Genius+Power+Magic

Do you hear what I hear?

I was talking with my best friend about the difference between knowledge and understanding.

One you use, the other uses you.

We got on the subject of the market or the world and the dialog it is having.  Where most people fail is that they are not listening to the dialog the world is having.  They may hear the words people are saying, but they are not likely listening to the unsaid part; and the unsaid shapes the said.

How do you hear the unsaid?  You listen to what gives what people are saying, i.e. What view would have to be there - to give that kind of remark?

As an example, I was working with a woman who was bitching and complaining about her ex-husband.  I stopped her and said "You must love this man profoundly to be so upset".  She burst into tears and the single interaction changed her whole life.  She was able to restore her love for the man and not be married to him.

I heard what she wasn't saying...but to me, it was on loudspeaker.  People aren't upset about things they don't care about.

The market has opinions about everything.  If you listen carefully, you will hear massive opportunity.  People aren't upset about things they don't care about.

For more, see the 10 step series I wrote on performance.

John Patterson
Convergence Founder

Beware the handshake agreement

Beware the handshake agreement and anyone who lives by them.  They are based on assumptions that leaves things in la-la land.  They get you out of the discomfort and work of dealing with facts. For someone to accept your offer, they need to know what you are offering.  Yet it is amazing how many offers are not quite 'offers' but simply 'good intentions'. 

The fastest way to close an offer is a written contract or agreement.  Yet, if you look at the negotiations you have with others, you will see lots of 'unwritten agreements'.  Some of the agreements are just the expectations of others (which if you're not responsible for will leave others quite pissed at you).

I know you are trying to get things to happen sooner...to get the deal done quicker...to get the money in your pocket this month, not next.  Do you have a contract?  If you don't, you are further away from that payday than you think.

Part of 'not tolerating bullshit' is to make sure that the agreements between you and others are square.  Take inventory of the people and situations in your life and seek contracts where there are none.

Collaboration and Convergence are about win-win.  The contracts you make with others are your tool for stating these wins as facts vs interpretations. Do the work to think through these win-win scenarios and discover the benefits of mutual factual partnerships.

John Patterson
Convergence Founder

Step Ten, lather, rinse, repeat

This post is step four of ten steps where leadership and real productivity are your goal.

10.    Lather, rinse, repeat.  All projects go through cycles, go back to #1.

The Seasons go through cycles.  Don't resist it. 

Here are the steps again:

These are my ten steps for leading a project with big results.

1.    Put your leadership hat on and take a step forward.  Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?
2.    Make sure you and others know you don’t have a clue how to get it done, but remind everyone that only fools think they have all the answers.
3.    Collaborate, connect and find those with similar interests.  Be willing to allow your idea to morph with the involvement of others.  The Crowdsoup knows better than you and a collective will produce a better result than an individual - always and every time.
4.    Others will ridicule.  Let them. Don’t defend anything, as you’ll just fuel the armchair entrepreneurs (opinions usually come from people without the balls to be in the game), just keep moving forward. Keep finding your cheerleaders and opportunities.
5.    Make bold declarations and promise absurd timelines (these are more productive regardless of the failures along the way).  Make these as public as possible – this will create cheerleaders, partners and hold your own hand to the fire.
6.    You are going to hit roadblocks and failures.  THESE ARE GOOD NEWS.  These are the places where everyone stops, don’t quit, overcome the situation and keep your vision on your goal.  Keep getting new people involved.
7.    Did I say don’t quit.  Just a reminder. 
8.    If you are not seeing opportunities everywhere you have stopped being creative.  Stop everything and ask five people what they would do.
9.    Give away an important aspect of your project to someone passionate about it.  This is like planting a seed in a very fertile garden.  Watch the unexpected happen.
10.    Lather, rinse, repeat.  All projects go through cycles, go back to #1.

John Patterson
Convergence Founder

Step Eight, open your eyes

This post is step eight of ten steps where leadership and real productivity are your goal.

8.    If you are not seeing opportunities everywhere you have stopped being creative.  Stop everything and ask five people what they would do.

We have all heard about or read "Who Moved my Cheese", a cute biz book about creativity.  Human beings are not as smart as mice.  In a repeated maze experiment, if you move the cheese, the mouse will make a few of his past attempts, then try a different route.  Human beings will argue, scream and pout "There was cheese here once before, so there should be cheese here!!!"..."Who moved my cheese!".

We get so used to seeing things as we want them to be that we stop seeing things for what they are. This is the case for your project, career or relationship.  Open your eyes.  Just stop and examine anything as if it were the first time you were seeing it.

I'll wait. Go ahead.

