(Almost) Daily Writing: Fired Up!
This daily writing exercise has been quite a bit less daily than I intended. I will be increasing frequency and may start posting some of the dailies in other places, particularly the new Radical Honesty blog.
This morning I heard an excellent interview with Mitch Ditkoff of Idea Champions that can be downloaded here. I'll summarize the most important things I heard:
* Our fear of failure was a major theme. Mitch called failure the "crown of creativity". He said that reframing failure is the key. It took Edison some 800 tries to find the secret of the tungsten filament for the light bulb. When asked how he felt about failing 800 times, Edison said that he didn't. He actually had 800 chances to learn what didn't work. Fear limits our options and constricts our creativity when we can't look beyond it.
* Our creativity peaks around age 5 and is related to our curiosity. Then we get socialized, programmed, acculturated and indoctrinated. He briefly identified religious and military structures as part of that process.
* Mitch encouraged the exploration of limiting assumptions we bring with us when we are challenged to create. He compared them to blind spots which is an analogy I've used recently and really like.
* He stressed the importance of combining ideas. He mentioned the notion of thesis and antithesis leading to synthesis which was something of a topic in my last daily writing. Examples of powerful combinations given were Gutenberg's moveable press (combination of coin punch and grape press) and rollerblades (roller skates plus ice skates). He pointed out that cliques inside organizations inhibit the juxtaposition of ideas that can lead to synthesis.
* He mentioned the hero's journey which was a subject of recent conversation. He cited the importance of both determination and courage (I am challenged in both departments almost every day!). He cited Rollo May's The Courage to Create and the reframing of courage as "the ability to act even when there is fear".
* He mentioned DuPont's Quarterly Failure Trophy which I really found fascinating. Four times a year they recognize a division in the company that has failed with three important criteria: there must have been a lesson learned; that lesson must have been shared; and it cannot have been a failure resulting from an ethical lapse.
* He mentioned that courage isn't about doubtlessness which reminded me of this blog by Danielle LaPorte that I found last week. I learned about her in the new and most excellent online magazine fear.less. Seth Godin is also involved in fear.less and his recent blog Arrogant has some good thoughts about the fear of appearing arrogant. I dream big, and that might be a fear I've not recognized as such.
Today one of those big dreams that has me fired up is the democratization of the workplace. I recently had a chance to watch a short clip from Office Space and it has a very important lesson in it that has been on my mind a lot. Take a look:
I believe that the brightest future of our species is to democratize our workplaces. To a degree, I always thought that Marxism seemed more intrinsically democratic in theory than capitalism. If democracy is the collective ownership of the means of governance, why not the collective ownership of the means of production too?
I'm not a Marxist, but I do like the Coop business model and value localism. I think that coops can still compete in a marketplace and we can have the best of both worlds of competition and cooperation (see also this piece at Ars Technica this week on the limits of cooperation). I think that worker-ownership is the key to success for the very reasons outlined by Peter in the clip above. He has no incentive to produce or create, and in fact has disincentives which he identifies pretty clearly. While one of the Bobs wants to offer him some ownership, they don't address the matter of excess bosses.
And that's what I'm fired up about. I blogged last about how Longaberger Company had a policy of allowing employees to elect their supervisors and think that this will work best when the employees are owners too and have a vested interest in the success of their business. Why not allow employees to both hire and fire their supervisors? Isn't that democracy in action in the sphere of politics?
The key thing I see to this model is honesty and transparency in the workplace so that everyone who works together knows who is the brightest, most innovative and capable leader. Pigeons do this naturally.
A quick google search for democratization of work turned this up which I've saved to read later.
Over on the Idea Champions blog I found a quote by Gen. Patton I really like: Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
The other thing I'm fired up about is the idea of a Radical Honesty dating service. I'll write about that tomorrow (or Sunday). For now, see this if you don't have link fatigue by now.
Mike Lewinski
Denver, Colorado
May 21, 2010
