Net Cotton Content

Agenda-Free Advice for the Perpelexed

Here's the draft of a sermon I plan to give tonight at Temple Israel in Columbus, Ohio.

Agenda-Free Advice

(A Temple Israel Sermon)

Where were we? What was I saying last time I was up here? 

This is Shabbat Shuvah. Shuvah is about returning, so I'm trying to return to where we were when I was last on the bimah. 

Well, it was last year around this time. It appears that the rabbis are full up writing their High Holy Day sermons. So, if I offer to give a sermon at what might very well be — amid the rush of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur — the least attended service in the history of Reform Judaism, I might be allowed to do it.

So I offered. And here I am. (I'm glad both of you could be here.)

So, where were we last time I was up here? Oh, I remember: I was boasting about how distracted I get during services. I tried to make the case for how daydreaming might be the most effective form of worship.

And I encouraged you to try to get lost in your worship. Stop stressing about keeping up. Fall behind everyone else. Go wherever the moment takes you.

That was either great advice, deepening the experience of the High Holy Days for you.

Or it was terrible advice, giving me a slight advantage over you in getting my prayers heard — while you were daydreaming.

In either event, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be giving religious advice.

And, that brings us to where I left off last year.

This sermon is about bad advice. And good advice. And what makes one different from the other.

***************

This sermon is about agenda-free advice.

During the past couple months I've been doing a lot of reading about the subject. By "a lot of reading" I mean "I've skimmed the better part of a book."

For me, that's a lot of scholarship.

That's the reason I'm not a rabbi. Because a real rabbi knows that reading half a book is not being a scholar.

Still, now I am an expert in agenda-free advice.

First, I will define it. Then I will tell you where you can find it. Then I will tell you how to give it.

Then I will sit down.

***************

What It Is
Agenda-free advice is advice given by someone — an "advisor" — who has no direct investment in the advice. The advisor won't be helped or hurt substantially by your decision to accept or reject the advice.

The advisor wants to help, so there is that agenda. But the advisor seeks Tikun — your healing, your advancement, your improvement. The agenda driving the advisor is your agenda, not the advisor's agenda.

What's the opposite of agenda-free advice? Let's call it: "agenda-rich advice."

What might be the advisor's agenda?
A mentor of mine says: "After a business meeting I want the other person to think three things: 1. That I'm smart. 2. That he or she likes me. And 3. That he or she feels vaguely uncomfortable because there is work to be done."

I love that description of agenda-rich advice. It's when the advisor wants to do more than help. The advisor wants to move you toward a mutual agenda.

Sometimes the agenda-rich advice is an attempt to make you more like the advisor.

That's not bad. It can be quite good.

But it isn't agenda-free advice.
Agenda-free advice doesn't want to make you into someone else. Agenda-free advice wants you to be more authentic. Like that midrash about Louie arriving in heaven and apologizing for not being more like Moses. The gatekeeper says, "But the goal was not for you to be more like Moses. The goal was for you to be more like Louie."

That's shuvah. Returning. Returning to authenticity. Returning to who you are.

Agenda-free advice is when the advisor has only your agenda in mind — and the advice is pure, purely in service to you. Then the advisor walks away, with no ownership in your next steps.

Where can you find agenda-free advice?
I have found it in only two places.

Flung Around

Readers of Net Cotton Content are far-flung.

Perhaps that's because the writing is far-fetched.

Anyway, readers live all over the world. One in Japan reads Net Cotton Content to learn English. Bad idea. (Why? Sentence fragments.)

Where Are We?
During the next few weeks, I'm traveling. If I'm coming near you, perhaps we can get together. Feel free to let me know if the following itinerary crosses yours.

• Honesdale, Pennsylvania (September 18-19)
  I'll be leading a creativity workshop at the Fifth Annual Retreat for Children's Magazine Editors, hosted by Highlights For Children. It's private, but — if we ask nicely — they might let you sit in.

• Indian Wells, California (September 21-24)
  I'll be speaking on creativity at The Top of The Table, a meeting of the Million Dollar Round Table. Their meetings are private, but I think I'm going to be sitting by the pool for a few days; I can probably hook you up with a towel.

