Author Archives: metacool

Entrepreneurship is a Mindset

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If you’re seeking wisdom on the nature of entrepreneurship, look to art, literature, and popular culture. For example, in my experience the best guide to the nature of vision and leadership is that seminal fictional character Don Quixote. His story epitomizes how courage and clarity of vision can win the hearts and minds of others. And who hasn’t learned the brass tacks of power and influence by watching Tony Soprano in action?

If you’re open to it, there’s a wealth of inspiration and insight to be had out in the world, like this fabulous profile of entrepreneur and racer Dave Marcis:


 

Whether or not you’re interested in racing, if you want to know what it’s like to think like an entrepreneur, it’s well worth its seven minutes of run time.

I particularly love the segment that starts at the 3:28 mark, where Marcis talks about how running a small business on a shoestring budget taught him to be scrappier than scrappy. What caught my eye was this slogan hanging on the wall of his shop, pictured above:

“We have done so much, with so little, for so long, that we can now do anything
with nothing.”

This deceptively simple phrase captures the essence of entrepreneurship—that with enough persistence, optimism, and confidence, no challenge is too big. It reminded me of my favorite quote by Professor Howard Stevenson of Harvard Business School:

“Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources
currently controlled.”

When Dave Marcis talks about what he’s accomplished and how he’s done it, it becomes clear that his frame of mind was key to his success. Likewise, mindset is what enabled Elon Musk to go build rockets and cars, or Richard Turere to make peace with lions. It’s not about being in high tech, or living in Silicon Valley, or having access to a network of venture capitalists. It’s about what you tell yourself in your head: that you can build something new for the world, no matter what seems possible or reasonable.

Entrepreneurship is a mindset, one that allows you to do anything with nothing. When you decide to relentlessly pursue a dream no matter how little you’ve got, you’ve already taken the biggest step on that journey.

In Memory of Matt Kahn

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Professor Matt Kahn passed away a few weeks ago.  He was my teacher, and had a big impact on my life.

I met him during the 1990-1991 school year, which was a pivotal one for me. It’s the year where I found my North Star and got serious about pursuing my formal training as a designer.  I was fortunate to spend that summer studying at Stanford’s program at Oxford.  Most of my evenings were spent in jazz clubs in London, and on weekends I discovered the twin joys of live Formula 1 television broadcasts hosted by Murray Walker and the joy of living in a place where so much of the built environment had been designed and engineered with a high degree of consideration.  What an amazing chance to live a few months of my life as a flaneur.  Both were good food for thought.

Up to this point in college I had been unable to resolve a fundamental tension between my love of the humanities and all the writing and reading and the critical thinking which goes along with that domain, and my abiding love of all things mechanical (especially the loud and fast ones).  In a nutshell, I couldn’t figure out whether I wanted to be more like Stephen Barley or Gordon Murray.  And then one Sunday morning over an informal breakfast, a very wise fellow student suggested that I just do both and get on with it.

And so I did.  I came back to campus that Fall and formally began the mechanical engineering design curriculum, and in the spirit of doing both found a way to also study for a humanities degree via Stanford’s amazing STS program.  During that year I took an array of design classes whose lessons I still use each and every day, delivered by a truly inspiring group of teachers, including David Beach, Brendan Boyle, David Kelley, and Matt Kahn.

Matt Kahn taught his foundational Art 60 class with a classic Beaux-Arts approach, meaning that we walked in each day and placed our completed, unsigned assignments on the board (or on a table) before class, and then sat and listened the give and take of Professor Kahn’s critique as he made his way through all the content around the room.  The title of Art 60 is “Design I: Fundamental Visual Language”, and in it you had to complete a certain number of projects of your choosing from a list given out at the start of the quarter.  Professor Kahn, as David Kelley notes, had a truly singular talent for critique, and so these sessions were often some balance of intellectual enlightenment and personal (but temporary) devastation.

