Gumption

Principal Instigator at MyStrands: A Prospective Perspective

This is my first week as Principal Instigator at MyStrands. I wrote last week about leaving Nokia to join MyStrands, in which I focused primarily on the leaving part. I wanted to write a little more today about the joining part, and the excitement I feel about reprising and redefining my principal instigator role in a new organization. I have meetings next week in Corvallis with some of my new colleagues in the Innovation group to discuss more generally and specifically what we'll be doing - collectively and individually - and hope to post another entry toward the end of next week regarding what the soon-to-be-established Seattle lab will look like - and do.

In a bio blurb I recently sent to Dan Oestreich to preface some of my favorite poems about leadership (The Journey, by Mary Oliver, The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, and Our Deepest Fear, by Marianne Williamson) in his growing collection of leadership poems, I wrote that "Joe is in the people business, serving technology" (riffing on a perspective articulated by the passionate, persevering and partnering Howard Schultz that he - and Starbucks - is in the "people business, serving coffee"). So I want to write about both the people and the technology at MyStrands that infuse me with enthusiasm for this new adventure. [Update: a variation of the blurb I sent to Dan is now on my bio page in the collection of MyStrands Management Team pages.]

I first met the Francisco Martin, CEO of MyStrands, and Atakan Cetinsoy, VP of Corporate Development, rather serendipitously at a Supernova conference pre-party in San Francisco in the summer of 2006, where they were going to be giving a presentation (I was in town for another event, and just happened to get on the party invitation list). We started chatting during the party about the work I'd done - especially an earlier group recommender system for music (MusicFX) and some more recent proactive display applications - and they told me about their social recommendation core technology (which started out with music recommendations) and their [then] new partyStrands application that combines music recommendation with large displays and mobile phones to promote social interactions in party settings. I joined Nokia Research Center Palo Alto shortly thereafter, where - among other activities - I instigated a new generation of proactive displays that promote community in a workplace environment. MyStrands, meanwhile, has continued to make great strides in areas of mutual interest.

Francisco recently contacted me about the possibility of starting up a new MyStrands lab in Seattle. MyStrands already has labs in Barcelona and New York that are developing a range of new innovations for the company (and its customers) - not that I mean to imply that innovations only arise out of the labs (at MyStrands or elsewhere) ... indeed, one of the refrains I heard from everyone I spoke with over the past month or so was [what I would call] distributed empowerment - everyone is encouraged to innovate (and feels supported in doing so). The company's recent infusion of capital has vastly increased the ability and incentive to expand, and I'm honored and delighted to have been asked to help facilitate that expansion - in people and innovations - in Seattle.

Other people I spoke with at MyStrands after my reconnection with Francisco reinforced many of the positive prospects I sensed during our initial discussions. Rick Hangartner, the Chief Scientist, confirmed that many of the things I'm interested in doing are very well aligned with MyStrands' vision, mission and goals, and that many of the projects already underway will help support and propel many of the new ideas we all have in mind. Jason Herskowitz, VP of Consumer Products (as well as blogger, creator of me*dia*or, a Ning social network site focused on music, and regular contributor to the Music 2.0 Directory that is charting out the future of [digital] music), shared some of his aspirations for creating ever more engaging future music experiences and assured me that he and others at MyStrands were preparing for the potential disruptions in the music industry I recently read about in the Future of Music. Peyman Faratin, Principal Scientist and director of the new MyStrands lab in New York, has some interesting ideas about economics, market mechanisms and business models that I'm looking forward to learning more about (and capitalizing on) ... and it is very reassuring to have a compadre on the east coast who will be facing many of the same opportunities and challenges that I anticipate in Seattle. Marc Torrens, Chief Innovation Officer and my (& Peyman's) direct manager, described his management style as very facilitative and connective, and hopes to help Peyman and me learn quickly about what MyStrands already has in the works, and how our ideas can help expand or extend innovations most effectively - or perhaps introduce entirely new strands to the growing range of social recommendation systems in the MyStrands family.

Gabi Aldamiz-echevaria, VP of Marketing and Communications - as well as others throughout the MyStrands organization - do a great job of walking the talk of open innovation by openly communicating through the MyStrands blog (which recently posted an entry announcing my joining MyStrands). The blog manifests much of the positive energy I've felt in all my email and phone exchanges with other Stranders, and I'm really excited about tapping into and promulgating that positive energy as our paths (strands?) increasingly intertwine.

