edited and expanded for ebook format

(Some of)
The Best of Collective Next
Selections from Collaboration Illustrated, 2013-2015
Collective Next helps companies
create and manage meaningful
change. We take a holistic approach
to the three core components of the
change journey: Designing Solutions,
Engaging Audiences, and Developing
Capabilities and Behaviors.
For years, we've published regularly
on our blog Collaboration Illustrated,
using it as a place where we can share
what we've learned in our practice,
test new ideas that we bring to our
practice, and explore diverse topics
we're passionate about.
Our blog is a place where we can
consider everything from our
facilitation practice to what a new
generation of theremin has to teach
us. Over many hundreds of posts,
we have discovered that everything
from office layout to punk rock, TED
Talk style to how third graders work
together, managing complexity to
managing giant vats of chicken, is
relevant to our work.
We are design thinkers, innovators,
artists, and business consultants
specializing in collaboration. In these
selections from our blog, edited and
expanded for this ebook format, we
share some of the ideas that excite
us. (In our next ebook, coming in the
fall, we will focus explicitly on what—
and who—inspires us.)
Individually, these posts give you a
good sense of who we are and what we
care about. Collectively, they reveal
some of the tools and assumptions,
models and approaches, that we use
to help our clients create meaningful,
sustainable change that can propel
organizations forward.
Our promise at Collective Next is
that we help organizations come
together, think better, and move
forward. Our goal for these essays is
to share some of what we've learned
from our clients and each other over
the past two years. We hope you'll
follow the ongoing blog at http://
collectivenext.com/blog and join us
to see where we go next.
—Matthew Saiia, July 2015
Everything
Speaks
by Dave Rutley
I am NOT a detail-oriented person.
However, I’ve been lucky to be
mentored and taught by folks
such as Matt Taylor, Michael Bell,
Kelvy Bird, and many others who
impressed upon me the importance
of the phrase “Everything Speaks.”
Work does not occur in a vacuum.
The environment and experience
that surround and support our work
is just as important as the actual
work itself.
We ask our clients to make hard
choices during our design sessions.
Those choices have meaningful
impacts, not only on their business
but also on the people that work with
and for them—and for the clients and
customers who use their products or
services.
We believe that creating an intensely
intentional environment and human
experience
helps
ensure
that
these decisions and designs are as
thoughtful as possible.
Sometimes
people need help
communicating clearly
and directly.
Everything Speaks is code to help us
remember that details matter. We’ve
all had an experience in which a poor
interaction has taken what could
have been a good or neutral moment
and turned it into a poor one. For
instance, you walk up to a table
with nametags on it and you don’t
see a tag there for you. It can spark
self-doubt (“Was I invited to this
session? Why was I left off the list?”)
or frustration (“They aren’t even
organized enough to have all the
right tags out here. This is going.”).
The same is true of the physical space
where a meeting occurs. If there is a
piece of paper on the floor near a
trash can, a marker cap underneath
a table, or random writing on a
white board, it creates space for a
participant to doubt the meeting and
the process or question the abilities
of the facilitation team.
On the flip side, an environment
and experience that is perfectly
orchestrated not only allows the
participants to focus on the work
and only the work, but also can
subconsciously
help
set
their
expectations for their own success.
This orchestration includes many
little things that add up to a perfect
harmony. For instance: walking into
a breakout area and having exactly
the right number of chairs. It’s
about having the same person who
designed the meeting, is facilitating
it, come over to your table as lunch
time wraps and helps clear your
dishes so that you can continue to
focus on your assigned deliverable.
It’s even about the music—where
the word choice, rhythm, speed, and
volume of the song being played
correlates to the design of the
event and the expectations of the
participants in that moment.
Everything Speaks can seem like a
burden. There are so many things
to manage that sometimes it feels
impossible to do them all perfectly.
Instead, you have to look at this
as an opportunity and know that
everything we tweak, everything we
decide about the environment and
experience, gives our participants
that much more of an advantage,
that much more of a chance at real
success. ‹›
The Power of ScanFocus-Act
by Geoff Amidei
You can make a lot of progress on
a complicated problem in a short
amount of time with a lot of people
in the same room if you are thorough
and thoughtful about planning and
facilitation. You don’t need experts
to go off and do it by themselves
and then come back and try to
align everybody. Instead, you have
everybody wrestle with it in a sloppy,
difficult, challenging, maddening way.
That is, you have them collaborate.
Collaboration can be messy, so it’s
best when facilitated. Thanks to our
egos, our fears, and our insecurities,
collaboration is not a natural act
for many people. We at Collective
Next believe in collaboration, but we
recognize that it requires attention and
tools. That’s not an earth‑shattering
realization, but it is something that
needs to be articulated thoroughly.
We often need to help our clients
accept the possibility that facilitated
collaboration is powerful and can
help them do what they need to get
done.
Of course, not every collaboration is a
success. Who doesn't remember that
time when you were assigned a group
project in school and it stunk? But
there are tools and models that make
collaboration more effective. Some
of them were invented or leveraged
by MG Taylor. One model that we’ve
found particularly useful over the
years is Scan-Focus-Act.
At its most basic level, Scan-FocusAct is a three-part way to gather
information, use that information to
decide what’s worth exploring more
rigorously, and test whether the areas
you’re concentrating on can lead to
useful results. It’s a model that not
only works, but is particularly useful
for group work.
I first encountered Scan-Focus-Act
as a way to think about and plan
for three-day collaborative events.
It was a convenient breakdown: one
phase each day. But it’s also a natural
planning model that is effective when
applied to different lengths of time.
One of the first sessions I facilitated
on my own at Collective Next was
an offsite at a hotel. I didn't have the
luxury of three days. I think I had a
day and a half in total.
There is a little bit of physics involved
in Scan-Focus-Act. To effectively
stretch people's thinking, you need
some time. That's a natural constraint.
If you have three hours and you really
want to stretch people’s thinking,
you'd better be pretty precise about
what you’re going to scan. The
shortest scan module that I've ever
done, which I developed for that
early offsite, is an exercise we call
Really Rapid Read. We give people
just enough time to read, teach one
another, and debrief. We start by
curating a set of articles. It can be as
few as two articles so long as they
express opposing views or some sort
of tension, and can be consumed in
about 15 minutes. Following that, you
pair up the participants so they can
share the differing views. And then
we pull together the larger group and
debrief. We’ve done this well in as
little as 45 minutes.
Scan-Focus-Act is a core model for
us, in part because it’s a great way
to help people—clients, partners, and
us—understand how we go about our
work. One of the hardest things that
we do is convert a business problem
to an effective, creative series of
movements—a design—that a group
of people can engage in together
over some set period of time in order
to create a solution.
As Bertrand Russell put it, "The
greatest challenge to any thinker
is stating the problem in a way that
will allow a solution." Scan-Focus-Act
provides a powerful template to help
us do just that. ‹›
These Three Ideas
Must Die
by Matt Saiia
proceeds as if change is episodic, but
The idea that collaboration and
it’s not. Change is constant. When
cooperation are the same thing
you’re
you’re
must die. They're quite different. In
helping people adapt and evolve as
cooperation, the output is greater
they grow. You’re not just moving from
productivity,
one big place to another big place.
more efficient and effectively. You
Change is ultimately more disruptive
measure cooperation in productivity
than change management takes into
terms. But you measure collaboration
account. That’s why most mergers
in terms of how much creativity
and acquisitions don’t work: They’re
comes out of it. It's a much more
too disruptive for an organization to
difficult challenge.
managing
change,
getting
things
done
extract value from them.
Every year, literary agent and Edge.
be retired. Briefly, here are three that
org proprietor John Brockman hosts
we think ought to be banished.
one of the most exclusive dinners at
TED. He also publishes a collection
The term change management must
of provocative essays built around a
die. Change is real. Managing change
pressing question or issue. In recent
is real. But change management is
years, some of the questions have
not real.
been What Is Your Dangerous Idea?,
Change is constant.
When you’re managing
change, you’re helping
people adapt and
evolve as they grow.
What Are You Optimistic About?, and
How Is the Internet Changing the Way
You Think? The most recent book is
called This Idea Must Die and includes
essays about scientific ideas that are
blocking progress.
Measure collaboration
in terms of how much
creativity comes out
of it. It's a much more
difficult challenge.
The idea that creativity can be
controlled as opposed to catalyzed
must die. The underlying assumption
here
is
that
methodical
or
innovation
can
predictable,
be
that
it’s clean. It’s not. It’s messy. Your
company can create environments
We at Collective Next are using the
Change management, as it’s practiced,
in which creativity and innovation
book as a good excuse to consider
is something done to an organization
are more likely, but you can't hope to
which ideas in our business need to
after the fact. Change management
control it.
What ideas in your business, ideas that
have become conventional wisdom,
need to die? ‹›
The Power of Graphic
Facilitation
functional internal team and their
have scribed and facilitated over
customers.
