Allan Savory, innovating from first principles

How do you recover from failure, if at all?  Two of my principles for innovating deal directly with the reality of failing:

If you’re trying to push for a better world, you will fail.  The question is, how do you learn from it?  At a personal level?  As an organization?  As a society?

Allan Savory gave a stunning talk earlier this month at TED where he described his personal quest to build success on top of a monumental failure he experienced relatively early in his life.  Here’s an explanation of of that failure, in his own words:

When I was a young man, a young biologist in Africa, I was involved in setting aside marvelous areas as future national parks. Now no sooner — this was in the 1950s — and no sooner did we remove the hunting, drum-beating people to protect the animals, then the land began to deteriorate, as you see in this park that we formed. Now, no livestock were involved, but suspecting that we had too many elephants now, I did the research and I proved we had too many, and I recommended that we would have to reduce their numbers and bring them down to a level that the land could sustain.

Now, that was a terrible decision for me to have to make, and it was political dynamite, frankly. So our government formed a team of experts to evaluate my research. They did. They agreed with me, and over the following years, we shot 40,000 elephants to try to stop the damage. And it got worse, not better.

Loving elephants as I do, that was the saddest and greatest blunder of my life, and I will carry that to my grave. One good thing did come out of it. It made me absolutely determined to devote my life to finding solutions.

I’ll leave it to you to listen to the way that Allan Savory learned from his failure and created long-term success from what he learned.

I can see several of my principles for innovating at work in Savory’s work.  First, he is a keen observer of landscapes through time.  He learns by doing, and finds inspiration in facts experienced in the first person.  That is Principle One at work.

Second, he understands that you can learn your biggest life lessons when things go horribly wrong.  This is Raney’s Corollary at work, that you only learn when things start breaking.  Avoiding failure at all costs leads to paralysis and nothing ever ventured, but ignoring failures when they happen leads to self-deception and ventures attenuated.  You’ll never really reach remarkable if you ignore negative data flowing your way — listening to negative feedback is what gives you the basis for a smart pivot.  As you can hear above, Savory has fully embraced the hard lessons of a decisions which resulted in the needless destruction of thousands of elephants.  He now uses the wisdom gained to drive his quest to find out the root causal mechanisms behind desertification.

Third, Savory’s story is that of an innovator who understands the power of going back to first principles.  As any physicist or mathematician knows, when you go back and look — really look — at the immutable contraints and rivers behind a situation, you are apt to make connections about true causality which are impossible to reach for folks dealing only at a symptomatic layer of information.  Being able to step back and look deeply at a situation in order to perceive its essence is a core talent of great innovators.  And it can be cultivated, I believe.  It’s what kids do quite naturally.  A return to beginner’s mind is what helped Allan Savory create this remarkable process innovation, which I hope will save not just many elephants through time, but entire ecosystems.

Being honest the Harry Weathersby Stamps way

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Never underestimate the value of being honest — deeply honest — when you’re working as part of a team.

Learning to express what you’re thinking in a truthful but respectful way is a foundational skill for people who work with others to bring cool stuff to life.  Which I believe means pretty much all of us.  Too little honesty and you’ll have a pleasant working atmosphere but end up shipping something mediocre or just plain wrong; too much honesty and you won’t ship anything at all, because the team will dissolve before your very eyes.  Being honest without coming across as a blunt jerk will win you friends, help you ship amazing things, and probably get you promoted, too.  We can all get better at this — it’s a life journey kind of thing.

How dear to my heart, then, is this amazingly disarming statement coined by the late Harry Weathersby Stamps, who was a professor at Gulf Coast Community College.  It’s meant to be lobbed when you need your audience to be absolutely clear that you are about to speak from the heart:

“I am not running for political office or trying to get married”

Is that amazing, or what?  Try it out in your next project status review session, and let me know how it goes.

Harry Weathersby Stamps, pictured above, passed away this past Saturday.  It’s well worth your while to read his charming obituary, which is American prose at its best.

Read more here: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sunherald/obituary.aspx?n=harry-stamps&pid=163538353#storylink=cpy

Sugata Mitra: experience the world

Last week I was fortunate to participate in the TED conference in Long Beach.  I learned a ton and it sparked a lot of new thoughts for me, which I will be writing about here on the pages of metacool for the next few weeks. 

