Rothacker Reviews

See Emily Play

Good day. How would you like to take a trip with Emily and I today? We're off to never, never land you know. Take off that worker bee uniform, cast aside everyone's expectations and turn down the noise. No drugs or liquid mind altering stuff, but we will need our kaleidoscope glasses.

Our yellow submarine lands on shore. We de-board and walk into fields of strawberries. Cut grass, a blue sky, warm sunshine and a sea breeze cleanse our mind. A short walk through a green forest and a flower filled meadow rolls out before us. Music fills the air as a young girl in a long dress, sandals and a flower in her long, thick hair dances about. No trace of bosses, customers, schedules or pressures. Only Emily. See Emily play. No need for expensive vacations, hobbies or illegal substances. See Emily play. Allow your mind to go back to a simpler time. Allow your body to relax. Allow yourself to feel good. See Emily play.

There is no other way, let's try it today. See Emily play.

Change by Design

Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO authored a book in 2009, titled Change by Design. Today it ranks number five at Amazon under the category Organizational Change. Tim writes:

This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a blueprint for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking - an approach for creative problem solving - into all facets of their organizations, products or services to discover new alternatives for business and society as a whole.

The high ranking at Amazon is not because a bunch of leaders who want to be creative rushed out to buy Tim's book - even though Tim clearly communicates the strategies and business reasons behind engaging design thinking, c-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-e-s in CEO and leader language. Rather the high ranking is because those who work for these leaders are desperately in search of - as in crawling across the hot desert floor in search of a tall, cool glass of water - other leaders who get it, other companies that are doing it and other ways to operate a company better.

If you're a CEO / leader and the word change begins to constrict the little fellers in your groin's environment, relax. You don't have to embrace creative problem solving to change your entire company. Learn about it, become familiar with it and change one outdated personal business practice. Once you've gotten your arms and mind around design thinking and have effected a positive personal outcome, you will be encouraged and excited to use it once again. For design thinking to be effective in your company, it must become a mindset in which you truly believe in.

The cold reality of the situation is that if you're a CEO / leader now and are not already tuned into design thinking, you will never will. Your best bet is to step down from CEO and become a Wal-Mart greeter for your company. The only difference is you'll have the wealth and knowledge of your typical WM greeter, but you'll get to actually use it because you will remain on with your company in an advisory capacity. (Wal-Mart shuns the depth-less pool of knowledge and resources contained in their greeter's hearts and minds).

Could you possibly imagine the courage and incredible self-knowledge of a CEO who understands that he doesn't have the capacity to embrace design thinking, but cares enough about his company to turn the reigns over to someone who does and remain on to help?

The cold reality of the situation is that this person doesn't exist. And this leads back to my number one recommendation for reading Tim's work: Learn to identify CEO's and companies who embrace design thinking. Learn from them. Work for them.

Here's another reason for reading Change by Design: Use it as a compass to help navigate your own road. Read the book looking through the window of your own potential development. 

Can Adults Learn From Kids?

Can adults learn from kids? Yes! Especially those of us who could not or would not crawl out of our boxes...even if all four walls fell down at the same time.

I came across Adora Svitak today when looking over the speakers at this year's TED talks. Adora talks to the folks at Mashable here:

At the 1:56 mark Adora says, "Adults are confined by society's restrictions." She's talking about changing the world and coming up with new ideas. Adora says that kids offer a different perspective, a kid's eyeview, one that is not hampered and that's why adults should pay attention to kids.

Adora lets her kid side out for a quick moment and then recovers at the 2:24 mark. When asked if there was any technology that she was excited about, she said getting a free phone at TED was the high point of the conference for her. A second later she corrected and said that the speakers were her high point.

You know what Adora? I hope that you can hold off society's norms just a bit longer yourself. It's totally cool and totally kid to say the high point of TED was the free phone.

The Road. A Short Motivational Video

Once you have tasted flight you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward - Leonardo da Vinci

I found this video over at Matt Michel's Comanche Marketing.

United (Airlines) Breaks Guitars, Bullies and Indifference

United Airline's employees broke Dave Carroll's Taylor $3,500 guitar. Dave spent nearly one year trying to get United to repair his guitar, to no avail. They said no. This is old news, but when I saw the video that Dave and his band, Sons of Maxwell, composed to chronicle this customer-lack-of-service nightmare, the hair on the back of my neck came to attention, stood on end and then sent an internal message to my stomach which in turn sent a message to my brain which sent a message to my feet that then propelled me right straight to the bathroom.