• Ewing, New Jersey (October 5)
  I'm delivering the keynote speech and a breakout on creativity at the Community Learning Day at The College of New Jersey. I'm sure they'd let you join the fun.

• Salinitas, El Salvador (October 12-17)  
  I'm teaching creativity and leading brainstorms with 400 coffee growers, suppliers and all kinds of coffee experts at Sustainable Harvest's Let's Talk Coffee.

• Montreal (October 25-27)
  I'll offer Creative Boosts to three Vistage groups. Those meetings are private, but my afternoons and evenings are not scheduled.

• Toledo, Ohio (October 28)
  I'll speak on the "Habits of Highly Creative People (And Those Who Want To Be)" at the Ohio Library Council's 2011 Convention and Expo. 

Come on over. Wherever you are.

Psst. Wanna hear some lectures on marketing?

Tonight at 6:45 p.m., I return to CCAD for the first of a dozen weekly lectures on consumer behavior.

Come. This is your invitation.

There are 100 students registered for the class and it will be taught in a big, comfortable auditorium, so you can just blend in. Each class is only 75 minutes. You could come tonight, any Monday, or every Monday.

Don't be shy. I would love to have you there.

(Usually there are about a dozen Net Cotton Content readers who attend. Nice!)

Let me know if you are coming, and I will send you a map to the specific location.

Ye Olde Rut
I taught this course for years, years ago at CCAD. As one student wrote:

“The course was high-energy, optimistic, full of humor and most importantly: informative. It was one of the few courses that just about everyone who took it not only looked forward to the next lesson, but recommended it to their colleagues as well.”

But, I left after hearing this thought about teaching:

If you are teaching the same thing the same way for more than five years, then you lack either ambition or imagination.

(I think this might have come from Noam Chomsky.)

I was indeed stuck in a rut.

The students were generous and appreciative. But I was teaching the same thing, in the same way, year after year. The PowerPoint slides were so ready, I would just show up and let 'em rip.

So it was time to go away.

The Course Is Sound
Over time, I'd designed the course to help artists:

• Make work that is more than beautiful. The course helps the artist think through the work, so it persuades others and changes behavior.
• Justify each piece of work as more than beautiful. The course helps the artist describe work to executives in the workplace, to win more production budget for, say, the photography.

The legendary CCAD education — especially its intensive first year, "Foundation" — expertly develops each artist's technical skills.

But having hired dozens of CCAD graduates at Young Isaac, I have seen too many who are riding solely on their technical proficiency. They do have highly developed hands and eyes — but aren't always levering their minds.

That's where this class comes in.

Bridging The Gap
After years of helping CCAD artists win the favor of businesspeople in the workplace, I've been teaching MBA candidates about creativity. This has me building the same bridge — over the creative gap — from the other side.

Now, with my MBA experiences, I'm really enjoying re-meeting the artists at CCAD.

And you. Coming?

Round Trip

Several years ago, I was sightseeing in the beloved Negev Desert. Our group had paused in a heavily visited wadi — where passers-by had left thousands of cigarette butts.  

Disappointed by the litter, I asked our Israeli tourguide, "Why doesn't Israel do something about all this litter?"

He looked down at the mess, as if he'd never really seen it before. "Litter?" he asked. "Right. We should do something about it. And it's on our list. But there are other things we have to get done first. Litter is not at the top of the list."

That's easy enough to understand. Higher up on the agenda are the existential challenges.

Same Here
My commute downtown this morning isn't the Mideast Peace Challenge.

But there are many expectations of me and I'm favoring the existential ones.

You see, I'll be on a bicycle.

What Expectations?
The law, the automobile drivers, and — especially — the local bicyclists who advocate for mutual respect on the road want me to stay in the street, on the right, and stop at traffic lights and (I suppose) stop signs.

They want me to follow all the laws as if I were driving a car.

Even Doug Morgan gives me disapproving puppy-lawyer eyes when I ask if he really thinks I need to follow the traffic laws. "What you are doing is, of course, wrong," said Doug when I described my standard bicycling procedures, which are indeed, of course, wrong. 