500 sessions. We can geek out on
nibs, styli, wall design, visual models,
by Bree Sanchez
By the nature of their work, I expected
group dynamics, and so, so much
our participants to already know
more all day long. Seven hours flew
everything about our syllabus for
by. We sketch-stormed on stickies.
the day: sketching and typography
We all scribed a TED talk and an
basics, visual listening, and graphical
episode of RadioLab. We explored
frameworks for groups.
dozens of visual frameworks and
considered situations where they
Every now and then, when I am
one of the attendees, a visionary
scribing at a conference or event,
“imagineer” and designer at one of
I’ll hear a whisper behind me that
the world’s largest technology firms.
goes something like this: “Wow,
Over time, the two became friends.
that’s really cool! Do you do this for
The imagineer invited John to come
a living?” Why yes, it is. And yes, I
to Silicon Valley to teach his team
do. It is often the beginning of a
of user experience (UX) designers
When we pick up a
marker, we seek to
understand, make
connections, and
build a common
language in visuals.
great conversation and, sometimes,
about graphic facilitation. John and I
Not so. They could have been dairy
their own-to-keep CN-style scribe
something more.
delivered the day-long course.
farmers or nurses or investment
palettes.
bankers. They were completely new
previous night fashioning 16 of these
UX designers spend much of their
to graphic facilitation and our way
out of Expo markers and gaffer tape.
daily lives translating big ideas and
of thinking and working. And they
business requirements into visual
could immediately see the value and
After all this, we asked what the
work products. Their job is to listen,
were ready to learn.
participants
“Wow, that’s really
cool! Do you do
this for a living?”
A
few
years
a user interface (in this case a
For John and me, this was all thrilling.
had
software display screen) based on
We’ve each been doing this work
an exchange just like this with
the diverse needs of their cross-
for roughly 15 years. Combined, we
John
at
TED,
Colaruotolo
We talked through the participants’
typical
ideation
and
planning
scenarios, and we built visual process
tools customized for their needs.
We relished our “Oprah moment,”
when we gave all of the participants
John
saw
worked
as
late
barriers
the
for
adopting some of these tools and
my
colleague
ago
synthesize, and visually organize
would be appropriate.
The Power of Graphic
Facilitation
by Bree Sanchez
(continued)
practices.
Their
answers
were
enlightening, though not surprising:
• “It’s not the way we have worked
in the past.”
depicting the rules of baseball. And
hundreds of sketch covered Post-
PowerPoint? Sure, we use it. But it’s
Its, dozens of flip charts full of
not an ideal tool for ideation, group
strategic models, a sea of scrawled-
problem
up
solving,
or
information
whiteboards,
and
smiling,
capture.
giddy designers. I can absolutely
Graphic facilitation
is an act of great
optimism.
understand their enthusiasm.
We took these on, one by one.
At the end of the day, the imagineer
connections, and build a common
John urged the group to have the
and his design team thanked us for
language in visuals. We believe we
creative confidence to try these
an outstanding session. We thanked
can create shared understanding,
new ways. We showed the visible
them
communicate better, work better,
difference between a page of small
engaged.
• “In meetings, we need detailed
notes, not just nice pictures.”
• “We use a lot of PowerPoint
instead.”
for
being
thoughtful
Graphic facilitation is an act of
great optimism. When we pick up a
marker, we seek to understand, make
and
text describing the rules of baseball
and a graphical, strategic model
and live better. It’s no small dream,
but our cadre just expanded by 16
I looked around the room and saw
well-trained UX designers.
‹›
What Your Office Says
About Your Company
by Matt Saiia
We’ve been following the conversation
over at The New York Times about
the relative merits of open versus
closed offices. The talk has been
spirited, with many observations
worth considering as you imagine the
optimal design of your office.
At Collective Next, we believe
in
appropriate
design,
design
that intentionally restates what’s
important to an organization and
makes it easier to do the work you
want to do for the customers you
want to serve.
Yet that debate, however spirited,
is focusing on the wrong stuff. It
has not landed on the core issue.
Arguing open offices versus cubicles
versus closed ones? That is merely a
tactical question. The key strategic
question above that is what kind of
At Collective Next,
we believe in
appropriate design.
company do you want to have—and
how can the design of your office
support that?
This is true when companies design
their strategies, and it’s also true
when you design your physical
space. As with the many other
ways an organization expresses
its culture—stories and legends,
rituals and practices, symbols and
signs, predictable behaviors—the
physical environment is a primary
communicator of an organization’s
culture and values. Without a word, it
says this is how we work; this is who
we are. If your organization values
transparency,
inclusiveness,
and
collaboration, then you should show
it, live it, create conditions in which
they will be more likely.
If your organization
values transparency,
inclusiveness, and
collaboration, then
you should show it.
You can structure your office in ways
that increase the likelihood that
great ideas will inspire one another.
Regardless of which way you choose
to design your office, the right way to
get to the right office is by engaging
your workforce to find out what they
need. Top-down decisions are likely to
miss some employee needs. As with
so much else, explore this together
and you will make better decisions.
There is no one office layout that
works
for
everyone
and
open
workspaces aren’t right for every
organization. If your work is deeply
focused, mostly solitary, requiring
quiet contemplation and reflection,
putting your people in loud, chaotic
open environments won’t work. It
will hinder both productivity and
engagement.
But even the supposed downsides of
an open environment, compared to
a traditional office environment, can
help companies in unexpected ways.
One of the most common arguments
we hear against open environments is
that people who work there lose their
privacy. That may be true, but there
are two ways around that.
First, consider a mix. That’s what we
have and we’ve seen it work elsewhere,
too.
Most
organizations
employ
What Your Office Says
About Your Company
by Matt Saiia
(continued)
people who do many different types
of jobs. The exact same environment
doesn’t work for every position; call
center work, for example, works best
in the open, but even people who
work in the open need some private
space. Our environment is primarily
open but we offer places to retreat.
Conference rooms are
for collaboration and
communication.
Conference rooms are for collaboration
and
communication—that’s
why
they’re called conference rooms — but
they can also be places for occasional
solo
rumination.
Our
different
conference rooms have different
intentions. Some can be booked;
some can’t. Some have couches,
some have tables. We try to make
sure that different private spaces
offer different benefits. Even the
most collaborative person sometimes
needs time by herself. That balance
between closed and open gives your
organization transparency and still
permits a modicum of privacy.
Second, reconsider what you thought
about the benefits of privacy. Open
environments force you to have
what used to be considered private
conversations in public spaces. But
that doesn’t have to be a recipe for
employee embarrassment. Rather,
it can be a chance for everyone to
learn, and not necessarily at anyone’s
expense. Indeed, you’ll find that the
most open environments, if they’re
done intentionally, are home to the
most learning cultures. At their best,
open environments are truly open.
The balance between
closed and open gives
your organization
transparency and still
permits a modicum of
privacy.
The success of open (or mixed and
mostly open) environments leads to a
bigger point about human resiliency.
A recent This American Life told the
story of Daniel Kish, who’s been
nicknamed “Batman.” Kish is blind,
but he can navigate the world quite
effectively by clicking his tongue (like
a bat). As a result of his disability, Kish
had to change the way he operated
in the world, based on his physical
constraints. He’s thriving now because
he was able to adapt. It’s a great story
about the role expectations play in
performance and achievement.
It takes practice to become
successful in an open environment.
Many of us learned in schools that
were hierarchical and lived much of
our work lives in office environments
designed for individual work rather
than collaboration. That’s true even if
the office has an open environment;
dropping the walls is not sufficient.
Entering a truly open environment
can be disorienting and requires
people to learn new skills (and let go
of old fears).
Every environment speaks about
the organization you are and want
to be. Whatever office environment
you host—open, closed, or some
combination—do it intentionally and
do it together with your workforce.
As my colleague Dave Rutley notes,
Everything Speaks. We believe
open offices can work, but that’s
not the main point. The main point
is to remember that the way you
work speaks loudly about what your
company is all about. ‹›
Classroom
Collaboration on a
Grand Scale
by John Colaruotolo
What do you do when you're asked
to volunteer for a half-day in a third
grade classroom? Try to solve some
of the worlds toughest problems,
of course! For the last few months,
my daughter's teachers and I have
been tossing around ideas on how
to use the Collective Next style
of collaboration in the classroom.
We landed on facilitating a minisession that would give the kids an
opportunity to use their brainpower
to explore possible solutions to longstanding world problems.
We used the same philosophical
structure for our mini-session that
we use in our big kid (adult) sessions.
We began with a scan of all the
problems that the world is facing
today. The children took turns calling
out issues that they are aware of,
while I captured the discussion on
a whiteboard. As the conversation
unfolded, we grouped similar issues
together.