Of course I'll place United Airlines on the last-airline-I'd-fly-on-list. But this company just symbolizes how corporations can act as bullies and how an atmosphere of indifference can rot away a company's foundation. Kind of like "I'm a bully, I'm a bully, I'm a bully," as the bully's body begins to slowly disappear starting at its feet.

It's all about people. I am sure that there is a United Airlines crew in one airport, somewhere, that rocks. But as consumers, once we buy a Pinto, it's highly unlikely we'd ever buy another. Lack of customer service aside, what is of interest to me is the culture of companies like UA and how it influences Generation Y. Would they base an employment decision on how the company treated Dave Carroll? Or would tough times influence them to place those feelings on the back burner and take the job if they had the opportunity? And if so, how do they cope with corporate bully-ness and indifference - once they are immersed in it?

Oh well. Sit back, warm up those facial muscles responsible for smiling and enjoy Dave and his band.

I Despise Goals!

Yes it's about semantics. And ridiculous expectations. And out-of-touch-with-reality managers. And corporate. And I state that with every ounce of conviction that I can muster like the big ugly wad of gum stuck on your shoe that it is. And it's about lack of achievement. And crutches for managers. And reasons to not engage. And big ole hockin' stomach aches.

The gurus say you must have goals and grade to those goals. So those of us who secretly disagree with the whole notion, keep to ourselves. I was recently talking to a twenty plus year ex-manager and she told me that she HATES goals. I was shocked. Did I mention that she was an extremely successful manager? It turns out she just did to her corporate manager what most teenagers do to their parents. "Yes mom, yes mom, yes mom." They did the goal thing on paper and then she went about working with her coworkers in ways that produced excellent results. I believe that the physical description of this event involves taking one's hand and sliding it up and down a fictitious pole.

I do not disagree with the practice of setting a target and then striving for it. There's just so much muckety-muck slimed around the practice of what is known as goal setting and in most cases the inevitable failure to achieve such goals, that I think a change in both terminology and view are in order.

Marcus says that most people don't change much. I agree. I don't however, have the time, energy and evangelistic characteristics needed to mount a crusade. So all you folks out there who are goalies, no sweat, keep on keepin' on with your goals. I am more interested in folks like the young ex-manager above who despises goals. 

How deep-seeded have this woman's sentiments run? Well I've known her since 1974, married her in 1977 and produced offspring with her in 1981 and 1992, and I never knew she despised goals. For one stretch of twenty years when we were both managers at the same time, we spoke every single day after work, about all things management. I think the whole goal-crap thing is burnt so deep by corporate and the gurus into our neural pathways, that we have become desensitized to it...kinda like going to the bathroom. Given our druthers we'd rather not do it, but its part of human nature so we just do what we have to do.

I'll follow up this post with some different ideas in terminology and viewpoints.

You Can't Touch Him

Some say he lives on the edge. One more step and he would leave the world of conventionalism, the world of status-quo, the world of 9 to 5, which in reality is 6 to 6. But although he does live in this world, his heart and mind do not. As the great poet MC Hammer once said, "you can't touch this!"

Oh but they do try. With mind-numbing policies designed to break the will and spirit of his and the other middle managers along with his company's general inability to attract and keep hungry and passionate coworkers, they try to penetrate his psyche, strangle desire and render hope useless. 

By light of his coworker's eyes and body movement, they have succeeded. Knowledge and decision work have been reduced to placing a widget in the next box as it comes down the belt. 6 to 6 robots and it takes 6 drinks after 6 to uncover their humanness.

But not him...

He places them, his company, in a tiny compartment and labels the door fuel. Their mindless mission and its incessant hunger to take other people's money, fuels his life. It fuels his children's education, his new Dodge Challenger and his wife's Beemer, his photography and writing habits and his wife's gym membership. It even fuels the pet's boarding house fees when he takes time off and they go away on vacation.

There is no meaning and fulfillment to be found at work. And that's okay because he isn't looking to find any there. He figures that that's his coworkers' main problem.

There was only one Babe Ruth and it is possible to punch out one's mind and heart at the door as one punches in to work. But the incredible power that it takes to keep the hounds at bay while at the same time sacrificing twelve hours of one's day, twelve hours devoid of meaning and fulfillment, is not worth it.

It is true, the Man cannot touch him. But are those twelve hours worth the price of freedom?

