A riveting definition of impact

An online search of some business and innovation keywords led me to the following sentence used by a well-known organization to describe itself:
“Make a difference. Make History. Our products have captured the attention, imagination and loyalty of generations of diverse individuals since our founding over 150 years ago.”

Any organization that can claim to have such a rich cultural impact over a century and a half while also appealing to individuals to join and “make a difference” and “make history” must be quite impressive. I tried to guess what organization it was. I was way off. The above sentences came from a Levi-Strauss ad.

No disrespect to Levis or to the fashion industry but jeans were not the first thing I thought of when the search engine presented me with that sentence.

But then again, as the world has moved from local, customized artisanal production to mass production handled by global entities, the sheer size of these organizations does allow them to claim wide impact on the way people live. At large scale, whether clothing, food production, communications, transportation, retailing, or entertainment, a more efficient process or innovation in design can truly have an impact on millions of people.

The Levis ad later states that it had an impact on “activewear for women in the early 20th century” (could it have helped the passage of the 19th Amendment?) and led the “casual businesswear revolution of the 1990s” (would dotcom employees have worn suits instead?). If Levis thinks of itself in these terms, then why don’t more organizations appeal to individuals similarly?

The pastry that changed my life and a new stage for business

I recently sampled a kouign aman made by my friend Romina, who is a pastry chef superstar and an amazing person. Her kouign aman immediately became my favorite pastry. Too bad she lives two thousand miles away.

Romina was in NYC recently and worked as a stagaire at a couple of restaurants here. The concept behind the stage is that a chef will work in another’s kitchen for a day or so in order to get exposure to other techniques or cuisines. Restaurants are certainly businesses and I began to imagine whether non-food business managers could offer the same courtesy to colleagues from other organizations.

What would work the same:
- The stagaire agrees to respect specific innovations of the organization itself
- The stagaire actively contributes to the new organization
- The stagaire quickly learns and appreciates what could apply to his/her own business back home

What would work differently:
- The timeframe would need to be longer. A one-day stage in an office probably wouldn’t suffice, whereas a one-day stage in a restaurant would
- While anyone in an organization as a stagaire would be trusted by the owner/manager, their presence may be viewed differently by compliance organizations and other employees. Security issues would need to be addressed
- In non-food businesses, the stagaire may be better off observing, sitting in on meetings and discussing with the manager at day’s end

In a sense, the traditional management consultant is something of a reverse stagaire, going into a new organization for a time to bring in ideas and processes from outside and not necessarily having the relevance to apply what he/she sees on the client side to the consultancy. Other than consultants, typical business stage-like exchanges include the formal (case studies, articles, best practices) and the informal (talking business outside of work). It’s important to do this, no matter what business you’re in.

Fool’s return?

Beatrice Otto’s book “Fools Are Everywhere” reintroduces the role of the Fool (or Jester) in history around the world. In many past royal and religious courts, Fools acted as a type of advisor to the leadership, having close access to the leadership and the context in which to say anything. Only the Fool could speak so directly, simply and humorously to the leadership and by doing so change accepted thinking and get results.

With the commonplace seriousness of many business organizations, this can a difficult role to reintroduce, though some organizations have attempted just that. A notable example was the Corporate Jester position that Paul Birch held at British Airways (until he was… dismissed). Smaller, more entrepreneurial organizations may take more kindly to the role, but then again, by being less hierarchical in the first place, they may not need it as much. David Firth, author of "The Corporate Fool" offers instruction on the roles that a Corporate Jester should take to make a positive organizational difference. These roles are: alienator, confidant, contrarian, midwife (creative thinking), jester, mapper (knowing who knows), mediator, satirist, truthseeker.

These are basically the types of behavior we would expect to be found informally throughout a healthy organization.

Would Fools have made a difference to the behavior of businesspeople engaged in dubious behavior, such as stock option backdating, sub-prime mortgage issuance, or accounting scandals? This is a tough question but I believe that the difference is that Fools in the past could absorb enough of an understanding of the issues to comment with clarity, direction and wit. Today’s business problems may be more complex (as in the financial scandals) and impenetrable (requiring technical knowledge).