There was no shortage of issues,
and we were quite surprised at how
skillfully the kids articulated some of
these issues. My personal favorites
of the ones they came up with were
"addiction to technology" and "con
artists."
We wanted to run four parallel
breakouts of problem-solving, so
next we needed to find four topics
that the class as a whole would be
most interested in tackling for the
rest of the morning. We used a silent,
raise-your-hand voting system in
which each child was allowed three
votes. The result? Clear distinction of
the top four issues to solve. One by
one the children came to the board,
grabbed their favorite color Expo
marker, and signed up for the topic
they were interested in.
Then we revealed the assignment.
We used a classic collaboration
technique. We set the teams out into
the future nine years from now:
"Pretend that it is the year 2023,
and instead of each of you
about to be finishing third grade,
pretend that you're graduating
high school. You've completely
solved the problem that your
team chose to work on, and
we want to know how you did
it! To mark the occasion, the
Prosper Press is coming to visit
you and your team at the high
school, and they want to write an
article about how you solved this
problem, and take your picture
for the paper. Here is what you
should work on when you go
to your teams, so that you'll be
ready to talk to the newspaper
interviewer:
• What did you make/build/
design/invent to solve your
problem? How did you do it?
• We rely on our classmates,
friends, teams, neighbors,
and others to help solve
problems. You didn't solve
this all by yourselves, so
tell us who else helped you
along the way, and how they
helped.
• There was one big nasty
obstacle that you had to
overcome over the past nine
years. What was it, and how
did you over come it?"
The children worked for about 90
minutes as my daughter's teachers
Classroom
Collaboration on a
Grand Scale
by John Colaruotolo
(continued)
and I floated in and out of each
breakout. It was fascinating to watch
their personalities come to life as
they took turns sketching ideas onto
their whiteboards and debating each
other. There were more than a few
moments of pure joy and excitement
when something really amazing (or
just really funny) was drawn up on
the board.
What did I take away from this? Kids
are smart. We were delighted with
the creativity of their solutions and
the manner in which they articulated
those ideas back to the entire class.
They enjoyed working on these
problems and inventing the coolest
things to solve their problems. It was
nice to see that our collaborative
process still works, even when
it is greatly abbreviated for the
classroom.
I also learned that our teachers often
use collaborative principles when
working on class projects. Before
we started the breakout work, my
daughter's teachers spent a few
minutes asking the class to call out
the rules of collaboration. I had
no idea how primed they were, as
they called out most of the "rules
of engagement" we share with our
clients at the beginning of our large
design sessions.
The children collaborated well (for
the most part). This class has a
collaborative advantage because
they all know each other very well.
It's a bit of a unique class in that
it's a dual-language format with the
same group of students year over
year since kindergarten. One group
ended up having several of the
stronger personalities, so there was
some arguing about who should get
to present at the end of our minisession. (We had to put the kibosh on
that team wanting to hold tryouts for
the presenter.) Because there were
no grades at the end of our session,
not even a discussion ahead of time
about grading, I think that allowed
the students to freely explore ideas
without worrying about uncovering
a great idea as fast as possible. The
simple gift of a few hours of free idea
exploration led to their best ideas.
Kids like to erase boards. I mean,
they really really love to erase
boards. I don't understand it. I
actually missed shooting photos of
two boards because the kids are
trained so well to keep everything
neat. Their work vanished soon after
they presented.
I also find it interesting that many
of the kids were not completely
attached to their written/visual
work. During the breakouts, several
of the teams would fill up a board,
then erase it to start again, or make
a better version of what they were
working on. There was no packratting of finished surfaces.
What I learned most is that there
is great hope and promise for the
younger generation of our world.
When I was in third grade, I don't
remember being asked to think
big, to think beyond the lessons in
the classroom, let alone to work
collaboratively with six or seven
classmates on a project. These
children are already set-up to work/
play/explore in an environment that
we at Collective Next are still trying
to help adult organizations cultivate.
Because of their abilities to
collaborate "nicely" so young, I can
only imagine the kinds of careers they
will be able to create for themselves
and the accomplishments they will
achieve. ‹›
How to Give the Talk
of Your Life
by Jimmy Guterman
Even those of us who love TED have
a complicated relationship with it.
Many have recounted the elitism of
the main event and the rise of the
TED Talk as a rigid form; others have
parodied that form effectively.
It’s a fabulous way to
get exposed to ideas
worth spreading
And there’s a small industry of
consultants who say they can help
you deliver a TED-quality talk.
(Disclosure: This includes us. We
at Collective Next have worked at
many TEDs and TEDx’s, we helped
found and run TEDxBoston, and I’ve
spoken at TED twice.) But, as lovers
of TED, we argue emphatically that
it’s a fabulous way to get exposed to
ideas worth spreading.
TED promises that you
might witness people
giving the talk of their
lives.
At the opening of the 30th
anniversary TED in Vancouver,
curator Chris Anderson suggested
that one of the keys to TED’s success
longevity is that both he and his
predecessor as curator are “curious
and impatient.” Give us the talk of
your life. But give it to us quickly.
That’s the excitement of TED in a
nutshell, the promise that you might
witness people giving the talk of
their lives. A few times every year,
the event delivers just that, as highprofile examples from Jill Bolte
Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, and Bryan
Stevenson attest. Here we’re going
to share some of what we’ve learned
over the past decade of working with
clients regarding how to improve
your chances of delivering the talk of
your life when you hit the stage.
It’s a Talk, Not a Presentation
Yesterday, I sat in on a call with
Geoff Amidei and Mason Smith as
we onboarded a client who’s got
a high-profile talk in front of him. I
was particularly taken by how Geoff
differentiated a presentation, which
people do every day, to a talk, which
is a different form.
In a presentation, Geoff suggested,
it’s the slides that get the attention.
Your success is based on how well
you deliver the information on the
slides. In a talk, you’re telling a
story. Success comes from whether
you offer a good story, well told.
In a presentation, slides and other
collateral are the primary point of
focus.
In a talk, you selectively use visuals
to enhance the story. Indeed, if you
look at some of the best and most
popular TED Talks over the past 30
years, the speakers don’t use slides
at all. They stand in front of us, and
share an honest, specific story.
So what makes a good talk? From our
many years of speaker presentation,
we’ve found that people who follow
these guidelines are far more likely to
share a story that makes a difference.
1. Don’t confuse a talk with an
academic argument. Rather, a good
talk is an opportunity to engage an
audience.
2. Don’t try to squeeze in everything.
You can’t. Your job is to filter what
matters most to this particular
audience.
3. Keep the experience paramount,
How to Give the Talk
of Your Life
by Jimmy Guterman
(continued)
not the slides. The audience
members aren’t there to read what’s
on the screen behind you; they are
there to take in your story.
4. Show your personality, or at least
the part of your personality that you
want to share with this particular
audience. In a sense, try to be
yourself on purpose.
5. Make them laugh. Chances are
that the point of your talk is to
educate, but that doesn’t mean you
can’t entertain as well. If you can
make the audience laugh, you’ll keep
that audience alert and they’ll learn
more from you.
6. Tell the truth. People often present
what they think the audience wants
to hear rather than what the audience
needs to hear. This is your one chance.
Yes, being honest can make an
audience uncomfortable. But telling
the truth will make it more likely that
the audience will respect you and find
the humanity in your talk.
7. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.
Then rehearse again. As mentioned
above, you need to be prepared.
But don’t turn into a robot or simply
recite your text from memory. You’re
performing, not reading.
8. Move around. Animated speakers
are much more engaging. Gesture.
Stalk the stage. Pace. Let people see
you really be you as you share your
individual story.
9. Be you, because you’re the only
one who can be you. A surefire
way to make sure your story gets
remembered is if you do something
unique compared to all the other
people in front of that audience.
What do you have to offer that no
one else does? What’s the story that
you, only you, can tell? ‹›
Three Ways to Make
Your Company More
Innovative
by Matt Saiia
Every company wants to be
innovative. Innovative companies
invent new markets. Innovative
companies get bigger and last
longer. But it’s not every company
that turns out to be innovative. Our
work at Collective Next has shown us
that you can’t just wave a magic wand
and make people more innovative.
Perhaps the most important thing a
company that wants to be innovative
can do is create the conditions that
nurture a vibrant community of
innovators.
I’d like to share some of what
we’ve learned about how to build
a company and a culture where
people are encouraged to innovate.
In particular, I’d like to discuss three
things you can do as a leader that
can make innovation a lot more likely.
First of all, you’re a lot more likely
to see innovation when people and
ideas have plenty of chances to
bump into one another.
In art, as in other fields, there’s the
myth of the solo genius. But some of
the greatest periods of innovation in
art history have come from vibrant
communities of discourse. Think
about the great art movements—
Impressionism, and even Cubism—
they’re movements. It wasn’t just
Monet or Picasso. These movements
were full of likeminded superstars
and near-superstars who could
inspire one another, argue with one
another, and come up with ideas
that they never would have come
up with if they were working totally
solo. Artists would literally bump into
each other in studios and cafes, and
as a result their ideas bumped into
each other, too.
