Creative Reaction

Is the end of management near?

These are some of the questions asked on Harvard Business Publishing’s Conversation Starter blog. The post itself has to do with larger corporations, though clearly applies to smaller companies as well. In a day and age where creativity is necessary for success, yes even survival, managers must adapt quickly and foster creativity.

Harvard Business School professor (and researcher) Teresa Amabile opines that we will need to reinvent management in order to:

• Enable collaboration by people with diverse perspectives on a problem
• Respect the fact that creativity thrives in situations where there is slack and redundancy.
• Rethink job design and incentive systems in light of what really motivates creativity: intellectual challenge and public affirmation.
• Manage as though we expect creativity from everyone — not just isolated “lone geniuses”

Much of this is antithetical to “conventional wisdom”, but that’s the one of the keys to success, isn’t it? Sensing when conventional wisdom is passé and reinventing the “rules”.

There’s a thought-provoking post over at Harvard Business Publishing, entitled Why It’s Not Selfish To Take Care of Yourself, which happens to be a great follow-up to yesterday’s post.

Perhaps the reason it resonates with me is that I need reminders to implement this kind of advice in my life. As a husband, father of five, homeowner, business owner and church member, I have my fair share of responsibilities. Add to that a multi-generational “martyr complex” in my family (”willful suffering in the name of love or duty”) and its easy to understand why I feel guilty about sitting and watching a movie or a football game.

I would imagine many business owners and entrepreneurs face similar challenges - that of overextending themselves for the sake of several good things, and yet to the detriment of all. (This should not be confused with actual selfishness - ”placing one’s own needs or desires above the needs or desires of others”)

Quoting the post, “if you don’t take care of yourself then you can’t really serve those who depend on you.” ”While it might seem noble in the short run to sacrifice the needs you have to cultivate your mind, body, and spirit, over time it’s a recipe for burnout.”

“The key is to very specifically identify how, by better meeting the expectations you have for enhancing your mind, your body, and your spirit, you are indeed making things better at work, at home, and in the community.”

So I dedicate this final thought to myself as I try to squeeze 20 hours of studying for a certification exam into my week:

“What have you done recently to take better care of yourself and strengthen your ability to perform well in the other parts of your life? In these stressful times, it’s more important than ever that we all do so.”

“Don’t care what people say, I got my attitude”
-”Attitude” by Bad Brains

I’m definitely not one of those vapid “positive attitude” people. While a positive attitude is foundational to shaping thoughts and leading to actions, it means nothing in and of itself.

So when I clicked on Phil Gerbyshak’s 5 Ways to Make a Positive Attitude and it opened by wishing me a “Happy Positive Attitude Day” I almost closed the web browser window in disgust. Once I realized it was grounded with elements of gratitude and perspective, I continued to read.

I find a lot of what passes for “Positive Attitude” is actually perspective. Good things and bad things of various degrees happen to everyone every day; keeping things perspective helps us moving forward through the bad stuff. I would put the first three tips into that category. So, here they are:

1. Reframe the situation.
2. Count your blessings.
3. Give thanks to those who’ve helped you.
4. Read or listen to something that makes you smile.
5. Smile or make a silly face for no reason.

So why am I blogging about this? As owners and managers, our attitudes have an huge impact on everyone around us; it is vital for us to keep our attitudes in check, if for no other reason than that it’s good for business. (See my Day-to-Day Management Affects Creativity series, Part I, Part II and Part III  and Negativity is Poison!)

Via 43Folders, I came across this fascinating post on project planning and as it promises, it will change your life.

The article discusses what researchers call “Hofstadter’s Law”, which can be summed up this way: “we know everything always takes longer than expected; we just seem to forget, again and again”.

Our finite minds cannot plan for unforeseen problems because they can’t foresee them.

Which explains why even the “list-makers among us get up each day and make to-do lists that by the same evening will seem laughable”. We are simply setting ourselves up for disappointment.

The two solutions are equally counter-intuitive;

1. Plan in the broadest terms possible, or
2. Simply do things without planning

Quoting the author, “sometimes, the secret to getting things done is just to do them.”

Read the post; bookmark it; print it out; e-mail it to everyone you care about -  it’s that important.

Another great post today by Seth Godin. In Is it worthy?, Seth asks us, given all the opportunities we have, are we putting our best efforts into everything we are doing? It’s always a good thing to take a step back and gain some perspective.

He takes a bit of a detour in the last paragraph, though I like where it goes. “The object isn’t to be perfect. The goal isn’t to hold back until you’ve created something beyond reproach. I believe the opposite is true. Our birthright is to fail and to fail often, but to fail in search of something bigger than we can imagine. To do anything else is to waste it all.”

Good reading.

This is essentially a follow up to “Fire the Workaholics” from last month. In Why I love working with family people, David from 37Signals contrasts “the stereotypical startup dream hire… a 20-something with as little life as possible” with employees who have families. Family men and women, he finds, have “an amazing ability to get stuff done when the objectives are reasonably clear, the work appears to have meaning, and if it can be done within the scope of what should constitute a work week. When there are real constraints on your time, like you have to pickup the kids or make them dinner or put them to bed, it appears to bring a serenity of focus to the specific hours dedicated to work. This is what companies need, startups or not.”