How your brain collaborates with itself

How your brain collaborates with itself

Aug 7, 2019 | Collaboration, Marketing

 

Your left brain manages the quantitative, anything that can be reduced to a spreadsheet will be a left brain activity. It can be quantified, optimised, but always lacks the spark of originality, and creativity. 

Creativity, instinct, understanding, are all functions of the right brain.

We homo sapiens respond instinctively to the cues around us in our environment, a  function of our evolutionary drive to survive in a hostile environment. However, we do it using our ‘fast’ brain, which is not a specific location or hemisphere of the brain, but an instinctive response built into us by evolution, residing deep in our amygdala. It enables instant response, which may not always be right, but is a safer bet. For example, when our ancestors were walking across the savannah, they responded to that rustle in the grass as if it was a threat. If it turns out to be just the wind, nothing is lost, but if it turns out to have been a tiger, it would have been a grave mistake to ignore it.

We interpret everything around us through this ‘fast lens’, then are able to sit back and think about it adding a layer of more thoughtful response.

The creative stuff in our brain, residing largely in the  right hemisphere is the slower part, from where we draw on our experience, learning, and context of information and environment, to come to a conclusion. It takes time and cognitive energy to assemble the factors that apply, and consider them, rather than just jumping to a conclusion.

It is this ability that distinguishes us from other mammals, and indeed, all animals.

However, the right brain needs input from the left, it requires the raw material with which to work, and when the magic happens, it needs a way for the left brain to figure out if the outcome made logical sense, then refeed the data back to the right brain for reprocessing.

I would speculate that the advent of the digital tools of instant gratification have compromised our propensity to apply the cognitive energy required to leverage the creative capability of our right brain.  Our creative output appears to me to have suffered in direct proportion to the evolution of the fast twitch tools of  the internet, which demand an instant response, not a considered one.  This does not  enable  the right brain to do what it does best, seek out interesting and non obvious solutions to a problem or situation.

For anyone more than  superficially interested in this stuff, the must read book is ‘Thinking Fast & Slow’ by Daniel Kahneman.

When you want to understand how it all applies to the generation of revenue, give me a call.

How do you crete a documented ‘Flow’ in your processes?

How do you crete a documented ‘Flow’ in your processes?

Aug 5, 2019 | Management, Operations

 

‘Flow’ evolves as a completed task is handed over to the next stage, or person, automatically, with no error, in an entirely predictable manner.

When seeking to build flow into a system, there needs to  be a lot of detailed and logical thought put into the individual actions that need to take place in order to complete the activity, stage, and whole job.

There needs to be a list of the individual actions that are required, that are checked off.

Nothing too adventurous here.

If you boarded a plane and saw that the pilot was running through his preflight checks from memory, rather than a clipboard held by the copilot, you would be justified to feel nervous. In the case of a light plane, the pilot will use a clipboard himself, and physically check items off the list.  This post will have been edited several times, but it is only the use of the ‘speak’ tool that will root out the small inevitable errors of grammar, syntax, and spelling that I make. Even then, some sneak through.

We all miss things, our mind sees what it wants to see because it makes assumptions about what should be there, and just ‘sees’ it.

The easiest way to write out a sequence of actions in sufficient detail for it to be a contributor to the creation of ‘Flow’,  is to assume you are writing them for  your grandmother who has advancing Alzheimer’s, and for whom  every action has to be articulated in detail and in sequence. This should deliver a simple, logical flow, that is easily communicated and used.

A caution: Never assume because a process has been articulated in this way, and seems to work well, that there is no room for further revision and improvement.

Improvement can only occur in a stable environment, and documenting the flow is a key step in the ongoing challenge of improvement. 

Processes are not goals, but goals are daydreams without processes.

Processes are not goals, but goals are daydreams without processes.

Aug 2, 2019 | Change, Strategy

 

Life is so very complicated.

We are always being told that to be successful requires that we set goals, and stick to them, work for them, focus, focus.

However, in my observation, a goal without a process to achieve that goal is useless, nothing more than a fantasy.

On the other hand, all the work I do with those who run  factories are about continuous improvement. Finding often tiny ways to deliver incremental productivity by removing the items, actions, and complications that hinder the ‘flow’ through a system delivers sustainable improvement.

Over time, the compounding impact is huge.

This has nothing to do with goals, but everything to do with mindset.

Can you achieve a goal without a systemic way of delivery that requires change?

Yes, but that goal will not be sustaining.

I observe those around me in this obese community setting out regularly to lose weight. Often they do, by a combination of exercise and ‘starving’ themselves, but immediately the goal weight has been reached, they relax, and the weight goes back on. They achieved the goal, but failed to have a process in place that made the weight loss sustainable.

If those same people just did some regular exercise, cut out sugar and fast foods, and ate less more often, then, over time, they would lose weight. In effect, they have adopted a process without necessarily having a goal.

