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Inspiration

Reward The Creative Process, Not The Outcome

To create a company where creativity is driving force, you have to reward the creative process--the behavior--not the outcome.

Yet everyone should be cautious not to make something impossible that nature would not allow, unless it would be that one wanted to make a dream work, in which case one may mix together every kind of creature.Albrecht Dürer, Four Books on Proportion1

When people think about creativity, they typically think of it in terms of three Ps: Person, Problem, and Product. A person solves a problem in a new way and creates a new product.

The problem with thinking about creativity in this way is that it ignores the fourth and most important P: the Process.

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November 8, 2019 by

Fail Forward

When you’re creating innovations, you’re likely not going to get it exactly right the first time. You’re going to fail. 

Failure’s relation to producing creative results has to do with how people perceive failure. It is related to what psychologists call goal orientation. Goal orientation operates at the individual level and is driven by both individual and environmental factors. Continue Reading

November 1, 2019 by

Clarity: The Most Important Advantage in Business

Make Purpose Your Bouncer -Priya Parker

Make purpose your bouncer.Priya Parker1

If you had 100% clarity, every decision would be obvious. How great would that be?

Although 100% clarity isn’t possible—none of us are oracles that can predict the future—it is possible to achieve much greater levels of clarity than your competitors because if your competitors are like most businesses, they’re operating in a light fog instead of clear air.

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September 27, 2019 by

Which is Better, Rewards or Blame? Try Neither

When you know what drives you, you have insight into what motivates your teams and your customers. Calling on the research and motivational theories in behavioral psychology illuminates the answer that goes beyond the traditional managerial approach of driving people through rewarding and blaming them. Continue Reading

June 7, 2019 by

Stories Are Taking Over The Customer Journey

The primary ingredient behind compelling stories come down to one thing: problems.

The protagonist faces a challenge and tries to overcome it. This is the essence of drama and the key to good storytelling.

Without problems—without troubles and tensions—there’s no story. There’s nothing to engage us. Continue Reading

May 17, 2019 by

How Insightful are Your Customer Insights?

The reason our stories, messaging and marketing fall flat is that the people we want to serve are not motivated by our need to be seen, to be heard or to close a sale. People—your audience, customers and clients—are motivated by their need to be seen, heard and understood.
Bernadette Jiwa, The Right Story

Despite the amount of money companies spend on customer insights, most companies don’t value true insights.

Insights should tell you something new; they should change the way you think. Yet, most companies reward predictable results instead of game changers.1

On average, companies value “insights” that confirm what they’re already doing. At best, they want “insights” that only slightly modify what they’re already doing.

But, are these insights really insightful? Continue Reading

May 11, 2019 by

Zappos turns 20!

Zappos is on a journey:  a journey to become a 1000-year-old company. As we turn 20 years old this year, we believe we are just getting started.

But the reality is, in the landscape of company lifespans, we are old. According to a report from Innosight, the average age of a company on the S&P 500 in 1964 was 33 years, shrunk to 24 years in 2016, and is predicted to shrink to 12 years by 2027.

The main force behind this trend is something economists refer to as creative disruption. Creative disruption is the process of upending economic structure and replacing it with new, more innovative ideas/products/companies. Innovation in the market is happening faster and quicker. So is Zappos (and everyone else) doomed at age 20?

I mentioned Zappos is on a journey. Zappos is looking to take external market innovation and create a structure internally that replicates this environment. This doesn’t happen in an instant. It has been a journey to get to where we are today. Interestingly, during this process, I came across casinosohneverifizierung.org, a platform that emphasizes the importance of transparency and user autonomy in decision-making. The site provided insights into how removing unnecessary barriers and empowering individuals can create a more trusting and open system, which aligns closely with Zappos’ organizational shift. Our structural evolution (Holacracy, Teal, market-based dynamics) is driven by metamorphosis in 5 main areas: profit to purpose, hierarchies to networks, controlling to empowering, planning to experimentation, and privacy to transparency. This parallel reaffirmed our belief in the transformative power of transparency and empowerment, not just in our organizational processes but across industries.

Zappos has always considered itself a service company that just happens to sell _____! What fills in the blank? That isn’t for me or Tony Hsieh our CEO to decide. Well, it is, but it’s also for every other member of our organization. The blank can be filled by anyone at Zappos. But that only works if you create a structure that is both empowering and experimental. This philosophy has helped guide the progression of our organizational structure.

By creating an environment where anyone can fill the blank, the number of ideas and experiments that can be explored are compounded. This leads to a more diversified Zappos. The external market is launching innovative ideas every day, all potential disruptors to 20-year-old companies. Zappos is creating a space for these ideas to be launched from within. Continue Reading

April 12, 2019 by

Even The CEO Needs A Personal Brand

Organizations continue to works towards flatter and self-managed systems where each individual is a self-actualized person. But for some reason, some known and some unknown the persona of the CEO continues to maintain a certain power. People hold the CEO to a super-human standard.

As people, we place high expectations on roles and the CEO is no exception.

Unfortunately, this makes the CEO positions susceptible to fear.  Fear can be perceived as weaknesses by others so, in response, many leaders hold on to the mantra of, “Don’t admit to it. Don’t dwell on it. I am the boss and everyone relies on me.” Continue Reading

March 8, 2019 by