One of my favorite moments was this talk by education innovator Dr. Sugata Mitra.  It's his acceptance speech for this year's TED Prize.  From the standpoint of technique, I admire it for his masterful interweaving of humor, information, and narrative; for those interested in the art of public speaking, it's a master class. 

Of course, he didn't win the prize for being able to give a good speech, he won it for what he's accomplished and for his vision going forward, and I'll allow you to learn about those via his own words here:

Here's a particularly thought-provoking section of Mitra's talk:

Well, I bumped into this whole thing
completely by accident. I used to teach people how to write computer programs
in New Delhi, 14 years ago. And right next to where I used to work, there was a
slum. And I used to think, how on Earth are those kids ever going to learn to
write computer programs? Or should they not? At the same time, we also had lots
of parents, rich people, who had computers, and who used to tell me, "You
know, my son, I think he's gifted, because he does wonderful things with computers.
And my daughter — oh, surely she is extra-intelligent." And so on.

So I
suddenly figured that, how come all the rich people are having these
extraordinarily gifted children? What did the poor do wrong? I made
a hole in the boundary wall of the slum next to my office, and stuck a computer
inside it just to see what would happen if I gave a computer to children who
never would have one, didn't know any English, didn't know what the Internet
was.

The children came running in. It was
three feet off the ground, and they said, "What is this?"

And I said, "Yeah, it's… I don't
know."

They said, "Why have you put it
there?"

I said, "Just like that."

And they said, "Can we touch
it?"

I said, "If you wish to."

And I went away.

About eight hours
later, we found them browsing and teaching each other how to browse. So I said,
"Well that's impossible, because — How is it possible? They don't know
anything."

Of course, those kids knew "something" because they were willing to mess around with a computer and fail until they knew how to make it work.  Kids are ever open and curious.  They learned by doing.

What's striking about Dr. Mitra's life journey and his ensuring discoveries is that he's so deeply rooted in experiencing the world instead of talking about experiencing the world.  He is an expert on education, but is no mere theorizer.  He is a doer.  He had a hunch, and acted upon it by putting a computer in a hole in the wall.  He learned something from that experiment, and kept on trying new stuff.  Never just theorizing, always learning by doing.

Chris Bangle and the tail of the fox

Chris Bangle Diego Rodriguez Stanford REVS Program

If my time at IDEO has taught me anything, it's that a creative environment need not be toxic, caustic, or unnecessarily stressful.  In fact, the reality is quite the opposite: if you want people to do great work together, just treat them like competent, intelligent, well-intentioned human beings, and then diligently cultivate the elements of dignity, joy, and achievement which generate a satisfying inner worklife.  People who are feeling beautiful on the inside do beautiful things out in the world.

My fear for all those people reading Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs is that they assume that being an asshole and exociating people within an inch of their life is the key to achieving greatness as a leader of creative endeavors.  To be sure, there's nothing wrong with being demanding and maintaining the highest standards, but when one considers the totality of what one is trying to create in the world, and not just that thing you're working so hard to ship, there's so much more to reckon with:  What's the culture you're creating?  How will people relate to their families when they go home in the evening?  Will people regret any of the things they had to do to meet the standards you established as being non-negotiable?  Ultimately, what's the price to be paid for being inhumane along the way?  Does the end ever justify the means?

This past November I very fortunate to spend time with Chris Bangle during his visit to Stanford.  I deeply admire the work Chris led at BMW and FIAT; I'm fortunate to drive one of his cars and I spend a lot of spare cycles oggling other ones I see on the street.  They're gorgeous, passionate sculptures, and you can't help but feel the strong point of view driving their designs.

He gave a helluva great talk about designing for difference, which you can see in the video below.  We talked through myriad topics in our Q&A session after this presentation, but related to the themes I mention above, I'd like to point you to the response Chris gave to my final question, "Speaking about design, where do you want to go?".  Chris stood up and said something very profound, starting with an Italian saying he's heard from the farmers in his village:

The fox is pretty because the fox has a pretty tail.

