Monday, August 27, 2007
The Power of Stories
I'm going to a storytelling workshop on Thursday. I've read (and assigned) books on the power of story. I'm fascinated by people who naturally tell great stories.
My friend, Eric Bell, tells off-the-beaten track stories that are always rich with detail -- such as the real frog in the real salad story, the story of meeting Sophie in Escalante, his die-on-your-cushion zendo story, and how his daughter became an acclaimed graffiti artist. Eric knows a lot of truly arcane things, but he's always able to share them in the form of a story.
My friend and colleague, Ian Davison, tells great stories about chasing venture capital, kicking a soccer ball at midnight on the beach in Ipanema, swimming in the Dead Sea and barely making curfew off the beach. Ian can lean toward the dramatic -- whether in humor or in stories.
My dad too could tell quite mesmerizing stories. Problem was you never knew fact from fiction with him. An infamous story was when placed an ad in the Village Voice stating "millionaire seeks young female violinist heard playing" on a street corner in New York. He placed this story in an "ad" in the Village Voice. And, bored NYC journalists called him, hoping to get the "scoop."
My dad ended up on Good Morning America, with his violinist (whom he found at Julliard and not on a street corner in New York), promoting his Chopin Society concert at Carnegie Hall. He also got in trouble for taking liberties with the truth and ended up on another morning news show telling more stories and, of course, taking more liberties with his narrative. He couldn't help himself, he fundamentally believed that one shouldn't let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Another colleague, from my Lotus days, Pierre Van Beneden, kept rising in stature, moving up to Executive VP Worldwide Field Operations. I remember Pierre taking the time in his 40s to invest in his own presentation skills. I've been thinking about how dramatically this work affected Pierre's ability to hold an audience and to enroll large, diverse groups -- in things ranging from strategic direction to revenue demands -- often with the power of story.
Story. It's how others step into our worlds. It's how we all best remember things of importance or any kind of complexity. And, the stories we select implicitly build our own identity and transmit our values.
Leaders, therefore, must be even more attuned to stories, what's explicit and what's embedded in them as well.
My friend, Eric Bell, tells off-the-beaten track stories that are always rich with detail -- such as the real frog in the real salad story, the story of meeting Sophie in Escalante, his die-on-your-cushion zendo story, and how his daughter became an acclaimed graffiti artist. Eric knows a lot of truly arcane things, but he's always able to share them in the form of a story.
My friend and colleague, Ian Davison, tells great stories about chasing venture capital, kicking a soccer ball at midnight on the beach in Ipanema, swimming in the Dead Sea and barely making curfew off the beach. Ian can lean toward the dramatic -- whether in humor or in stories.
My dad too could tell quite mesmerizing stories. Problem was you never knew fact from fiction with him. An infamous story was when placed an ad in the Village Voice stating "millionaire seeks young female violinist heard playing" on a street corner in New York. He placed this story in an "ad" in the Village Voice. And, bored NYC journalists called him, hoping to get the "scoop."
My dad ended up on Good Morning America, with his violinist (whom he found at Julliard and not on a street corner in New York), promoting his Chopin Society concert at Carnegie Hall. He also got in trouble for taking liberties with the truth and ended up on another morning news show telling more stories and, of course, taking more liberties with his narrative. He couldn't help himself, he fundamentally believed that one shouldn't let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Another colleague, from my Lotus days, Pierre Van Beneden, kept rising in stature, moving up to Executive VP Worldwide Field Operations. I remember Pierre taking the time in his 40s to invest in his own presentation skills. I've been thinking about how dramatically this work affected Pierre's ability to hold an audience and to enroll large, diverse groups -- in things ranging from strategic direction to revenue demands -- often with the power of story.
Story. It's how others step into our worlds. It's how we all best remember things of importance or any kind of complexity. And, the stories we select implicitly build our own identity and transmit our values.
Leaders, therefore, must be even more attuned to stories, what's explicit and what's embedded in them as well.
Monday, August 6, 2007
More on Creating
I continue to spend a lot of time thinking about "creating" vs. "creativity" of late.
I saw the movie Pride on Saturday night, which is a true story of Jim Ellis, a math teacher, who started an all black swim club, back in the 1970s, when pools were beyond scarce in the inner city of Philadelphia.
From cleaning up a decaying pool at a rec center to winning swim meets against better-funded teams, the movie follows a predictable sports hero formula: underdogs come from behind to win--and big. There's nothing particularly amazing in the screenwriting either.
Regardless of predictability, the movie touched a chord. Because it's a true story. Because it's a story of caring about something enough, like swimming and kids, to overcome all the odds. Because it's a story about focusing on what the characters "wanted more of" (and not about the infuriating and potentially derailing things that happened along the way).
The movie Pride opens up with Jim Ellis looking for a job, ultimately any job, as he was turned away from teaching opportunities for which he was qualified. He ended up in a seemingly-dead-end job cleaning up a rec facility that was to be closed.
He could have started assessing things the community genuinely wanted and needed and made proposals based on what he discovered. He could have started any number of meaningful projects that way.
However, the difference between the project he did start and the many other possibilities was how much he cared--about swimming, about teaching, and especially about kids.
Tellingly, rather than his initial success in building the Philadelphia Department of Recreation (P.D.R.) being just a resume builder, Jim Ellis, a full 35 years later, is still teaching kids to swim and to have "pride, determination, and resilience" in their lives.