I really struggled for the first month or so of class.  I wasn’t getting it, not at all.  Ever persistent, I kept plugging away. One day I brought in my approach to an assignment which I believe asked you to take a small number of geometric objects and arrange them in a way that conveyed a feeling or emotion.  Using construction paper, I pasted up a composition, brought it to class, hung it on the wall, and then took a seat on one of the stools scattered around the studio.  My intention was to show what being freaked out by something feels like, and it looked like this:

metacool Art 60

Professor Kahn walked in, and looked around the room, and zeroed in on my piece of work.

Gulp.

“Who did this?” he asked, with an arch of his eyebrows.  I raised my hand up to about chest level and gave a half-hearted wave.

Calmly stepping toward me, he gave me that squint of his, cocked his head a bit to one side,  smiled a wry smile, and then slowly and in a strong voice said,”Who.  Are.  You.  Afraid.  Of?”

Here was his incredible ability to critique the work of others and express it all concisely and with great elegance.  In a millisecond he nailed exactly what I was feeling and thinking when I created that piece of artwork.  Basically, I was scared of being in Art 60.  I was frightened by the prospect of screwing up in front of Matt Kahn.  In that moment, with Professor Kahn staring at me, my internal voice was urging me to respond with the truth: “Answer him with a big ‘YOU!  It’s YOU I’m scared of, Professor Kahn!'”  But before I could stop myself, I blurted out a fuzzy statement along the lines of “Oh no no no no… what I was trying to communicate here was the sense of something being herded or corraled, you know…”

He smiled again.  Paused.  And then quietly said that it was more powerful the way he had described it, and how it worked well when seen from that perspective.  He knew.  And then he squinted again at me, gave me another dose of that inscrutable smile of his, and moved on to discussing the next student project.  I got it—I had done good, but I could do better if I could learn to embrace it all with abandon.

Great teachers have a way of seeing your potential and finding a way to get you there.  They give you challenges and allow you to fail along the way—and let you know it—but never so much that you give up on your dreams.  Matt Kahn was one of the great teachers in my life.  He built confidence in my own creative process as a designer, and for that I will be forever grateful.

Thank you, Professor Kahn.

 

Creative Connections: Patrick Dempsey

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Patrick Dempsey metacool

Here’s the first in a new series here on metacool titled Creative Connections. This series will explore how creative leaders do what they do, looking at both their own creative process, as well as how they lead creative endeavors.

I can’t think of a better way to kick off Creative Connections than a chat with Patrick Dempsey. He exemplifies creative leadership and expression across multiple domains. Many of you are familiar with Patrick as a leading man in film and television. In recent years, paralleling the careers of Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, Patrick has also been learning the art of race driving. With great grit, determination, and perseverance, he’s vaulted himself to the highest ranks of motorsports. On Saturday he will take on the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans along with teammates Joe Foster and Patrick Long. This all-American crew will pilot a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR fielded by Dempsey Del Piero Racing.

Earlier this year I spent a day in the pits watching Dempsey and team race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. I witnessed the team recover from mechanical difficulties to come within seconds of victory, a truly epic effort. Racing is a team sport and a creative endeavor, and highlights many of the challenges experienced by groups striving to reach innovative outcomes. To win, you must find a way to balance the tension between the intentional planning, training, and practice needed to be competitive, and the emergent serendipity, improvisation, and chutzpah required to make the most of the hand you’re dealt. Racing is all of that, triple-distilled.

Patrick and I caught up after his race at Laguna Seca to talk about creativity and creative leadership. His thoughts and insights reveal some intriguing creative connections.


Patrick, how would you describe your own creative process?

Very hard to answer simply. To start anything creatively you have to be moved emotionally. And then you allow the emotion to carry you in the direction you need to go.

In order to create you have to have passion.

When it comes to the arts of acting or racing, how much of it is about having a plan, and how much of it is being open to what emerges?

You want to have a plan but there is always something that happens in a race where you need to adjust. The calmer you are in those moments, the better you are at the end of the race.