You’re a lot more likely
to see innovation when
people and ideas have
lots of chances to
bump into one another.
Our headquarters is in downtown
Boston. Up the road in Concord 150
years ago, you would find some of
the greatest American writers ever—
Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo
Emerson,
Nathaniel
Hawthorne,
Henry David Thoreau—all neighbors
at the same time. Each of them did
work that influenced the other; each
of them encouraged and edited
one another. How close were these
people? When he wasn’t in his
famous cabin in the woods, Thoreau
babysat Emerson’s kids. Pretty close.
And it’s not just art where this can
happen. Think of how the Internet
revolution has been accelerated
by the fact that so many of the
breakthrough
companies
are
located in clusters like Silicon Valley
or Cambridge and Boston. The
clusters promote innovation within
companies, of course, but they also
create the conditions for inspiration
across companies.
Historians call these “genius clusters,”
a statistically unlikely consolidation
of inspired voices who come together
with a shared purpose. Even in their
solo work they create something
that would have been unimaginable
without the input of the other great
ideas surrounding them.
How do you make your company the
natural home for a genius cluster?
Obviously you need intelligent and
creative individuals, but successful
companies
have
that
already.
Three Ways to Make
Your Company More
Innovative
by Matt Saiia
(continued)
The trick is building strong social
networks that are diverse and
accessible, establishing pathways for
those individuals and their ideas to
play off each other. True disruptive
innovation usually happens in the
horizontal rather than the vertical,
in the intersection of ideas. To foster
an innovative culture, leaders need to
build cross-knowledge-pool networks.
That way, your people will be able to
tap in to other types of problem solvers
when they face difficult challenges—
the sorts of challenges that are more
complex than one person can deal
with. They’ll be open to new ways of
seeing and doing.
At innovative companies, ideas from
the outside bump into ideas from the
inside. There were plenty of good
mobile devices before Apple blew
the category open with the iPod
and then the iPhone. Remember
the Creative Nomad Jukebox? The
PalmPilot? Both were market-worthy
but it was the iPod and iPhone that
became iconic. So many of us have
them in our pockets because they
were horizontally successful. They
integrated the right technologies at
the right time.
The most elegant design and
effective marketing wouldn’t have
A company’s culture is
shaped by the stories it
chooses to tell and the
people it chooses to
celebrate.
been as successful if so many
technological
advances,
many
of them outside Apple’s control,
hadn’t converged. The combination
of advances in miniaturizing data
storage, expanding battery life,
scaling up of manufacturing, and
explosive gains in bandwidth added
up to the perfect moment for a
product like the iPhone. Vertical
innovation in one area wasn’t
enough; the uber-innovation came
in harnessing the innovations across
fields. Apple didn’t make all those
trends happen, but it had people
looking at different parts of that
problem who were ready to act and
work together when the trends came
together. Perhaps Apple’s greatest
innovation isn’t what it comes up
with itself but how it smartly takes
advantage of, incorporates, and
extends what is happening around
it into elegant design. The real
innovation is the recognition of the
trends, the combining of them, and
the ease of use in exploiting them.
Steve Jobs didn’t create the iPhone.
He created the conditions for a large
group of talented individuals to pool
their knowledge together in valuable
ways.
Second of all, innovation is more
likely when people and their work
are celebrated for pushing limits.
A company’s culture is shaped by
the stories it chooses to tell and
the people it chooses to celebrate.
I know there’s a widespread belief
among leaders that you get what you
measure, and there’s some truth in
that, but I think even more important
is that you get what you emphasize.
It’s an important distinction. People
want to be recognized for their work.
Leaders show recognition when they
choose which legends they want
to share about their company and
their successes. The most famous
of these are origin myths—think Bill
Three Ways to Make
Your Company More
Innovative
by Matt Saiia
(continued)
Hewlett and David Packard in their
garage. That sense of adventure and
purposeful play permeated HewlettPackard’s culture for decades.
Innovation is hard. It tests our
patience and our fortitude. Bringing
any new idea to market requires
facing countless barriers along
the way. Sometimes the most
imposing barriers come from within
companies, before the idea has had
any contact with the outside world.
Without the right role models that
encourage people to keep going,
great ideas can be prematurely
abandoned, overly diluted, or never
recognized for the breakthroughs
they are. Leaders in an organization
who want more innovation need to
share stories that embody what they
want to see in the world.
When you’re creating
a culture of innovation,
symbols matter.
Know who your stars are and what
they’re working on. Support them.
Celebrate them. Offer clear role
models for success. That way, other
people in your organization will want
to follow them. Even better, they will
feel they have permission to go even
further.
If you want innovation, you want
people to feel they can push limits.
By choosing to emphasize people
and projects that push limits, you
show what’s important to your
organization. We all know that if
work is not recognized, there’s a
good chance that people will stop
doing it. Companies that foster
a culture of innovation have a
tolerance for pushing limits, even if
it results in the occasional failure
on the long road to success. Part of
what makes a company innovative
is the quality of the people who are
attracted to work there. Of course
you want to hire and promote the
smartest, most forward-looking
people. But again one of the
keys to innovation is creating an
environment in which these great
people work together and come up
with something they couldn’t have
separately. But that’s not enough.
People need to know that they
and their work will be recognized.
Encouraging
and
publicly
rewarding experimentation are
keys to encouraging innovation
over the long term.
One of the projects we’ve done at
Collective Next that means the most
to us is the Thinkspace we built and
managed for our longtime client
Fidelity Investments. The idea behind
the Thinkspace was to create a place
where people could interact without
the usual constraints you find in a
standard meeting room. Pretty much
everything about it could change.
Furniture, whiteboards, even lighting
could be moved around as demands
changed or inspiration dictated.
People presented there, but it wasn’t
set up as a conference room or an
auditorium. It was a collaborative
working environment, an open,
endlessly customizable place where
people could think big. And once
people learned they had a new
kind of physical space, they went
there thinking they could innovate.
When you’re creating a culture of
innovation, symbols matter. Think
hard about the cues you’re giving to
your organization.
The final concept is that innovation
is more likely to happen when you
hold open big questions, along with
Three Ways to Make
Your Company More
Innovative
by Matt Saiia
(continued)
the possibility that you might just
be able to solve them.
There’s a trend in management
literature nowadays to think more
about your company’s mission
questions and less about its mission
statement, and that makes a lot of
sense. Knowing what you’re trying
to answer opens you up to the
possibility that you just might.
There were big questions haunting
AT&T right after World War II. It
faced an enormous challenge. Its
phone network worked on vacuum
tubes, which were so slow, bulky,
and power-hungry that they were
holding the company back at a time
when the demand for phone service
was off the charts. AT&T’s R&D unit,
Bell Labs, had the job of figuring out
how to get past vacuum tubes. This
inefficiency was holding the company
back dramatically. William Shockley,
a brilliant physicist, had been trying
for nearly a decade to figure out
what could advance communications
beyond the vacuum tube, but he
wasn’t able to get anything to
work. It wasn’t until he connected
to two colleagues with expertise in
different parts of physics that the
team came up with the transistor.
That semiconductor transformed
communications. It earned the team
a Nobel Prize and is seen by many
as the birth of modern computing. It
still serves as the foundation for so
much that happens in technology
more than 65 years later.
colleagues viewed the world. It hung
over everything they did. Having
that big question in mind focused
attention and gave clear purpose to
their work.
Nothing kills
innovation faster than
the ruthless pursuit of
the wrong idea.
Of course you have to ask the right
big question. Nothing kills innovation
faster than the ruthless pursuit of the
wrong idea.
Imagine holding open a question
for a decade. Our desire for the
“Eureka!” moment fails to take into
account that breakthrough thinking
often comes from a long period of
sustained thought. The culture at
Bell Labs encouraged specialists
in different areas to experiment,
collaborate, and keep asking those
questions.
The diverse team at Bell Labs had
a sense of purpose that came from
being a genius cluster focused on
one big question: “What is the future
of communications?” That was their
central question.
The specialists there were all open to
new ideas from specialists in other
fields, but that big question was the
filter through which Shockley and his
Thanks to the influence of the Design
Thinking method made popular
at Stanford’s d.school, there’s a
question more and more companies
are asking when they innovate: “how
might we?” It implies possibility,
exploration.
The idea goes back to Procter &
Gamble in the early 1970s when they
were competing with Irish Spring,
Colgate’s soap with the green
stripe that promised “refreshment,”
whatever that is. For months, Procter
& Gamble executives and engineers
tried to build a better bar of soap
with green stripes until at last they
realized that they needed to ask a
more ambitious question. Instead of
focusing on inventing better green
Three Ways to Make
Your Company More
Innovative
by Matt Saiia
(continued)
stripes, they pivoted to “how might
we create a more refreshing soap?”