A final note on technology: MyStrands is an all-Apple shop. Although Nokia had been a Windows shop, I was one of the more than 50% of researchers at Nokia Research Center Palo Alto who had switched to Macs, so that part of the transition is going smoothly. However, I also got a brand new iPhone (which my daughter thinks is exceedingly unfair), and so I may start nonconsensually exhibiting iPhone iGloat - I have not figured how to modify the "Sent from my iPhone" signature. Nokia was kind enough to let me keep my N95 ... which, as my new colleagues recently noted on their blog, runs the MyStrands Social Player (ranked among 25 coolest mobile applications for the N95) ... so I'm not yet sure which will become my primary mobile "phone" (or, perhaps I should say my primary "mobile social media connection device").

[Oops - I forgot to add a final note on terminology. At Nokia, it became clear that "instigator" did not translate easily into Finnish, the native language of many of my former colleagues. In case the word does not translate easily into Spanish - the native language of many of my new colleagues - I wanted to include a Merriam Webster's definition of instigate:

to goad or urge forward : provoke

I also want to clarify that this title is not intended to suggest that I am the chief instigator - I am sure there are many instigators throughout the company (as there are throughout Nokia) - but rather to suggest that instigation is what I will principally be doing ... I think this better characterizes my modus operandi than "Scientist" or "Researcher", or even "Manager" or "Director", although I do like to intermingle research and science - and even some management and direction - along with design, development and deployment ... and, of course, instigation :-) ]

Complimenting and Complementing: Great Management through Praising and Partnering

I recently finished “First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently”, by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, in which they emphasize the importance of discovering each individual’s unique constellation of talents – the things he/she cannot help but do (and do well) – and aligning those with appropriate roles – where doing those things add value – within an organization. They also emphasize the importance of offering positive feedback at frequent and regular intervals, and managing around “weaknesses” by establishing effective partnerships - within the team itself and among the management – with others who have complementary talents.

This approach emphasizes discovering, developing and capitalizing on people’s natural strengths, rather than the conventional “wisdom” of creating “well-rounded” employees (what I might call "rounding errors") by “fixing” their weaknesses or, more euphemistically, addressing their “areas for development” (I found myself ruminating on the “spay” or "castrate" meanings of "fix") and/or instituting detailed processes intended to ensure desired outcomes (rather than empowering employees to engage their talents and natural creativity to achieve those outcomes).

The book defines talent as “a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied”, and differentiates talent from skill (ability to follow steps) and knowledge (awareness of facts and practices). Talent typically involves skill and knowledge, but most importantly, it is something we are inexorably drawn toward … something we have a deep passion for (reminding me of Rumi’s maxim, and my former email signature quotation: “Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you truly love”). Buckingham and Coffman go on to distinguish three types of talent – striving (the why of a person), thinking (the how of a person) and relating (the who of a person) – and offer a dozen or so more specific examples of each type of talent in an appendix. I must confess that I do not appear to have a talent for understanding the specificity of these distinctions.

The authors, who are (or were?) leaders in the Gallup organization’s 25-year effort to understand attitudes, opinions and behaviors in work settings, offer 12 questions that represent “the simplest and most accurate way to measure the strength of a workplace”:

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

In polling over one million employees with these questions, Gallup found that the proportions of employees who “strongly agree” (a “5” on a 5-point scale) with these statements is highly correlated with their group’s productivity, profitability, retention and customer satisfaction.

Gallup also interviewed eighty thousand managers to better understand what the great managers did differently from the good (and bad) managers. They found that great managers are able to both identify an employee’s true talents, and capitalize on them by aligning those talents with roles in the organization. The authors share a mantra that was shared with them (in various forms) by great managers:

People don’t change that much.
Don’t waste time trying to put in what was left out.
Try to draw out what was left in.
That is hard enough.

