Making Ideas Happen
When people want new ideas, what they’re really saying is that they can’t execute. Our brilliant ideas are worth nothing if we are unable to execute them. Making ideas happen = Ideas + Organization + Forces of Community + Leadership capability
These are the key lessons I take from Scott Belsky's book "Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality". If the Action Method looks to me pretty much like a simplified version of “Getting Things Done”: easier to grasp, yet lacking a detailed "instruction manual", what I liked about this book are the stories of many highly creative people that are great with executing their ideas. Their creativity has fueled and inspired me a lot.
Here are my key takeaways:
PART 1 - ORGANISATION & EXECUTION
Ideas don't happen because they are great. You must transform your vision into reality.
Nearly all the ideas die a premature death. Every idea faces a battery of external obstacles and internal obstacles that can be even more powerful.
While many of us spend too much energy searching for the next great idea, we would be better off by developing the capacity to make ideas happen.
Conundrum: the forces that help us be productive and execute our ideas are often at odds with the very source of our ideas: our creativity. Any successful creative entity must be comfortable alternating between the two creative phases: ideation and execution.
The quality of ideas themselves is less important than the platform upon which they materialize. Realize that you control the platform for your ideas.
Anyone can develop the capacity to make ideas happen.
Making ideas happen = Ideas + Organization + Forces of Community + Leadership capability
Organization: the way you organize projects, prioritize and manage your energy is arguably more important than the quality of the ideas you wish to pursue.
Forces of Community: they open the door to new approaches for old challenges. It brings accountability.
Leadership capability: it makes the pursuit of an idea sustainable, scalable, and ultimately successful. It relates to the ability to lead others and lead yourself.
Execution isn't pretty, but it's essential to make ideas happen.
THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF ORGANISATION
If you want to make an idea happen, you need to have a process for doing so.
Your process works best if it reflects your own personal preferences.
The structure is the most important and most often neglected element of the organization.
Creativity x Organisation = Impact
100 x 0 = 0: you may have loads of ideas, but they're worth nothing without execution.
50x2 = 100: someone with average creativity but stellar organizational skills will make a greater impact than the disorganized creative geniuses.
THE ACTION METHOD
I find the action method a simplified version of the "Getting Things Done" methodology. Easier to grasp, yet lacking a bit of "instruction manual" and examples to really implement it.
Brainstorming should start with a question and the goal of capturing something specific, relevant, and actionable.
Every idea is a project.
You can break every project into three primary components:
Action Steps
Clear, specific, concrete tasks that inch you forward.
Each Action Step needs an Owner.
Each action step should start with a verb.
Capture your actions in an "inbox" - choose the medium that suits you best.
Capture them everywhere, not only in meetings - through a medium that is readily available (for example, an app). Your system to capture and follow up on Action Steps should fit you and be attractive: attractive things work better. Ideally, you would manage Action steps separate from email. You cannot delegate an Action Step if a person does not accept delegation.
You can distinguish managerial action steps: Ensure xxx, Awaiting xxx.
Take time each day to process your inbox.
Sequential tasks are better than multitasking.
2. References
Any project-related documents
They are not actionable but are there for reference.
Keep references simple. Often, it's good enough to use a chronological system.
Use three steps approach to see if a document qualifies as a reference: (A) Question it - is it relevant? (B) Label it - to make it intuitive to find it later. (C) File it - Evernote or Google docs. When in doubt, don't save it. Cluttered references often create a barrier to action.
3. Backburner items
Things that are not actionable now, but maybe someday.
It's good to create a backburner ritual: for example, set aside the time every last Sunday of the month to go through all your backburner items and see if it's time for them to become Action Steps.
PRIORITIZATION
I personally like to use pairwise comparison & energy metrics for prioritization. This book offers a couple of other approaches.
We have to manage our energy across ideas/projects.
One approach is to place your projects along the energy line, asking yourself a question: How much energy should your project receive? Energy line is a spectrum: Extreme > High > Medium > Low > Idle. This approach is similar to Energy Metric by Scott Adams.
We also have to recognize urgent vs important. Don't dwell: when urgent items arise, they tend to evoke anxiety. Handle them promptly. Don't hoard them.
Choose five projects that matter most.
Make a daily focus area.
If you work with a team, create responsibility grid to have clarity on how you share certain task types.
Create windows of non-stimulation, switching off social media and emails for periods when you need concentration.
Rely on nagging: people who want you to do something will have to remind you repeatedly.
EXECUTION
Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Execution is predominantly perspiration.
When executing a project, we often experience a project plateau, when there is no end in sight and we can get discouraged.
The most seductive escape from a project plateau is a new idea. We should avoid this tendency, otherwise, we will never get anything done.
When people want new ideas, what they are really saying is that they can't execute.
Don't want for conviction. Just do it.
