Pathways Beyond Logic

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

Logic and reason alone can no longer guide us toward innovation or success. They will not be enough to get us to the level of creativity and reinvention we need to address the challenges of the new economy. We need to deal with the deeper part of human nature: intuition and instinct. Science, evidence in the real world, and experience tell us that our intuition and our instincts, although sometimes difficult to completely understand, very often point us in the right direction. Sometimes they can even save our lives. To positively influence the deeper part of ourselves, we need to appeal to the heart and engage the guts. We need to honor the sometimes-cryptic clues sent up from many accomplished people in science, industry, and the military. As business leaders we can take steps to create a corporate atmosphere that speaks to the hearts and instincts as well as the minds of our employees. Doing so puts a great deal of agility and creative power to work for our companies. One powerful way we can harness the creative power of our teams is by introducing rituals at key moments in business ideation and development. Management and leadership—which increasingly require dealing with human motivation, behavioral change, and, now more than ever, sustainable innovation—are much more about the intangible part of business than about what’s tangible, much more about the unconscious part of human interactions that about the conscious part.

Excerpted from The Intuitive Compass, Jossey-Bass, 2011.

Intuitive Intelligence Turns the Credit Card Processing Industry on Its Head

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

Suneera Madhani’s leadership of her game-changing credit card processing company, Fattmerchant, exemplifies three of the four tenets of Intuitive Intelligence (thinking holistically, thinking paradoxically, leading by influence), and it’s paying off in spades. She also honors the millennial generation’s need for transparency, creating 50-75% monthly growth and tremendous customer loyalty, particularly notable because they don’t have to sign long-term contracts.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3039269/strong-female-lead/meet-the-woman-who-is-trying-to-change-the-credit-card-industry?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mcp-weekly&position=3&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=12052014

Why Ritual is an Important Part of Leadership

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

Ritual is powerful and can be used to engage people in ways that words alone cannot. Rituals are meant to affect the body through regular repetition and dramatic staging; as a consequence of that drama and repetition, they affect us at an instinctual level and influence the mind in ways much deeper than logic and reason. From sacred ceremonies including school graduations and the public swearing in of elected officials, they mark the most significant moments of our lives, individually and collectively. On a more mundane level, they help us navigate through the average day—the morning cup of coffee, a hot shower. They send a signal to our brain that something of note is happening. In all cases they help us harness energy, stabilize our minds, and have faith in the future. In doing so they channel our thrust for survival in constructive ways. By conveying a sense of purpose to important aspects of our lives, they help us find meaning, go past inertia to move through the challenges of life, and creatively reach beyond the bounds of logic. Rituals powerfully harness the law of survival, the law of reaching beyond boundaries, and the law of inertia.

Rituals can also help in the business world. BETC, the successful advertising agency in France, provides an example that can easily be adapted to many different businesses and industries. The founder and chairwoman of the agency, Mercedes Erra, insists that whenever a brief on a new client or project is brought in by an account executive, it is and should be treated as a pivotal moment in the life of the agency. The brief is the first step in the development of a new campaign. Its arrival becomes a celebratory moment. It is the trigger for a professional ritual in which importance and meaning are conveyed. Food and drinks are brought into a special room, and all of the people who will be working on the campaign gather together to talk about the future of the project. It is fun and play and serious work all at the same time. Key elements of the brief are clarified, including the strategic context of the project. There is discussion about the agency’s or individual team members’ relationship with the client, and any convictions or doubts about the client, their company, the brand, or the communications plan that they want to launch. But what happens could not be achieved through an exchange of emails or written notes because they would not have the same impact. Allowing time, staging the meeting in a different way, and having the chairwoman attend the briefing all have a special emotional impact and show the significance of the event. People can feel its significance, and feeling it is more important than understanding it intellectually when it comes to harnessing creativity and enthusiasm. Feelings make an impact on our bodies, which in turn influences our ability to solve problems and imagine new solutions. Such a meeting reaches into people’s psyches, and the meeting’s perceived significance has a long-lasting effect. Rituals are powerful, as they help us go beyond what’s tangible and conscious. They reach deep into our unconscious, engage our instinct, and convey meaning.

Excerpted from The Intuitive Compass, Jossey-Bass, 2011.

You Already Have All the Resources You Need to Innovate

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

Play opens us up to the possibility that we don’t need more of anything—time, money, knowledge, and so on—in order to produce more. It is a radical idea, especially in business, where we often hear the argument the budgets are limited and therefore the ability to innovate is limited. How can you get the same result with half of the resources? How is that possible? It’s possible because human motivation is not linear; the way one person gets motivated is a complex function of many intertwined factors, which do not follow a linear continuum, but which can be greatly influenced by play. When we tap into the part of people the responds to play and inspiration, we unleash possibilities and huge potential for new sources of motivation that we could not have predicated or accessed otherwise. Thus when people are engaged in play, truly and deeply engaged, they lose track of time, they stop thinking about whether their paycheck is bigger today than it was yesterday, they form close and fruitful bonds with their playmates, they withstand discomfort and inconvenience, and more often than you might imagine, they create magic. Play moves people into an optimistic frame of mind, a place where they are more adaptable to change and more likely to improvise, and where they begin to dance in the groove of life. In that joyous groove, success and innovation become far more likely outcomes than they ever could be in an atmosphere of grinding unhappiness and perceived lack.