Artists and athletes often describe reaching a state of flow when they’re totally focused and immersed in a situation. Everything slows down, and you feel energized, even in rapture. You’re in the groove and you do incredible work. Does that ring true to you?

Yes, there is a rapture to it, there is a spiritual feeling when you sort of just stay completely 100% present in the moment.

It’s what you hope to have in every race and every stint you’re in the car, you try to get to that place emotionally.

A team like Dempsey Del Piero Racing represents a unique combination of creativity and execution—both really matter if you’re going to win. Similarly, in an award-winning show like Grey’s Anatomy, you’re working with an ensemble of talented artists. Over the years, what have you learned about helping others reach their creative potential?

Everybody has to have ownership like an ensemble team. Everybody has a role. The more empowered each individual is, the stronger the team.There is no room for unhealthy ego. It disrupts the entire flow and chemistry of the team. There is a beautiful fellowship and camaraderie when it’s working correctly, which is why I love it.

When people live up to their potential, they push you past what your own limitations to a much higher level of performance. With a strong group you can transcend to new levels.

With your busy life on and off the racetrack, how do you stay inspired?

I try to keep my heart open.

When it comes to living a creative life, what big lessons have you learned behind the wheel of a Porsche at Le Mans?

I think I’m in the process of learning that right now. And it doesn’t stop after Le Mans.

 

(a version of this post appeared on my LinkedIn Influencers page)

How the little things can be big for your culture

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What makes an organization tick? I learned a lot about IDEO’s culture via the tiny care package pictured above. You can learn big things about a group of people by looking at the little things they create.

I received it while visiting IDEO’s studio in Boston (I work out of our offices in California). I had a packed week of meetings on opposite ends of Boston, and was bouncing from place to place, always on the go. While dashing out the door to catch a train, I was stopped by one of my IDEO colleagues, who handed me this tiny bokja and said “You look like you could use some energy on the road—take care and good luck with everything!” It was a brief encounter, but everything about our culture sits within it. Let me show you why.

In the course of my work for clients at IDEO, we get to experience many different company cultures. In order to be as effective as possible, it’s critical for us to understand what’s important to the organizations we’re collaborating with. To that end, I turn to the three-tiered model of organizational culture developed by MIT professor Edgar Schein. For Schein, the organizational culture happens at three levels:

  1. Artifacts found around the workplace, from your dress code to your furniture
  2. Your Espoused Values—the intangibles your organization publicly declares as important, from strategy to personal behaviors
  3. A set of Basic Assumptions which drive fundamental decision-making at a deep, even unconscious level

Moving from tangible to ethereal, all three can be used to describe any company culture. While values and assumptions can sometimes be fuzzy, artifacts are relatively easy to spot and read, and can reveal a lot of cultural secrets. So I’m always on the lookout for a tasty cultural artifact. It’s kind of fun, in fact.

Back to that care package: some gum, a chocolate truffle, an energy bar, and a packet of very choice Boston Baked Beans. All painstakingly wrapped in cellophane and finished with a handwritten note. What does it say about IDEO?:

  • The Artifact: pragmatic (I ate the energy bar the next day while running to a meeting, then chewed some gum) yet vivacious and a little out there (Boston Baked Beans!). Creatively yet expertly executed, all with a strong point of view and a crisp, empathic design intent: bring a little joy and relief to a colleague who is away from home.
  • Espoused Values: optimism, a sense that a fellow employee is either your friend or could be your friend, a deep desire to help everyone be the best they can be, and a commitment to enjoy the design process as a reward in itself. Plus, a belief in asking for forgiveness rather than permission, and the guts to try out new things to see how they work. Believe me, we don’t have a “Care Package” committee or department—people dream up and create things like this care package because our values encourage them to do what they think is right.
  • Basic Assumptions: we are here to be creative, we deeply value each other, and above all, we ship stuff in order to learn and grow.

That’s IDEO in a nutshell. Or a care package.