They also shared their view of manager as a catalyst rather than a controller, which can be summarized in three passages in the book:

The manager role is to reach inside each employee and release his unique talents into performance … one employee at a time.
...
You can’t make things happen. All you can do is influence, motivate, berate, or cajole, in the hope that most of your people will do what you ask of them.
...
Identify a person’s strengths. Define outcomes that play to those strengths. Find a way to count, rate, or rank those outcomes. And then let the person run.

Great managers accomplish this alignment of talents and roles through four key activities:

• Select people for talent (not simply skills, knowledge and experience)
• Define right outcomes (not precise steps or processes to achieve outcomes)
• Focus on people’s strengths (not their weaknesses)
• Help people find the right fit (possibly in another group or company)

Other insights shared by great managers include:

• You’re always on stage (we are always modeling by example)
• Every role performed at excellence deserves respect (reminding me of a recent Wall Street Journal article on Joie de Vivre Hospitality's practice of buying hotel housekeepers new vacuum cleaners every year)
• Unrestrained empowerment can be a value killer (“Allowing each person to make all of his own decisions may well result in a team of fully self-actualized employees, but it may not be a very productive team”)

The authors use the analogy of sports, invoking the wisdom of a great sports coach in promoting the primacy of people over pre-defined procedures (or plays):

Bud Grant, stone-faced Hall of Fame coach of the Minnesota Vikings described it this way: "You can’t draw up plays and then just plug your players in. No matter how well you have designed your play book, it’s useless if you don’t know which plays your players can run. When I draw up my play book, I always go from the players to the play."

This, in turn, brings up an issue about which I’ve been ruminating lately – the idea of a “player / coach” in the business world. There are very few examples of people who have excelled in both roles (simultaneously). Most great coaches are / were former players … but I don’t believe most great coaches were great players. Management is a talent – or, perhaps, a collection of talents. Having skills, knowledge and experience with the types of activities, people and organizations in which great performance is to be achieved can be very helpful in practicing great management. However, the best players rarely make the best coaches. There are, of course, exceptions – after all, as the book notes, everyone is exceptional – but organizational structures in which managers are also expected to be significant individual contributors may not offer the highest probability for optimal success on any level.

The book offers insights and observations about “managing around weaknesses” that I believe apply equally well to managers and employees. Noting that “no one possesses all of the talents needed to excel in a particular role”, the authors suggest three strategies that can be used to promote performance: devise a support system, find a complementary partner or find an alternative role. The first focuses on logistics – arranging physical or procedural aspects of work so that individual weaknesses can be compensated through other dimensions. The second strategy focuses on the specific dimension of other people, and this notion of complementary partnership reminds me of Starbucks' founder Howard Schultz' insights into passion, perseverance and partnership, and that all successful teams are really partnerships [I've written before that everyone's a customer, and it appears that Starbucks already recognizes and celebrates a corollary - everyone's a partner.]

The third strategy is consonant with more poetic treatments of the issue I’ve encountered (or re-discovered) recently  –the notion that “self-discovery is the driving, guiding force for a healthy career”. The book includes several references to the metaphor of a mirror, emphasizing that great managers help guide their employees to discover – and accept – themselves and their unique talents, and to work with them to apply those talents in ways that are optimally productive for the employee and the organization. This process – or journey – unfolds through regular meetings and discussions, where mutual awareness and trust can be cultivated ... ideally amounting to at least one hour every quarter (vs. the more conventional half hour or hour ever year or half year).

Of course, it may turn out, in some cases, that a productive channeling of an employee’s talents can not be found or created within a group or organization, in which case the best course is for the employee to change jobs. The key here is not to take anything personally – the problem is simply miscasting, not a defect in the character of either the manager or employee.

The book was published in 1999. I bought it in 2004, when I actively entertained ambitions for growing and managing a high performance team for designing and deploying technologies to “help people relate” – the dream, and erstwhile business, of Interrelativity (my now-defunct start-up). After a brief burst of activity as a team of 2, we soon became a team of one, and so the book sat on my shelf for the next three years. Toward the end of a recent presentation I gave at the SDForum on our new generation of proactive displays (which I entitled “Friendsters @ Work”), someone asked me whether I thought our proactive displays – which provide large, ambient windows into personal digital media (e.g., photos from an online photo sharing service like Flickr) in a professional physical workplace (our lab) to promote awareness, interactions and community – were, in effect, manifestations of the Gallup management philosophy. I had to admit I hadn’t thought about it, but in continuing our conversation after the presentation session, he mentioned the “First Break All the Rules” book, and helped me recognize that the design of the proactive display application (the “Context, Content and Community Collage”) was, in fact, very well aligned with the Gallup management philosophy … which I recognized as also being reflected in another book I’ve read (and blogged about): “How Full Is Your Bucket: Positive Strategies for Life and Work” by Tom Rath and Donald Clifton (also with the Gallup management organization).

