Good Morning Thinkers!

Raise the Roof

Artist Robert Genn's newsletter "Painter's Keys" continues to offer great insights about art, creativity and life.  Here's his latest offering:

Now it seems that researchers at the Universities of British Columbia and Minnesota have found a relationship between creativity and the height of ceilings. Rui Zhu and Joan Meyers-Levy tested various volunteer groups in rooms of eight- and ten-foot ceilings. "When a person is in a high-ceiling environment, they are going to process information in a more abstract, creative fashion," said Zhu. "Those in a room with relatively lower ceilings will process in a much more concrete, detail-oriented fashion."

These researchers feel people under high ceilings are "primed"  to think broadly because of the sense of freedom associated with the space, while the containment of a lower ceiling encourages people to think small and focused.

There may be something in this. Artists have traditionally demanded high ceilings, not only so they can run up their easels and facilitate high light but also to give themselves creative headroom. My studio, for example, is divided into two areas, one with a 9-foot ceiling, the other with a pitch that goes up to 14 feet. I've noticed I feel different in the two areas, and bringing work-in-progress from one area to the other demands different moves.

On the other hand, working outside under an infinite ceiling can evoke a kind of conservative stagnation. In my case, this perverse reaction may be due to the intimidation that the great outdoors has always given me and may not be typical of all plein air enthusiasts. On the other hand, the studio in general is a sanctuary where I may safely vacillate between exploratory creativity and my personal bag of tricks.

Apart from the feng-shui of high ceilings and their invitation to power and expansive thinking, other benefits include the dissipation of toxins and more oxygen. And when you think about it, the availability of empty warehouses and lofts on Manhattan has contributed greatly to the New York "paint big" school.

Paris has always had some big places too. "Give me the venue and I will fill it up," said Picasso. While larger, higher studios may invite larger, higher work, they might also invite larger, higher ideals. Incidentally, these researchers ought to try to find out if shorter persons are more creative than taller ones because they have more space above their heads.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "Higher ceilings prime the feeling of freedom that in turn facilitates the relational processing of multiple data." (RuiZhu)

Esoterica: Contrarily, I'd like to draw your attention to the possible value of confinement. Tight little areas such as bird blinds, cars and motorhomes work well for many. It has something to do with the absence of clutter and the opportunity to focus. Curiously, I've pulled off more than a few reasonable paintings in the economy seat of a crowded aircraft. I feel there's something smugly brilliant about keeping my elbows to myself. In any case, when building the studio of your dreams, you need to think about bumping your head.

Simple Rules from Starbucks

I have this fascination for simple rules and here comes a set from a new book about Starbucks which will be out shortly: "The Starbucks Experience, Five Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary," by psychologist Joseph Michelli.  Seems like a very worthy entry into this category.

1 -- Make it your own
2 -- Everything matters
3 -- Surprise and delight
4 -- Embrace resistance
5 -- Leave your mark

Sam Walton's 10 Rules

Sam Walton's 10 Rules for Success

Not much need for an introduction, explanation or commentary. (ed.)

The basics ...

Rule #1
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anything else. If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do the best you can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever.

Rule #2
Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.

Rule #3
Motivate your partners. Money and ownership aren’t enough. Set high goals, encourage competition and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs.

Rule #4
Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule #5
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.

Rule #6
Celebrate your success and find humour in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails put on a costume and sing a silly song.

Rule #7
Listen to everyone in your company, and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front line - the ones who actually talk to customers - are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know.

Rule #8
Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses - apologize. Stand behind everything you do. ‘Satisfaction guaranteed’ will make all the difference.

Rule #9
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.

Rule #10
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.

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Sam Walton's 10 Rules For Success - from Sam Walton: Made in America, My Story, co-authored by J. Huey, Doubleday.

Google's 9 Rules

We love simple rules so thanks to Chuck Frey and Paul Hobcraft for alerting us to these from Google:

From Chuck Frey's Innovation Tools: Thanks to alert reader Paul Hobcraft for alerting me a link to this video on the Stanford website, in which Google VP of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer (their innovation guru) gives a presentation on the search engine giant’s nine principles of innovation. These rules are:

1. Ideas come from everywhere
2. Cheer everything you can
3. You're brilliant, we're hiring
4. A license to pursue dreams
5. Innovation, not instant perfection
6. Data is apolitical
7. Creativity loves constraints
8. It's users, not money
9. Don't kill projects, morph them

Marissa also gives examples of how each principle has been applied in practice This presentation contains many ideas and practices that you may be able to adapt to your organization. You can view the presentation by clicking here (approximate length, 45 minutes).

5 Rules from Wieden + Kennedy

In 1982, Dan Wieden borrowed a typewriter from Phil Knight, founder of Nike, and David Kennedy brought a folding card table and some chairs from home and thus the new ad agency, Wieden + Kennedy was born.  Known for the Air Jordan and Miller High Life ads, the agency's creative director Jelly Helm was recently featured in "Men's Health" magazine offering five rules of creativity.

Here are their rules:

** Act Stupid.  "Our philosophy is to come in ignorant every day.  The idea of retaining ignorance is sort of counterintuitive, but it subverts a lot of [problems] that come from absolute mastery.  if you think you know the answer better than somebody else does, you become closed to being fresh." states Jelly Helm, creative director.

** Shut up. "The first thing we do when we meet with clients is listen.  We try to figure out what their problems are.  Then we come back with questions, not solutions.  We write these out and put them on the wall. And then we circle the ones that we think are interesting.  More often than not, the questions hold the answer."

** Always say yes.  "What I've learned from improvisation is to let go of outcome and just say yes to what4ever the situation is.  If you say an idea is bad, you're creating conflict--you're breaking an improv rule.  You want an energy flow that moves you forward, as opposed to a creative stasis."

** Chase Talent. "Find people who make you better.  It's best to be the least talented person in the room.  It's reciprocal.  It challenges you to keep up."

** Be Fearless.  "Do anything, say anything.  In the worlds of our president, Dan Wieden, 'You're not useful to me until you've made three momentous mistakes.'  He knows that if you try not to make mistakes, you miss out on the value of learning from them."

More info at:

Wieden + Kennedy  http://www.wk.com
Men's Health magazine  http://www.menshealth.com

Simple Rules: Second Round

The search for the simple rules that would create sustainable innovation prompted great responses ... thanks for participating.  I was delighted to see comments from Australia, Sweden, Zaire, and Canada and from many different perspectives ... corporate, consultant and academic.  I've added my four rules at the end of the list.

There is a great deal of commonality ... and individuality ... in these responses so I'd like to experiment with a second round of this topic.  everyone is invited to participate even if you didn't contribute simple rules in the first round.  Assuming that you are a leader and would to guide with simple, effective rules that would stimulate innovation ... or even that you would like to guide your
own actions toward being more innovative.

1.  Think about your definition of innovation or use ours: Innovation is PEOPLE implementing new ideas that create value.

2.  Think about your own situation, and assuming that you're already being innovative but that there's always room for improvement, read through the suggested rules below and synthesize four simple rules that could help you and your team, group or department be more consciously and productively innovative.

3.  Enter your four rules in the comments section below ... and indicate any insights you may have had in the process of reviewing the lists of rules.

Thanks for playing and have a great week.  Joyce Wycoff