November 13, 2005
Posted in Behaviour at 11:55 by Graham King
From New Scientist, 29th October 2005:
Merge two previously separate concepts that are in conflict with one another. For example, combinations such as ‘friendly enemy’ and ‘healthful illness’. The more discrepant the concepts, the more likely they are to result in novel properties.
Tom Ward, senior research fellow in the Center for Creative Media at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and editor of the Journal of Creative Behaviour.
Get a really good part-time job, preferably to do something you like. For example, if you like reading, work in a book shop and do lots of evening classes.
Tracey Emin, artist, London.
Creativity demands that you leave your comfort zone, that you continually challenge yourself and be prepared to confront conventional wisdom. When you become an expert, move on. Especially, engage in that for which you have not been schooled.
Allan Synder, director of Centre for the Mind, Australian National University, Canberra, and University of Sydney.
Creativity is fostered by a particular, if poorly understood, brain state. It often seems to be induced when you feel under pressure to perform and at the same time free to let your mind wander. Some authors go to the mountains or the seashore, others take a walk in a park. But this might be easiest to do by simply going to bed. As our brain cycles through REM and non-REM sleep, it appears to go in and out of this state.
Robert Stickgold, associate professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.
I have a great big cupboard stuffed with ideas, and when I want one I open the door and take the first one that falls out. Alternatively, if you want and idea, do the following. Close your eyes, put your left hand on the ground, raise our right hand into the air. You are now a conductor.The ideas will pass through you. Sooner or later one will pass through your brain. It never fails, though the waiting times vary and sometimes lunch intervenes.
Margaret Atwood, novelist, Toronto.
Hold the intention or the question. Trust it and will it to happen. Leave a space – daydream, relax, doze… you’ll be amazed because you are not doing it.
F. David Peat, author and physicist, director of the Pari Centre for New Learning near Siena, Italy.
The main ingredients in science are intensive immersion in a problem, fanatical desire to solve it (big problems are rarely solved by accident), familiarity with previous attempts leading to an original critique of where they went wrong, reckless disregard for what other experts think, and the courage to overcome your own doubts and hesitations, which are much scarier than anything anyone else can say because you know best how vulnerable your new idea is.
Lee Smolin, theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.
Think about the big problems while working on the small ones and vice versa. A larger perspective can be the best guide when approaching a detailed problem. On the other hand, details can reveal profound insights about larger questions. Listen carefully and pay close attention. You might learn more than people, or the objects you’re studying, superficially reveal.
Lisa Randall, professor of physics at Harvard University.
Creativity is enhanced by having a prepared mind, and then being stuck on a problem. I also need a space of silence and calm, where I am free from distractions.
Alan Lightman, novelist and physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Know your stuff: creativity requires expertise; but don’t know it too well: overspecialisation puts blinders on. Imagine the impossible: many breakthrough ideas at first seem outright crazy; but you have to be able to impose your idea: crazy ideas remain crazy if they cannot survive critical evaluation. Finally, be persistent: big problems are seldom solved on the first try, or the second, or the third; but remember to take a break: you may be barking up the wrong tree, so incubate a bit to get a fresh start.
Dean Simonton, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis.
October 23, 2005
Posted in Behaviour, Society at 17:08 by Graham King
This section presents a system for getting things done. It is inspired by Getting Things Done by David Allen – a valuable book which I recommend.
This system takes the e-mails in your In-box, the ideas and reminders in your head, on scraps of paper, in your notebook, your PDA, wherever, and organizes them so that none of them get lots, and the important ones get acted upon.
Gather everything together
Make or buy an in-tray. Then gather those unpaid bills, scraps of paper, books, printouts, TO-DO lists, jot down the ideas from your head, and pile it all in the in-tray. Next do the same for your electronic data, using your e-mail In-box. Most likely there will already be quite a few e-mails in there. E-mail yourself with anything else you need recorded and processed.
Make two special folders in you mail client – one called @action and one @waiting. Make or buy two similar trays for the real world. Buy a sectioned / expanding file. If you haven’t already got a diary, get one.
Process
Once you have everything gathered take e-mails or pieces of paper one by one and run through this diagram:
Everything starts at stuff and ends up in one of the circles.
Calendar should be only actions with a hard date / time (meetings, appointments, birthdays). Things that you would like to get done on a particular day go into Actions.