When clients ask for help in "finding their passion" it's typically not a case of "finding" anything at all. It's about having the courage to want what they want, to move forward on behalf of what they want, to invoke creativity at times, but more often to be hell bent on creating something that they consider important.
So what's stirring inside you? What passion have you only hinted at? What do you deeply care about but haven't moved into action? In your answer is the seed of your next creation.
It's not so much about "finding" something or trying to become "creative" as it is about courage--the courage to create what you care about.
Here's a quote I like on the "courage to create:"
Drop me a line with your thoughts on creating at cindy@themarteneygroup.com.
I saw the movie Pride on Saturday night, which is a true story of Jim Ellis, a math teacher, who started an all black swim club, back in the 1970s, when pools were beyond scarce in the inner city of Philadelphia.
From cleaning up a decaying pool at a rec center to winning swim meets against better-funded teams, the movie follows a predictable sports hero formula: underdogs come from behind to win--and big. There's nothing particularly amazing in the screenwriting either.
Regardless of predictability, the movie touched a chord. Because it's a true story. Because it's a story of caring about something enough, like swimming and kids, to overcome all the odds. Because it's a story about focusing on what the characters "wanted more of" (and not about the infuriating and potentially derailing things that happened along the way).
The movie Pride opens up with Jim Ellis looking for a job, ultimately any job, as he was turned away from teaching opportunities for which he was qualified. He ended up in a seemingly-dead-end job cleaning up a rec facility that was to be closed.
He could have started assessing things the community genuinely wanted and needed and made proposals based on what he discovered. He could have started any number of meaningful projects that way.
However, the difference between the project he did start and the many other possibilities was how much he cared--about swimming, about teaching, and especially about kids.
Tellingly, rather than his initial success in building the Philadelphia Department of Recreation (P.D.R.) being just a resume builder, Jim Ellis, a full 35 years later, is still teaching kids to swim and to have "pride, determination, and resilience" in their lives.
When clients ask for help in "finding their passion" it's typically not a case of "finding" anything at all. It's about having the courage to want what they want, to move forward on behalf of what they want, to invoke creativity at times, but more often to be hell bent on creating something that they consider important.
So what's stirring inside you? What passion have you only hinted at? What do you deeply care about but haven't moved into action? In your answer is the seed of your next creation.
It's not so much about "finding" something or trying to become "creative" as it is about courage--the courage to create what you care about.
Here's a quote I like on the "courage to create:"
"All one can do is to achieve nakedness,
to be what one is with all one's faculties and perceptions,
strengthened by all the skill which one can acquire,
And then to stand before the judgement of time."
---Stephen Spender
Drop me a line with your thoughts on creating at cindy@themarteneygroup.com.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Creating & Creativity
One of my clients in academic medicine has a strong problem-solving culture. No surprise.
They're embarking on a huge new initiative that requires a clear vision, proactive initiative internally, and enrolling scads of people outside their organization.
They're embarking on a process of "creating the future." Many consultants would spend a lot of time on creativity exercises. The problem is that "creating" requires a burning underlying passion that carries people through a focused effort toward a specific future.
Interestingly enough, many so-called creativity experts have never created anything in their lives. They instead help people become creative in resolving problems, identifying many possibilities for addressing existing problems, problems people understand, which is not the same as creating a specific result.
It's different when you commit to a vision of a future. Robert Fritz, author of Creating, perhaps says it best: "Creating is in the realm of the noninevitable." In his book, Fritz lays out one of the most cogent processes that I've seen for creating, which includes:
They're embarking on a huge new initiative that requires a clear vision, proactive initiative internally, and enrolling scads of people outside their organization.
They're embarking on a process of "creating the future." Many consultants would spend a lot of time on creativity exercises. The problem is that "creating" requires a burning underlying passion that carries people through a focused effort toward a specific future.
Interestingly enough, many so-called creativity experts have never created anything in their lives. They instead help people become creative in resolving problems, identifying many possibilities for addressing existing problems, problems people understand, which is not the same as creating a specific result.
It's different when you commit to a vision of a future. Robert Fritz, author of Creating, perhaps says it best: "Creating is in the realm of the noninevitable." In his book, Fritz lays out one of the most cogent processes that I've seen for creating, which includes:
- Conceive Result – Define general conception of what you want to create.
- Articulate Vision – Move from many possibilities and impressions of what you want to the one you will pursue
- Assess Current Reality – Describe what you currently have compared to results you want.
- Take Action – Taking action "before you are ready" leads to real experience versus speculation and overplanning.
- Adjust-Learn-Evaluate – Plans lead to actions, which lead to direct experience, which leads to learning, evaluation, and more skillful actions.
- Building Momentum – Deadlines support momentum by driving organization and completion of next steps.
- New Places to Go – Identifying the “next place to go” focuses energy and direction and also highlights the difference between where you are & where you want to end up.
- Completion - Declaring your creation matches your vision prevents endless tinkering & allows for new projects
My long-time client, and the leader of this new initiative, has definitely been "taking action" and well before he was totally "ready," but that has built both experience (leading to increased confidence) and momentum (leading to more supporters and success).
He was pretty bold when some of his faculty worried about "problems" they could forsee in the future and he said, "We'll address those when we get there. I will welcome the chance to solve those problems. We're great at problem-solving. And, if we get to that point, it means we've realized the core of our vision, so that will be a good day for all of us."
Wow. Well done. And what focus on creation and not just creativity!
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