My kids were all elite athletes, and they had goals, the big long term ones, but way more important, the ‘micro goals,’ the things they were working on every day to improve an element just a fraction, and a fraction a day, over time makes a huge difference. They were given an improvement process by their coaches, and while the long term goal was always there, it was never the focus, the day by day process was the focus.

Do the work, stick to the process, and the results will come.

Header cartoon is more visual advice from Dilbert via Scott Adms.

 

 

 

6 characteristics to look for when assembling an advisory board

6 characteristics to look for when assembling an advisory board

Jul 31, 2019 | Governance, Leadership

Small and medium businesses need outside assistance in order to build the depth of capability that is required to compete effectively on the big stage that we now have.

I often advocate they have some sort of ‘Advisory board’ that delivers the guidance and experience to make a difference.

So, what sort of people should you look for to go onto that board? It is easy to suggest it be set up, but very hard to find the right people, particularly for SME’s with limited networks and resources to go and find these people.

Here are some of the characteristics that it seems to me are needed on such a board. It will be rare to find them all in one individual, and two brains are always better than one anyway, so look for some diversity at the same time. Of course, these are the personality traits you should look for, and are on top of the technical ones you may need, finance, engineering, marketing, and so on.

  • They spend a lot of time ensuring that the right questions are asked, rather than jumping to the answers.
  • They work from the challenge backwards to the current, rather than from the current forward. I call it hindsight planning when developing strategy, but it is also a mindset that ensures the problem being considered is adequately defined.
  • They are looking to learn themselves, from the competitive and  strategic problems they see, the people they encounter, and the differing options that emerge from considering a problem. The last thing you want is someone who already knows all the answers!.
  • They are biased towards action, rather than riding the status quo. Being prepared to take action, and sometimes be wrong, able to concede the mistake and move on again is a vital personal capability to seek.
  • They treat your resources, as if they were their own.
  • Underlying everything they do is the recognition that only by creating value for someone else can you move forward: Personally and commercially.

An alternative to an advisory board, is membership of one of the emerging ‘executive roundtable’ services, of which there are several. These ‘tables’ assemble the executives of non competing businesses into groups of 7 to 11, chaired by an experienced advisor and chair, and they act as each others advisory board. This model has the added advantage of addressing the hidden cost of the CEO of a medium sized business, loneliness. It is often a very lonely place, and such a table has a powerful social aspect as well as delivering great commercial value.

Everybody needs informed, and neutral advice and a sounding board to make better decisions. 

 

 

The ‘Marketing Alchemy’ that reversed the value of gold and iron.

The ‘Marketing Alchemy’ that reversed the value of gold and iron.

Jul 29, 2019 | Marketing, Strategy

1813, in Prussia, princess Marianne convinced people to turn in their gold jewelry to fund the war against France, and be given an iron replica in return. The replica jewelry was stamped with the words ‘Gold gab ich fur Eisen’ which means ‘I gave gold for iron’. Substitute iron jewelry produced by the Royal Berlin Foundry became the symbol of not just wealth and status, but of patriotism, .

Gold has an intrinsic value, it can be used, and reused, but its real value is in the belief we share that it has value in other ways, beauty, a symbol of wealth, luxury, status, and all the rest of the stuff we value.

The status of iron replica  jewelry was conjured to become higher than that of the gold originals.

Possession of gold signals things, but those signals can be reversed, because they are all about perception. It just takes a  bit of psychology, mixed in with the change of context and perception, achieved by marketing.

Marketing Alchemy.

The Prussians must have a skill for this stuff, despite their dour characterisation.

Frederick the Great achieved the opposite effect with his bit of alchemy with spuds. Frederick, who ruled Prussia from 1740 to 1786, was concerned that his people had only one source of carbohydrate, wheat. In a conflict, which he was pretty good at inciting, wheat fields could be devastated, and take a long time to be replaced, meanwhile his people would starve. The antidote was potatoes, which would provide a quick growing and reliable alternative  source, but Prussians would not eat potatoes, under any circumstances. After all, dogs would  not eat them, why should people?

Fred tried every form of coercion that he, as an absolute monarch, could dream up, but nothing worked. Then he found some magic marketing alchemy somewhere, and had his gardeners plant a potato garden which he decreed as Royal potatoes, reserved exclusively for the tables of royalty. He put a guard around his garden, but quietly he instructed the guards to be slack, and not enforce the security. This meant that the locals could nick in and knock off some royal potatoes pretty much without any real risk, while defying the king.

The net result was that potatoes quickly became a staple in the German diet.

Marketing alchemy at work!

Devising this sort of marketing alchemy is not easy, and is not always sensible at first glance. It is always different, counterintuitive, and will have more than its fair share of knockers. ‘It will never work’ they chorus, usually because they cannot see out of their status quo box. When you need some alchemy in your business, call an alchemist.

Header photo: iron jewelry in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London