When we understand what makes a culture sing, we can focus our energy to preserve its key elements, diminish those which are a drag, and create and improve others through a process of conscious design and innovation.

 

(a version of this post appeared on my LinkedIn Influencers page)

The heart of leadership

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Like many people, I was deeply moved by the brave individuals who ignored their own safety to help victims just seconds after the recent Boston Marathon bomb blasts. How and why did they do such courageous things that day? The actions of Matt Patterson, Carlos Arredondo, Michael Chase and others in Boston speak to something deep at the heart of leadership.

What is leadership? Here’s my definition: it’s about making positive change happen which otherwise would not have happened. Action is key: when you make a difference by acting, you are leading. Knowing the right thing to do, or the right framework to use, gets you part of the way there—but that’s not leading, yet. To lead you must act on what you know and feel is right.

Now consider this brief video from 2003—each time I see it, I know I am witnessing true leadership at work:

The situation: young Natalie Gilbert is performing the Star-Spangled Banner before the start of a professional basketball game, and she stumbles. Just imagine the heartbreak of flubbing your lines in front of 20,000 strangers—at age 13. Thank goodness for the proactive kindness of Maurice “Mo” Cheeks, then the coach of the Portland Trail Blazers.

As I watch Mo Cheeks here, his actions conjure questions similar to those inspired by the Boston Marathon first responders: Of all the adults on the floor of the arena, why was he the only one to act? Why did he help without hesitation? And the big one: why did he risk his professional reputation on national television to aid a girl he didn’t know? Clearly carrying a tune is not his professional calling…

But leading is. Mo Cheeks helped Natalie because, much like those leaders in Boston, he prioritized the change needed in the world over how he might fare in the process of making it happen. He shows us that leadership demands that we act even if in doing so we jeopardize our own well-being. Because life is rarely perfect, to lead we must balance the imperfections of our present situation, abilities, and ideas against the premise of a future where we did not act. What if Cheeks hadn’t rushed to help? He certainly would have avoided embarrassment, but a young girl would have been left standing, alone. Through his leadership, Mo Cheeks not only helped another person, but lifted the spirits of everyone present—as well as all of us watching a decade later. The emotional swell of everyone singing along with Natalie is truly inspiring.

At the heart of leadership is a deceptively simple question: “Am I willing to risk my personal reputation, status, and safety for the good of others?” Sometimes in life it can feel foolhardy to rush in to try and make a difference, but doing so is rarely a foolish act. It’s an act of leadership.

 

(a version of this post appeared on my LinkedIn Influencers page)

 

John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!!

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This talk by John McWhorter is another of my favorites from TED 2013. It’s elegant, witty, informative, intelligent, entertaining, persuasive. This is so because McWhorter only gives one talk here. Allow me to say more about what I mean by that.

Something which I’ve noticed lately is the communicative power of extremely simple (almost “non-designed”) text slides like those used by McWhorter in this talk. As a speaker, when you employ projected imagery to help communicate the points of your lecture, you increase the risk of distracting your audience from the content delivered by your own voice. What I mean is that if the image you project doesn’t exactly follow the words you speak, or easily relate to them, all of a sudden you’re asking your audience to process two streams of loosely connected information. That’s a difficult task and a big ask, because you’re essentially asking your audience to process and understand two talks in parallel.

1DR -— how does this happen?

I am guilty of this transgression. I find that the probability of inflicting this harm on your audience increases when you choose imagery not of your own creation, be it a stock photo or an image that’s almost to your point, but not quite. Unsolicited advice: if the image you project isn’t the thing you’re talking about, choose a different image. Or forgo the image altogether. Better to take McWhorter’s path and employ very simple slides with very carefully selected letters and words… just a few. And those words should match those coming out of your mouth, so that the visuals reinforce what you’re saying, instead of competing with it.

This doesn’t apply to talks whose entire point is to show visual content, of course. With those, let it all run free in maximum technicolor glory.

Hope this isn’t 2M2H. 10X. 86!