Pretty much.
Archives for November 2022
Daily Inspiration: “Never try to change the fact that change happens!”
“Never try to change the fact that change happens!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
On any given day, change happens. It’s what you do with it that matters!
Yet many people fight the change around them – but deep in their hearts, know that it’s probably best that they actually try to deal with it. And in fact, in a faster future, they know they have to deal with it.
Given that, it’s time to resurrect my original “change” video!
I know I’ve shared the video before but it is always worth revisiting! The quick backstory? Outside the home office at my previous home, we had what my family came to call the “squirrel highway.” All day long, they scurry back and forth along the top of the fence, busy collecting and hiding food. A few years ago, my sons and I wondered what would happen if we put up some highway signs for them to obey. We set up a video camera — taped for six hours running — and edited out the best bits.
This clip was the funniest one — and seems to tell a bit of a story as to the right way to deal with change. Change should never be a barrier – there is always a way around it!
I spend a huge amount of my time in keynotes and workshops helping organizations adapt to the rapid rates of change that surround us. And it’s certainly clear that lots of people just aren’t good with change – I can see it in my audience and the results in the text message polling that I do. The thing about change is that it’s easy to try to avoid it – inertia is easy. When confronted by change, many people react by …. doing nothing. When things are uncomfortable, the easiest thing to do to deal with that discomfort is to avoid it. Such thinking causes many organizations and the people within them to fall asleep. They keep doing what they’ve been doing before, hoping that will carry them forward into the future. Obviously, that can’t work, for a whole variety of different reasons.
It’s also easy to avoid tough decisions: organizations are faced with a lot of change, in terms of business models, customer expectations, cost pressures, new competitors, and countless other challenges. Dealing with any one of these issues requires tough decisions, but in many cases, it’s easier to put those decisions off into the future rather than having to deal with them. You can avoid change by … deciding not to confront the change that is necessary!
The result? Some people wish that everything around them would just stay the same.
Innovators are eager to change everything they can.
They also recognize that EVERYTHING is going to change and they need to align with that fact.
The issue of change is so critical that it has become the closing observation for most of my keynotes, with the key phrase that you should “change your future before the future changes you!”
Which person do you choose to be?
Video: Oddballs and Rebels, Failures and Freaks
As I commented a few weeks ago, I decided to dive in and get going on TikTok. I explained why in this post:
Daily Inspiration: “You’re never too old to learn new stuff!”
I’ve been busy getting two kinds of content onto my TikTok account, and I must say, I’m pleasantly pleased with the uptake and interest so far. But I will also say this – it has inspired me to continue to explore my stories, creativity, and ways of sharing insight. So today, with my early morning walk, I did this:
Daily Inspiration: Innovation & Creativity – “If success depends on the company you keep, choose a few oddballs, rebels, failures and freaks!”
“If success depends on the company you keep, choose a few oddballs, rebels, failures and freaks! (Because conformity kills all creativity!)” – Futurist Jim Carroll
Let me introduce you to Misfits Market.
As with many retailers, the company, based in New Jersey, saw massive success during Covid:
An online grocery subscription service has experienced 400% growth during the COVID-19 pandemic….
but it didn’t just come about just because of the shift to online shopping – but also due to a very unique business model:
….shipping “misfit” produce to consumers in many states in the U.S.
Thereby helping to deal with the ‘ugly’ problem!
The CEO, Abhi Ramesh: explains:
The idea of Misfits Market started when I was working in finance and realized the amount of waste that results from inefficiencies in the food system.
While apple picking at a farm in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago, I noticed perfectly good apples being culled because they were a little misshapen or had some spots on them. I spoke with the farmer and he showed me how much produce was destined to be thrown out because it didn’t meet grocery stores’ aesthetic standards, like being a bit too big or too small.
This experience inspired me to build a business that took these inefficiencies and turned them into opportunities to fight waste and give more people access to nutritious foods.
As I have often observed, nothing great was ever achieved through conformity!
Innovators have long learned that you need to be different to succeed – not only with the product or business model you create but the structure and composition of your team. Some years ago, in a post on innovation and creativity, I made this observation about the future:
It’s being defined by renegades and rebels: Increasingly, the future of many an industry is being defined by industry expatriates. When a real innovator can’t innovate within a company, they step outside, form a startup, and spark massive industry change on their own. Before you know, they’ve reinvented you, whether you like it or not
If conformity of thinking drives complacency, diversity of thought drives creativity! If you accept this as truth, why not head off the potential problem by ensuring that those who don’t fit in yet have great ideas can build on those ideas before they leave you? Why not hire more of them? Why not find more freaks, oddballs, misfits, and rebels? Companies tend to develop a cult of average groupthink conformity – and yet it has long been true that diverse teams tend to make better decisions. The diversity leads to more analysis and exploration based on a wide range of views which can often lead to that ‘miracle moment’ of discovery.
You need to decide to fight fight ‘perspective blindness.’ Teams that have the same composition tend to fall into the trap of being unable to identify blind spots or perceive weakness. Homogenous groups are certainly vulnerable to perspective blindness – a social science phrase for their inability to identify their own blind spots. The process of hiring people who are all the same might be the fundamental problem – people tend to hire people who remind them of themselves! The result is homogeneity, sameness, and dullsville. That’s why I’ve long suggested, in another post on innovation strategy, that you should:
Hire people you don’t like. Otherwise, you have a team that is all the same. You end up with sameness, oneness, a monoculture of thinking that will kill any creativity you might have left.