They
weren’t
in
the
greenstripe business, they were in the
refreshing business. That led to the
development of a still-successful
brand of soap, Coast.
There are bigger questions out there
than soap. In the developing world,
one of the biggest questions is
“how might we eradicate malaria?”
There have been many attempts
and varying levels of success.
Many interventions have revolved
around encouraging people to use
mosquito nets for their intended
purpose. For economic reasons,
many people use the nets to catch
fish and damage them so much from
fishing with them that they can’t be
used in homes. Some solutions have
sought to eradicate the mosquitoes
carrying the disease.
A group of scientists working in a
lab set up by Nathan Mhyrvold seek
to eradicate malaria by eradicating
mosquitoes. How do they do this?
With a laser gun that shoots
mosquitoes in mid-air. (I once saw
a demo of that mosquito-shooting
laser and it was every bit as
awesome as you’d imagine.)
A laser to shoot mosquitoes in midair may seem far-fetched, a little
ridiculous. But ridiculous approaches
can lead to valuable solutions.
Whether you’re looking at something
as mundane as soap or as crucial as
defeating a deadly disease, keeping
the big questions in mind increases
the likelihood that you might be
able to answer your big question.
You’re not going to be able to
answer a question you’re not asking.
Innovators inspired by Hewlett and
Packard aren’t playing in the garage
for fun; they’re focused on the big
technology questions worth solving.
Successful leaders like to control
everything. Innovation doesn’t work
that way. Innovation is a messy
process that verges on the magical.
You can, though, encourage people to
adopt practices that have been shown
to yield innovation. Rather than trying
to control what happens, you are more
likely to find success by changing the
environment of where it happens.
I encourage you to ask:
• How might we create spaces and
processes that make it easier for
ideas to bump into each other and
your people to share what they
know with each other?
• How might we celebrate people
and work that pushes the limits
of what we do, so others will be
inspired to do the same?
• How might we formulate the right
big questions and hold them long
enough to solve them?
We should spend as much time
thinking about the conditions we
create as we do about specific
processes. If you do so, I think
you’ll find that you’ve created an
environment in which innovation and
innovators can flourish. ‹›
Make It Fun
small change to the environment, it
will also help you get to know a little
more about your colleagues.
Celebrate! Even an impromptu
celebration will brighten a workplace
and get the fun started.
by Katia Greene
“In every job that must be done
there is an element of fun.” Those
words have stuck with me since the
first time I watched Mary Poppins
and they play a big role in how I
approach my day.
I’ve always found that by changing
my perspective and looking for a
fun way to tackle the tasks at hand,
I become far more productive and
energized to get things done. I’m
fortunate to work with a creative
group of people who want to have
fun and breathe life into work. Every
day can't be a party, but here are a
few ways we like to “Make it Fun."
Music in the workspace. It’s the
easiest way to add fun to your day.
It provides background noise to
work by and I’ve always found that
it makes time go by faster.
I work with a creative
group of people who
want to have fun and
breathe life into work.
Take turns providing a soundtrack
for your office or use a streaming
service like Pandora to build a
station. Not only will it provide a
We’ve had ... Four
Square breaks, random
roller chair races, Ms.
Pac-Man contests, just
to name a few.
Don’t just say, “Happy Wednesday”;
make it a happy Wednesday.
Wednesdays in the Collective Next
office are always happy because
what started as one person going to
a food truck for lunch has become
an office-wide pilgrimage to the
food trucks for Stoked Pizza. (Yes,
it’s that good.) My favorite part is
when everyone gets back from the
trucks; we sit in the kitchen and talk
over lunch. No computers. Limited
calls. All camaraderie.
Games and Competition. Workrelated contests can direct attention
to a project that otherwise might
have been tedious to get done.
But try a group activity not related
to work. At Collective Next we’ve
had 10-minute Four Square breaks,
random roller chair races, Ms. PacMan contests, just to name a few.
Those quick redirects of attention
can help refocus energy on a project
you might need a break from. It also
gets your blood pumping!
Laugh. You don’t need to be Louis
C.K., but don’t be afraid to get a little
silly. Share a funny story about your
weekend. Send a crazy birthday
greeting or video with costumes
and props. Dress up as your boss on
Halloween. Laughing helps create
memories and bonds with your
coworkers. It pulls people together.
There are countless other ways to
Make it Fun and I encourage you to
incorporate more fun into your day.
Just remember, "once you find the
fun—SNAP!—The job’s a game!”
‹›
Collaboration, from
the Theater Stage to
the Corporate Stage
by Hamilton Ray
I began as an English major at
college. I loved literature. I started
studying
Shakespeare
with
a
teacher who taught both English
and theater. He said I shouldn’t just
read Shakespeare. I should be in
Shakespeare.
I did it and I loved it. I felt natural to
me. It was all about telling stories.
When I was at Emery, I did an
internship at a theater in Atlanta.
It was a small theater, one of
those let’s-get-everyone-togetherand-put-on-a-show places. The
goal always was to create a great
experience. When I finished my
internship there, a friend of mine
said we should start a theater
company ourselves. Why not?
I did it and I loved it.
I felt natural to me. It
was all about telling
stories.
We weren’t getting the parts we
wanted and we figured the way to
get the parts we wanted was to
cast ourselves. I was the managing
director and he was the artistic
director. We did that for five years.
I loved it, but I really wanted to
act. So I moved to New York to be
an actor. I did that for a couple of
years. I ended up putting on my own
shows as well in New York because I
still wasn’t getting roles.
Here, you’re trying to
help your audience
create its own story
and have a great
experience doing it.
My friend who I started the theater
group with moved to New York,
too. He started doing facilitation
was a structure and a methodology
out there, but you could find new
ways to be creative every time you
were faced with a challenge. That
was the leap.
There are differences between
theater and the work for Collective
Next, of course. In theater, you are
telling someone else your story.
Here, you’re trying to help your
audience create its own story and
have a great experience doing it.
The audience members are the
actors. As a facilitator, it’s more like
you’re directing, trying to help them
tell their story. But there are more
similarities than differences.
work, I began to do so as well, and I
realized when we were doing events
we were doing what we’d always
done: We were putting on shows.
We had an audience. It was all the
same things I loved about putting
on a show in the theater. And the
content was fascinating to me. It
was fun business school every day.
I was teaching attendees, attendees
were teaching me, and it was art and
business coming together. There
Part of serving your audience is
making sure all of them can see
themselves in the story they’re
constructing. That can be harder
when companies aren’t trying to
come up with a shared story; they
just want to communicate a decision
and make sure everyone in the
Collaboration, from
the Theater Stage to
the Corporate Stage
by Hamilton Ray
(continued)
group comes along with it. But if the
story we’re trying to pull together
is one that everyone in the group
can see themselves in, company
sponsors can’t pretend they’re
looking for joint discovery when all
they really want is buy-in. You have
to be true about your intentions.
When we coach our sponsors, we
emphasize that people are smart
and they can see right through it if
you’re claiming to do one thing but
are really doing another.
If you want your message to land, you
have to be authentic about where
you’re coming from. Sometimes you
have to cooperate, and sometimes
you have to collaborate.
If we can help them, we
can help anybody.
a “what” before you start, don’t
pretend that you don’t. Emphasize
that you’ve make a decision to act
on an opportunity and that you’re
there to figure out how you’re going
to do it. That’s where you can start
the collaboration.
It’s OK to be a leader, make a
decision, and say this is the way
it’s going to be. But help your team
understand why you decided it
and figure out how you’re going to
make it happen together. The story
is more about the “how” than the
“why” or the “what.” If you have
Maybe the most important thing
I’ve learned from this work is that
anyone can collaborate. Building
a culture of innovation is hard
work, but it can be done almost
anywhere. There don’t have to be
people playing guitars or throwing
teddy bears.
I’ve worked with large organizations
that are known for being very
command-and-control, but they’ve
turned out to be very collaborative,
very open to everyone contributing.
If the Department of Defense can
embrace this, open to exploring
new ways to work together, any
organization can. If we can help
them, we can help anybody. ‹›
Jeff Spicoli and the
Art of Scribing
by Jack Burgess
I’m not ashamed to say that Fast
has it delivered to his history class.
Times at Ridgemont High was a
Interrupted by the delivery boy, the
pretty formative movie for me. In
teacher says to Spicoli, "You are
case you can’t remember, or are just
causing a major disturbance on my
unwilling to admit you’ve seen it, Fast
time." Spicoli’s classic reply—"If I’m
Times starred, among many others,
here, and you’re here, isn’t this our
Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli, the classic
time?"—illustrates one of the core
California stoner surf dude.
principles of how we work, and why
I’m not ashamed to
say that Fast Times at
Ridgemont High was a
pretty formative movie
for me.
we work they way we do.