You saw it newly didn't you.  Got a little rush of 'wow', didn't you.

Do the same for your projects.  In fact, better yet, ask a bunch of other people what they would do.  Opening your eyes is one thing, seeing through someone else's eyes is something amazing.

John Patterson
Convergence Founder 

Step Seven, repeat step six

This post is step seven of ten steps where leadership and real productivity are your goal.

7. Did I say don’t quit.  Just a reminder. 

For those of you that read "Step Six, seek failure" and say to yourself 'yeah, yeah - roll with the punches - I get it', let me say this a bit more rigorously.  Wake the f up!  This is where you usually quit.

See, if you have an ambition that is not within your current grasp - if you want something, you only want it because you don't already have it.  If you had it, you would'nt want it.  The logic!  OK, so what most people don't deal with is their pattern of quitting.

Get familiar with your own quitting and what your version of it looks like.  F it, I don't care anymore, I just don't feel like it...it is all bs and you know it.  Where your leadership is concerned, quitting may have always been easier than pushing through.  Just be clear that if it looks and smells like the last time you quit...you ain't pushing through.

John Patterson
Convergence Founder

Step Six, seek failure

This post is step six of ten steps where leadership and real productivity are your goal.

6.    You are going to hit roadblocks and failures.  THESE ARE GOOD NEWS.  These are the places where everyone stops, don’t quit, overcome the situation and keep your vision on your goal.  Keep getting new people involved.

If you've ever lifted weights, what you seek when working out is muscle failure.  It is in these moments that real gain is produced.  When it comes to leadership and real productivity, many people quit way too easily.

Seth Godin's book The Dip, says it brilliantly:

Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point-really hard, and not much fun at all.

And then you find yourself asking if the goal is even worth the hassle. Maybe you're in a Dip-a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing.

What really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly, while staying focused and motivated when it really counts.

In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can become number one in your niche, you'll get more than your fair share of profits, glory, and long-term security.

Losers, on the other hand, fall into two basic traps. Either they fail to stick out the Dip-they get to the moment of truth and then give up-or they never even find the right Dip to conquer.

Master failure. Seek out where you often quit, and conquer it. 

John Patterson
Convergence Founder

image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vixrichardson/2965479204/

Step Five, make bold declarations

This post is step five of ten steps where leadership and real productivity are your goal.

5.    Make bold declarations and promise absurd timelines (these are more productive regardless of the failures along the way).  Make these as public as possible – this will create cheerleaders, partners and hold your own hand to the fire.

Declarations are a very powerful animal.  All men are created equal. The British shall leave India. We will put a man on the moon. I have a dream.

Chicago's might began with a powerful declaration; a plan for the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 and Bernhams design for 'The Dream City'.

The historical introduction reads:

If there has been a lesson taught the thinking people of our country by the World's Columbian Exposition - a lesson which has impressed them more forcibly than any other - it has been the fact that we, a race of individualists more than any who have preceded us in Exposition work, have put aside individual taste and have united in an effort to carry out the several parts of a design which, from the day the work was inaugurated, was dominated by one idea. Never in modern times have men of widely different characteristics been brought together in a work that has resulted in such complete unity of action. [more]

The alteration of history brought about by this single declaration begins a lineage born by the statement "Make no little plans" and does a great deal to "Stir mens souls".  Declarations are not about proof or evidence or safely made once all the circumstances have aligned to clear a prudent pathway.  Declarations are dangerous and bold and require courageous action.  They cut paths through the jungle and break up the ordinary modes of operating and thinking.

The book Devil in the White City, does great justice to the spirit of the time.  Little Walt Disney in awe as he helped his craftsman/furniture maker father, Elias, build the dream city.  Thousands of people putting aside their differences to build a city in time for the exposition.  The timeline was insane, the obstacles where immense, but nothing like it had been built and it unified people to showcase Chicago as the global hub of innovation and creativity; "Of all the expositions which have gone before, no one has come so near the ideal of an international exposition, in the wealth of its artistic features, as this."

The Convergence began with "Pioneering Chicago as the New Media Capital of the World".  The first time I wrote that it took my breath away.  The first time I said it out loud, I was ready for rocks to be thrown. 

My work in Austin began with a declaration "Austin, Tx, The Arts Capital of the South".  At the time, saying this was almost an absurdity.  A few heckled, but for most it stirred up some passion and aliveness for a dream city, a great collective of talent.

Make a bold declaration, risk an announcement worth your life. Then watch the magic begin.

John Patterson
Convergence Founder

This post is step five of ten steps where leadership and real productivity are your goal.

