Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why
“Play that is directed by the child, not the parent, is the key to cultivating curiosity.” – Todd Kashdan
This evening I was treated to my 7 year old son playing the piano – not the pounding childish make-noise kind, but nor the rote practice kind assigned by music teachers. And I take nothing from either version of playing the piano – both quite valid in figuring out this instrument. But he worked the piano in a moment of utter focus finding melodies he invented. It was nothing Mozart-like of a young prodigy, he was simply exploring the piano in a very present and exploring way – finding rhythm and notes on his own. He’s never had piano lessons beyond watching and listening to my own piano tunes I learned long ago. It was just simple curiosity about what the piano sounds like.
When we are in a curious state, we ask probing questions, read deeply with intent, manipulate and examine objects, and persist in activities and tasks which we find both challenging and stimulating. Todd Kashdan has conducted studies with his colleagues which demonstrate that curious people tend to become more curious over time (curiosity breeds curiosity) and ultimately find greater enjoyment and even live longer too.
Study after study reveal that true and lasting competitive advantage comes from having talented and engaged people. The surest way to wither your sense of engagement is to curb your curiosity. Curious people are more competent, knowledgeable and expert. Not only that, curious people have stronger relationships, more physical and mental resilience, and even cultivate a stronger sense of meaning in their lives.
So when we are trying to find more “engagement” in our work, or as a leader cultivate that high level of engagement, there are three clear variables. First, the right people; then those people in the right seats; and doing what they are good at and love. Those three components to engagement look like this:
- Recognition of Role: Everyone must have a clear understanding of what role they play in the larger context of the organization. Demographic studies suggest this demand started in earnest with Gen X, and now Gen Y pretty much refuses to be part of a work environment that isn’t entirely transparent.
- Executable Talent: Show up with the skills yo. This is part talent selection, and part talent development. Every organization and leader must create an environment where curiosity and intellectual growth is expected.
- Passionate Commitment: Parts 1 and 2 are important but for full engagement, a passionate belief about what the team, the function, and the organization as a whole is trying to do remains paramount.
Two out of three of the above is nice but insufficient. Someone with skills who lacks belief in the mission is a flight risk. The most intolerable might be the prima donna who refuses collaborative efforts. As John Tucci, CEO of EMC says, “I have taken very talented smart people who did not play on a team and shown them the door.”
Understanding context, building skills, and being passionate aren’t easy to have on a consistent and thriving basis but maybe the key is simply to remain curious.
Here’s a tip that really works. When trying to build new knowledge, or figure out how to connect with someone who might be on the opposite side of your viewpoint, ask a simple open question that mines what they know about. This works on almost any topic – vegetarianism, the Iraq War, whether we should renew our catering contract, whatever… Ask something open and probing, for example, “Help me understand why being a vegetarian (buying from a particular vendor….whatever) is the best choice for our community (our company, again whatever the topic).” If asked in an honest inquiring voice, you are more likely statistically to be viewed as empathetic and even intelligent in your curiosity. Stay open, be curious, enrich your life.
Read MoreMake your work your play and never work again
When you do what you love, you never work again.
- Confucius
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls it being in Flow. Ken Robinson calls it being in your Element. It’s a wonderful state to be “in the pocket” (musicians) or “in the zone” (athletes). The historical model of business competitive advantage dictates that a few wield the insight, and the many provide the mental brawn of execution. And so this model squanders the potential collective insights of people who make up the bulk of the executing talent we employ. Yet research shows those enabled to find their voice, skill and passion, are the most likely to build stronger collaboration with customers to build successes.
Recently I posed the term Echoleaders to mean those who find their voice and begin to build resonant ideas around them. Resonance is when the energy applied is in sync with the intended outcome. I mean to say we should be vocal in what we believe, and by giving voice to our passions – in work, play, whatever – we’ll naturally find those in our field of vision who can echo back their own experiences and then collectively we find new paths of creating constant value and innovation.
Just watch the Facebook or Twitter scroll you participate in and the ‘like’ affirmations and comment participation demonstrate your resonant posse on any given idea or moment in your life. Each point of participation is a building block of collaborative effort. All contributions are cumulative. The point is this: if you focus on your skill and passion, you’ll find an interested like-minded group to participate in the journey.
Make your work your play. Wherever you are on the Org chart, reach beyond your task and team, and give voice to what you believe. If your heart and intent is authentic, a growing party of fellowship will happily join your venture.
Read MoreRobert Desnos conjures hope and changes the world
Nick Morgan told me this story today. In 1944 Robert Desnos, born 1900 in Paris, had become a poet and member of the French Resistance and subsequently arrested by the Gestapo. While interred in Auschwitz he and his companions and friends watched over the weeks as their fellow inmates were gathered in groups on trains to be taken away. The Gestapo said nothing of their fates but everyone knew, as no one returned, that they were being sent to die. One day the guards came to gather Robert and a few hundred others into the trains.
Everyone knew with sullen despondency what was to happen and the train was silent with loss, and fear. In a flash of impulse Robert reached to the man next to him and grabbed his hand. “I will read your fortune!” he said. And told the man he would live a long life, with marriage and children. He grabbed the next man’s hand and read a fortune of wealth and entrepreneurship and joy, and again and again he grabbed each man’s hand and conjured a fortune full of life and joy and expectation. In each case throughout the train he offered a reading of hope and long life and joy.
The Gestapo became disoriented and unsure of their charge to execute the men and stopped the train. The guards became tentative and unsure of how to proceed in the face of this jubilation and turned the train around. No one died that day. As Susan Griffin writes, “Through the power of imagination, he saved his own life and the lives of others.”
A beautiful story indeed, and imagine how this vision of joy might translate to your work, to your life. As John Hope Bryant says: there are only two things in the world, love and fear. At the point of greatest despair, if you can conjure hope, it will resonate around you and change the world.