If needed, Actions can be split by location: Calls, At Computer, Errands, At Office, At Home, Read / Review.
Look at the Calendar daily, first thing. Then look at the Actions list.
Do a Weekly Review of everything – this is whatever needs doing to keep the system up to date – get the ideas in the world onto paper. In a business context, Friday early afternoon is good for this.
Posted in Behaviour at 17:07 by Graham King
This section is inspired by Software for your Head, by Jim and Michele McCarthy.
Most teams have no explicitly defined, full-blooded, decision-making apparatus. Yet the quality of life of that team is determined by the choices they make. Every meeting, and each creative act, expresses a team choice. Without a clear process for making decisions the choices are often incoherent, to the point of team members not knowing exactly who decided what, when.
The Decider protocol is a decision making process. It provides a formal way for teams to achieve unanimous decisions in an efficient manner.
The Decider Protocol
The proposer says, “I propose…”.
The proposer offers a concise, actionable proposal.
No more than one issue is resolved per proposal. The behavior expected of the voters if the proposal is accepted is clearly specified.
The proposer says “1-2-3”, then all team members vote simultaneously in one of three ways:
- Yes voters give a thumbs-up.
- No voters give a thumbs-down.
- Support-it voters show a hand flat.
Voters requiring more information must vote “no” to stop the proposal before seeking information. Passing is not allowed.
A yes vote means “yes I support this proposal and I am ready to champion it”.
A support-it vote can be translated as “I believe that this proposal is probably the best way for us to proceed now. I support it, though I have some reservations. I don’t believe I can lead the implementation of this proposal, but I commit not to sabotage it”.
A no vote means “No, right now I can’t support this proposal”, because it is plain wrong, because some details need clearing up and looking into, or because I don’t understand it.
Once the vote is taken, the proposer counts the votes and takes a decision:
- If the combination of “no” and “support-it” votes is too great (> 30%, as determined by the proposer), the proposer drops the proposal.
- If any of the “no” votes states their absolute opposition to the proposal, the proposal is dead. An absolute “no” means that there is no condition that the voter can imagine that would change their vote. It is a tradition, though not mandatory, for an absolute “no” voter to make a new proposal following the death of the proposal killed by their vote.
- If there are just a few “no” voters (outliers) the proposer uses the Resolution protocol to resolve those people’s concerns.
- Otherwise, i.e. if everyone voted “yes” or “support-it”, the proposal passes, and becomes part of the team’s plan of record.
Voters do not state why they voted as they did.
During the proposal no-one speaks except:
- the proposer when stating the proposal or using Resolution
- any no-votes when using Resolution or declaring their “no” an absolute one.
Any absent team members are responsible for acquiring information about the vote, and are bound by the decision as if they voted for it. If the person would of voted “no”, they must now make a new proposal as soon as possible.
Once a proposal passes, each team member is accountable for personally carrying out behaviors specified in the Decider decision, and no member has more or less accountability than any other. Each is also accountable for insisting that the behavior is carried out by the other team members.
Resolution
When there are only a few “no” votes (outliers), the team uses the Resolution protocol to attempt to bring those outliers in.
The proposer asks each outlier in turn: “*What will it take to get you to endorse the proposal ?*”
The outlier may state at any time, but no later than in response to the above question, that his vote is an absolute “no”. The proposal is then dead.
More often, the outlier states succinctly, declaratively, and precisely what he requires to endorse the proposal. If given what he requires, the outlier promises to drop all resistance to the proposal and to provide affirmation and support for it instead.
As needed and as possible, the proposer makes an offer to the outlier.
If in the judgment of the proposer the adaptations to the proposal are minor, the proposer may employ an unofficial ‘eye-check’ of the non-outliers to see if there is general acceptance to the changed proposal.
If you are opposed to this implicit new proposal or require a formal re-statement and a new vote, you make make this requirement know during this interval.
If the required changes are more complex, the proposer makes a new proposal, and the Decider protocol starts again.
“Yes” and “support-it” voters do not speak during Resolution.
If the outlier changes his vote to “yes” or “support-it”, then the decision to adopt the proposal is committed, and becomes part of their plan of record.
Other protocols
Decider and Resolution are part of The Core.
The other protocols are here: Core protocols (pdf)
The authors website is here: McCarthy Technologies
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