attracts and sustain communities, but for me, the essence can be found in four C's.

Concern: People join together in community because of common concern. It could be a threat they want to guard against, an ideal they want to advance, a purpose in which they believe, or an opportunity they wish to seize. Leaders must have a strong understanding of the concern that unites the community and the nuances and varied perspectives of the individuals within it.

Care: Because the community has a common concern, its members care about individuals' choices individuals related to it. A local neighborhood has safety as a concern so individual residents leave their outside lights on at night. But not everyone cares the same way or to the same degree. Helping the community explore the appropriate level of care and how it should be demonstrated as a member of the community is a key leadership behavior.

Create: Unifying the diverse skills, perspectives, and interests of a community can allow individuals to create something collectively that would have been difficult or impossible to achieve unilaterally. Individuals and communities resent institutions and policies or practices they see as impeding the community's desire to create solutions around its concerns and/or getting in the way of—or making it difficult—for people to act on their caring. Leaders must remove obstacles that deter a community's concerns from expression, its caring from demonstration, or its creative solutions from implementation. Failure to do so could incite strong resistance or rebellion, as well as individuals channeling their care and creativity to other institutions or communities.

Commitment: Communities have some form of ethical consciousness: we don't do things like that around here. Be they unwritten but understood norms or clearly articulated codes of conduct, a critical element of a sustainable community is a commitment to a way of being with others. Leaders should be careful to avoid dictating or over-managing these norms from above; instead, making it easier for the community to articulate its values and self-regulate its behaviors.

Community is a spirit that resides within every individual, but it is manifested in very personal choices. As such, I'm not a big of fan of committees or task forces developing strategies for building community in organizations. It feels forced and inauthentic when it should be more organic. Just as organic farmers don't use pesticides or other artificial forms of crop manipulation, neither should organizations attempt to overly manufacture communities and their efforts. Leaders and institutions, can and should however, make it easy for like-minded individuals to connect, convene, converse, create, and celebrate together.

For more thinking on community, I highly recommend Peter Block's recent book, Community: The Structure of Belonging.