Creative Visionaries and Operators
Lesson 3 from: Innovation Mindsets, Processes, Tools, and CultureJohn K. Coyle
Creative Visionaries and Operators
Lesson 3 from: Innovation Mindsets, Processes, Tools, and CultureJohn K. Coyle
Lessons
Class Introduction
03:11 2Innovation Mindsets
10:38 3Creative Visionaries and Operators
07:30 4Why Mindset Matters
04:33 5Innovation Definition and the Design Thinking Process
09:10 6A New Economic Era Emerging: The Conceptual Age
09:55 7Leadership Skills for the Conceptual Age
03:41 8Q&A
08:05Lesson Info
Creative Visionaries and Operators
So maybe you're a creative visionary as well. If you are, then this makes you feel sick. I don't want to look at it. I can't look at the modern. I'm like, Look at this. Some of you, like no, move that box over here and we can make a decision tree. If you're a creative visionary, this makes you feel strong. You like to use lateral devices to think your way through things. So what are the archetypes here? So creative visionaries? Or as my former boss and friend Mike Maddock would say, idea monkeys, because they like to throw ideas around are about ideas, ideas, ideas. It's ready. Fire, aim. They don't actually get the order right. Anything is possible. They are all about energy. Sparkle fingers. They always have ideas. They in cold E, which is a tool you can take to discover your strength. They are quick starts and in strengths finder, their futuristic ideation input. So if you're one of those that's probably wakes you up before the operator is about process, that's about planning the wo...
rk. Working the plan. Let's make sure it is possible. Heads down, get it done. On Colby, their high follow through on strengths Finder. It's focused discipline, consistency. So who here? Let's take a quick poll of the room, at least. Who here is more like Mary Curie? A creative visionary. Just raise your hand, Okay? So make eye contact with all you need to. Okay? And who here is more like Cheryl Sandberg or Peer is more of an operator? Raise your hands. Okay, so I'm gonna make eye contact. Just want to say, with all candor, you complete me. Because if you're creative visionary, you need an operator. What happens when you put a whole bunch of visionaries in a room together? What gets done? Exactly? Well, the white board gets filled, but there's nobody there to actually do anything. Now to the contrast. What happens when you put a bunch of operators in a row? What gets done? Well, what actually gets done is anything that's on the list, but nothing new. As long as it's linear, rational thinking, they will work the plan and get it done. But they won't have new things to do. And so there's an inherent tension between these two archetypes. You need them both for innovation to occur. So how do you work with these two archetypes? If you are an operator and you want to work with creatives, there's some things you need to dio. You need to separate, and we're gonna touch on this and module to, but you get a separate. The divergence, the creative process, the ideation process from convergence from the judging of ideas is one of most dangerous things happening across the planet right now is the judging of ideas as they come out, generate ideas without judgment, right him down, and then and only then judge them later. This is really critical because creative visionaries hate to be judged as their idea. It quells their creative spirit. They will shut down. They'll stop talking, and then you've lost it. Second things give them specific challenges. Do not give them an open slate they will take the world on. They will solve world hunger if you let them. Instead, given the most specific challenge you can think of in this circumstance, we need a solution to this thing. They'll still give you 1000 ideas because they have no problem generating lots and lots of crazy, wacky ideas, some of which are good and shift from inventing to innovating. We'll talk about what the difference is in the moment. If you're working with operators in your creative vision here, how do you work with them? They're going to judge you. So how do you do it? Um, give them lots of ideas. They have no problem judging lots of ideas. Get them a whole bunch and let them choose the best ones. They don't trust you. If your credit visionary for a good purpose. You have something called confirmation bias. You are in love with your ideas and you bring your ideas with all that love. And then they judge them and you hate that. Bring in an outside expert. They will trust your idea. If somebody that has expertise in the field says, you know what, that actually has validity. They won't trust you because they're sure you're in love with it. So bring in outside expertise and then teach him how to fail. Operators hate failure. They hate it. They don't like to fail. Ever innovation. It's required to have tolerance for failure. So how do you do that? You you test and pilot stuff with low risk, low cost. Show them how you tried something that didn't cost the farm and it failed and you learn from it. But they will grow some tolerance for failure. They have to be failure tolerant in orderto work with creative visionaries. There is a special case here, and maybe some of you fit into this pattern. It's roughly 8% of the population are something called pivot thinkers. They're actually right in the middle. Anybody here? Maybe a pivot thinker. Okay, so pivot thinkers, uh, play a really pivotal role. I guess that's a double 100. Um, they play translator between the two camps. So if you pivot thinker, you can play either one. You can generate ideas or you can judge ideas. You can do both. But what they often do is if there are too many creative visionaries in the room, they will help to manage them, saying, Let's stay on task. They'll often go right to the white board. Pivot thinkers are always at the whiteboard. Hey, let's Dan task. Let's make sure we get this through this agenda or if the operator's takeover and they're quelling, all of the ideas will say, Wait a minute. Let's pause here and gather a few more ideas. Let's write him down before we start judging them. And so pivot thinkers actually make meetings, according to statistics from Stanford, about 35% more effective in terms of number ideas and that the validity of those ideas so really critical role. If you're one of these, be grateful. If you have one. He's under team even better, because they're really, really useful. So we won't do the workbook exercise. But consider this and we'll do a little facilitation here. Are you more of an operator? Creative visionary. We already covered that. What about your team? Are function? What about your company? And then what does balance mean? So I know we have a variety different folks in the room. Does anybody have a team or function that swings one way or the other? Does anybody have a highly operator team or a highly creative, visionary team? Yes, what you got the team that I actually gravitate more trades is the creative team has been created myself. Um, it's really interesting, you said about the pivotal thinker. There's a guy who, um can we couldn't do it without him, and he drives us crazy But, um but he's exactly the role. As you said, He kind goes in between. But, um, re lack is the operations, and that's that's exactly described. But it's that's really interesting, because I could never do what they dio and and I can't live without them because you're the guys that make everything happen. Right? Um, I can't imagine a more boring lifestyle, but, um, but But they and maybe your lifestyle is chaos. So, you know, exactly there. Just like, how do you do this? Like, What do you mean, this life? Hmm? This is This is what I have seen live for. And, um um, and they're just like I operations people that think you never see them without a no bad. I mean, the overnight Does it work for me? Um, and it's amazing. And it drives me crazy because they remember every word ever said, you know, try to hold you accountable through two years ago in this date, I'm like, seriously like, how did you know that? You know? Yeah. Awesome. Thanks. Mark.
Ratings and Reviews
Daniel Viscovich
John's discussion of design thinking is brilliant. It's an extremely logical approach to problem-solving and leadership that I feel is not all that common in society, just yet. I very much appreciate the humanistic approach to work and life that John brings to this discussion. I'd highly recommend this workshop from John, as well as his latest book.
Annie Martin
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