In one of the film’s most memorable
if you’re going to bring a bunch of
scenes, Spicoli orders a pizza and
people together in one place, then
We are collaborators; we believe that
collaborative work leads to better
solutions. Collaborative work, at its
core, is "our time."
If you’re going to have a meeting,
it makes sense to take the steps
necessary to make it "our time."
Scribing, the practice of live graphic
capture, has become more and more
common. It’s visual, it’s memorable,
and it’s cool. It is also practical; it
creates what we call group memory
and an archival record.
Scribing, the practice
of live graphic capture,
has become more and
more common. It’s
visual, it’s memorable,
and it’s cool.
At Collective Next we scribe on our
work sessions, but we also scribe
things like the TED conference.
Scribing has a lot of benefits, but
one of the most overlooked I think is
how it contributes to making a work
session with us "our time."
Scribing operates on a spectrum
between art and documentation,
between synthesis and capture.
Good scribes can draw well, but they
can also sense what type of capture
a particular situation needs. A good
scribe can create a highly visual
synthesis that has very few words,
or create a model with actors and
annotations on a stage, or when the
situation calls for it they can shift into
capture mode, creating legible, wellorganized lists.
Scribing is most effective when it
captures a conversation, when the
comments, ideas, and questions of
the whole group get captured­
—not
just what the leader or the presenter
are saying. Scribing is a clear signal
that your voice matters, that it is
being heard, and that it is important
enough to capture. I often wonder
where conversations without a scribe
go. It seems to me that they must just
disappear into the ether. Scribing a
presentation like a TED talk is more
illustration than facilitation. But a
great conversation, captured by a
good scribe, communicates that
everyone in the room matters, that it
is, in fact, "our time." ‹›
Iterate
begin. Much of the time, my job is to
help groups and individuals begin.
When I am graphic facilitating, or
scribing, my role is often to listen to a
group of people think out loud, while
quietly sketching a synthesized visual
model or prototype of their ideas. If
it’s messy, I know I’m on the right track.
by Bree Sanchez
Get Messy. It’s Saturday morning at
Casa Sanchez and the kids and I are
whipping up birthday breakfast for
Daddy: pancakes! My three-year-old
is “measuring” flour and buttermilk.
My five-year-old is cracking eggs
and shaking her shoulders to James
Brown. Vigorous batter stirring ensues
as I fire up the stovetop. The kids stop
and stare as I ladle out enough batter
for the first pancake and gently pour it
into the hot skillet.
When the too-runny batter blob goes
almost totally flat and starts smoking
around the edges, my daughter raises
an eyebrow. I turn down the heat
and try to flip up the edge of the goo
with my spatula. I manage to flip the
hotcake, but when I do, it folds almost
in half. The cooked side is blond, not
the desired golden brown. “Mommy,
that doesn’t look like a pancake I want
to eat,” says my girl. “Don’t worry," I
say. "This is just the first pancake. We
have more chances to get this right.”
The first pancake is always a mess.
But that’s OK; it teaches you what
you need to know about the second
pancake, the third pancake, and so
on. The important thing is to accept
imperfection, learn, and keep going.
(And have fun.)
Begin. Some days it feels like
Professional First Pancake Maker
should be my official job title instead
of Art Director. It’s simple and true:
In order to move forward you must
There is often a moment when
someone in the audience looks up
from the conversation and notices
what I am doing and says, “Hey! That’s
what we’re talking about.” There are
little sighs of relief or gratitude, and
then, “But wait, we need to just change
this part…” Then they take a marker
and they’re off. I love that.
Repeat. Iterate is just a fancy word
for “repeat.” Apparently, "An endless
source of amusement for programmers
is the observation that the directions
on shampoo, 'Lather, rinse, repeat,'
are an infinite loop because there is
no iteration variable" wrote Dr. Charles
Severance, Professor of Information
Science at University of Michigan. I
code in my spare time, and it’s true: I
find this endlessly amusing.
Our clients enlist us to help go beyond
their entrenched infinite loops—tired
patterns of thinking, talking, and
working—and move forward. While
there is certainly value in repetition
(think: very clean hair, toned biceps,
Gregorian chants), we at Collective
Next are masters of and total geeks for
the iteration variable.
We are always listening for shifts,
divergence, and feedback, and using
these to guide intelligent iteration. In
collaborative design sessions, we layer
the agenda with rounds of iteration
in which problems and solutions are
approached from multiple vantage
points and tested against a wide
variety of scenarios. We believe that
this creates engagement, alignment,
and vastly better solutions.
Ship. Shipping, or ending, is just as
critical as beginning and iterating. As
anyone who watches Project Runway
knows, at some point you’ve got to
be prepared to walk your idea down
the runway. Short development cycles
amplify creative intent and momentum.
Whether you’re making a dress out of
licorice or a stack of pancakes, writing
your TED Talk script, or designing
the next iPhone, know when to keep
iterating—and when to call it done. ‹›
Think Inside the Box
that acknowledge the context of the
box. Why? Because they’re less likely
to get done. What’s more productive
than box-free thinking? Knowing
your box and using its constraints to
create something that can succeed
in the real world.
by Matt Saiia
"Think outside the box" is a
shorthand way to describe the act
of trying to stop looking at things
in the same old ways. There’s great
value, of course, in developing new
ideas and approaches. We can all
intuitively embrace the spirit of free
thinking without limits, but the term
“think outside the box” has lost much
of its meaning through repetition. It
has become a management cliché.
We at Collective Next have seen
in engagement after engagement
that constraints can lead to creative
breakthroughs—limitations can’t be
wished away—and that’s why we
spend a lot of time thinking about
how we and our clients can better
think inside their box.
That box is not just metaphoric. It’s
quite real. It represents context, the
real world in which we operate, the
rules and structures that exist. The
context may shift, but there’s always
context.
That box is not just
metaphoric. It’s quite
real.
We can’t wish away, say, gravity. Ideas
that ignore this reality, the limits of
the box, rarely get off the page and
into practice. When we are talking
about the box, we are talking about
context. Ideas that ignore context
tend to be less valuable than those
This plays out vividly as organizations
attempt to copy best practices
they’ve seen other organizations
implement. The Venezuelan youth
orchestra El Sistema deservedly
won a TED Prize for its work. The
organization’s wish was that the
TED Prize would fund bringing El
Sistema to the world. Here, it was
thought, was a best practice that
could be applied to new countries.
But it turned out that you could not
replicate El Sistema note-for-note
in the U.S. You could learn from it,
learn what made it successful, but
you had to translate it into a new
environment for it to succeed You
had to recognize what box you were
working in. Similarly, General Electric
runs its venerated Management
Development Institute in Crotonville.
Plenty of other companies have tried
to replicate it, but it never seems to
work as well.
People hire consultants all the time
to bring them best practices. But the
idea that best practices will work
in your company without authentic
translation is a fallacy. You have
to bring imagination into your box
and then transform it. It's like organ
donation. You can place a perfect
heart into a perfect body and you
can still get plenty of complications.
If you don't take into account
the unique needs of particular
organizations, you're setting yourself
up for catastrophic failure.
So when someone asks us to graft
someone else’s best practices onto
their existing organization, we push
back. We practice collaborative
design rather than simply design
things for you. When Collective Next
helps our clients design solutions for
themselves, we're ensuring that the
ideas are true to who they are as
an organization, making them more
likely be adopted and ultimately
more likely to be successful, and
we make the box they've chosen to
operate in a better place to be. ‹›
"We Are the
Main Office"
by Mason Smith
During a recent internal meeting,
we tried something new. We've
been polling one another for worthy
topics too long without going
outside. Literally outside. It was too
warm to stay inside the office, so
we took our meeting on the road.
Well, three blocks on the road. The
spring air had us itching for some
new perspectives, so we ventured
to the nearest gathering of diverse
viewpoints that might be willing
to come together briefly, think a
little better, and move some ideas
forward. We went, of course, to the
local assembly of food trucks.
We
approached
unsuspecting groups
of
several
people
waiting in line and asked them what
ideas they have been excited about
lately at work. We weren’t sure
what to expect and were pleasantly
surprised with the responses we
received.
What struck us most was that
everyone
answered
all
our
questions. There was a bit of
nervousness at the beginning when
people encountered two strangers
asking them "What are you thinking
about at work this week?" But as
soon as they recognized that we
weren't either (a) trying to sell them
something or (b) about to kidnap
them, they answered freely, often
in more detail than we expected.
We've read the research about how
humans default to collaborating
and socializing; it was delightful to
experience how that plays out in
real life.
We weren’t sure what
to expect and were
pleasantly surprised
with the responses we
received.
