Making Ideas Happen (16 page)

While Brier gathers feedback from projects in the online realm, Tom Hennes, founder of Thinc Design, soaks up feedback on the ground. Specializing in exhibition design, Thinc has a knack for executing high-profile projects—such as the exhibition for the National September 11 Memorial Museum at the World Trade Center site (due to open in 2011)—that must build consensus across numerous constituencies. The firm recently worked in col aboration with architect Renzo Piano to plan and design fifty thousand square feet of stunning exhibits for the California Academy of Science’s Steinhart Aquarium. A creator of objects in the physical world, Hennes stresses the importance of gathering feedback by looking and listening to the reactions his work elicits.

Whenever he can, Hennes finds time to stop by the aquarium to see how people are moving through the exhibits. “I use this time to real y absorb the product of my work,”

Hennes explains, “to understand what the effect of the thing I’ve designed is and how that measures up against what I had in my mind. I use the time when people are beginning to move through the exhibit, because the first behaviors I see tend to be the behaviors. The first fifteen people who walk through wil pretty much tel me what I need to know. There wil be outliers—every now and then, something wil change—but for the most part, either they’re using it or they’re passing it by, or they’re not getting it. I watch those people, see what they’re reacting to, and internalize it, because that gives me concrete tools to fal back on when I’m thinking of broad concepts. Now I know what something does to reality. It’s only one exhibit, but it’s the beginning of building that base of knowledge in my head that if I do this, I could achieve that.”

As al of these examples il ustrate, feedback helps to refine existing ideas, spur new innovations, improve your relationship with your col eagues and clients, and build a wel of knowledge about what works and doesn’t work that wil serve you wel as a long-term resource. Regardless of where you are in your career—and what stage your ideas are in —you should not only accept feedback, you should seek it out. Managers, coworkers, and clients have a responsibility to share feedback, and you should encourage them to do so.

Transparency Boosts Communal Forces

Nothing boosts feedback exchange more than transparency. Nowadays, if you wish, it is possible for everyone you know to always see what you’re working on. This may seem a very unattractive value proposition, akin to working naked! Nevertheless, your ability to make use of many of the benefits that your community can provide for you depends on how transparent you are with your ideas, objectives, and progress.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of the online retailing company Zappos, has spoken extensively about how the microblogging and social networking platform Twitter has helped his company build stronger relationships both external y (with customers) and internal y (among employees). When Hsieh made the decision to embrace transparency both personal y and professional y by using Twitter, the impact was powerful. Hsieh explained in a post on his company blog:

Because radical transparency was part of the culture of [T]weeting, I decided to give it a try and be as transparent as possible, both for myself personal y and for Zappos. It was also consistent with [one of Zappos’s core values]: “Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication.” What I found was that people real y appreciated the openness and honesty, and that led people to feel more of a personal connection with Zappos and me compared to other corporations and businesspeople that were on Twitter.

By embracing transparency and [T]weeting regularly, Twitter became my equivalent of being always on camera. Because I knew that I was going to be [T]weeting regularly about whatever I was doing or thinking, I was more conscious of and made more of an effort to live up to our [company’s core values].

A lot of people use Twitter to complain or vent, but I general y try to avoid doing so because it’s not in line with our core values. What I’ve noticed is that it’s also caused me to complain a lot less in real life, and because of that, I’ve found that my own personal happiness level has gone up.

By using Twitter, Hsieh creates a powerful force of accountability for both himself and his company, and at the same time he builds the Zappos brand by communicating with his community (or, in this case, “fol owers”) in a personal and honest way.

A more public evolution of ideas also helps distribute a sense of ownership as wel as further refining and testing viability. As you turn ideas into projects, everyone around you wil bear witness to your progress. When you share aspects of your project during development, you wil get real-time feedback and questions that reveal unexplored possibilities. And when you get distracted or go off course, people confront you about your change of focus. Your community wil come to expect continued updates and wil serve as a source of both encouragement and constructive criticism. Social tools in the workplace like Twitter, Facebook, other niche industry networks, and our own Action Method Online, are making the creative process more transparent.

Imagine new ideas gaining traction (or becoming stagnant) as a result of how your community engages with them. Parris Whittingham, a photographer who makes his living largely by shooting weddings, saw the benefits of transparency directly. After posting some photographs of a Brooklyn wedding on the Behance Network, another network member, India-based graphic designer Archan Nair, contacted him about a possible col aboration.

With Whittingham’s permission, Nair took a particularly striking photo of a dapper young Brooklyn boy and overlaid it with whimsical, brightly colored il ustrations. He applied a similar technique to other photographs, and then he and Whittingham posted the joint project to the Behance Network. The col aboration was subsequently noticed by hip-hop celebrity Kanye West and blogger Josh Spear, bringing Whittingham and Nair recognition and spurring a series of new commissions.

Aside from the col aborations and useful feedback that can arise from transparency, you are also likely to become more productive as others see your activity and help you make connections you would otherwise miss. Andrew Zol i, the leader of Pop!Tech, a wel -known conference and social innovation network, spoke to us about how transparency has made him more organized. “I give up privacy,” he explained. “I’ve learned that no problem that I might find embarrassing is unusual. If you’re wil ing to let people access your life, they’l find what they need. I’ve open-sourced my life. My calendar, e-mail, contacts are al shared with the organization. I’m highly transparent. You can see what I’m doing as a partner.”