The Buckingham and Coffman book and has two sequels, "Now Discover Your Strengths" (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001) and "Go Put Your Strengths to Work" (Buckingham, 2007). I have not read these yet, but I have taken the Clifton StrengthsFinder test - referenced in all of the above - which suggested that my five top talents (or strengths) are:

• Woo (Win Others Over)
  People strong in the Woo theme love the challenge of meeting new people and winning them over. They derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection with another person.
• Connectedness
  People strong in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason.
• Relator
  People strong in the Relator theme enjoy close relationships with others. They find deep satisfaction in working hard with friends to achieve a goal.
• Ideation
  People strong in the Ideation theme are fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between disparate phenomena.
• Adaptability
  People strong in the Adaptability theme prefer to "go with the flow". They tend to be "now" people who take things as they come and discover the future one day at a time.

I like to think of myself as someone who is willing to break rules, aware of my strengths, and willing and able to put them to work ... hopefully in complimentary and complementary ways.

Fino, Finis, Finnish: Jukka Soikkeli's Farewell Party (and the Power of Passion)

We celebrated Jukka Soikkeli's 20+ years at Nokia Research Center at Cafe Fino in Palo Alto last night. Besides learning about Jukka's penchant for Corvettes, and some of his tangible and intangible contributions to (and through) Nokia, it was noted that Jukka is a prototypical Finn: a man of few words, the wisdom of which often becomes evident well after they are uttered. In keeping with this tradition, Jukka gave a rather short speech, although the wisdom (for me) was immediately apparent. One of the things he emphasized was the importance of passion as the key ingredient behind successes he'd witnessed (and promoted) in his years at Nokia. He encouraged those of us who will be continuing on with the firm to not pay so much attention to what people further up the chain are saying [I'm suddenly struck by the multiple interpretations one might associate with the "chains of command(s)"], but to follow our instincts when we're on to something we truly believe is important. [I've posted a separate entry on following my instincts in sharing my passion for Amarone last night on my wine blog]

The topic(s) of passion, instincts and authority provided an undercurrent to many of the discussions I had throughout the rest of the evening with several of my colleagues here at Nokia Research Center Palo Alto. I believe everyone believes in the power of passion, but some of the people who have been with NRC for a long period of time have experienced or witnessed changes that I've heard variously described with terms ranging from gentle breezes to earthquakes. While we are regularly encouraged to take risks here, it's very challenging to take risks in an environment that is not perceived as offering a high level of trust and support. NRC Palo Alto is a new lab, and as such we are co-creating a new culture; as we develop and apply our skills in technical areas, we need to consciously cultivate the kinds of social and community support that will offer the scaffolding needed for bold[er] actions ... and to recognize that we are all leaders in this effort.

I wrote recently about how I feel I'm really coming alive again, after having lived and worked through some winds of change and groundshaking experiences myself (in both the personal and professional dimensions). I still feel very much the new kid on the block, having been here just over 6 months, and coupled with my natural naivete and unbridled optimism, I have high hopes about our prospects for creating a high trust environment that will encourage the kinds of risks we'll need to take in order to succeed.

Mashing up the wisdom of Jukka with a quote often attributed to Harold Thurman Whitman:

Don’t ask yourself what the world Nokia needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world Nokia needs is people who have come alive.

John Shen: New Head of Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto

John Shen, former DIrector of the Micro-architecture Lab at Intel, became the new head of Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto, on Friday.  John comes to NRCPA after 6.5 years at Intel, and 18 years before that as a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. In his welcome welcoming remarks, John stressed his intention to cultivate a culture of risk-taking and innovation, embrace the lab's mission of renewal and redefinition, and achieve a balance between research reach and recognizable relevance to Nokia's business groups. 

