Oxymoron Management to Juxtaposition Leadership

To the crazy ones. Here’s to the misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The people who see the world differently.

To the crazy ones. Here’s to the misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The people who see the world differently.

I am really enjoying using the power of juxtaposition to stimulate thoughtful leadership, big innovation and massive success. Try these juxtapositions for size (more later):

Disciplined AND Creative.
Consistency AND Change.
Threshold innovation AND One fad behind.

A juxtaposition is when words contradict each other, but are not side by side. For example, 'From ancient grudge break to new mutiny' The words 'Ancient' and 'New' are juxtaposed.

Don’t confuse it with an oxymoron; when two words side by side contradict each other. For example:

Cold Fire,
Military Intelligence or
Leadership Management.

Apple’s remarkable growth, the 'new' iPhone 6 / iWatch and those still mourning the passing of Steve Jobs, has prompted quite a few people to reflect on the historical impact of the Think Different ad campaign and the 'To the crazy ones' commercial that launched it. […brilliant article on how that campaign was written– love it].

I am bored by the 'think different' style of management. I am bored by management. The drone of business 'leaders' saying we have to be creative thinkers, to think outside the box. What box? Try Thinking in the box AND Imagining Infinite Universes (Human Universe – Professor Brian Cox).

Juxtaposition in business is a way to get creative thinking moving along a thought sequence that causes us to question long held beliefs about how our businesses work. It introduces the word AND.

Let’s introduce some randomness AND stability, or PFR(Performance, Feedback, Revision) into the mix. Legendary jazz trumpeter Miles Davis believed that musical creativity was an act of discovery.

When people believe in boundaries, they become part of them. – Don cherry, Jazz musician

Miles thought that the music already existed, and it was his role as an artist to explore, to look for a sound that lay outside traditional boundaries. Davis knew that spontaneous creativity was the business of jazz. With less than one percent of the notes on the written page, Davis made up the rest on the fly—no going back to correct mistakes or rethink a passage.

Yet creativity without discipline is like a river without banks. In the new era of business (and life), playing it safe is the riskiest choice of all. Today, people and organisations around the world are scrambling to tap into that same type of spontaneous creativity to drive success in their own pursuits. But you can be both:Disciplined AND Creative.

Consider this wonderful piece on fanatical discipline in Jim Collin’s Great by Choice,The 20-Mile March:

 Imagine you're standing with your feet in the Pacific Ocean in San Diego, looking inland. You're about to embark on a 3,000-mile walk, from San Diego to the tip of Maine. On the first day you march 20 miles, making it out of townOn the second day you march 20 miles. And again, on the third day you march 20 miles, heading into the heat of the desert. It's hot, more than 100˚F, and you want to rest in the cool of your tent. But you don't. You get up and you march 20 miles.

You keep the pace, 20 miles a day.

Then the weather cools, and you're in comfortable conditions with the wind at your back, and you could go much farther. But you hold back, modulating your effort. You stick with your 20 miles.Then you reach the Colorado high mountains and get hit by snow, wind, and temperatures below zero — and all you want to do is stay in your tent. But you get up. You get dressed. You march your 20 miles.You keep up the effort — 20 miles, 20 miles, 20 miles — then you cross into the plains, and it's glorious springtime, and you can go 40 or 50 miles in a day. But you don't. You sustain your pace, marching 20 miles.

And eventually, you get to Maine.

Now, imagine another person who starts out with you on the same day in San Diego. He gets all excited by the journey and logs 40 miles the first day.Exhausted from his first gigantic day, he wakes up to 100˚ temperatures. He decides to hang out until the weather cools, thinking, "I'll make it up when conditions improve." He maintains this pattern — big days with good conditions, whining and waiting in his tent on bad days — as he moves across the western United States. Just before the Colorado high mountains, he gets a spate of great weather and he goes all out, logging 40- to 50-mile days to make up lost ground. But then he hits a huge winter storm when utterly exhausted. It nearly kills him and he hunkers down in his tent, waiting for spring.When spring finally comes, he emerges, weakened, and stumbles off toward Maine. By the time he enters Kansas City, you, with your relentless 20-mile march, have already reached the tip of Maine.

You win, by a huge margin.

Success is driven by our ability to stand out and be truly remarkable combined with fanatical discipline; an ability to tap into creativity, break the mold, introduce disruptive change and dislodge the status quo. With a constant focus on cost cutting, efficiency gains, and top-down control, too many organisations have lost their direction.

Most businesses and individuals don’t lack raw creative talent; what they lack is a system for unleashing it. Organisations with systems for nearly every aspect of their business, from answering the phone to setting the security alarm, have no such structure in place for developing and supporting creativity. So why not try some new rules and some juxtaposition leadership?

Following the rules is not the same as discipline.
Rules aren’t necessarily bad.
There comes a point when the rules must be broken.

Then…

Empirical validation AND Bold moves
Prudence AND BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals)
Productive paranoia AND Courageous
Ambitious AND Non egocentric
Severe Performance standards, no excuses AND Never over extend
Threshold innovation AND One fad behind
Cannot predict future AND Prepare for unexpected
Go slow when able AND Go fast when must
Disciplined thought AND Decisive action
Consistency AND Change
Speed up cycle time AND be one fad behind
Improve continuously AND Excellence, always

So how do we solve the apparent conundrum of strict adherence to defined systems providing responsive flexibility? By looking at what keeps continuous improvement activities from devolving into chaos. Continuous improvement is a commitment to working to get better every day. Excellence, always. [READ IT]

The 20-Mile March is more than a philosophy or a nice story. It is the basis of the new discipline AND creativity. It's about having concrete, clear, intelligent, and rigorously pursued performance mechanisms that keep you on track. The juxtaposition of creativity AND Fanatical discipline.

Taking Care of the Business of Creativity AND Discipline.

The people who are crazy enough to believe they can change the world are the ones who actually do.

Be Amazing Every Day

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