Tag Archives: ideas

Park it

Have you ever felt that emotional, cloudy feeling in your brain when something seems so hard that you don’t know what to do next?

I have.

When the speaker makes the wrong assumption. Someone changes their mind. An agreement is broken.

Our mind can cope with only a few challenges at a time. In meetings, when more than 3 barriers are raised, notice how everyone’s confidence and constructiveness drops?

There’s a simple way to overcome this. Since our brains black out, it’s best to create a ‘parking lot’ on the whiteboard.

The parking lot is somewhere issues, blockers or cons can be stored and addressed at a later time. They are things raised during discussion, verbalised, noted and recorded.

Our brains love this. We don’t panic that they may be forgotten. We don’t stress about getting sidetracked. We don’t accuse people of hijacking the meeting.

When the time comes to go through the parking lot issues, you will find that the emotion has dispersed and once unpacked they are much easier to solve than previously thought.

The Parking lot technique is a simple way to keep meetings on track (and on time!) and to keep everyone focused on achieving the same thing. Try it!

The expert of sharing

We see great leaders as experts in their fields. Visionaries of change and thought leaders defining the decades to come. The smartest, fastest or loudest.

Are they really that special, though? Are they that much braver than the rest of us? Of course not.

Great leaders gather people together and praise the latest ideas of others, steal like an artist and motivate the talented people in the group.

They aren’t always bright or talented.

So I want to propose something radical: leadership is an illusion.

Leaders aren’t the best in their niche. They’re the best persuaders, motivators and sharers.

They keep tabs on everyone that matters and distribute ideas that they know other people can convert into something great – with their influence.

Who are we sharing the best stuff with?

Who’s better equipped to make the changes we need to make?

What can we do today to be a better leader, not just a smarter expert?

I dare you

Green Eggs and HamDr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham after his editor challenged him to write a book using less than 50 words.

What happened? He wrote one of the best kids (and adult) books of all time. A creative classic. Poetry and art in a few pages.

When asked nicely, a work of art that transcends generations is rarely produced.

When dared, obstacles appear irrelevant. Motivation peaks and the creative juices flow freely.

So when you’re asked to do something impossible, dare yourself.

How do we know what we’re capable of unless we attempt the impossible?

What if

What if we went global
What if we closed our shops
What if we worked at a round table everyday
What if we answered the phone without any recordings
What if we dropped everything for that great idea
What if we linked our salary to customer satisfaction
What if we called our customers to ask what they like
What if we donated our profits

What if we broke the rules

Ideas that change the world

Occasionally the small decisions we make can have a big impact. Round It Up America are making an impact.

The idea is simple. What if every time we bought something online or instore we rounded up the nearest dollar and the difference was donated to charity?

roundupforcharity

Customers get a daily dose of philanthropy plus the benefit of not budgeting for a 3.68 purchase. And charities benefit from the combined goodwill of thousands of consumers.

The little ideas, scaled to the world, can change the world. 20 cents here and there can become $10,000 very quickly.

What little thing can you do to improve the world today?

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