I particularly liked John's allusion to the convergence between computing and communicating devices in characterizing his move from Intel to Nokia: it is increasingly possible to insert a phone capability into a laptop, but the prospects for inserting computing capabilities into phones are even more exciting.

John's arrival capped a busy week for me. I just started my new job as Principal Scientist (or, as Anne so nicely, if inadvertantly put it, Principle Scientist) at NRCPA on Monday, attended UbiComp 2006 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and returned to NRCPA for my second day on Friday. With John's arrival, I suppose I'm no longer the "new kid on the block" ... nor the only Intel alumnus. I had been a bit concerned about joining NRCPA before the new head was announced, but I really wanted to take advantage of the timing of UbiComp 2006, both to reconnect with my colleagues in the ubiquitous computing research community and to help spread the word that there is an exciting and ambitious new technology research lab in the heart of Silicon Valley.  I'm glad I took the risk: UbiComp was all I hoped for (and more), and I am confident that John will provide strong chaordic leadership in growing a research culture that seeks to foster emergent and participatory leadership -- what might even be characterized as a dance of leadership -- across all stakeholders of the organization.

The Dance of Leadership

A healthy community is like a dance, with different dancers stepping forward to take the lead at different times, and others following those leads.  Even followers are leaders, as we lead ourselves along paths or sequences illuminated by those who we consciously or unconsciously agree to allow lead us.  A leader creates a safe space within which others can more effectively recognize and express their magnificence.

These are some of the insights that emerged for me over the weekend, as I participated in a leadership training course (LT1) offered by the Mankind Project.  As with other MKP trainings in which I've participated, I don't want to reveal the specifics of any of the exercises -- as that may diminish the impact for any future trainees -- but will elaborate further on some of the results (for me).

The notion of leadership as a dance arose as I noticed that all of the participants are leaders[-in-training], and recognized that if none of us was willing to step back at times -- and allow others to step forward -- little would be accomplished.  As I became more conscious of this dance, and who was stepping forward in different contexts, I ruminated on what distinguishes a leader, and wanted to be able to encompass a range of leaders from Ghandi to Hitler. I arrived at the following definition of leadership:

Leadership is the modeling and communication of passionate commitment to an inspiring goal, principle or path.

Throughout the weekend, I was reminded of related wisdom shared by others, including Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Dee Hock and Dan Oestreich. 

In the Prelude to Oriah's book, The Dance, she asks some provocative and insightful questions, including:

What if it truly doesn't matter what you do but how you do whatever you do?

What if you knew that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in
the world will arise from deep within and guide you every time you simply
pay attention and wait?

These help me remember that it doesn't necessarily matter whether I am leading others, but that in leading my self, I stay fully conscious and true to my self, and that it is in trusting my own instincts that I can lead my self -- and others -- most authentically.

I've written about Dee Hock's inspiring principles on Chaordic Leadership before.  His insights into power, listening and judgment repeatedly came to mind over the weekend, and his prescription for leadership was resonating deeply for me:

Lead yourself, lead your superiors, lead your peers and free your people to do the same. All else is trivia.

I also had occasion to practice his advice for recognizing, admitting, correcting, learning from and rising above mistakes over the weekend, as I became painfully aware of how much of my father's patterns of leadership in marriage and parenthood I have adopted.  Although my father had many wonderful and admirable qualities -- many of which I hope I am perpetuating -- there are other characteristic that I have unconsciously adopted.  I renewed my commitment to making mistakes wakefully.

Dan Oestreich, an inspiring leadership coach (and friend), has shared many insights into the gold and shadows of leadership in his Unfolding Leadership blog.  Many of them were reverberating through me during the weekend.  Perhaps most poignantly, I was ever more aware of the path on which he has helped me embark toward my unfolding radiance.  I will invoke yet another element of Oestreichian inspiration, and apply the representation of a möbius strip, which I first used in ruminating on preaching what I want to practice, to the paradox of leadership (and followership):

There were other sources of wisdom invoked by the leaders of the leadership training, including

• Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, by Robert Greenleaf
• King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette
• Leadership from the Inside Out, by Kevin Cashman

A quick search of Amazon reveals that there are other books related to the dance of leadership, including

• The Dance of Leadership: The Art of Leading in Business, Government and Society, by Robert B. Denhardt and Janet Vinzant Denhardt,
• Dance of Leadership by Robin Denise Johnson,
• The Leadership Dance: Pathways to Extraordinary Organizational Effectiveness, by Richard Knowles (Director of the provocative sounding Center for Self-Organizing Leadership)

For the moment, however, I am content to follow the beat of my own, inner drummer, dancing with the shadows and gold that were illuminated for me over the course of the weekend.