Step Four, let there be noise

This post is step four of ten steps where leadership and real productivity are your goal.

4.    Others will ridicule.  Let them. Don’t defend anything, as you’ll just fuel the armchair entrepreneurs (opinions usually come from people without the balls to be in the game), just keep moving forward. Keep finding your cheerleaders and opportunities.

The one thing I hate about the news or sports is opinion.  These programs usually have 'hosts' who spout opinions - and 'co-hosts' who give opinion about the hosts opinion. Blah, blah, blah. What a bunch of noise. 

When you risk leadership, you will hear alot of opinions about what you're doing, how you're doing it, why it won't work and how those on the sidelines think they could do it better.  In fact, you may have 'experts' ridicule you or invalidate your plans.  My advice: let there be noise, just don't take any of it very seriously.  Human beings like to burp, fart and give opinion.  It is all much the same sound and has just as much significance.

The only concern I would have is if you don't hear any noise.  Leadership is about making something happen that wasn't going to happen anyway.  If you are disturbing 'Pleasantville' (which I hope you are), you are going to hear the rumbling opinions of lookey-lous that would rather bitch about something than resolve it.

Just keep moving forward people, nothing to see here.

John Patterson
Convergence Founder

Step Three, eat some crowdsoup

This post is step three of ten steps where leadership and real productivity are your goal.

3.    Collaborate, connect and find those with similar interests.  Be willing to allow your idea to morph with the involvement of others.  The Crowdsoup knows better than you and a collective will produce a better result than an individual - always and every time.

In The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, author James Surowiecki focuses on the premise that given proper circumstances, groups make better decisions than the smartest individual member.

The book underscores several axioms that I have held for some time.  It begins with the study by a man who gathered data from county fairs where ‘guess the weight of the hog’ or ‘guess the number of jelly beans in the bathtub’ type results where averaged to reveal an exact guess, almost without fail.

Most alarming was a severe decrease in the intelligence of a crowd where similar beliefs or similar types of people gave up their independent thinking to peer pressure, becoming a mindless herd – choosing to base their choices on history (that’s the way we have always done it), conformity (everyone else seems to think it’s right) or self-doubt (I am not sure what I think anymore).

To ‘eat some crowdsoup’, listen, listen and listen to what EVERYONE is saying, especially the radicals, dissidents and the people you dismiss.  There is gold in them there hills.

One of reasons the Chicago Convergence has struck such a chord is that we listened and heard that Chicagoans are tired of being second to NY or LA when we have equal or better talent, we could hear that you wanted to be as relevant, but distinctly Chicago.

The Solution: branding Chicago as the global hub it always has been – changing the course of a river – and keeping our talent in Chicago vs. watching it trickle away to the coasts; building a collective of talent that becomes a commercial attraction in and of itself.

John Patterson
Convergence Founder

Step Two, remember to be an Idiot

This post is step two of ten steps where leadership and real productivity are your goal.

2.    Make sure you and others know you don’t have a clue how to get it done, but remind everyone that only fools think they have all the answers.

When I began public speaking many years ago, I was awful.  I was so concerned about what others were thinking.  I hoped for dear life that they wouldn't find out I was clueless. Yes, of course, I have mastery where I do, but everything else I understand is based on nothing but my own life experiences.  

My public speaking and community leadership abilities took a dramatic turn when I worked up the courage to be truthful about what I didn't know.  Now, I find nothing more freeing that to be a complete idiot.

Not only does it give me freedom, but the people around me have the freedom to 'have a child's mind'; my concern for appearances has been replaced with joyful curiosity, discovery and wonder.

Nothing life-altering will get done by myself. It takes a village. Perhaps some of my failures are nothing more than trying to hold on to pieces of the pie I'm not very good at to begin with. Form a venture of three to four like-minded people or talents and I'm likely to fail. Why? I need people on my team NOT LIKE ME, but I can't find the people that I need if I fool myself into thinking I'm a master of all. 

My friend Kirkland calls me a 5-year guy, that I have my mind is always out in the future.  He's right.  On my team I always need the 90-day guy, the statistician gal and the closer.  Collaboration and convergence is not so much about getting along (some of my best fights have been with the statistician and 90-day guy), but about understanding what I suck at. 

[btw, a statistician recently reminded me how important my role as 5-year guy was and to get my @#$%ing hands out of the stats, it was extremely liberating and allowed him to claim his importance too]

Finally, if your ideas can't morph into better ones, your likely to think you point of view is the right one.  Dude! Wake up.  In a universe filled with billions of galaxies, your point of view is a gnats fart. 

Let go a little and gain alot.

John Patterson
Convergence Founder