Sitting on the train into London this morning I spotted a tweet from Sarah Lazenby to a great cartoon called “Whack An Idea” by Tom Fishburne. The cartoon illustrates the frustration I’ve long held about the endless corporate cries for creativity and innovation, so swiftly followed by the punishment of mistakes.
Fishburne says: “When a business culture plays Whack-An-Idea for too long, it no longer needs to use the mallet. The culture begins to self-edit. Ideas that seem too risky are discarded out-of-hand.” The cartoon gave me a good laugh – and it’s a powerful illustration of a serious point. That pressure to conform, to self-edit.
The train pulled into London Bridge and as I got up to leave all I saw around me was grey. Grey suits, grey faces, grey expressions. Why bother wasting time on dress codes when most folk self-edit to grey. It comes to something when my non-descript vaguely pink shirt stands out in a crowd.
Somewhere in the office there’s a drawer. And in that drawer is a piece of paper. And on that paper is written the secret mission:
“We cut out creativity
Can’t handle responsibility
We lie about innovation
We crave idea constipation
We have assumed control”
I don’t feel so good.
It’s horrible when this is what we see & hear but it’s worth reminding ourselves that there is already a counterforce of ninjas working on this http://bit.ly/ksthWz.
I recently wrote a piece which touched on orthodoxy (http://bit.ly/lUCLT0). The codification of organisational life not only creates orthodoxy it also creates “true believers” and (I think more importantly) “heretics”.
So by its nature, this grey “secret mission” has created both orthodoxy & the heretics. The heretical ninjas are all around!
@naturalgrump recently tweeted observed “suits” wearing yellow socks or no socks – how anti-grey is that!
So maybe we see a see of grey, but look hard and you’ll spot the heretical ninjas. If you can’t see it then just imagine what they are wearing under those grey suits!!!
Ah David san – thank you for the ninja reminder. Love the post on your blog – particularly this, “Mastery has an artistry and intuitive fluency about it.” and your important reminder about heretics 🙂 Yellow socks and no socks at all – gadzooks! And an important reminder from Sukh to take a second look, thanks.
This subject reminded me of the Rush song Vital Signs. Here’s a few lines of it for you and others…
Unstable condition
A symptom of life
In mental and environmental change
Atmospheric disturbance
The feverish flux
Of human interface and interchange
The impulse is pure
Sometimes our circuits get shorted
By external interference
Signals get crossed
And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence
A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a mood lifter
Everybody need reverse polarity
Everybody got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody got to deviate from the norm
Doug
Excellent post. I have to say I like to be a ninja wearing a grey suit and white shirt. I am living like my favourite ever X-Files episode – “hiding in the light”. How can you spot those who rebel amongst those who self-edit? In many other ways, we make ourselves known. Dont always assume that WYSIWYG.
Cheers
Sage advice from the world’s greatest workplace poet. I recall the words “hiding in plain sight” from somewhere too. I will look closer in case there are signs of deviance that I am missing. And of course the best ninjas blend in fabulously well. Cheers – Doug
The plan should always allow for a few mavericks with poorly defined roles.
Thanks Anthony. Your comment describes precisely why you should be President of something very important. I look forward to your takeover! 🙂