Chaordic Leadership Principles

In anticipation of the possibility that week's Seattle Times article about Interrelativity might generate increased interest in the company, I updated our web site ... including my curriculum vitae (CV, aka resumé), both the short and long versions.  I decided to include a section in the latter document about my approach to leadership, which I have assembled by consciously and unconsciously adopting the best practices, and avoiding the worst practices, of the leadership I have subjected myself to over the years ... much as I believe my approach to parenting and teaching have evolved (which, I suppose, are simply instances of leadership).

My approach to team building is to bring together people with complementary skills, experiences and perspectives, who share a strong passion and aspiration toward a common goal, provide them with as many resources and as few constraints as possible, and essentially stay out of their way as they engage their creative energies in innovative ways that maximize the positive impact of the entire team.

As I mentioned in my recent post on Intelligence, Advice, Investment and Politics, I remember being inspired by a quote from Dee Hock, the founder of Visa International and co-founder of the Interra Project, that I read about in Guy Kawasaki's book, The Art of the Start:

It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.

Googling around for the context of this quote led me to an article on The Art of Chaordic Leadership written by Dee in Leader to Leader, 15 (Winter 2000): 20-26.  This is one of the most powerful, succinct and sensible descriptions of how to lead I've ever seen ... and I was happy to see that the approach that I thought I've been making up as I go along had some firmer ground on which to stand.  As with my recent post on entrepreneurial proverbs, I won't go into a more full analysis here, but simply note the bullet points in the summary from the original article:

On Chaordic Leadership

Many convictions about leadership have served me well over the years. Although each of these few examples could benefit from pages of explication, a few words may provide insight to chaordic leadership.

• Power: True power is never used. If you use power, you never really had it.
• Human Relations: First, last, and only principle -- when dealing with subordinates, repeat silently to yourself, "You are as great to you as I am to me, therefore, we are equal." When dealing with superiors, repeat silently to yourself, "I am as great to me as you are to you, therefore we are equal."
• Criticism: Active critics are a great asset. Without the slightest expenditure of time or effort, we have our weakness and error made apparent and alternatives proposed. We need only listen carefully, dismiss that which arises from ignorance, ignore that which arises from envy or malice, and embrace that which has merit.
• Compensation: Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. It can rent the body and influence the mind but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit; that is reserved for belief, principle, and ethics.
• Ego, Envy, Avarice, and Ambition: Four beasts that inevitably devour their keeper. Harbor them at your peril, for although you expect to ride on their back, you will end up in their belly.
• Position: Subordinates may owe a measure of obedience by virtue of your position, but they owe no respect save that which you earn by your daily conduct. Without their respect, your authority is destructive.
• Mistakes: Toothless little things, providing you can recognize them, admit them, correct them, learn from them, and rise above them. If not, they grow fangs and strike.
• Accomplishment: Never confuse activity with productivity. It is not what goes in your end of the pipe that matters, but what comes out the other end. Everything but intense thought, judgment, and action is infected to some degree with meaningless activity. Think! Judge! Act! Free others to do the same!
• Hiring: Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength. It is stupid to replicate your weakness. Employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability and judgment are radically different from your own and recognize that it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.
• Creativity: The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.
• Listening: While you can learn much by listening carefully to what people say, a great deal more is revealed by what they do not say. Listen as carefully to silence as to sound.
• Judgment: Judgment is a muscle of the mind developed by use. You lose nothing by trusting it. If you trust it and it is bad, you will know quickly and can improve it. If you trust it and it is consistently good, you will succeed, and the sooner the better. If it is consistently good and you don't trust it, you will become the saddest of all creatures; one who could have succeeded but followed the poor judgment of others to failure.
• Leadership: Lead yourself, lead your superiors, lead your peers and free your people to do the same. All else is trivia.