There is an entire spectrum of transparency. While some methods and tools may lie outside your comfort zone, even some additional transparency can help you harness the communal forces around you. Your ideas wil be shared more broadly—and those who care most about your work and latest projects wil subscribe to that information. You wil receive more feedback because everyone who cares enough to have an opinion wil be tuned into your progress. And the countless connections that arise circumstantial y wil make al the difference in your projects. Although the process can be uncomfortable, you are more likely to focus and make incremental progress when an expectant group of col eagues, friends, and fans is watching.

Communal Forces Are Best Channeled in

Circles

If you don’t normal y work within a group, you may want to create your own. Writers’

circles are groups of writers who meet on a weekly basis to benchmark each other’s progress and keep each other motivated. But such “circles” aren’t limited to the literary world.

For instance, Claude Monet is often recognized as the founder of Impressionist painting, but the Impressionist movement, which was quite radical during its day, arose from a group of friends and fel ow artists. The original circle included Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazil e, and Alfred Sisley; it later expanded to include Camil e Pissarro, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Émile Zola, and Paul Cézanne. At the beginning, the original four friends often lived and worked together, pooling resources, inspiring each other to take risks, and learning from each other’s mistakes. Monet crystal ized the importance of the Impressionist circle in an interview from the era: It wasn’t until 1869 that I saw Manet again, but we became close friends at once, as soon as we met. He invited me to come and see him each evening in a café in the Batignol e district where he and his friends met when the day’s work in the studio was over. There I met . . . Cézanne, Degas who had just returned from a trip to Italy, the art critic Duranty, Emile Zola who was then making his debut in literature, and several others as wel . I myself brought along Sisley, Bazil e, and Renoir. Nothing could be more interesting than the talks we had with their perpetual clashes of opinion. Your mind was held in suspense al the time, you spurred the others on to sincere, disinterested inquiry and were spurred on yourself, you laid in a stock of enthusiasm that kept you going for weeks on end until you could give final form to the idea you had in mind. You always went home afterwards better steeled for the fray, with a new sense of purpose and a clearer head.4

Despite prevailing notions of the lone genius, this story of how the Impressionists, a circle of friends, spurred each other on to achieve major breakthroughs in the world of painting is more common than you might think. Circles like this play a critical role in making ideas happen across creative industries. In some cases, the use of circles has been institutionalized, while in others, formal circles are nonexistent. Regardless, circles are relevant and hugely beneficial for al leaders with ideas.

In the world of business, the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) is known for its “Forum” system. While the broader organization has many thousands of members, individuals are assigned to groups of eight to ten peers who meet ten times per year “in an atmosphere of confidentiality, trust, and openness to share in each other’s business, family, and personal experiences.” According to YPO, “A CEO’s job is often characterized as being ‘lonely at the top.’ The Forum serves as an antidote to that isolation.” For business leaders involved with YPO, Forums provide the kind of advice, motivation, and accountability that you would expect from a circle.

A smal leadership development network at Cornel University has employed a similar construct. Original y spawned from a 118-year-old “senior society,” a group of younger alumni started gathering in smal groups to share career aspirations and personal chal enges. What started years ago as a smal experiment for alums to stay in touch has become a little-known global network of hundreds of emerging leaders who meet in smal groups—and al together annual y—for the sole purpose of sharing ideas, exchanging candid feedback, and fostering a sense of accountability.

While most young professionals struggle to depart the security of a traditional career, the membership of this particular network of Cornel University graduates has a strong track record of defying the status quo to launch start-up businesses, found nonprofits, and run for political office much earlier than most. “This network has helped provide me more guts and more guidance,” remarks one member. Like the Forums in YPO, the smal regional groups that meet often in this network are yet another example of the smal regional groups that meet often in this network are yet another example of the power of circles and how they motivate us to take risks and then fol ow through.

Regardless of your interest or industry, there are some key success factors for circles.

I have come to cal them the “Rules of Circles,” and would make the case that circles should be conceived, managed, and sometimes abandoned with these rules in mind. As you develop a formal circle or push a current group of like-minded professionals to function more as a circle, consider implementing these guidelines:
Limit circles to fifteen members or less.
When groups get much bigger than that, people feel accountable to a col ective rather than to each other as individuals, which is less effective. The other reason for this size is purely logistical: it becomes too difficult to coordinate and host more than fifteen people. Also, when it comes to online forums and e-mail chains, groups larger than this become too impersonal and make it difficult for members to speak freely.

Establish a clear and consistent schedule for meeting.
Circles can be ongoing or they can be one-offs that meet a set number of times and then end. There are reasons you might want to consider either option: a group of screenwriters might assemble a one-off circle to track the development of a single screenplay apiece, while a group of young entrepreneurs might create an ongoing circle to discuss business problems and solutions.

Meet frequently and stay accountable.
For people’s personalities to break through, one-off circles should meet for a minimum of five times. For ongoing circles, the most common practice is to meet either monthly or biweekly. Regardless of frequency, it is critical that al participants are held accountable for attendance and timeliness. Circles should have agreed-upon expectations for attendance, because the goal is increased familiarity among members over time. If a member has more than the al owed number of absences, he or she should be asked to leave, since consistency of attendance can make or break a circle’s system of shared accountability.

Assign a leader.
Every circle needs someone to oversee scheduling and to confront members with inconsistent attendance who need to be pushed. Some members of a circle wil be more apt to participate than others. The best circle leaders can engage those who are tuning out or struggling to get involved. In addition, leaders should facilitate the start and end of conversation while always keeping an eye on time.

Extend your circle online.
With the latest advancements in social technology, circles can and should use online tools. However, purely virtual circles are at a disadvantage.