Take, for instance, a story of how dice games were invented, according to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. In pre-Roman times, 2,500 year ago, the kingdom of Libya was suffering a famine that left it only able to feed half of its citizens. The Libyan king invented a game—sheep knuckle dice—and established a policy that every other day, every person in the kingdom, would do nothing but play sheep knuckle dice. They would not work, they would not just hang out, and they would not run errands for their grandma. And they would not eat. Such was the level of immersion the sheep knuckle dice provided that the people managed to survive an eighteen-year famine.

What does this tale reveal to us? It shows that the impact of play reaches far beyond the realm of reason. It also tells us that the power of play is such that it can provide an effective distraction even from something as elemental as hunger. Play is a strong catalyst for changing behavior, helping people shift perspective and refocus their energy to overcome hardship or challenging situations without necessarily increasing material resources or the number of team members.

Excerpted from The Intuitive Compass, Jossey-Bass, 2011.

A Scientific Definition of Play

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

According to theorist and professor Johan Huizinga, play is “free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life.” He also described it as being “‘not serious” but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly.”

The National Institute for Play defines play as “a state of being that is intensely pleasurable.” It energizes and enlivens us. It eases our burdens, renews a natural sense of optimism and opens us up to new possibilities.” They go on to note, “Scientists—neuroscientists, developmental biologists, psychologists, scientists from every point on the scientific compass—have recently begun viewing play as a profound biological process.” In other words, play is a core aspect of human nature. As such, it needs to be an essential part of work in order to leverage all that people have to offer. When play becomes a key component of a healthy corporate culture, it fosters positive thinking and creative imagination.

If we choose to leave our childish things behind, we not only deny our essential humanity but also cut ourselves off from a tremendous reservoir of creativity with the potential to make us happier and make us more effective contributors at work.

Excerpted from The Intuitive Compass, Jossey-Bass, 2011.

Metrics Vs. Intuition – Which Is Most Important In A Startup?

Posted on November 16, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

As Eric Basu observes, the most effective leadership style balances gut instinct with careful analysis of data points and metrics, and leaders with this balance are difficult to come by. But we would argue that the ability to tap into your instinct through your intuition can be developed and that it possible to facilitate a synergy between the rational mind and instinctual aptitudes. —The Human Company

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericbasu/2014/03/02/metrics-vs-intuition-which-is-most-important-in-a-startup/

Defining Play

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

So what is play? Is it the same as fun? Sort of. The key ingredient in play is engagement: engagement within your own mind, with another person, or with an object. Play is always a dynamic experience. Play is really about immersing oneself in a pleasurable activity for the sake of it, with no other particular intent or specific goal. It can be about immersing oneself in reading a book, drawing, sculpting, or fixing a collector’s item such as an antique piece of furniture for the love of restoring a beautiful object. Play can be experienced alone or in a group. In business, observing people play, I have seen the energy in the room immediately become lighter and stronger. Play creates new ways of interactions, allows a different type of bonding, encourages trust among team members, lowers inhibition, and facilitates, the production of original ideas because people dare to speak up and express themselves more.

The Power of Play

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

Play is magical. And profound. Not only is it essential to our growth and development when we are children and a source of joy throughout our lives, but it is also a largely untapped channel for innovative ideas in the work place.

Play is essential to the survival of organizations in a complex and fast-changing marketplace, as it is a key factor in creativity and agility. I have used play to help people become more creative, deal with challenging emotions like self-consciousness or even fear, and regain energy, enthusiasm, and hope when their company was going through difficult times. Play opens the doors to our deeper creative potential, helping us achieve change and implement innovative solutions.

Excerpted from The Intuitive Compass, Jossey-Bass, 2011

What is Intuitive Intelligence?

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Bianca Le Mouël

Intuitive Intelligence is a set of skills I designed that uses intuition to get to the instinctual and nonconscious parts of our minds. It can be learned and developed, but because instinct does not operate in the same way as reason, Intuitive Intelligence requires unusual forms of learning and thinking. This is why understanding intuition is key.

Intuition doesn’t seek “the truth” or even “sense.” Intuition is completely open to non-sense. It dives down into the depths of the unconscious where reason and instinct collide in unexpected ways, and it latches onto hidden connections and contradictions. Then it brings this information—via an unusual sign, a rare sensation, an unexpected feeling, or a seemingly irrelevant fact—to the surface of consciousness to feed the rational mind and enable logic to work with paradox. Intuition empowers us to operate in the zone of ambiguity and change, the exact place where imagination and genius occur.

Intuitive Intelligence helps us survive in new and changing environments by incorporating intuition and instinct into our thought process and our business endeavors. The purpose of instinct is survival. Its ultimate mission is to ensure the sustainability of our species. It understands how to collaborate with and with and adapt to our ecosystems. This is its inherent wisdom. This is why Intuitive Intelligence is so needed today.

Excerpted from The Intuitive Compass, Jossey-Bass, 2011.