creativity | The Fourth Revolution Blog

How Innovation Will Necessarily Alter the Power Balance

Following up on our previous post on why real disruptive innovation does have to change business models, this inspirational image from Hugh MacLeod is a great complement.

original_ideas_hugh2 Real good ideas do necessarily alter the power relationships (and that is why they are always resisted, but that is another story).

Power relationships include those relationships in an organization’s hierarchy as well as those relationships in a market.

When I am facilitating, it is interesting to see how I can feel that the group stumbled upon a good idea – when someone starts feeling uneasy about this is going to change power relationships (and in general, his or her own power). Resistance starts to kick-in. It is a sure sign that we hit the nail on the head and that a good idea has been produced. It needs to be captured before it dilutes itself, and assessed to check whether it is just good, or whether it is great.

Image and inspiration by Hugh MacLeod at GapingVoid.com

How to Manage your Personal Idea Funnel

Following on our previous post “How to Focus on Execution and Still be Open to New Ideas”, let’s develop further the concept of “idea funnel”

The Funnel is a marketing concept that is available in Sales & Marketing and as well in Innovation. But rather than take the innovation funnel I like to compare my own Idea Funnel to the Sales one, because the steps are more relevant. The reason is that the sales funnel is linked to emotional awareness while innovation funnels are more often very rational in their description.

Let’s look at a common representation of a sales funnel. Translated to my personal Idea Funnel, the steps cover the following:

Awareness: an idea just popped up in my consciousness! Can I verbalize it now?
Qualifying interest: a quick ‘due diligence’ to check that the idea is relevant, feasible and could be somewhat useful – and that it is not just a mere fantasy?
Desire: do I feel an emotional twinkling when I consider this idea? Does it get me excited? A definite key factor if I would consider putting the effort to put it in action!
Action: how would this idea fit into my current execution program? Is it time-driven with an expiry date or can it be queued in my execution program? What could be synergies with some other projects I am working on?

And naturally, most of your ideas should fall to the side somewhere along the way – because remember that Focus Means Saying No to most ideas!

What about using this Personal Idea Funnel for your own ideas?

How to Focus on Execution and Still be Open to New Ideas

As an entrepreneur and a creative writer, I steadily encounter the issue of having too many ideas popping up even in the middle of the (painful) execution of a previous idea. The same can be said of business opportunities, which are but a certain version of an idea.

Ideas are cheap until they are executed; and execution is tough – you can’t execute so many ideas simultaneously with the right focus – a focus that is required to be ultimately successful. And time is scarce so you can’t properly execute fully too many ideas in a given timeframe.

One of the issues is of course that during execution, new ideas will necessarily pop up from the work that you can’t just throw away for later. And some more from your life. What can you do? Bloggers and authors suggest several opposed strategies which can be summarized as follows:

Note new ideas for later and ignore them for the time being (so as not to lose focus)
Don’t bother about the sunken costs of what you’ve been doing – if a new idea has much higher merit just go for it, now (in start-up talk, “pivot”!)

I tend to believe that there is value being persistent in the execution of a idea, even if it does not turn out to be as successful as anticipated. The learning from executing an idea until the end is invaluable. At the same time, if a really great idea crosses your life it would be dumb not to go for it – but that should be quite a rare thing.

I thus suggest to go for a middle road: don’t stop executing what you’re doing but still do a basic ‘due diligence’ on your new ideas to evaluate their potential before deciding to go for it or not. In marketing terms, have an idea funnel. But still, do finalize execution on some ideas to get the learning, and limit the number of ideas you pursue at any one time to a handful!

Picture from Julia Sweeten’s blog post Stop Generating New Ideas with is a great glimpse into the struggles of the creator (although the issue might not be to stop generating ideas but how to recognize if a new idea might have more merit and value than the one you’re executing).

Why You Should Focus on Your Life’s ‘Body of Work’

Pamela Slim, the author of Escape From Cubicle Nation, just released an other book, Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together.

She takes an interesting view on the fact that we actually create a Body of Work in our lifetimes, that ties together all our experiences – even if they do not seem connected. In hindsight, the sum of our experiences will make sense. Why not reinforce this meaning voluntarily from now on?

Pamela writes: “Viewing your life as a body of work is not a short-term game. You want to focus on meaning, skill development, professional network development, craft and mastery. There is no one right answer for everyone.”

The book is full of examples of people that change radically their careers and lives and still find a way to bring everything back into their body of work – and expand it further, meaningfully, by opening themselves to new encounters and experiences.

You are in charge of creating your Body of Work. Take this responsibility and create this incredible story you will be able to tie up together in hindsight. Like we already mentioned in this blog, Life is Not about Finding Yourself, Life is about Creating Yourself!

What is Perfectionism and How to Overcome It

Some would say I am a recovering perfectionist (while I do not really feel that way). I can certainly be very detailed-oriented but can now also let go and ship to the world even if I know it is not perfect. What maybe I did not understand well was the mechanism of perfectionism.

I found a great summary of this issue in an excellent book I read recently. “Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, live perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame. Perfectionism is self-destructive simply because there is no such thing as perfect” – so writes Brene Brown in the Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are (she is an academic researcher on blame and became a best-selling author on the topic of becoming what we really are).

What she points out is that perfectionism is in fact an addiction that aims to protect us from the outside world – and thus could be compared to alcohol or drugs somehow. Overcoming perfectionism also requires the same tools and habit-forming activities than other addictions, and possibly external help as well.

Being careful in what you are doing is fine. But if you overextend it because you fear what people might think of you, and then you don’t come out to the world, you might suffer from an addiction to perfectionism. Heal yourself!