Read MoreThere’s no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit
Hal and Bev Hunter won “Citizens of the Year” in Rappahannock County for 2009. Hal’s motto is, “There’s no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit” and it’s an apt saying for those aspiring to accomplish remarkable things. The excerpt below is straight from the Rappahannock News and you can read the full article here.
There are many who volunteer their time, energy and more in Rappahannock County – and then there are Hal and Beverly Hunter. County residents since 1968, the Hunters have, particularly in the past decade and most visibly over the past couple of years, put in countless hours looking after the continued health of Rappahannock’s watersheds, its farms and viewsheds, its hungry people and its educational and arts communities. They have done so quietly, relentlessly – and cheerfully.
For their work with the Rappahannock Friends and Lovers of Our Watershed (RappFLOW), the
Rappahannock Food Pantry and Plant-a-Row program, historic districts and conservation in general, Beverly and Hal Hunter are being recognized jointly as Rappahannock News’ 2009 Citizens of the Year.“The choice of Hal and Bev as Citizens of the Year is in some ways an inspired one, but in some ways a no-brainer,” said County Administrator John W. McCarthy, who has worked with them on many projects over the years. “It’s a no-brainer because it’s hard to imagine any couple that have given more of their time, efforts and energies to the community at large. And it’s inspired because . . . it’s nice to see the deserving rewarded.”
Take this to heart: If you can identify a need, have a will to make positive change, and don’t care who gets the credit, you can change the world. I’m very proud of my parents.
Read MoreThe more you give, the happier you are
A remarkable event occurred just a couple weeks ago at USC Marshall School of Business. Three titans of leadership – Warren Bennis, Bill George, and John Hope Bryant gathered to share their insights on emerging leadership practices and what it’s really going to take to reset the economy and re-establish trust in the financial sector, and it’s not rocket science. According to the panel we need to restore collaboration, trust, humility, passion, and purpose – and no, it wasn’t Robert Fulghum on stage, but the message remains the same.
John Hope Bryant is the author of Love Leadership: The New Way to Lead in a Fear Based World, and Chairman and CEO of Operation HOPE Inc., a non-profit social investment banking organization self-help provider of economic empowerment tools and services for the underserved. He has a powerful message that ultimately you must ask yourself, “Does my work matter? Am I making a difference?” John encourages people everywhere to abandon the pervasive selfish attitudes that dominate contemporary thinking – the ‘what’s in it for me?’ attitudes, and instead focus on what you can contribute.
Bryant urges us all to shift our thinking to how we can contribute, how we can give, how we can ease suffering, enlighten others, and offer our time, interactions and energy to giving. In his work, he sees time and again that those who give without concern or interest for WIIFM, always wind up healthier, happier and spiritually (and economically too) richer.
Not convinced? Consider this research paper on happiness by Elizabeth Dunn, Lara Aknin, and Michael Norton published in Science Magazine. The basis for the study was the supposition that people’s happiness is more affected by their behavior, than by their income level. Most people are familiar with the consistent research that once basic food and security needs are met, money does not equal happiness. Their proposal was that what we do with the money and resources we do have, has a greater affect on how we feel than the amount of resources we have available. In one section of the study they followed people who were receiving bonuses of various amounts, and tracked what they did with it. Some paid bills or the mortgage, or treated themselves to something special, while others gave to charity or bought gifts for others. This kind of charitable or gifting behavior they called “prosocial.” Take the results to heart, “Employees who devoted more of their bonus to prosocial spending experienced greater happiness after receiving the bonus, and the manner in which they spent that bonus was a more important predictor of their happiness than the size of the bonus itself.”
You can see the entire panel discussion here. Enjoy!
Read MoreDo It Your Way: Find Your Signature
Much of the conversations we get engaged in with customers often involve discussion of “How did other companies do it?” – discussions around benchmarking processes. Yet most of the emerging ideas in leadership and talent development we hear from eminent thinkers, researchers and writers warn of benchmarking to mediocrity. Stuart Hart, author of Capitalism at the Crossroads, has a dynamite quote buried in the middle of his book:
“A smart strategist gravitates toward ill-defined and ambiguous opportunities. That is because once everything has been defined and reduced to standard operating procedure, there is no money left to be made.” – Stuart Hart
The point he is making, and the same point Jeffrey Pfeffer, Jonas Ridderstrale, Lynda Gratton and others have made in our interviews, is the same – to be the market surprise, instead of be surprised, you need to create unique and original ways of conducting your business. Lynda Gratton calls this “signature processes.” Red Hat is a great example. We were chatting with a senior executive at Red Hat and I explained part of a presentation we could provide which would showcase companies with leading implementation practices and he stopped me and said, “Look I don’t mean to interrupt but I can’t bring that story in here. At Red Hat we do it the Red Hat Way.” He went on to say of course they don’t ignore the market landscape or operate in some 
creative oasis, but that once they make a bet on a product or service, they execute their way. By doing it the Red Hat Way, they also build great culture and engagement because everyone feels they are part of true creation.
A lifetime ago around 2001, while leading a small start-up we got together our customer research and stories and dreamed up an online system which could aid the learner and leader to use, apply, track, and campaign on our video learning assets. Then we built the system and when we took it on the road test, people said, “Oh you’ve built an LMS.” A what? “You’ve created a a Learning Management System, although it’s got some stuff we haven’t seen before.” We had indeed built an LMS before we had ever heard of one. Instead of benchmarking LMS vendors (whom we didn’t know existed), and listening to our customers instead, we created something unique and did it with passion and energy because we believed in our originality and our ability to create a killer app. The tip coming from emerging leadership is this: pay attention to the market yes, but be bold and original in what – and importantly how - you execute.
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