After two millions years it still makes evolutionary sense for working groups of creative people to cluster in real life around a piano or a drafting table or a monitor on a movie set. Software sends us to isolated laptops, with intermediation run through glass screens. Software can eat the soul of good work if the team isn’t careful, with participants fiddling with settings as much as they may be working on bringing new ideas to life.
Read MoreAN IMPROMPTU MEETING IS LIKE A POP UP TORNADO
Meetings are not the same as one-on-one or small group F2F conversations. They look similar, but they’re not. And to think: a moment ago you were fully focused on a project commanding your full attention!
Read MoreI've Often Toyed with Sigmund Freud
Ideas crash and careen like seedlings caught in unpredictable zephyrs, often slapping uselessly into unexpected obstructions. Most seeds die, but the few that thrive are the ones that have a chance of catching our attention.
A PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE MADNESS
Creators create because they must, and the styles in which they pursue their perfectly acceptable madness are intimate functions of delivering them to someplace sublime.
Read MoreLOSS OF PRESTIGE
Prestige used to be about what someone did or said or created. Contemporary prestige is now about accumulation of influence.
Read MoreONE LEAF AT A TIME
The next time you’re working on a project requiring many hands to complete, be sure to introduce yourself to the person making coffee with as much generosity as you introduce yourself to the top dogs on the team. The sum total of the effort requires the sum total of all involved.
Read MoreSMART PEOPLE
The best smart people in my opinion are those who are unafraid to pose a challenging idea, even a contrary idea, but can do so without becoming a bore, or worse, a wrecking ball. Elite skills need to speak for themselves without practitioners having to mentally file everyone else into hierarchical categories.
Read MoreEVENTS CONTINUE, EVEN WHEN YOU’RE AWAY
Things are happening simultaneously, small and large all the time, for everyone. The moment you remember that simple thought is the moment you notice the details happening right in front of you, wherever you happen to be.
Read MoreTHE ART OF LIVING
I recently spent some time with a young, passionate emergency care nurse about to ship out with Médecins Sans Frontières, aka Doctors without Borders. She’s headed to Monrovia, Liberia for a six to eight week deployment on the front lines of the Ebola outbreak. Not yet thirty, she’s already an MSF veteran in parts of the world that most Americans can hardly find on a map, to say nothing of being able to imagine themselves working there for a single day. To meet her you’d never know.
Read MoreGIVING THANKS
Trust is not simply about hearing the truth, or counting on someone to pick you up at an appointed time. Trust is about counting on insight and integrity mixed with courage and confidence. Trust is about knowing that people have your back while remaining unafraid to tell you you’re wrong.
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