Why You Should Become Better at Change… by Practicing Change

“Getting good at change (big, small, tiny – every day) means getting good at life” writes James Altucher in this excellent post.

We certainly all need to become better at taking change as an opportunity rather than a threat. Change is actually always quite good in terms of excitement and learning. “When you change you go from a flattening learning curve (your old situation) to a steep learning curve (the new situation). Steep learning curves feel good. Like the feeling of new love.”

Of course, changes are not always ignited by us; they can be the result of external forces we don’t control. Sometimes one reason we suffer too much is because we’ve become rusty at change, because we don’t practice enough; we have become too sedentary in our habits. One key secret is probably to exercise at change by changing often. By becoming a nomad of sorts when it comes to our habits. We can exercise this very well by travelling; by relocating elsewhere; and by trying to change our habits and activities often.

A final word from James Altucher: “[Change] without expectation. Wish for nothing. Care for everything. Happiness will be in between“.

Go for it!

Why Procrastination is Useful (Sometimes)

In this blog we have written often about the concept of Resistance and how to overcome it. Overcoming resistance is beating procrastination. But maybe procrastination is not such a bad thing, after all, at least sometimes.

That’s at least what James Altucher suggests in his book ‘Choose Yourself‘: “Procrastination is your body telling you that you need to back off a bit and think more about what you are doing“.

After reflection, I believe this is true in some instances, in particular when it comes to a creative endeavor. Sometimes we procrastinate because the meaning or the objective of what we intend to do is unclear, and then, in that case, it might be worth thinking twice before undertaking our project. When we are fully motivated, procrastination never appears.

Remains the issue of chores and those things we need to do but are not particularly pleasant. In that case, procrastination is obviously an issue.

It is important to distinguish between chores and creative endeavors. If on a creative endeavor, procrastination appears, ask yourself if what you are doing is the right thing to do!

How to Thrive Personally through the Upcoming Societal Changes

‘Middle class’ disappears as a result of the Fourth Revolution. We have also described the society issues we are facing with the disappearance of ‘middle class’ and how we can resolve them. In this post we will examine the consequences of this event from an individual perspective.

While society needs to find solutions to deal with the increased inequality which will necessarily happen as a result of the Fourth Revolution, what should an individual do to be more certain to be part of the people who will benefit from the change?

“Choose to commoditize your labor or choose yourself to be a creator, an innovator, an artist, an investor, a marketer, and an entrepreneur. I say “and” rather than “or” because you have to be all of the above. Not just one” says James Altucher in his book ‘Choose Yourself‘.

Choose to be creative. It is a skill that can be trained and developed, and you should start now. On the long term, developing your creativity and being able to show it to the world is the key to your success in the Collaborative Age.

Want to Change the Culture? Change the Conversation!

“If you seek to change the culture (or a tiny tribal element of the culture), your timeframe and what you measure have to be focused on the conversation” – says Seth Godin.

This is quite a powerful statement that can apply to a variety of organizational situations – in particular when it comes to organizational transformations.

Changing the conversation means in particular:

changing the words (and what they convey)
changing the conversation’s topics and dynamics
changing the conversation’s participants

Looking at it this way, organizational transformations take another shape and seem less daunting.

Change the conversation. And you’ll change the world!

Inspiration for this post from Seth Godin’s blog post The tribe or the Person?

Wish More Luck? Go and Meet People!

“If you never meet anybody you won’t have Luck” says Philippe Gabilliet, an eclectic French business school professor who lately specialized about researching about luck.

His point is that luck is a choice; and that luck is created, or triggered, through more or less random meetings with other people. If you don’t go out and meet other people, you won’t have any luck. Ever.

Think about how powerful this assertion actually is. Luck created by encounters – just like creativity.

Isn’t luck some form or some result of creativity?

Anyway, don’t stay stuck in your comfort zone of people. Go out and meet others – as many as you can. And you will create tremendous luck for yourself. Ready to start?

Why You Should Respect Yourself and What You Are

“Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.” – Clint Eastwood.

I like the thought that only by respecting yourself and what you are, you can release the power that is within you. And that only by respecting yourself you can have self-discipline.

It is so true that people that lack self-discipline generally, inwardly, lack a deep sense of self-respect. And that, as a coach, a nice way to improve the situation (i.e. the symptoms of poor self-discipline) is to work on the self-respect first.

Even if the world around you – especially if the world around you – resists, it probably means you are creating great stuff. Self-discipline and self-respect are the fuel for this creation. Don’t let ever anyone influence your self-respect. Don’t let your self-respect be taken hostage by anyone!

We’re Not Creators. We Are Transformers…

That statement in a post from Manal was a good reminder of so many considerations of creativity we have already developed in this blog.

creativity illustrated by reuse of Coca Cola cans — Creativity stems from transformation

“Creativity does not mean making up something from scratch. It’s merely a transformation of the energy of an idea—that’s been there all along in the field of possibility. If you think you need to be creative, you don’t. You are a transformer of energy. Your existence—the way you are—is all the proof you need..”

I believe Manal only gets half the story there – at the same time, being a transformer also means reuse and transform the ideas of others, as so masterfully recalled by Austin Kleon.

In fact we probably need to consider both views to be complete on creativity. We need to be able to tweak and reuse what is around us; and at the same time infuse life through our energy in our creation – because without energy and dedication from our part, creation will not happen, or not be visible to the world. We need to be able to borrow and energize at the same time.

How good are you at reusing stuff in a creative manner? And how good are you at focusing your energy to create?

Hat tip to Manal and her so enjoyable posts, including the one containing this thought – The Field of Possibility.

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