The Entrepreneurial Savant

- Jean Cocteau
Sometimes criticism is a sign that you are on the right track. Often, when we are pursuing a personal dream or vision, our actions and decisions may seem completely off base to others. They begin to second guess or constructively criticize our actions to make them fit their view of reality. Sometimes this can be a help but other times you should be careful to trust the individuality of your path and keep following it. As Cocteau implies, lose your personal style and risk losing yourself.

No Comments yet »

Contrary to what our society teaches us, the $7 an hour burger cook who makes a great burger is earning their wages as much or more than the $50 an hour executive dashing from meeting to meeting. Both are working hard to do what they are paid to do and do it as well as they can. Unfortunately, it is common and almost acceptable to put no value on other people’s work unless they make more than you or are perceived as somehow better or more successful. I’ve seen craftspeople doing extremely skilled work treated as a subhuman species by others who probably couldn’t describe what they accomplished that day if you asked them- but who earn high salaries or have ‘serious’ job descriptions. The point of this diatribe is that work well done is admirable and respectable no matter what it is or who is doing it.

No Comments yet »

Improvisation is the basis of creativity. It usually means altering your viewpoint of what you already have to work with so that you can make others see it differently. It seldom means creating something from nothing.
The master improvisational artists of our time are jazz musicians. Saxophonist Warren Marsh spelled a simple formula for musical improvisation:
• Sing the melody in time
• Sing the roots of the chords in time
• Sing the 1 5 7 of the chords in time
• Improvise on the 1 5 7 of the chords
Those of us who are musicians will understand this and also understand that this simple formula for working around a melody opens up an enormous world of musical possibilities. The musician with talent and skill will make the most interesting and moving choices.
For the non-musicians I’ll offer an interpretation (improvised of course) of Mr. Marsh’s formula.:
• Learn the basics of what you have to work with; the roots
• Find those elements that are the foundations and eliminate everything else
• Take that foundation and improve upon it, polishing it to bring out the strengths
• Combine those shining strengths and go with where it takes you
Too esoteric? Try applying this process to something mundane you do that needs a change. You might find a refreshing tune under all that orchestration.

No Comments yet »

Are you a logical hard-headed business person? Write a poem and send it out to a hundred of your friends, associates, customers, competitors and enemies (I hope you don’t have any). The results may surprise you. If nothing else, it keeps people from solidifying their impressions of you. You know what a solidified impression looks like don’t you? Cement.
To avoid being as exciting as concrete, do the unexpected. If you’re a pale-faced geek, train and run a marathon. Make sure you prominently display a picture of yourself triumphantly crossing the finish line in your office where your co-workers can see it. If you’re a mud spattered artist, show up for a lunch meeting in a three piece suit. If you’re going on a date with someone who may already have a certain idea of what you’re like, break the mold, do something wild. If you’re normally wild, go low key and classy. Whatever unexpected behavior you do, make sure you do it as though it is a piece of cake, even if it means practicing and studying fine wines or belting out a blues song at a local dive.
Doing the unexpected makes you a more interesting person, both to others and to yourself. Good preparation will help you to enjoy the process and will reduce your fear of failure. Try it, you’ll be amazed at the results.

No Comments yet »

A rainmaker is someone who makes things happen. In a business she may bring in new sales when things are slow. In a creative situation, he may break up logjams and get things going again. Being a rainmaker means taking situations where things are not happening and looking for a way, sometimes any way, to get the momentum back. Rainmakers look for new angles, they throw ideas on the table, no matter how absurd or unusual, they ask people to do things outside of their job description or expertise and they look at a process that is stopped up and try to find a way around the stop.
Rainmaking is a skill requiring creative thinking and the nerve to go out on a limb. Sometimes it might mean being the first to say or do something that everyone has been hesitant to do. Often, it means diverting attention way from the thorny difficulty that has everybody stymied and back onto the bigger picture. Rainmakers say things like ‘Is this worth the effort?’ or ‘let’s just pick one small problem, solve it and then go on to the next’. They ask secretaries and dock workers what they think. Whatever gets the job done.
Rainmakers always find their way to the center and take the risks that take them to the next step. The best ones develop the people and listening skills that help them enlist others into their rainmaking.

No Comments yet »

Imagine if, when you were a baby and just learning how to walk, you fell several times and just decided that walking wasn’t for you? The only way to learn and experience new skills is to start as a beginner, realizing that all those experts around you were beginners once. Interestingly, if those experts are really interested in their skill, they’ll welcome your first clumsy attempts and provide help all along the way. Whether you’re starting a new business venture, learning how to kayak or going back to school after years away, you have a great learning advantage: You’re a beginner. Exploit your ignorance by using it to get the ‘experts’ to help you. It’s human nature to want to help others with knowledge we already have. Just remember when you’re an old hand and some greenhorn is struggling along behind you to turn around and lend a hand. It can make all the difference.

