How to enjoy your job without killing your career

As I was setting up for a client workshop recently, plenty of team members walked past the meeting room stopped, looked in and said something like:

'Gee that looks creative'

'Wow, that's gonna be a fun session'

'Oh I wish I was in THIS session, not the dull one next door'. 

What secret creative things were in my workshop? Coloured pieces of paper and markers. That's it! That's all it took to make a space look and feel creative. It made people want to be in the room.

Some workspaces can be bland, uninteresting and crowded with workified clutter that they're not inspiring us to be innovative, creative or game changing. 

Our future career success depends on what we do now, how we approach challenges
and handle problem solving.  

We may not have the option of bringing bean bags and table tennis tables into our workspaces but we can make our own space creative. Especially the space between our ears!

You don't need much to get away from dull and duller, bland and boring, stacks of white paper and clinical walls and spaces. Even a few bricks of Lego can be a great start.

The booming popularity of the colourful blocks and the Lego Serious Play method shows people want to find new, creative and engaging ways to do things. 

 

The fact is, you can do better work
when you use play.

 

Ellen Grove presented a session on using Lego at a conference I attended and I share my visual notes from that session above. Ellen outlined how to get creative and playful using Lego, for the sometimes dull task of gathering information for a project. The four steps she presented are:

1. Constructing: make something with those blocks
2. Give meaning: explain what it is, what it means
3. Make a story: create and share a story about what you've made, what it means
4. Reflect & Incubate: think about what you've created, and what's next, how can you action this?

That workshop session was the busiest, loudest, most collaborative, laughter-filled room at the conference!
People went WILD for it!

If you think 'we couldn't do that at our workplace', have a read of David Gauntlett's contribution to the book 'Lego Studies'; here's the chapter he wrote on using Lego as a tool for thinking, creativity and changing the world.

You can enjoy your job, be creative, play, contribute to innovative solutions and 'bring it', without killing your career. In fact your career depends on you finding ways to tackle the challenges in front of you. 

See what you can build. You'll know the impact just one tiny creative toy block can have if you've ever stepped on one in bare feet!

Blue-Sky Thinking, Strategy & Story

Blue sky thinking is up there, out there, up ahead….
 
We can’t see it yet but we have many ideas, possibilities, hopes. Blue sky thinking isn’t cliché; it’s thinking where there are no preconceptions and no limitations by current beliefs.
 
When you put blue sky thinking to work – at work, at home, or anywhere else in your life or community – see it as three stages or steps, not just the singular step of thinking.
 
See it as:

1. Thinking
2. Strategy
3. Story

 
Once you’ve done the ‘out there’ thinking, convert it to action and create the strategy that will reinforce and bring the thinking to life.
 
Yet many organisations stop at this point.
 
‘We’ve got the strategy; see this spreadsheet and these tables and documents; that’s the strategy’
 
Not so fast. I think you need to push on and create something else: the story that spreads the image and vision of those possibilities that you’re working towards.
 
Make the thinking and strategy more tangible, possible, visible and real – after all, those on the team who will be enacting the strategy may not have had the benefit of weeks (or months or years) of discussions, debates and conversations that you and the team have had in creating it.
 
Go beyond the the blue sky thinking; translate it to the strategy… and then go further and craft the storythat will bring the thinking to life, down on the ground where great work is getting done.
 
An example: 
A current project I’m working with a senior leader on is helping the team visualise ‘what good looks like’. The team has plenty of challenging work ahead of them. A visual map, strategy and story will bring their blue sky thinking to life, bringing it closer and making it more possible, attainable and less abstract.
 
The bottom line is:
it’s helps people make sense of it all, connecting dots and seeing where they are on the path to reaching the blue sky.

3 Questions to help them 'get it'

Speaking with a leader last week and there was that frustration you get when people in the team and across the business just don’t ‘get it’.

The leader said 'people aren't understanding what the change project is really about, even though there have been plenty of presentations, packs, information sessions and hours spent talking about the information.'
 
Yes there’s plenty of information available, but which pieces are important; how do you help people make sense of it… and quickly?
 