You can hear all of our exchange starting at around the one hour two minute mark.  Please listen to all of his statement from that point on — it's an elegant riposte to the idea that one must be brutal to create things which are beautiful:

 

We create things which are beautiful by making the
process of creation beautiful for everyone involved.  The fox is pretty
because the fox has a pretty tail.

Girl Scout Cookies and learning to live an entrepreneurial life

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Today is National Girl Scout Cookie Day.  I used to not know much about the Girl Scouts, but my wife recently started a troop, and this has given me the opportunity to learn a bunch about this remarkable organization.  In particular, I’ve become really interested in the role of the fabled Girl Scout Cookie in the flow of the Girl Scouts organization, whose misson is to build “…girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.”

From a purely financial point of view, sales of cookies help fund troop activities.  A percentage of sales go back to each troop, so the more boxes are sold, the more money a group of girls has to engage in activities in pursuit of the Girl Scout mission.  Selling cookies is a fundraising activity.

Of course, it’s about much more than money.  There’s a lot of potential learning to be had.  The Huff Post recently published an awesome essay written by Girl Scout Olivia Ottenfeld on that point, and here’s an excerpt:

…the Girl Scout Cookie Program is not really about the cookies, but about
all of the life skills girls learn as part of the program. Many people
don’t really understand that. That’s why we’re launching National Girl
Scout Cookie Day on February 8…

…There are so many positive values I’m learning from selling cookies.
There is no limit to what a girl can do: undertaking a service project
to help make a difference in her community, exploring new challenges by
kayaking in a nearby lake, or broadening her horizons by traveling to
another state, or even another country. When I hit the business world
after college, I will fear nothing.

So, people of the universe engaged in the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life, I have a simple ask of you.  And I’m not asking you to buy cookies (only do that if you really want to eat them).  Instead, I’d like to ask you to pause and engage in mindful conversation with the next Girl Scout who approaches you to buy cookies.  When you’re asked to purchase cookies over the next few
weeks, consider treating that query as a valuable
learning opportunity for those cookie sellers
.

Whether or not you buy cookies, you can choose to have a quality interaction with that girl by asking her about the project and what she’s hoping to get out of it.  For younger girls, ask how many she’s hoping to sell, what her troop hopes to do with the money, etc… for an older girl, ask her about her marketing plan, how sales are going relative to that plan, how things compare to previous years, how is the Fiscal Cliff impacting cookie sales this year, if at all, up to and including what she’s dreaming of for her future.  By doing so, you’ll help her learn some of the key lessions (including how to deal with rejection) articulated so well above by Olivia Ottenfeld.

Here’s a great video which builds on these ideas:

Opportunities to frame one’s character and worldview as that of a creator, builder, and entrepreneur need not happen solely in a classroom, nor can they.  They happen just as well on a playing field, at the keyboard of a piano, or out selling cookies to benefit your fellow scouts.  Please consider being part of that learning journey, and positively influencing a girl’s life forever.

I’ll take a few boxes of Tagalongs, please!

Eating bacon chocolate, living at the intersection

Metacool Live life at the intersection

Last week I attended the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.  It's like the CES of food, with over 1,300 exhibitors from 35 countries showing 80,000 products to over 17,000 attendees.  If that sounds like a recipe for something big and overwhelming, well, you'd be right — after seven hours walking the floor (even with two espressos and a bunch of bacon chocolate in me), I was ready to cry uncle.  But don't get me wrong — it was really a cool experience!

Thing is, I am not a fancy food aficionado, nor am I an expert on anything concerning the food industry.  To be sure, my employer IDEO does significant work across the domains of food, nutrition, beverages, water, and wellness, but I'm not directly involved with much of that work.  So why did I take a valuable weekend day to attend this show?  Well, the answer is twofold.  First, I wanted to gain more empathy for my colleagues who care very deeply about this stuff; I want to really understand their passion for food. 