Therefore, if the role of the Fool has a future in modern organizations, it must be spread out among the many, not concentrated in one person. I believe that some creative organizations have accomplished just that through selective hiring and an open culture. We’ll see where it goes.

Round the island

I recently walked around the perimeter of Manhattan – 32 miles – and that walk became a metaphor for me.

I’ve lived in NYC for six years and most of that walk covered places I had never been. During the walk I met people I never would have met otherwise, saw things I wouldn’t have otherwise, including driftwood sculptures, an enormous abandoned trellis, the big Columbia “C” visible from the Harlem River, a fisherman who caught a 2 foot fish.

No matter where you live or where you work, how often do you “walk around your island”?

Importance of a story

Part of consulting work is the analysis of data. But typically, the analysis itself is not what is most difficult. The more difficult parts tend to be gaining access to good data and knowing how to interpret the data. From that point, patterns, cause-effect relationships and forecasts are possible. That is also where there is value to the client. So in effect, the value comes from knowing what story the data tell you.

This is very different from starting out with a story or from making up a story.

I was thinking about what is analogous to this in the non-consulting world and I remembered my own experience learning about modern art. Much of the value of a piece of art comes from the depth of the story behind the piece. Let me explain.

One gallery I frequent is Murray Guy in New York. The first time I went to the gallery in 2003 one piece of artwork was almost invisible to me – the piece was a pile of crates. My eyes literally skipped over them and looked elsewhere. But after talking to the gallery owners I learned that those crates were made by Dave Muller, an artist who appreciated the work of Andre Cadere, who in turn was an artist who made painted wooden poles (Barres de Bois) and left them in galleries as a disturbance. Muller, unable to afford to buy one of Cadere’s wooden poles instead made crates that matched them in size, like carrying cases.

Getting access to the data (seeing the crates) and knowing what to do with the data (uncovering the history) led to getting the value (understanding the story).

Artwork, like business data, may be high or low in value to the consumer or client in relation to the story told.

What small business teams can learn from jazz

- The better you listen, the better you play and the better the group sounds
- Everybody has a role
- Low hierarchy can work well
- Even solos take place within the context of the group
- By following a few simple rules, you can make great things happen

Rules of lunch, or Why to take a break

A few years ago I had a client who was a senior member of a large real estate development firm. During one lunchtime conversation he looked back over a career that spanned 40 years and talked about a few of the things he had accomplished of which he was proud. One of them, curiously, was his “lunch policy”. He has lunch almost every day in the office with colleagues of all levels. At lunch he has two rules. First, if you are busy with something or have other plans you take care of lunch yourself and don’t disrupt the lunch of others. Second, at the lunch table no discussion of work is allowed.

In the past, when I worked at a traditional management consulting firm I found that to many colleagues, lunch was just a time of day when you happened to eat while working. The idea of leaving the office to eat somewhere else while not working was foreign and the perception of having done so was to be avoided. I could never understand why people could think that being seen working through lunch would make them more effective or raise their perceived value to the firm. Eventually I came to eat lunch with the colleagues who felt the same way I did or with clients who never even heard of the issue.

I never could figure out what kept the others so busy. In fact, I came to believe that they were always working because they were less efficient due to the fact that they were, you guessed it, always working.

My recommendation is to take a break, go out, walk around, refresh your mind and be more productive.

Memory as art

I saw something recently that reminded me of an earlier post (Your Brain Is Not a Closet). A month or so ago I attended a gallery opening at BUIA Gallery in Chelsea of Eve Tremblay’s “Becoming Fahrenheit 451”. Ms. Tremblay actually recited Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 from memory (ok, with some starts and stops, but still, what an amazing accomplishment). Like the characters in the novel who memorize books, Ms. Tremblay reminded us of how powerful memory is if we develop it.