No Comments yet »

When I first started writing and for a long time after that I always considered myself a creative person. I played music and was good at problem solving at work. My definition of a creative person was one who created original ideas, stories and concepts, coming from some mysterious internal source. That’s still a part of my definition of creativity but now I’ve discovered that this kind of creativity is only half of the creative equation and to my surprise, not necessarily my most effective half.
This kind of creativity is content creativity. It is the source of art and music at the composition level, entrepreneurship and idea generation. It’s the resource we tap into when we brainstorm for new ideas. The other half of the creativity equation is process. Process is how we put those ideas to work, how we get the paint on the canvas, how that new company sprints ahead of it’s competition. One example might be found in your neighborhood fast food joint. The burgers and fries are the content, the semi-automated methods used to get them to you quickly is the process. In the case of fast food (and many other franchise type businesses), the process is what makes them successful and what makes you go there. The process results in fast, consistent tasting, hot food every time you drive through. These companies have realized that their process is what makes successful, rather than their cheeseburgers. On the other side of the coin, the one of a kind restaurant specializing in a local delicacy may be more content-oriented. However, even the mom and pop restaurant must be focused on process to remain profitable.
Finding new methods to process ideas is in itself a creative act, though one of a totally different nature. Process and content cannot exist without one another. When you’re faced with a difficult problem to solve, try separating it into two components. One is the basic creative material involved, the other is the process used to make that raw material into a solution or product. By separating content from process, it becomes much easier to identify the nature of a problem and apply the right kind of solution.

No Comments yet »

 *Virginia Satir

When problems crop up look for the specific problems and attach specific solutions to them. It is easy to generalize when something seems difficult to cope with or is beyond your immediate ability to solve or resolve. Virginia Satir was a founder and very effective practitioner of family therapy. She believed in getting immediate results from therapy rather than discussing problems endlessly. Going for the specific source of a conflict was one of her most effective tactics for helping families change the way they interact. This problem solving approach of avoiding generalities can serve as the first step in the process of handling difficult situations or challenges. Look for specifics.

No Comments yet »

Listening is a skill that has become increasingly vital in our busy self-centered society. Active listening means listening with your full attention, in the here and now. It means listening with a clear head, without making judgments. More importantly it means listening with your other senses. What is the person’s tone of voice? Is it calm and relaxed, nervous and jumpy, high pitched, slow and hesitant? What about their physical presence? Are they intimate or reserved, breathing slowly or rapidly? Are they perspiring or red-faced? Do they make eye contact or do they appear to be looking inward? Where are their hands? Do they gesture or hide? Non-verbal communication is as much as 60% of the message-bearing part of our interaction with others.
Once you’ve become aware of the other person’s non-verbal communication you can start to match it, relaxing with them, walking along when they get up and move around, responding quickly when their thoughts are moving at a fast pace. If they are leaning towards you and speaking in something close to a whisper, lean in, match their tone and volume and listen to the message behind the words. These techniques will help you achieve a rapport with the other person, bringing you both in sync and establishing common ground for the expression of ideas, desires and questions.
You cannot successfully listen when you are preoccupied with your own agenda. And unless you learn and practice active listening skills you will have difficulty communicating and sharing your vision with others.

No Comments yet »

Have you ever wondered what it is that makes it possible for some human beings to regularly perform at levels far above average? Why some athletes, musicians, counselors, communicators and leaders get far better results consistently than their peers? It used to be an accepted fact that these people were exceptionally gifted in ways that the rest of us could not hope to emulate. Recently there have been breakthroughs in the study of exceptional performance that make it possible to learn from these prodigies. By using a technique known as modeling, people are studying the personal strategies that highly skilled individuals use and putting them into form that can be taught to others.
Classically trained musicians are required to memorize extremely complex pieces of music, taking into consideration a very large number of factors including tempo, pitch, tone, feel, the interaction with other musicians, physical and mental technique, the response of the audience and many other elusive factors. By modeling the interior techniques used by musicians talented in these skills, it has become possible to teach others the process they use to achieve. They may use visualization techniques, mnemonic devices, and other techniques to help them get through a piece. By breaking these strategies down into processes, they can be taught to others.
Is there someone you admire who has abilities you would like to develop? Talk to them about the thought process they go through to prepare themselves. Observe the physical rituals they use. Read biographies and interviews for clues about the mental techniques used to get to that highly capable state. Modeling is a very complex process but even a rudimentary awareness of how it works can help you to learn faster and more effectively.

No Comments yet »