Second, immersing yourself in new places, situations and experiences is how you become and stay an innovative soul.  I'm a strong believer in taking a stroll through pastures far flung from those one naturally gravitates to.  It's not hard to convince me to attend gatherings focused on networks of things, robotics, software, or Porsches.  But, if I only ever pay attention to those types of events, my ability to see patterns or make breakthrough associations across unconnected worlds will diminish over time.  If creativity is about making connections between seemingly unrelated things, then living in a bubble (or even a handful of bubbles) becomes a limiting factor on the heights your imagination can reach.  If you're engaged in the art and science of bringing cool stuff to life, you owe it to yourself to expose your brain to an ever more diverse set of inputs and experiences.

How?  I always think of a point made by — I think by Buckminster Fuller, I'm not really sure? — which in essence said that, to enlarge one's scope of awareness, one should always buy the magazine located in the upper right corner of a newstand.  Doing so ensures that you are always exploring an area you don't know anything about.  In 2013 terms, I think this means following random (but interesting) folks on Twitter, letting your eyes run wild on Instagram, and going to things like the Fancy Food Show.  If you only follow people you know and like on Twitter, how will you ever hear about anything that doesn't make sense to your current worldview?

What did I learn at the Fancy Food Show?  I'm not sure yet, to be honest.  I did experience some, ahem, interesting branding choices, such as a breakfast cereal called Holy Crap.  Aside from those unexpected jolts to my sense of right and wrong and good taste in the universe ("…I wonder how they came up with that?" was a common refrain in my brain), I didn't have an earth-shattering moment.  Yet.  And that's the point.  It may be a year, five years down the road where some synapses fire and what I saw last week makes a difference.  That's what living at the intersection is all about.

So, what next for this year?  I'm planning to have several wilder kinesthetic experiences this year, such as a rally driving school, because I think they're even stickier than a purely intellectual experience, and so have a greater chance of really knocking your hat in the creek, innovation-wise.  In that same vein, I'd really like to run a Zero One Odysseys adventure sometime soon.  And I'll also be trying to attend some technology conferences I've never been to, and I'm going to visit a couple of places I've never been before.  Who knows what I'll learn! 

How will you try living at the intersection this year?

 

 

Designing for Difference with Chris Bangle

Chris Bangle Stanford Revs Program Diego Rodriguez

I'm very happy to be interviewing Chris Bangle onstage next week as part of an Open Garage series event at the Stanford Revs Program.  Our discussion will focus on the topic of "Designing for Difference in a World of Sameness".  I have nothing but respect for what Chris did at Fiat, BMW, Mini and beyond.  He knows what it means to believe passionately in a set of ideas, and to bring forth change to create something new in the world as an embodiment of those ideas.

The car I drive is a sculpture created by Chris and team, so you can imagine how stoked (and honored) I am to be having this discussion with him. 

I'd love to hear what kinds of questions you'd like me to ask Chris — please leave a comment below with your ideas, and I'll use them as input and inspiration for our talk.  Thank you!

Innovating means shipping and executing

As a non-trivial coda to my series of posts on the Nissan DeltaWing and the process of innovating, here's a brief account of how the DeltaWing team fared over the weekend.

When we last checked in on this intrepid crew, they had just finished an epic all-night push to repair their mangled car.  They then took their place on the starting grid at the 1000 miles of the Petit Le Mans, and had a flawless race, finishing an incredible fifth place (as the head of Nissan remarked, likely the most celebrated fifth place in the history of racing).  The drivers drove with speedy care and finess, the work of the engineers endured through the long hours, and the mechanics and support team all did their part along the way.  Though racing always centers on the drivers, it's a team sport of team sports, and when it comes to actually running the race – executing the vision, in other words – the team cook and physical trainer are as important as the head engineer and lead mechanic. 

Here's a nice recap of the team's race experience:

Innovating isn't just about killer ideas or designs.  To say that you've truly innovated, you first need to ship something, which means embodying your ideas in a form which can influence the lives of others.  And then you to achieve impact at scale, which requires meticulous execution of the total business system surrounding your innovation.  Innovation is nothing without experiencing the crucible of having to ship, and the discipline of executing at a level commensurate with the potential you envisioned in the first place.

They payoff to doing what other people said say you cannot do?  Just listen to Ben Bowlby's voice in the video clip above, and then remember his joyous expression.  Priceless.