What I'm Doing
I ride guided by the following priorities, in order of my obedience:

1. Maximize my personal safety and the safety of others.
2. Obey traffic laws.

The traffic laws are important, but — with the order of my priorities — I will always choose personal safety and that of others over traffic laws.

Some Laws Were Made For Obeying
I hereby promise to follow the laws of physics: gravity, centrifugal force, momentum, and center of balance.

I also promise to follow the laws of etiquette. I will stop, dismount, and walk my bike whenever I am anywhere near a pedestrian. That's just simple courtesy. I will signal my intentions to all.

But Some Laws Might Get Me Killed (This Morning).
The law that I ride in the street might get me killed.

We all know how distracted drivers (including me) can be. 

The clearest view of this sad state of affairs is from the handlebars of a bicycle. About half of all drivers are surprised to see me, because they are erstwhile occupied with sipping, tuning, reading, navigating, texting, singing, thinking, eating, picking, and — oh, yes, with whatever cranial capacity remains — operating a one-ton assembly of steel, rubber and glass.

I have almost been struck by several cars, driven by people who either never saw me or lost their momentary focus on my safety. (In their list of priorities, I am not much higher than "3. Don't drive over the dead skunk.")

(For more on automotive safety, read Malcolm Gladwell on automotive safety.)

Where People Are Killed
I once told our kids, when they were playing near the street, the following statistics as quickly I made them up:

 

Ninety-five percent of kids killed by cars are killed in the street. Five percent are killed in the first 10 feet of the lawn or on the driveway. None of them are killed when they are upstairs in the house.

Where I am on my bike has a lot to do with the probability of survival. 

You will find me on the sidewalk. Or in intersections that are empty, even if I am crossing against a signal, if that's what is safest for me. 

I live a fairly legal life. Feel free to call me inconsistent. I also teach ethics. Feel free to call me an annoying fraud.

Teaching Creativity at Ohio State

I am so glad to be teaching another section of my course on creativity, starting on September 22nd at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business.

Personal Creativity and Innovation (BUS-MHR 390)
With the guidance of Michael Camp, I've taken the best of more than a decade of creativity teaching experience and have revised this course further still. (The former students are a great source of continuous improvement for this course.)

If you're an OSU undergraduate business student — or in another college and interested in this course — here is an overview:

Personal Creativity and Innovation (BUS-MHR 390) explores how people, places and practices foster human creativity. Students discuss: What is creativity? How can I become more creative? How can we lead others to greater creativity? Readings include academic, management, spiritual, confessional, and self-development literature on creativity, productivity, happiness and the optimal experience. Assignments include private daily writings and self-assessments of personal creativity. In order to become more creative, students must be willing to look within themselves and share what they find.

A teacher of artists and MBAs, children and adults, Artie bridges the gap between right and left brains in the corporation and within the individual. Students read and discuss the science and art of creativity, share personal experiences, write daily, take weekly field trips, and look deeply within themselves to better understand how to become more creative. In the end, students are more creative, can better relate to highly creative people, and have a personal curriculum for lifelong creative development, including a goal statement on just how the student plans to change the world.

If you have any questions about the class (or want this class to be taught at your corporate offices), please email me. If you wonder whether creativity can be taught, read this.

Here are some comments from three wonderful recent students:

"A 'can-opener' for your mind and emotions. Intense and intriguing. Expect to test and develop your emotional maturity in an unorthodox business school setting. Each class is different. You can never get enough; you're not supposed to - this class merely sets things in motion to help you attend to your whole self beyond this class. Don't expect to be uncomfortable forever - you'll begin to like what you discover about yourself."

"This class challenged me, but also helped me grow as a person. I feel that the things I learned in this class can be carried with me forever. This is a class I will never forget."

"This was the most mentally stimulating course I have ever taken."

On the other hand, some recent students suggested that I offer some warnings to students who are thinking about taking the class. So, let your expectations be guided:

1. The course can be unpredictable. I will lead (and be led) as the classroom conversation strays. Do not expect predictability.

2. The course is deceptively difficult. There is much reading and writing. But the work does not have diminishing returns; incremental effort yields incremental gain.

The syllabus is new and improved (and always under renovation). In its current form, it is here.

If you want to send a flyer to a friend — or post it in a hallway bulletin board, here's an old one.