And what were our new friends in
Dewey Square thinking about at
their jobs? People started with the
usual icebreaker topics (the fate
of local sports teams, the weather,
kids), but quickly got to what people
really care about when they work:
the quality of their products, how
to manage their time, how to get
people to stop confusing your office
with a train station (that last one
was real, but then again the food
trucks are across the street from
South Station). Some of the men,
in particular, got quite animated
and specific about their work (we
learned a lot about iBeacon and
how it's being used at our local
baseball shrine).
We like to think we are
the main office.
What we got most of all as the food
trucks lines moved forward was how
important it is to find meaning at
work. Although one of the women
worked at what she acknowledged
was a "satellite office" for her
company as a whole, she added,
"We like to think we are the main
office."
We all do, wherever we work.
‹›
Great Inspirations
by Kathy Clemons
The Collective Next office in New
York City is in a collaborative
working space run by WeWork. Our
neighbors there do everything from
making cool socks to advocating for
literacy worldwide. It’s a bustling
environment, and it’s great to have
a place with good coffee and decent
beer available anytime you want.
The wallpaper there
was amazing and full
of inspiration.
The office has conference rooms
we can rent. As in our main office
in Boston, each one is designed
differently. One afternoon, Sep and
I found ourselves in a room up on
the quiet 26th floor. The wallpaper
there was amazing and full of
inspiration.
There are so many things to love
about its design. Some of my
favorites:
• There’s a Sharpie in there.
Anyone who has seen me take
notes knows that I have a strong
preference for Sharpie on card
stock. It helps me think bigger,
make connections between ideas,
and see how ideas have evolved
over time by shuffling the pages.
• There’s a bike. While I’m not
using my bike to commute (yet),
exercise is a critical component
of how I stay centered and sane.
I call it “burning off fumes” and
it makes a big difference if I miss
a few days because of travel or
injury.
• There are drinks: coffee, tea,
bourbon, wine. Some of them
give an edge, some of them
take the edge off, but there’s
something
magical
about
partaking something delicious
with a colleague or friend (or,
in the case of Collective Next,
people who are both).
• There are things I don’t really
have a connection to. The
gaming controls, the sriracha,
and the tightie whities aren’t
really my things. But they serve
as useful reminders of the power
in diversity. Not everything has to
be your favorite to be valuable.
• And of course, at the center of the
image, “F#*! Yeah Collaboration.”
Why do I love that? Because
sometimes you have to just let it
all go and work together to make
things happen. It’s not always
polite, but it’s probably going to
end up being good. ‹›
Letting Complexity
and Chaos Happen
by Jennifer Rutley
Before senior principal emeritus
Jennifer Rutley joined Collective
Next in 2005 (she was with us
for 10 years), she led Capgemini’s
Accelerated Solutions Environment
on the West Coast, where
she designed and f acilitated
collaborative work sessions to help
global and Fortune 100 clients build
and implement business solutions.
Before that, Jennifer spent three
years as a consultant with Ernst
& Young, where she worked on
projects focused on process reengineering ,
shared
ser vices
implementation , and financial
systems implementation. We talked
to Jennifer about many topics. One
of the most interesting parts of the
conversation was how collaboration
works differently in practice than it
does in theory.
What have you learned about
collaboration that you didn't
know 10 years ago?
I knew a lot before I came to
Collective Next, but here I 've
definitely learned the value of
elongated collaboration, moments
that occur over weeks or months, a
day here and a day there. I've learned
the value of collaborative learning
through dialogue and peer work as
opposed to the traditional training
module and communicating via
PowerPoint. Collaboration is more
about learning from one another
so people can rise as a group. It's
not dogmatic. It's a more flexible
approach in which we meet clients
where they need to be. We don't
dictate how collaboration must
happen
How is collaboration different
from the conventional wisdom?
Collaboration is about letting
complexity and chaos happen, then
rising together to a higher order.
Sometimes people say they're
having a collaboration session, but
it's not really collaboration because
they don't allow complexity and
chaos.
Collaboration is more
about learning from
one another so people
can rise as a group.
They resist difficult conversations
and it's just superficial. In a way,
people have to feel uncomfortable
for sessions to be effective, to
get the right things said. That's
the kind of real collaboration that
yields real results. ‹›
A New Theremin,
A New Way to Learn,
A New Way to Work
Together
by Jimmy Guterman
The first time I ever saw a theremin
was from the cheap seats in Madison
Square Garden in 1977, as Jimmy Page
waved his hands over the device, half
magician, half completely-out-of-it
musician. I could hardly see it (this
was before there were big screens
at arena shows). But I was intrigued.
After the show, I learned what I
could about this strange instrument
that made sounds based on the
movement of your hands. You never
came in contact with it. It was most
exciting because it was, literally,
summoning music out of thin air.
Over the years I learned more about
the history of the device and I also
became a mediocre theremin player
myself. It was an extremely difficult
instrument to master, for a number
of reasons, but the primary one
was that you had to have excellent
body control to generate music
rather than noise. A small movement
of your fingers, maybe a bit more
than an inch, could change the note
you hit by almost an octave. It was
like the old Seinfeld joke of taking
a shower in an unfamiliar hotel,
moving the dial 1/16 of an inch, and
have the temperature of the water
change 10,000 degrees. I became
a borderline-competent theremin
player, able to hit the right notes
enough of the time not to embarrass
myself, but I never mastered it.
I haven't played much theremin for
a decade, but I have started playing
a new model that has made me
rethink a lot I thought I knew about
art, learning, and working together
(three of the topics we talk about the
most at Collective Next).
The new theremin, the compact
Theremini, comes from Moog Music,
in Asheville, N.C. (The theremin I
learned on was a Moog Etherwave.
Moog Music is best-known for its
synthesizers, but its founder and
namesake Bob Moog started out
selling
make-your-own-theremin
kits via classified ads in the back of
electronic magazines.) The Theremini
has a similar hardware design to
the "traditional" theremins that
Moog sells and has some welcome
software additions, but it is different
from every other theremin you've
heard in one very important way: it
solves the crucial problem of hitting
bad notes. A Pitch Corrector dial
can make the Theremini work like a
standard theremin, but if you turn it
all the way up it's nearly impossible
to hit a bad note. It's like AutoTune
for theremins. It helps non-experts
play songs that sound like songs on
the theremin within an hour. With
previous models, if my history is any
indication, after a mere hour of use
a theremin produces only noise. (Not
good Ornette Coleman noise; bad
I-can't-get-this-to-work noise.)
When considering art, many people
put down someone's work by saying
it's facile, or too easy. If it's that easy
to make, the idea goes, how could it
be art? That often happens when new
technology gets introduced. That
was the case long before Photoshop
or word processors. Truman Capote
once derided Jack Kerouac by saying,
"That's not writing. That's typing." I
A New Theremin,
A New Way to Learn,
A New Way to Work
Together
by Jimmy Guterman
(continued)
know that sometimes artists have to
suffer for their art, but do the tools
have to make them suffer, too?
Theremin purists (yes, those people
exist) hate the Theremini. They say
it's not a real theremin. By some
definitions
they're
technically
correct, but I think what worries
them is that the Theremini makes
it easier for people to become
competent theremin players. And
that means playing a theremin won't
be this special skill that only a few
chosen know how to do. I doubt
there will be an avalanche of new
players, but I do believe that a larger
percentage of those trying to learn
how to play a Theremini will now
stick with it. Perhaps the genius part
of the Theremini is that the Pitch
Corrector is an adjustable dial rather
than an on/off toggle. You can play
without assistance, you can play with
complete support, or you can find
any place in between. The Theremini
makes it easy to start learning, but
it also makes it easier to get better
(and in less need of assistance) at
your own speed. It lets you customize
the difficulty to your aptitude and
desires.
People perform better
when they have a
feeling that they're
developing mastery.
What does this mean for learning?
What's most exciting about the
Theremini is that it makes possible
something that was previously
extremely difficult. (And not just for
the learner. It might have been funny
watching me and my gestures as I
learned the theremin, but I'm sure it
was borderline-painful to hear.)
People
perform
better
when
they have a feeling that they're
developing mastery; the faster they
get that feeling, the more they're
likely to stick to the task. Think of the
new skills you need the people on
your team to master. Do the current
tools make learning that new skill
unpleasant? Are there tools that
would get them where they need to
be faster and easier?
The Theremini has a lesson to teach
about collaboration, too. You don't
have to know everything about a
topic to be an effective collaborator,
but the more you know and the better
you feel about what you know, the
more you can contribute. Tools like
the Theremini provide shortcuts to
being a viable contributor. I don't think
these tools make you a true expert
that much faster than the old way, but
they do allow you to create something
worth sharing that much faster. And if
you're truly collaborating, you don't
have to be an expert to be a useful
contributor.
You don't have to know everything.