What is really recommended is a team that has cognitive diversity built into its core. What’s that? It’s the ability to build on and find creativity from conflicting viewpoints. These teams abandon the psychology of safety where dissent is stifled because of fear – instead, diversity of thought is encouraged as a key component of taking risks. And we all know that risk drives success.
This fact was discussed in an Instagram post the other day – and so we have the concept of ‘shadow boards,’ groups that are composed of young people. rebels and outcasts and oddballs who advise senior leaders or a Board of Directors on strategy. Some organizations credit such ‘shadow boards’ with helping them to identify the importance of social network influencers as an important brand strategy long before their competition did!
Why hire the oddballs? Here’s the bottom line which I found in a great article while preparing this post:
In many industries, it is the misfits who push boundaries: They bring lateral skills and experiences to conceptualize things in ways that create opportunities for their organizations and roles. They make others better at what they do, simply because they bring variety and encourage thinking in a non-judgmental approach. Misfits do not need or want people to think like them, because then they are not misfits anymore.
They encourage others to draw out their inner misfit, because true talent needs to be cultivated to think and act outside the norms in order to develop the next horizon of business and social opportunities. Not surprisingly, many leaders and industry innovators would describe themselves this way.
A visit to the Island of Misfit Workers, The Globe and Mail, 17 Dec 2018
Rebels? They’re the ones who can reinvent the world at the drop of a hat. That’s because rebellion has a lot to do with creativity, and creativity is the root of all innovation. You can’t have the latter without the former. Steve Jobs captured the essence of the reality of rebels in his quote: “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently…”
To get ahead, hire more rebels, misfits, and oddballs! They are at odds with other people because they view the world through a different lens and have different viewpoints you might need to get ahead. As freaks and misfits, they will ask different questions, are more prepared to challenge you with ‘why,’ and will bring the spirit of spontaneity and creativity to your team.
Bottom line?
Great minds don’t think alike – they think differently!
Innovating in a Recession – When Do YOU Think There Will be an Economic Recovery?
It’s 2011. Futurist Jim Carroll has 2,000 clients of @TRowePrice in a room, and he’s talking about economic downturns & mindset – and doing a live text message poll to assess their thinking. This was shortly after the economic downturn of 2008-2009.
Watch it unfold! 2/3 of the people in the room thought a recovery was far away. The result? Many would have missed out on the longest-running economic boom in history Is that you today?
Daily Inspiration: “Every day is a gift. Share them. Be optimistic with your optimism!”
“Every day is a gift. Share them. Be optimistic with your optimism!” – Futurist Jim Carroll
For some reason, the phrase I used to open one of my Daily Inspiration posts a few weeks back drew a fair bit of attention; I started out with this observation:
Yup, here I go with that optimism thing again, but I’m optimistic about my optimism!
And so here I go with that optimism thing again. After all, it’s Friday!
Let’s talk about how you can feed your optimism machine – it begins with the attitude you start with each and every day. For me, that’s the process of writing my Daily Inspiration – often begun the afternoon or evening before, I spend my time first thing each morning composing and organizing my thoughts. I’m now writing 4,000 to 6,000 words each morning while I enjoy my coffee and before I start anything else. It’s my moment of meditation, quiet reflection – I’m setting my mind for my approach to the day.
Once my post is done, I’m ready to take my optimistic soul into the rest of the day. But first, I need to chase the sunrise! I use to charge into the office after breakfast to get things done – but not since 2016. Now, most mornings when I’m not on the road, I’m either first on the tee sheet for golf (7 am!) at my home club; or when golf season comes to an end, I’m out for my early 7km (5 miles) walk. I’m chasing the sunrise!
With the late sunrises now taking hold in the Western Hemisphere, and in these last days before the end of Daylight Savings Time, much of the walk through the forest is in the darkness. But I’m chasing the sunrise – and am often rewarded with moments of splendor as it peaks through the dark sky. I find another moment of inspiration at that moment!
The other day, I was rewarded with the view seen in today’s quote. Halfway through my route, there is a large clearing – and I caught this moment as the sun tried to make its presence known through the massive fog barrier which has settled in over our region for the last several days. What does this have to do with the future? It’s the start of another day! What does this have to do with innovation? Innovation is all about having a sense of optimism as to what comes next. What does this have to do with inspiration? Everything!
My Youtube Short video that day caught the sunrise fog:
The thought that came to my mind at that sunrise moment? How blessed I am to have the opportunity to see such a sunrise! How wonderful a gift I have received to be able to focus on my optimism! And how wonderful that I can share this sense of joy and optimism with others – I think I’m now reaching about 50,000 people through various social networks and mailing lists every day. Every day is a gift – share them!
And so I filmed my video version of my Daily Inspiration at that moment. What’s this about? Some weeks ago, I decided I was going to explore using TikTok and YouTube Shorts as described in this post:
Daily Inspiration: “You’re never too old to learn new stuff!”
I’ve now found myself spending a few moments during my walk filming the video version of my Daily Inspiration . I still don’t quite yet know what I’m doing but I’m learning, and I can say I’m pretty stunned by the number of views I get on each video. (Not staggering numbers but for me – wow!). You can see my Youtube shorts here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JimCarrollFuturist/shorts and my TikTok feed here: https://www.tiktok.com/@futuristjimcarroll.
I’ve been a busy guy – sharing my optimism! People seem to find optimism in my optimism! To me, in a world that becomes darker, more complex, and more worrisome each and every day, I find some optimism in that thought.
And so, I share my optimism. It works for me, and it seems to work for others.
My wife keeps asking me what I am going to do in retirement. I respond that first, I don’t plan to retire. And second, I comment that I’m going to keep walking and posting my Daily Inspiration because if you are consumed by optimism, people like it when you share it!
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