My distilled visual is from a presentation by Tom Shanley on Interactive and Immersive Data Visualisation and there's some insight there about beautiful, insightful and functional information. 
 
When there’s a torrent of information flooding in from all directions, people are secretly asking three questions in their mind:

1. What are you trying to tell me?
2. What’s the story?
3. What am I meant to be looking at?

The rise of infographics and data visualisations certainly help convey deep information and data quickly, clearly and with creative appeal.
 
These and other visuals work because our eyes see patterns – it’s Gestalt Theory. Images help people see the trees and the forest ... and helps it become a two-way conversation.

And what's so beautiful about information? I love thumbing through David McCandless' book 'Information is Beautiful' (also called The Visual Miscellaneum in some countries). It's one for the coffee table, reception or waiting area or the meeting room, to give you a boost of visual inspiration. 
 
So what do you need to help people ‘get’ right now? Answer this:

1. What are you trying to tell them?
2. What’s the story?
3. What are they meant to be looking at?

Answer those questions and you'll help people 'get it' and make sense of it all – otherwise it’s all too much and they'll give their attention to someone else answering those three questions.

Is there a meme in your message?

So you've got this message and information you need to share, spread, roll out or deliver to people.

You want them to take it up, listen to it, understand it, know it, trust it and love it so bad that they'll 'do it' and then share it with others so more people listen, understand, know, trust, ....

But wait.. what! They're not? They must be. Aren't they?

Not only are they not sharing it as you'd like, they're not acting the way you'd like. They haven't taken it (fully) on board, and they haven't changed their behaviour.

In fact it's worse than you think; they have done something with it! They're making fun of it. (Yes they are; just not in front of you.)

They've found the funny in it. They're sharing that. They've found the laughing bit, the rude bit, the cheeky bit and the risky bit. They've found the part that is shareable ... and unfortunately it's not your PR-speak "key message".

Every message needs a meme 
A meme is a central idea, a shareable, viral, culture-based and symbolic message - every message needs ... a meme. Without it, your message is just, bluh.

That's not to say your change or leadership message needs Grumpy cat or some Rickrolling or even Shark number 2 - but it does need:

• a clear idea on why they should care
• an element that just has to be shared with others; and
• a visual punch that hits them between the eyes.

With the rise of Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, Snapchat and other smartphone and visual social sharing tools, you've got to create a clearer visual picture of your message so that it can be passed on.

'Meme' comes from the Greek word 'mimeme' to mimic or imitate. (Yes, well they might be imitating your message but not how you'd like them to be!)

Get meme therapy
Go get some contemporary meme therapy here at Meme Generator and you can see what people are buying in to, understanding, altering, editing and sharing. (I make no apologies for the naughty or 'inappropriate' memes that might be at that link. They're memes after all!)

Then you can go deeper into the thinking on the physics of it all from Nova Spivack, or check out the research behind memes from biologist Richard Dawkins and his work on evolution and how things spread... (and mutate) including his views on how the internet has hijacked the meme.

Pause. Before you punch out a list of BS bullet points on that slide deck for your presentation, spend some more thinking time to craft, create and generate something that will stick, transfer, build and ... live on.

Give them something they want to mimic... for good.

What great tribal leaders do

We hang out with people who are similar; we flock to groups and tribes. It's a natural thing - we've always formed tribes. 

Psst! Take a look around - who's in your tribe? Which tribes are you part of?

And in your workplace, space, team or community, how are you building a tribe?

As Dave Logan presents in his TED talk on Tribal Leadership, great tribal leaders connect people between tribes.

Connecting people. That's the work great tribal leaders do. They cross silos and bridge the chasms that exist in organisations. My visual notes this issue were captured as I listened to Dave Logan's talk. 

Hey, it's through our tribes that good work gets done and the important things get ticked off, shaped, shared and shipped.

I also enjoy thought leader Michael Henderson's blog, books and work as a corporate anthropologist on the topic of cultures at work. He talks about creating 'cultures worth belonging to'.  

As a leader of your tribe today, what are you doing? How are you connecting across and between tribes?