'Well that's nice but I don't draw'

If you've checked out any of the sort of work I do you'll see I help people communicate and engage with each other - better than they're doing now. 

Visual thinking is part of it. 

There's a lot of 'I don't draw' out there when I arrive in a workplace to run a half or full day session on visual thinking. 

Actually folks, it's not about the drawing. It's about the THINKING. 

Say it like this : 'I don't think'. 

Well... you do. 

If you don't think that visuals can play a part in how you engage or think or sell your message and thinking to someone else, you can read some more here and here.

When you use visual skills, you'll really 'get it' because the people you're communicating with 'get it'. The process of engaging with them will be so much sweeter - even if you're having a rip roaring disagreement with them!

And I think it's so selfish to say 'I don't draw' - as if it's all about you! When you're working to communicate with someone it's actually all about them! So it's time to move on folks....

Untangle Thinking

Get Things Straight

Make Something of It 

Commercial - with Care

A colleague of mine is struggling financially at the moment. 

She works in her own business and is often very busy... her weeks are filled with lots of meetings, workshops, consulting and providing advice and help to clients. She cares so very much about helping people and organisations through change, conflict and communication.

In short, she's doing what I'd call 'important work'. And she cares so very, very much. 

A big focus of her work is with community and not for profit organisations. But she also offers coaching advice to well-salaried executives. 

Money-wise, on the 'commercial' side of the balance sheet, she is doing it tough. To shift the whole money mindset thing, Peter Cook's "The Money Workshop" would be ideal for her!

But I'm seeing an even bigger picture here and that is this model of Commercial With Care. I think every business, every practice, every entrepreneur has this model literally in front of them when they're working on their important work. 

The two axes are about commercialism and care. When people are care-less and they're not taking a commercial approach to their work, they'll be struggling for years. They're not doing good work and they're not earning a living from it. They serve no one.

If still they care-less but have a strong commercial focus, they make the big bucks but there's a trail of injured souls lying on the roads behind them. Ruthless, self-serving and self-centred - it's not a pretty picture.

Shift up to where people really do give a hoot about others, and you'll see they're so very, very care-full. They give and serve and do important work. But if they're not commercial, they'll struggle. In a sense, they will over-serve; they keep giving without due return. Whether this is their own mindset at work, the way an industry has evolved or the way a market is, it's a disappointing situation. Such great work - but not appropriately remunerated.

The goal is to get to the position of being able to serve all. You do great work, you are care-full and you realise that when you commercialise your thinking and your services, you'll be able to serve yourself as well as the people you care about. These people can be family, friends, clients, colleagues, volunteers, organisations, causes, charities.

You won't be able to serve anyone if you don't take a commercial approach to the brilliant stuff you know. You can have both. You can be commercial and do wonderful, care-full work.

Don't apologise for the great work you do. And certainly don't decide it's discountable before you've even put it 'out there'.

You end up serving no one - least of all yourself. And if you're not serving yourself, you'll never be able to do important work for others. 

Where were you when the lights went out?

A colleague just posted an update about her workplace this afternoon :

No servers at work, so no phones, computers or internet... Manager is talking about using pens & paper... retraining on a Friday arvo!

You know the feeling - when the network is down or the power is off. 

We go to do things automatically, habitually. 'Oh, I'll look that up on the inter....oops, no power...' or 'I'll send him an email about ... oh yeah, no servers'

There's a film from the late 1960s called 'Where were you when the lights went out' with Doris Day and a cast of other greats who were a little stuck when a huge blackout impacted millions of people. 

When a communication technology we rely on stops, breaks or shuts down, what do you do?

Do you simply sit and wait it out? Or go for a coffee? Or sit, chat, wander around and .... well.... wait?

I think that a few moments, minutes, hours without modern communication technology is the ideal time to literally retrain your brain. 

YES! Get the pens and paper out.

1. Sketch out some thinking about that project you're working on
2. Draw up the pros and cons of that decision you still haven't made
3. Recap the key points from the stakeholder workshop you were in
4. Bullet point the top 3 actions you'll follow up on tomorrow
5. Doodle while you just r-e-l-a-x

You don't need to be able to draw to make great use of analogue tools. You just need to make use of the tools, more often than you're probably doing now. 

They will unlock some new ways of thinking, seeing and processing; if you involve someone else in your conversation you'll be collaborating, working together and thinking; and you'll likely see some possibilities that you'd missed previously. 

Rather than it being an inconvenience, see it as a gentle force to develop.

It's like the acronym I heard yesterday: AFGO - another freakin' growth opportunity! 

Describe, design and plan your idea

When you need to capture thinking and ideas or test out future ways of working in the business, it can be challenging to work out model, process or thinking tools you'll use.

What? You don't use any model or tool?

There are lots out there - so if you're yet to flip through the book 'Business Model Generation', check it out.

Every week I use the business model generation techniques with entrepreneurs, solo operators and leaders of business units and teams. It's a brilliant one-canvas approach to strategic and entrepreneurial thinking.

Brilliant because you can play, describe, design and come up with ideas about your business model thinking. 

How might this work?
Who would this serve?
How would we get it to them?
What relationships would be needed?

Best of all, when you're testing out business model thinking, you can work with the Business Model Canvas - a pdf to print out and use as the basis of a meeting, workshop or think tank. There's also the app I use on my ipad to invent, discuss, plan and collaborate on business thinking.

And Business Model Generation encourages you to combine the Post-it note and the canvas - woo hoo - you get to move things around, keep it visual, collaborative, innovative and more likely to create outcomes that will have legs. 
 
Check out the book, the model and the approach ... and get greater leverage and impact from your ideas. 

Toying with an idea

The news was all so serious today - it usually is. And I don't find that to be an inspiring way to 'get creative' and 'be innovative' when I'm working on the thinking in my business. 

So I change the way I'm thinking and I "toy with an idea". 

Toying means to be casual and less serious about something. You see kids doing it so much more often than adults do. 

To get casual and less serious, I have a look around my desk and office and I go from there...

Looking around, close at hand I can see:

• a china cow money box with a Happy New Year headband on;
• a stuffed toy goat hand-puppet that sings tunes from The Sound of Music;
• a small bongo drum I picked up at a conference event;
• a pair of my dad's thick rimmed 1950's glasses with the lenses pushed out;
• a pen with a helicopter on top of it;
• a furry pencil case;
• three juggling bean bags;  

... and on and on. This is not a tidy, neat, everything in it's particular place office.

I have props and cues and creative things that help me toy with ideas. I might take my hands off the keyboard and pick up something, wander around, talk out loud, see something outside, get an idea, write it down, or put two or more of the toys together - kaboom!

Your best creative thinking isn't likely to come staring at this screen. Touch something else and have play, a walk, a think, a talk, and be less casual, less serious. All work with no toy makes the sandpit a big yawn!