I believe whimsy is the x factor in getting teams to open up and generate ideas. Whimsy, or play, allows us to suspend belief and dive deep into our imaginations. It makes laughing at failure fun. It brings levity to otherwise stressful situations. Life is already hard enough.

AI is only as useful as the questions you ask it. I think learning from books, others, and school is the same way.

The x-factor of my production function is space and time to think.

Musicians often regard the strongest musician as the leader of the group. That’s a terrible idea.The best band leaders foster openness to create, are effective communicators, and actively remove creative and performance roadblocks from their teams. It’s been proven, businesses often promote the strongest “musician.”What should we do with those that excel in skill and ability? Elevate their status, recognize them for their skill, pay them a ton of money, and give them more complex projects. We don’t necessarily make them people managers.How do we identify skilled people managers? Look for people who are skilled at collaborating, mentoring, teaching, or removing productivity roadblocks. Look for people who others trust. Perhaps an anonymous survey given to a team: “Who is the person in the group that you trust to have your back when the chips are down? Rank your choices from most trusted to least.”“Who is the person in the group that you believe can handles the toughest challenges in the most adept and skillful way AND gets amazing outcomes? Rank your choices from most skilled to least.”My bet… the strongest people leaders rank high on #1 and low on #2. The inverse would be true of strong individual contributors.

Continuing the train of thought on workplace value.Going to customers and asking them about their experience is a path to learning how they perceive value. Questions a customer success manager might ask:How would you describe the value received from our service relative to the price paid? What is the most valuable?What is least?If you were starting over, would you choose our service again? Why or why not? How do you compare our service with alternative solutions you considered? What were your expectations before purchasing? What factor most influenced your decision to purchase our service?What surprises, good or bad, have you encountered while using our service that influenced your perception of it? If you are considering discontinuing our service, what factors are contributing to that consideration? Questions like that help identify how customers perceive the value of their investment and how their perceptions may influence their decisions to renew or stay. What if we asked questions like this to employee?How would you describe the value received from your employment relative to the wage we pay you?What is most valuable? What is least?If you were starting over, would you choose us as an employer again? Why or why not? How do you compare employment with us with alternative employers you considered? What were your expectations before accepting our offer? What factor most influenced your decision to accept our offer?What surprises, good or bad, have you encountered during your employment that influenced your perception of us as an employer? If you are considering discontinuing your employment with us, what factors are contributing to that consideration?

People who receive job offers consider two aspects of the offer:Their wage; andThe fringe benefits (non-wage compensation) they’ll receive. Rarely do people pay attention to the third factor: the potential value of the work experience and knowledge gained from skilled managers and colleagues.Imagine you are in a job that pays you $6.00/hour. A competing employer reaches out to you with an offer to work for them — they’ll pay you $12.00/hour. You surprise the competitor because you decide to stay at your current $6.00/hour job. Earning more cash seemed nice, but you were only 70% certain that it was a good move for you. Your decision seems counterintuitive at first. I argue, it’s exactly the right decision for two reasons:You decided to stay because you believe the value you receive from your $6.00/hour is worth more than the $12.00/hour offered. The non-monetary benefits, I’m not referring to fringe benefits, weight stronger than cash. For employers, it’s hard to understate the importance of hiring managers skilled at creating and developing human capital. Go a step further…Imagine measuring a manager’s performance with some type of metric like “Employee Value Growth Ratio”. EVGR equals the perceived non-monetary value created divided by the actual monetary investment in salaries. Higher EVGRs suggest that managers are effective at creating work environments that foster growth and satisfaction. After Thought:

Sean Evans interviewed Conan O’Brien on Hot Ones this week. In case you don’t know, Hot Ones is an interview show. Sean, a skilled interviewer, and guest eat super hot chicken wings and talk about everything. Conan showed up. As the show approaches the 11 o’clock number, guests are confronted with “Da Bomb.” A notoriously hot and disgusting sauce. In past interviews, people cried. Not Conan. Conan doused his wings in this sauce — guests don’t do that — and then he slathered the sauce all over his tongue — nobody in their right mind would do that. Conan then said, “are we doing this or not? This is life.” How many “doing this or not” moments do we pass up day to day out of fear?

Trust me.

I came across this piece today — from a series I had the most fun writing (click here.)Excerpt:The artist’s desire to communicate an idea and create better art is only as strong as their audience’s desire to give meaning and definition to the piece. You need your audience, readers, listeners, clients, customers to create art.

Data data everywhere, and not a drop to drink. I have that belief about data. News commentators talk about data, industry people talk about data, candidates say “I love data”. I have developed rules about data:Don’t trust, always verify. What you see is not all there is. (HT Ed Powers for that one)One person’s proof is another person’s conspiracy. People who use data because it pays, will manipulate the data because it pays. I may have mentioned that I am studying statistics — I need it for work. The more I learn about statistics, the more I don’t trust anything or anyone with any high degree of certainty (alpha = 0.05). Question everything.