Tools like the Theremini help people
discover a shorter path to being
part of a conversation that can help
everyone. It's also a lot easier on the
ears. ‹›
How We Lure
Magic Into A
Collaborative
Session
by Mason Smith
We at Collective Next spend a lot of
time and effort designing sessions
with our clients. During a recent
Transcribe (Transcribes are weekly
chats during which we share what
we've learned recently and figure
out what it means to us and our
clients), we discussed how effective
collaboration doesn't just happen.
Like cooking a gourmet meal, it
takes a lot of preparation, a deep
knowledge of fundamental principles
and innovative methods, and careful
execution. But you know what they
say about the best-laid plans.
It would be naive to assume that
even the most well-designed session
will go entirely as planned.
We design our agendas to be
flexible, which leaves room for the
unknown. It's in the unknown that
there's room for creativity and the
possibility of the impossible. That is
where magic happens (not the you-
picked-my-pocket kind of magic,
but the you-restored-my-beliefin-the-impossible kind of magic).
Magic has many definitions, some
bad, some good, most clichéd. For
us, magic is the point in each of
our sessions when we witness an
unpredictable positive outcome.
Too much structure
hinders innovation;
too much flexibility
promotes
disorganization.
Thoughtful design
provides the structure
that most effectively
guides participants
toward a positive
unknown.
When this moment arrives, we
cannot and do not want to be
in complete control. Too much
structure
hinders
innovation;
too much flexibility promotes
disorganization.
Like
a
great
magic show, when there is a true
partnership between the performer
and the audience, it is unclear who's
bringing the magic. Best of all, it
doesn’t matter. Sometimes the
impossible can happen. ‹›
Thoughtful design provides the
structure that most effectively
guides
participants
toward
a
positive unknown, rather than an
unfavorable unpredictable outcome.
We
prepare
participants
with
the wand and method, so when
they
reach
that
moment
of
unpredictability, they have what they
need to harness the power of the
collective and achieve something
greater than any of them could have
imagined.
Creating Meaninful
Change via Punk Rock
by Matt Saiia
Imagine yourself as a teenager in a
club, listening to a loud, fast, sweaty
punk band. It's not even a real
club you're in. It's the basement of
someone's house that's a makeshift
club for the night. You’re surrounded
by kids your age jumping up and down
in the hot room, brought together by
your shared anger and the immense
fun that comes with being around
kids who are angry about the same
things as you are.
You didn't get here via a time machine,
though. This isn’t mid-'70s London or
New York. It’s right now, in Cairo or
Seoul or Luanda, or anyplace where
a new generation is looking to make
change. Trying to create meaningful
change in your organization, your
career, or your life? You could do a
lot worse than take punk rock as your
model.
I'm not suggesting you get up and
shout Sex Pistols, Clash, or Ramones
quotes at your next board meeting.
But punk rock is a vivid, pungent
example of an art movement that
created meaningful change.
Punk is everywhere, in part because
its ideas and energy, once released,
can be adapted to many contexts.
Disruptive movements tend to start
in one geographic area and then, as
technology permits, go global. But
agents of disruptive change are not
only reserved for the time of their
invention. They become a part of
our collective unconscious of how to
make change in the world. Punk first
blew up in London and New York,
quickly spread across Europe and
the U.S., and has taken root in many
unexpected places and contexts.
Punk rock is a vivid,
pungent example of
an art movement that
created meaningful
change.
Punk was invented in response to a
particular need in mid-70s London
and New York, but the form is still
relevant when grafted into new
contexts. People go back to punk for
inspiration because it's become part
of our collective evolution. We create
new models for change all the time.
Punk seems to work far from where
it began and different cultures seem
to latch on to punk when it's the
right time. There's a punk scene in
China. Taqwacore is Islamic punk.
There was punk rock in '80s Siberia
and apartheid-era South Africa.
There's Afropunk. From Cuba to
South Korea, vivid punk movements
have emerged as societies have gone
through substantial change. You can
argue whether punk led to change or
whether it was a symptom of change,
but you can't argue that, since the
mid-'70s, when the form roared to life
in New York and London, pretty much
everywhere there's been revolution of
one kind of another, punk has played
some part in it.
The punk in these new locations might
be full of disruptive energy, but the
output of these movements is, in one
important way, quite different from
the initial explosions in the U.S. and the
U.K. Everything has antecedents, but
the angry young people who started
punk didn't have too many immediate
models to draw from. Indeed, part of
their attraction was that they were a
loud, foulmouthed response to the
bloated, passive pop mainstream of
the time. The Ramones didn't have
the Ramones to look up to. But the
second, third, and tenth generations
of punks emerging all over the globe
do. They're not starting from scratch.
They can get where they want to go
faster because their forebears have
given them a map.
Punk is just one example of how
Creating Meaninful
Change via Punk Rock
by Matt Saiia
(continued)
All these punk movements are
happening because there are more
and more examples of previous ones
to inspire and learn from. They all
have shared elements in common,
but they're all customized for their
own immediate needs.
physical evolution. Over the past
100,000 years, we've seen only the
most moderate physical evolution
in our species, pretty much in line
with other species. But through
technology and culture, human
evolution is happening more and
more outside of our bodies; our
shared brains evolve far more quickly
than our individual ones. Through
technology and culture, we can shape
our experience in a way that only
physical evolution made possible.
And we might be on the verge of
having enough experience that we
can be quite intentional in how we
shape our development.
Cultural evolution is just as real as
Something
cultural evolution can have just as
deep an impact as physical evolution
Long before memes were amusing
captions on cat photos, Richard
Dawkins, in his 1976 book The Selfish
Gene, defined a meme as an idea that
spreads through a culture. There's
cultural evolution.
can
happen
for
the
first time only once. But the thrill
of discovery can be passed on
from place to place, generation to
generation. Cultural evolution is
strong. Even the oldest ideas are
new to you the first time you learn
about them. As we look to create and
sustain meaningful change, it's good
to remember that the tools that may
seem old hat to some of us are brandnew and thrilling and still useful
to others. Change agents are now
trying to introduce punk into North
Korea (or make it seem like they are),
not because they want to see what
happens but because they’ve seen
punk create transformative moments
elsewhere. They've seen it work. ‹›
Collaboration,
Connecting to the
Community, and
Giant Vats of Chicken
• We offer our services in a gracious,
comfortable, and safe environment,
offering
both
physical
and
emotional sustenance.
There were only five of us and the
work was more physically demanding
than we anticipated. We were busy
and sweaty in the kitchen. During a
four-hour block, our job was to help
get everything prepped for the lunch
rush, then serve lunch, then clean up
and sanitize the kitchen. We spent
a lot of time shredding giant vats of
chicken as quickly as we could to
make Thai chicken coconut soup for
100 people. We often talk about the
chaos that happens while you're in
the midst of collaboration; it was a
healthy switch for us not to be in a
facilitating role for a change. We were
being facilitated.
Those both feel so similar to what we
try to do at Collective Next. Certainly
we meet our clients where they are,
and we pride ourselves on our ability
to customize our sessions (and our
Mason Smith, one of the CNers
who came to The Women's Lunch
Place, made a smart observation
about the activity "putting us in the
participant's mindset." We're usually
by Tricia Walker
As part of our celebration of Collective
Next's 10th anniversary, we deepened
our connection to our community. A
great example of that was a visit to
help out at The Women's Lunch Place
in Boston.
The Women's Health Place provides
a safe, comfortable daytime shelter,
nutritious food, and services for
women who are homeless or poor.
We spent a day there preparing,
serving, and cleaning up after lunch.
The Women's Lunch Place felt like a
good place for us for several reasons.
Their Core Values really resonated
products, too) to the unique needs
of each organization we work with.
We are not a one-size-fits-all shop,
and we also throw out our initial
plan to adjust on the fly on a fairly
regular basis, all in service of what
the client needs at this moment. We
are also always working to create
an environment and an atmosphere
that meets the needs of our clients,
offering physical, emotional, and
intellectual sustenance.
with us, these two in particular:
• We meet each woman where she
is, and we base and adjust our
services according to her needs
the ones running the sessions. We
ask our clients to "trust the process,"
which also means "trust us." It's not
always so easy to let go and accept
whatever you're asked to do, which is
what we needed to do in preparing
lunch. I think people are better able to
do that, though, when there is a good
level of trust and respect for the folks
that are giving you marching orders. I
think we all shared a sense of respect
and appreciation for the mission of
The Women's Lunch Place and what
they are trying to do over there.
This was a great way to give up control
and celebrate both our company and
the concept of family. And we wanted
to use this as an occasion to volunteer.
We are all blessed to have our own
families. We have jobs, we have food
on the table, we have shelter, we have
each other … and we have our work
family: a community that spends a lot
of time together helping our clients,
but helping each other, too. It was a
great idea to do something together
for families in the Boston area; I hope
we do more of this in the future. ‹›