Well – What’s Going On?
You would have to be living in the Man On The Moon’s garden shed with a blanket on your head to have missed that it’s all a bit chaotic on Earth right now. Everything moving faster. The opportunity to screw up bigger. The risks of being dumb much clearer. The chance to be more creative greater. Old ways of thinking and working swiftly becoming obsolete. Yeah right and so what?
We’re dealing with what’s called new dynamics.
Everywhere people are starting to recognize that they need to think differently. People are saying it to me now 15 years after I started saying it to them so it must be true. We cry – ‘Discover new ways to work and remain relevant or die’. Nods. Online – folk are building new stuff daily. It’s very exciting. New ideas present the opportunity for value for anyone brave enough to click a button. Fresh learning 24×7. Roll up. Getting on board and experiencing the new is there for all of us with the access to a smart phone or the web.
I still get people in leading positions saying what’s the point of Twitter and what’s a blog? Fuck Off.
Business is therefore in a spin.
Large stuck traditional organizations with global scale are suffering and it’s their own damn fault. Recognizing that they have to change pretty much everything has to be more than just saying it. Small, leaner enterprises are showing the way to the new business models and global scale. They deserve to smash apart the behemoths that just watch with their crazed eyes and stubborn suits.
The words of expectation on everyone’s lips are about being cool, relevant – meaningful, sustainable and resilient.
What does that mean we need to do? Things that’s what.
Thinking AND doing. Applying Real Experience and Unleashing Creativity. The quality of thinking (or lack of it) that seems to pervade confounds me. Real creativity and balls are staggeringly sparse and far between. Want to know stupidity? – Tools and techniques designed for previous era’s are still being deployed to solve problems that are impervious to them.
My approach is a little different thats true. It’s based on years of being a total misfit in the creative and professional industries – solving complex business issues with creativity and critical thinking – strange huh? – seriously not the self serving consulting practices. Ah shame.
Being a bit odd has it’s benefits. I don’t get invited to many dinner parties any more. I’m sort of bringing different ways to think about the challenges we face today by confronting them with the people that are living them. This is not magic. Problems and opportunities live side by side right?
Championing the ‘Art Of Conversation’ means enabling people to discuss, engage, own and then understand the opportunity they have to contribute and gain personal value from their work. Seems daft having to say it.
Working with a large dollop of respect alongside the leaders. Joining forces. Working in cycles, teams work their way through structures that are rewarding to them – creative and visual. Frameworks of logic. Getting at the right information and thinking about business as a complete system of things. In complete collaboration working together to develop the right program. You know.
A range of ways to think and work – tailored to each challenge uniquely.
There is no one way to solve a problem so don’t have one. Admire the many intellectual and academic ideas – systems and design thinking, critical thinking and the countless models and architectures for expert thinking in specific fields then ignore them a while. Respect but don’t be blinded by them – just work hard at the reality of what’s going down..
Yes there’s a ‘philosophy’ and an approach but that’s it. Embrace everything and every idea that works is the recipe. Oh and that works too.
Why Me?
I was a client. Then ran an agency. I learned the hard way how frustrating and meaningless many of the approaches to solving problems actually were. I practiced several of them myself. Now completed nearly 3000 assignments, large and small using these tools and techniques. Proved the ‘way’.
Open to learning new ideas every day of the week. Not happy unless something new emerges each time. Suspect any situation to arise given all of the dynamics that surround us. Delight in finding new insights as long as they are actually insightful. Identify better ways to empower clients that do not create undue dependency on us. positively disrupt.
I’ve worked with every type of business and organization. Worked to refine political process, conflict and cultural change. Work with global brands in every category. Work in world sport, on HIV/Aids in Africa and technology startups in Silicon Valley.
Work.
First published on johncaswell.com, 9 February 2013. See the copy in the Wayback Machine. Kept as John wrote it.
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