January 2002 Flash Points

Weird Ideas That Work (p. 68)
FC Article

Read over and analyze Robert Sutton's off-beat ideas to shake up your company. What are some of the 'deeply ingrained beliefs' present in your company, and can you draw examples on how they have stymied innovation? Besides the ideas Sutton mentions, what habits and programs could you amend to get your mind off 'auto-pilot' and get the creative juices flowing?
Discuss the increased emphasis on innovation in the past five years. Can new ideas be born in an 'innovate or die' atmosphere, or do the best ideas come out of a more natural process?
Break down the idea of creativity as a 'social process.' Compare the amount of socialization in the offices of your group members and how it relates to their sense of self-worth and how they rate their creativity.

Survival Is Not Enough (p. 90)
FC article

Extend the metaphor of companies as organisms. Which departments sustain the life and health of the company? Which elements within the organism must cooperate to survive? And which departments will kill the company if they stumble?
Godin writes about the 'genetic code of your job.' What elements make up this code? Human DNA is unique in that two people almost never have identical DNA. Is this also true of the makeup of your job? What skills would you bring from your current job to your next dream job? What skills do you use now that you learned from your previous job?
Is the 'uber strategy' of being flexible and sturdy, focused on the short- and long-term, feasible or too paradoxical in nature? What does Godin mean when he says 'chaos is the safest bet of all?' Do we no longer care about stability? Where do evolve from here?

Provocation 101 (p. 108)
FC Article

Larry Weber says that the best model for the next wave of business leadership is Rudy Giuliani. What tactics and skills did Giuliani show in the aftermath of Sept 11 that would also work well in business? Compare the different skills needed in the face of business disaster, political crises and natural emergenicies.
Assess the validity of Weber's claim that branding has made product irrelevant. What factors contribute to your purchasing decisions? Trace the evolution between product and brand. Did the two concepts start off as the same idea, and how did they diverge? Are product and brand heading back toward convergence or will only continue to become more separated?
Go through Weber's 'Lessons for Provocateurs.' Does Weber leave room for more traditional leadership and concepts like maintaining fierce competition and emphasis on product, rather than marketing?

Daniel Richards contributed this month's Flash Points.

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