Kill ideas liberally. Example: 3 rooms system by Walt Disney: Room One: free flow of ideas; Room Two: aggregation and organization of ideas into storyboards; Room Three: sweatbox for critical review of projects without restraint. "There are three different Walts: the dreamer, the realist, and the spoiler".
Measure meetings with Action: Don't meet just because it's Monday. End each meeting with a review of Actions captured. Call out nonactionable meetings. Don't call meetings out of your own insecurity. Don't stick to round numbers: if you need just 5 minutes, limit your meeting to these 5 minutes.
Ship even if it's not perfect. It's hard because our insecure 'lizard brain' will do everything to keep us safe from risk and criticism. Seth Godin believes that we need 'a quieter lizard brain'.
Follow up. Relentlessly.
Seek constraints. When you're not given constraints, you must seek them. They help with execution. You can start with resources that are scarce.
Have a tempered tolerance for change. While we must remain open to change, we want to make sure that changes come at the right time and for the right reasons. Set up challenge meetings early in the project. Thrash heavily in the beginning - it will limit the risks of last-minute changes.
Use progress as a motivational force. One idea I love is "Done Walls" - put all the post-its on the done wall to visually remind you how much you have already done.
Organize your Actions visually. Have a wall in your study or workspace dedicated to that. Or do it digitally.
MENTAL LOYALTY
Execution is rarely comfortable or convenient.
Develop a consistent work schedule. Get inspiration from the Daily Routines blog.
Don't believe that the muse visits you. Visit the muse.
Reconsider your workspace, if necessary.
Reduce your amount of "Insecurity Work": checking likes & traffic reports. Insecurity work is a trap that does not move the ball forward.
PART 2 - THE FORCES OF COMMUNITY
HARNESSING THE FORCES AROUND YOU
Ideas get new dimensions when other people get involved.
Who is your community? How can you engage diverse groups of people with different perspectives? Think about thoughtful stewardship.
Know Yourself: are you a Dreamer, a Doer or an Incrementalist?
Dreamers are always generating new ideas, but they struggle to stay focused. They are the most likely to conceive a brilliant solution, but least likely to follow through.
Doers obsessively focus on the logistics of execution. They start with doubt and chip away at the idea until they love it.
Incrementalists are able to play the role of both Doer and Dreamer. They shift between phases of dreaming and doing. Their limitation is that by handling multiple projects they may not achieve their fullest potential.
A Doer and a Dreamer are best paired with each other. Incrementalists can thrive when they pair with either one. They are "O" blood type - a universal donor.
Once you have considered which type you are, you can leverage the forces around you.
Ideas are rarely accomplished alone. You will need partners - you may seek them permanently or on a project basis. A project run by a single person does not scale.
Share ideas liberally. Sharing ideas significantly increases the odds of ideas gaining momentum and ultimately happening.
Capitalize on feedback. Ask for it. Ask for things that you should START / STOP / CONTINUE.
Transparency boosts communal forces. Transparency is a spectrum. You can go as far as make all your work totally transparent to others. And even if you are on a lower end of the transparency spectrum, adding even some additional transparency can help you harness communal forces.
If you don't work with a group, create your own. Limit a circle to <15 members. Establish a clear and consistent schedule. Meet frequently and stay accountable. Assign a leader. Extend your circle online.
Seek competition. Ideas often lie idle until we are jolted into action either by excitement or fear.
Commit yourself in order to commit others. You cannot really engage others if yourself you don’t show your full commitment to the idea.
Create systems for accountability. The TED Prize and the risk of putting yourself in the spotlight the year after having received the prize is one example of accountability.
Benefit from shares workspace.
Make sure your community is diverse. Diversity of opinions and circumstances increases the likelihood of 'happy accidents. Work amidst other areas of expertise ('The Medici Effect'). Take advantage of mistakes.
PUSHING IDEAS TO YOUR COMMUNITY
The value of communal forces is tapped only if you are able to market your ideas to engage others.
Overcome the stigma of self-marketing. Your ability to access the resources and opportunities in your community depends upon others recognizing your qualifications, your initiative, and your interests. Marketing is building relationships - and learning. Once you accept responsibility to market yourself, you can start to mine for opportunities: a side project or extracurricular activity outside the scope of your official duties. Fight the desire to wait for instructions, learn to showcase your skills and expertise without an invitation. Effective self-marketing builds respect. Monetization does not happen directly.
For creatives, portfolios serve as engines for respect.
Identify your differentiating attributes & storyline.
Develop a communication strategy & execute it.
Find your own "frequency", then tune in to engage others.
Ground your ideas outside of your community. You need some degree of mass appeal. Engage a few cynical, risk-averse advisers.