Hope, Love and Remembering my Dad

My Dad passed away on the fifth of November. He was seventy-nine years old. I wrote a remembrance and recited it at St Joan of Arc church, located in Streetsboro, Ohio, on November 11th. My sister Debra, encouraged me to post it here.

Debra, our brother Michael and myself were the victims of parental(s) alcohol abuse as children. It is important to reveal this personal detail because as you read through my words, you will not come to this conclusion on your own. Growing up was hard, damn hard. And the demons that visited the doorstep of our youth sunk their talons in and rode our backs into adulthood.

Respect and love paralleled the abuse. This took our brains and emotions and, with bone crushing centrifugal force, distorted our reality. In the end however, respect and love prevailed.

The end began in the mid-seventies. But first, here are my words:

Ideaspotting

Ideaspotting by Sam Harrison

Ideaspotting is a book designed to help you generate ideas and to become more creative.

Did you ever dig into a book that was supposed to help you be more creative, and find yourself entangled in exercises so complex and tedious that they forced you into being creative, like using the book for a door stop? Well, Ideaspotting is not like that.

In another book of his Zing!, author Sam wrote about the following five-step process for generating ideas:

• Explore
• Freedom
• Pause
• Embrace
• Life

Ideaspotting focuses on the Explore stage. Sam underscores to explore with the actions of observing and listening. Please allow me to back away from Sam's book for a second and try to capture a 60,000 foot view.

Pretend that you have a problem that is contained in one room and you need a solution. Or you need to come up with an idea in relation to this room. The first thing you need to do is to observe and listen to the room. You need to be aware of details, ambiguities and nuances. Then you need to go out into the world for answers. Sam labels this Firing-Range exploring.

We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.                                             John Hope Franklin

In Free-Range exploring, Sam says to fill your work with life. This means to go out into the world and by way of a multitude of experiences, fill your life well. For the most part, how to fill your well is what the book is about. The following are examples:

360-Degree Exploring - Dive into your world and understand how wide it is. Sam lists categories of suggestions like personal surroundings, entertainment, internet, nature, customers, kids and a whole lot more to get you started.

Look into lifestyles - What publications, Web sites and events can help you monitor lifestyles?

Watch where people are and watch what they do - It ain't gonna happen sittin' on the couch.

Really listen - Sam uses this quote by Jiddu Krishnamurti: When you are listening to somebody completely and attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.

Ask a ton of questions - Do I really need to elaborate on this one?

Watch what thrills people - Make note of what people are WOWED by.

Make notes - When out in the world make notes in notebooks, sketchbooks, index cards or by camera or voice recorder. Be a reporter to your editor self.

Build and work your network - You know the drill.

Learn from your mistakes - Mark Twain says it best: I knew a man who grabbed a cat by the tail and learned 40% more about cats than the man who didn't.

Get out into the world - Travel to the corner of your street or to another continent. The world is your classroom.

Ideaspotting is one of the best books of its kind that I have ever read. And on a personal taste level, the book's design is absolutely intoxicating.

Ideaspotting was smoked-n-signed.

Berrett-Koehler: Baby Boomers & Life Transitions

Hey you got a second? Here, get on your knee and place your ear on the ground. Can you feel that vibration? Sure you can, you can almost hear it. You know what that is? It's the Baby Boomer generation coming...on a new trajectory. A couple years back that rumble was on a fast track toward retirement. While they are still on a life-transition course, retirement is no longer at the finish line. And you know what? That might not be a bad thing.

Every time that I visit Berrett-Koehler's (BK) Website, I discover a different nugget of gold. Here are a few words that I extracted out of their identity brochure:

A major theme of our publications is “Opening Up New
Space.” Our books challenge conventional thinking,
introduce new ideas, and foster positive change. Their
common quest is changing the underlying beliefs, mindsets,
institutions, and structures that keep generating
the same cycles of problems, no matter who our leaders
are or what improvement programs we adopt.

Opening Up New Space...how could one possibly cobble together four more pertinent words as to what Baby Boomers need to do on their road to life transitions? If you keep this theme in mind while you peruse BK's categories of Currents, Life and Business, you'll find a world of guidance and direction.

If I wanted a couple of guys to talk about the ins and outs of hitting a baseball, I'd recommend Ted Williams and Babe Ruth. If I wanted a couple of guys to talk about Baby Boomers and life transitions, I'd recommend Richard Bolles and Richard Leider. BK however, has already hooked up with them. Check it out: