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The Concept of the Breakout

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When it comes to solving complex problems where we don’t seem to be making any headway, an approach called “the breakout” can be helpful. I came across this in a Harvard Business Review article a few years ago.

Here’s the summary of the concept: “By bringing the brain to the height of activity and then suddenly moving it into a passive, relaxed state, it’s possible to stimulate much higher neurological performance than would otherwise be the case. Over time, subjects who learn to do this as a matter of course perform at consistently higher levels.”

And here are the key steps:

  1. Struggle mightily with the thorny problem.
  2. Walk away from the problem at the top of the curve (when you stop feeling productive and start feeling stressed) and do something utterly different that produces the relaxation response.
  3. The actual breakout–sudden insight comes. A sense of well-being and relaxation brings an unexpected insight or higher level of performance.
  4. Return to the new normal state within which the sense of self-confidence continues.

Don’t be Negative: You Can Always Find the Positive

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Negativity is all a matter of perspective. Negative people can make any situation, no matter how great, seem like the end of the world. And positive people can make any situation, no matter how bad, seem great.

Mark Sanborn illustrates this well with a common story in his book You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Leader: How Anyone, Anywhere, Can Make a Positive Difference:

An old favorite joke of mine illustrates the positive attitude of a person who takes responsibility for his or her life, even in those circumstances they don’t completely control.

Twin boys were born to two happy parents. But as the children grew, the parents noticed a dramatic difference in the outlook each had on life.

One boy was completely negative. His perspective was consistently one of gloom and doom. No matter what happened, he was downhearted. He was able to find a rain cloud in the sunniest sky.

The other boy was buoyant and looked at everything positively. No matter what happened, he could find the silver lining in the darkest cloud.

The parents began to worry that each child had a problem. So one Christmas they attempted a bold experiment to try to change their son’s dispositions.

For the boy with the negative attitude, they bought the most wonderful gifts: a new bike, a train set, board games, and other fun diversions.

To the boy with the positive attitude, they gave a pile of horse manure.

On Christmas morning, the boy who was negative was led into a room containing all his wonderful gifts. But rather than being delighted, he complained, “The bike will become dirty and scratched the first time I ride it, and the other toys will break or wear out.”

Their other son, upon seeing the pile of manure, shocked his parents by instantly shouting in glee.

“Why are you so excited?” they exclaimed.

He replied, “With all this manure, there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!”

My point? When something bad happens, the challenge is to search for the pony, not with the naive enthusiasm of the boy in the story but with the informed optimism of a leader.

And, of course, this is biblical:

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint

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Edward Tufte’s The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within is a fantastic — and humorous — article on the abuse of PowerPoint. I highly recommend checking it out.

In it he talks about how PowerPoint is commonly misused, how to use PowerPoint right, how to avoid the boring use of bullet points, and how bad PowerPoint deserves part of the blame for the Challenger space shuttle disaster back in 1985.

The one problem is that the article is not available online for free. However, an abbreviated version called PowerPoint is Evil appeared in Wired a few years ago. It’s worth checking out; and if you’re interested, you can obtain the entire article at Amazon.

Conclusions Should Not Summarize Arguments

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From a recent book by Harvard Business Press:

The conclusion [in a presentation] should not summarize your arguments; rather, it should appeal to the audience for its understanding, its action, and its approval — whatever it is you want the audience to do or think.

So don’t fall into the trap of telling your audience what you’ve already said. Summing it up is a surefire way to kill any enthusiasm your presentation may have generated. So forget about a summary; instead, tell your audience what it should think or do.

Be Constructive

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When we notice things that could be better, it’s easy to respond negatively. This easily leads to (or is) complaining.

Complaining, in addition to just being wrong, tends to create an overall attitude of negativity that is not helpful. This not only sucks the joy from your life and those around you, but also makes it less likely that people will actually want to do something to fix the problem. Playing the victim doesn’t inspire people.

Seth Godin posted the other day on how to point out problems without falling into the trap of complaining. It’s a short, good post that is worth reading.

The gist is this: Instead of saying “my job has this problem and that problem, and it’s really starting to get to me,” you say: “In this economy, I’m lucky to have this job, and it’s almost perfect. It would be even better if…”

Or, instead of saying “they spent $10 million developing this device, and it can’t even do this or that,” you say: “I love owning this device, it lets me manage my life and contacts, and the one thing that would make it even better is…”

The latter approach is the way proactive people talk. It puts the focus on the positive first, where it belongs. Then everything after that is about how to improve things.

The former approach, on the other hand, just leaves you focusing on the bad. And it would seem likely that if you generally think that way, pretty soon the bad is all that you will see everywhere — which would not only be wrong, but would also be a pretty depressing existence.

The GAP Filter for Tweets

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Good advice from Scott Williams. Here’s the gist:

Consider using the GAP filter for your tweets.  That doesn’t mean put on GAP clothing before you tweet, but rather ask this question: “Is my tweet Genuine, Accurate and Positive?”  The bottom line is Be Careful What Tweet, it may end up on the front page of a newspaper or worse.

Why Many (Most?) Great Ideas Never Get Off the Ground

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Scott Berkun has a good article on how describing your idea or product is as important as conceiving it. Here’s are a few excerpts:

Just about anyone in the professional world is, in effect, a professional speaker. Every single idea in the history of the business world had to be explained to at least one other person before it got approved, funded or purchased by anyone else. Call it what you like–sales, marketing, pitching or presenting–but I know the history. Despite dreams of a world in which the best ideas win simply because they should, we live in a world where the fate of ideas hinges on how well you talk about what you’ve made, or what you want to make.

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From my studies of innovation history (which led to my best-seller, The Myths of Innovation), I know that the difference between relatively uncommon names like Tesla, Grey and Englebart, and household ones like Edison, Bell and Jobs, has more to do with their ability to persuade, convince and inspire than their ability to invent, create or innovate.

One potent thread in the fabric of reasons why some ideas take off and others don’t is the ability entrepreneurs have to explain to others why they should care. The bigger the idea, the more explaining the world demands. Yet these skills are constantly trivialized in many organizations, leading to dozens of great ideas being rejected, and their creators wondering why lesser rivals with weaker concepts are able to capture people’s imaginations and pocketbooks.

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I see too many inventors and executives who see speaking about their work as the least important thing they do. And it shows. To the detriment of the quality of their ideas, their presentations are the spotty lens through which those ideas will be seen. Without dedicated effort, those lenses distort and betray what it is they truly have to offer.

Listening

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Listening is not simply, or mainly, hearing what the other person is saying. It is thinking about what they are saying, and doing so from their point of view.

Implication: This includes a willingness to be influenced by others. If you are generally unaffected by what other people say, you aren’t listening.