Recognize when you are no longer a solo show & recognize that you will need a different skill set to lead not only yourself but also others. When you have a team, focus first on the things that ONLY YOU can do - even if the things that you can delegate are not done to perfection.
PART 3 - LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY
Your ideas will thrive only if you manage them as a leader rather than as an independent creative visionary.
Leadership development is experiential. Through trial and error, we gradually become better - but only if we are self-aware enough to notice when and why we falter.
THE REWARDS OVERHAUL
The long-term vision is not enough.
Short-term rewards we are used to hampers our ability to make ideas happen. To push our ideas forward, we need to overcome our basic tendencies and nearsighted motivations.
The honeymoon stage of any idea is an easy part. It's at the execution that we need to keep on track, often without any incremental rewards.
We can unplug from the traditional rewards system and instead, stay engaged by setting up a system of incremental rewards.
Another fundamental secret to staying loyal to projects is incorporating "an element of fun" (example: Ji Lee).
It's also good to find an overall balance in the types of projects we take on - professional and personal.
Success is more than a personal reward for leaders; it is a valuable currency that can be distributed to the team. The only bank account that the shared credit depletes is the leader's ego.
THE CHEMISTRY OF THE CREATIVE TEAM
Building a team of enthusiastic and talented people is one of the greatest challenges for leaders.
Rather than focusing on credentials, truly effective leaders instead measure a prospective employee's ability to take initiative. The best indicator of the future initiative is past initiative. Nothing will assist your ideas more than a team of people who possess real initiative.
Probe candidates for their true interests and measure the extent to which the candidate has pursued those interests.
Cultivate complementary skill sets. Search for "T" people: with the breadth of the overall experience, and depth in one particular area.
Elevate true productivity over the appearance of hard work. Ideas are made happen in spurts. Embrace transparency and build fundamental trust between colleagues. Measure output rather than sit-put.
If you find yourself hesitant to support flexibility in your team, you should challenge yourself to find the root cause.
Differentiate between skeptics and cynics. Value skeptics: they are an essential component of a healthy team.
Conflict is a powerful opportunity to refine your ideas and processes. Don't shy away from it. Try to foster a healthy level of debate between people with different levels of influence and experience. For example: let share all the ideas first, prior to having people react. Junior people go first.
Incorporate a broad spectrum of ideas from the team, while preserving the core mission. Don't strive for consensus at the outset of a project. Hold on to 'sacred extremes': a few outlier ideas worth fighting for amidst other inevitable compromises.
MANAGING THE CREATIVE TEAM
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want to be done because he wants to do it. - President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Share ownership of your ideas. Get people excited about the idea, and not micromanage them every step of the way.
Leaders talk last.
Use conflict in 2 ways: (1) evaluate the reasoning and patience of your partners & team, (2) build confidence and earn your team's respect.
Develop others through power of appreciation.
Leadership is most effective through the art of storytelling.
The power of positive encouragement. When you commend someone's strengths, their weaknesses are lessened, and their strengths are emphasized. People need to relax to be able to discover.
Seek the hot spots: to make ideas & change happen, focus less on hierarchy and more on who has the best information. The catalyst behind the instant change is 'social power': the ability to connect with others en masse. To find out hot spots, ask people where they go to get help.
SELF-LEADERSHIP
The most challenging one to manage is you.
The greatest obstacles come from fear, insecurity, or self-imposed limitation.
Self-leadership is about awareness, tolerance, and not letting your own natural tendencies limit your potential.
To effectively lead, you must understand and hone your emotions.
Develop a tolerance for momentary injustice and periods of ambiguity. Don't go nuts about the unknown, and don't lose patience when dealing with disappointments. Stay strong and calm as clouds around any period of change start to dissipate.
Capture the benefits of failure. Ask yourself 3 questions: (1) What external conditions may explain the failure? (2) What internal factors may have compromised your judgment? (3) Are there any gems in the unintended outcome?
Avoid the trap of visionary narcissism: a default thinking that you are an exception to the rule.
Combat conventional wisdom with contrarianism. Be wary of 'best practices. Think purposely against the grain. Don't revere someone based on age. Reconsider your approach to mentoring - look around, not necessarily up. Distinguish past accomplishments from present knowledge. Aspire to better practices, not the best.
Consider yourself an Entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are not the ones with the best ideas, they're just the ones willing to jump off a cliff without the answers.
The hardest part of pursuing a new idea is "pulling the trigger - being mentally in or out.
Be willing to be a deviant: unpopular, misunderstood, and even shunned during creative pursuits.
Keep an eye on the backward clock: if you were told the exact year, day, and time that your life would end, would you manage your time and energy differently? We all have a final date, but we are not burdened with a countdown.
Beware of the love conundrum: love motivates us, keeps us loyal throughout our projects, and then ensures some level of disappointment at the end.
Take yourself and your creative pursuits seriously.