Making ideas happen
Scott Belsky
The central position of this book is that creative people have lots of fine ideas, but their inability to focus on execution of the ideas prevents these ideas from having any impact, either on the individual or society (or organizations). The author discusses three things that can increase creative productivity: developing a bias towards action, tapping the forces of community and developing leadership capability. Getting more/better ideas does not increase productivity, executing those ideas does.
The number one effort is to develop a bias toward action. In one sense, the concept is to turn everything into a project. It may be large or small, but it has a beginning, and most importantly, an end. A simple approach that the author calls the “action method” is central to the approach. The action method has three parts: “action steps”, “back burner items” and “references”. Lists of action steps may describe the whole project. Action steps have the form “verb object”. For example, “Call Bob”, “Follow up with Jill”, “Send a sample to X”, etc. It is important to find some way to use these lists of action steps in a sustainable way and this way may be different from how others use them. Whether simple or ornate, what works for you is what works for you. Some features of the use of action steps in groups include:
- Action steps are recorded by the person who is accountable for themselves. If there are group notes, the individual’s version is copied into the notes.
- Action steps owned by more than one person won’t get done
- Action steps are specific. If it is big, break it down to actionable steps, and record them.
- Use the action step list to guide your daily activities. If these are the things that you need to do, you need to make the time to do them. Other activities, that are not action oriented, may be unproductive.
Not everything is ready to act on. Items not ready for action should be recorded in a “back burner” list. This might have a different syntax, but the point is to record the thought while it is fresh. Back burner items can be reviewed periodically to determine if they are ready to move to the action step stage.
Finally, most projects accumulate other documents or materials. These are references. In many cases, meeting notes, handouts, reports, articles and the other artifacts of recordkeeping accumulate and force you to try to organize them. The most likely situation is that you will never look at them again, but you might. Two ways to organize such materials are by project or chronologically. This does not need to be highly refined, just good enough to get close. If you keep a “permanent” record of action steps with reference to the project, this might form the framework of a chronological file. However, it may be best to either scan them into a file and store them in a project folder or discard them. Probably the biggest problem with references is that they block your action orientation. If you are writing notes, you are not writing down action items.
Converting your effort into projects organized around action steps, building a bias toward action, and deflecting non-action oriented information and activity away from your attention is the first step towards higher productivity. These projects (sets of action steps, back burner items, and references) are what you organize to execute.
Once you have a list of projects, there will be a need to prioritize them. But a better way to think about this would be which projects you will focus on in what order. One factor to consider is how much energy a project will take. Projects can be urgent or important, and probably they will compete for attention. To manage this competition, keep two lists. On one, list important “long-term” projects and on the other list the urgent projects. Choose 5 and ignore the others until you have cleared more important/urgent away. You probably need to insure that at least one important project makes the list of 5. Use delegation to drive progress in projects that don’t make your top 5. Maybe if you are being nagged about an item that did not make your top 5, you should reconsider its position. Critical to this system working is the commitment to just do your best. Important urgent things will come up and mess up your plan. Complete them and get back to your list as soon as you can. Don’t worry about it; worry is a waste.
A section of the book discusses meetings. Simply put, meetings waste time that could be used for action. Some suggestions include:
- Cancel regular meetings; meet only when action from the group is required. Inform by email.
- End meetings by having each individual recite their actions steps
- If a meeting does not end up with action steps, call this out and question the value of any additional meeting of the same group
- Don’t schedule meetings to get updates or check on people. Call them for the update. These meetings are the result of insecurity.
- Schedule the meeting for the time required, not an even 30 or 60 minutes. Meetings expand to fill the time allotted. Protect your own time and your colleagues’ time from waste.
- Don’t create agendas by asking people for items. Every meeting has an owner and that owner should set the agenda.
The section on the forces of community seems mostly geared towards the world of arts and advertising. I could not easily connect that world with the world of making things. However, one interesting section related to partnerships between people and their effect of productivity. The author proposes that there are basically three stereotypic kinds of people: dreamers, doers and incrementalists. Dreamers are the idea people; they have lots of ideas, but may struggle to complete action on any of them. Doers are most comfortable doing and may be uncomfortable coming up with new ideas. The ideal partnership is between a doer and a dreamer. Each can reach their full potential, doing what they love and do best. If you are organizing a team, pair doers and dreamers, or at least insure that any team has enough of both (maybe more doers than dreamers). Incrementalists are capable of both doing and dreaming, and can pair with either a dreamer or a doer. While they are the most flexible, they may tend to take on too much. Many organizations are very happy to promote this over-commitment. The greatest productivity for an incrementalist is to be paired with a doer or a dreamer, which pushes them into the complementary role and keeps them there. Such partnerships work best when both parties understand their role.
The final section of the book discusses developing leadership capability, both organizational and self leadership. The very first suggestion for the person who wishes to develop their leadership capability in the creative domain is to short circuit the rewards system. Conventional organizational rewards emphasize urgent reactivity, that they almost eliminate the possibility for long-term execution of ideas. One example is the use of grades. Grades measure short-term success in satisfying the teacher, but may not measure learning at all. To navigate the competition between short and long term:
- Disconnect from the traditional reward system. Don’t let the loss of a potential reward stop you.
- Create short-term intrinsic rewards for completion of actions towards your long-term goal. Look for relevant metrics for progress and create an internal reward to capture are you meet the metrics.
Building teams for creative execution can involve:
- Recruiting initiators, people who jump in and do
- Assemble complementary skill sets
- Accept many approaches to productivity; people differ in their most productive modes
- Kill ideas that you can’t use. Have faith that there is a better idea coming
- Use conflict to improve ideas. Don’t be moderate during argument because the learning will occur at the extremes. Remember that you are not fighting, you are arguing.
- Don’t let the group make a lowest-common-denominator decision. Excessive pursuit of consensus degrades quality and clarity of thinking and action.
A theme throughout the book was how the tendencies of dreamers undermine their productivity. In this sense, self-leadership is the path to greater success. This calls for greater self-awareness, a commitment to seeking and using feedback, toleration of ambiguity and temporary injustice, learning from success and failure, maintenance of humility and rationality (as opposed to egotistic rationalization), the practice of contrarianism and the embrace of deviation from the norm. The last point is worth repeating. Bringing a creative idea to fruition will eventually challenge some component of the status quo. It’s not that creative when that’s what everybody does. Going against the grain is part of the creative life. The author observes that society is hypocritical. It wants everybody to act predictably and traditionally, but wants the results of people thinking and acting differently. Society won’t change, so the creative leader must learn to live with the conflict.
Two quotes to finish.
“It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. - E. L. Doctorow
“You can live longer off of passion than off money” -Andree Weinreich
Recent Comments