Audacious creativity 101

Two items converged for me this week in a flash of audacious creativity.

One:  I went to see the Book of Mormon. 

Don’t see it if the sanctity of Mormonism is even remotely important to you or if you’d rather not hear the “F” word A LOT (both spoken and sung).

Do go if you want to laught your butt off at some of the most original musical material you’ll ever see.

Two:  Sears HoldingCorps. named Paul DePodesta to their Board of Directors, he of Moneyball fame (he was kind of played by Jonah Hill), assistant to the worshipper of sabermetrics and destroyer of everything holy in the old school way of building baseball teams.

Whether Mr. DePodesta can help the perpetually failing company remains to be seen.  But he's employed fresh thinking in the past to help resuscitate failing baseball teams.  

You don’t have to turn the world on it’s head or bring something outlandish to life to create something ridiculously successful.  But it sure makes it more interesting (and potentially more lucrative). The risk vs. reward ratio may a bit challenging, but man, is your potential upside massive.

And remember:  It’s actually riskier to not take a chance when you’re firm in your convictions.

What SHOWING UP looks like

Some people SHOW UP.

Other people just show up.

If you were born with a physical attribute that makes you clearly stand out, like tremendous height or size or beauty, or a halo hanging over your head at all times, you get noticed when you walk in a room.

For the rest of us, we need to do more to get noticed. But it doesn't have to be so hard.

You can SHOW UP by doing your homework about something or somebody and asking the right questions.

Finding out what their tastes and preferences and interests are, and sending them a note in advance of a meeting.

Wearing something great.

Smiling really big and having fantastic energy and enthusiasm.

The gentleman in the picture above whose back is to us is from a faraway land where seven-foot tall people aren't unusual.  On a basketball court in the middle of nowhere, his height is not just unusual, it's intimidating. He SHOWS UP.

How do you do it?

The virtues of going both ways

Manti Te’o and Charles Woodson have nothing in common.

Actually, they both had spectacular college football careers, for two of the most storied football programs (and finest universities) in the world.  So there’s that.

But Charles Woodson won a Heisman Trophy.

And Manti Te’o hasn’t.

Yet.

And I say, give it to him.

The catch is, he only plays on defense. 

It might help his case if he could run back a kick or two or line up as a receiver and catch a couple of passes for touchdowns.

Offensive players get all the glory in football because they score all the points.  When it comes time to vote for the Heisman, the most glorified award in college football, it’s extremely rare that a defensive player wins.

Well, OK, it pretty much never happens.  Charles Woodson (University of Michigan, 1997) did it, but he’s all alone.  Out of 76 Heisman winners, he was the only primarily defensive player to ever win the award. 

But he wasn’t only a defensive player.  He also ran back punts and played receiver, and scored key touchdowns from those positions.

They call it playing on both sides of the ball.

It’s extremely infrequent in today’s era of sports specialization.  It does happen at some smaller schools and in high school, where the most skilled athletes are sometimes asked to play on both sides of the ball.

Putting aside fear of injury for a second, why wouldn’t you have more people going both ways?  Theoretically, wouldn’t you want your best athletes out there all the time?  Don’t you think they could access different aspects of their physical abilities to make plays all over the field, in all different situations?

I use the same theory when it comes to using creative thinking to solve challenges.  Regardless of the type of challenge—be it strategic or executional—wouldn’t you want to put your best people on it, and put both sides of their brains on it?

You do have two sides, you know.  You may not access one as much as the other, but they’re both there ready and raring to go.

Don’t let people convince you that you’re good at only one way of thinking. You may have been told you’re more inclined to be an organizational, controlling, logical left brainer.  Or an imaginative, artistic, emotional right brainer.

I say you’re both.

Or you could be.

When it comes to working through a challenge, think all around it.  Expand your mind.  Go places you didn’t think possible or worthy.  Read inspiring (and easy) books like A Technique for Producing Ideas.  Or intellectually provocative white papers on big data.  Go to an art museum.  Read the New York Times.  Or Cosmo.  Or People. 

Play Halo.  Play the Piano.  Play Sudoku.  Go somewhere else, physically or mentally.

Be like Charles Woodson.  Make your brain go both ways.  See what glory comes to  you. 

And Manti Te’o, you’d have my vote right now if I had one.  But it sure would be easier if you could catch one little pass for a touchdown…