Challenge the Impossible
Opinions sound like facts. Test the idea.
It is not that the challenge is too big, but that the potential for criticism feels too threatening.Chapter 3, The Big Bold Mindset
The brilliant idea you talked yourself out of.
Have you ever had an idea you got really excited about, then thought of every reason it couldn't work? Before you knew it, you'd talked yourself out of it.
Maybe you said it out loud and heard: "That's crazy. There's no way." A year later, someone else made the same idea work.
Opinions said forcefully enough sound like facts. They're not. They're one person's view of their own limits. Leaders with a Big Bold Mindset have a learnable way through.
How do you handle criticism?
On a scale of 1 to 100, how comfortable are you with criticism? 1 is "I loathe it". 100 is "bring it on".
Which plans have you dropped because of loud voices?
What have you lost by talking yourself out of action?
We go along with the group, even when it's wrong.
In Solomon Asch's experiments in the 1950s, people judged the length of lines after hearing a group of actors give the wrong answer on purpose. Most went along with the group at least once.
The rogue monkey
The five monkeys
A famous parable: monkeys stop each other climbing for a banana long after the punishment has gone. Many "impossible" challenges are old beliefs carried forward.
Ask why
The rogue monkey asks: why are we doing it this way? Is there a better way?
Climb anyway
Then climbs the ladder and eats the banana, despite the criticism.
The greater danger is not setting our aim too high and missing, but setting it too low and hitting it. (A line often credited to Michelangelo.)
Marc Randolph: collide ideas with reality
The Netflix co-founder says it's very hard to tell a good idea from a bad one. The answer is to test ideas as quickly and cheaply as possible.
When a student wanted to build a clothes-rental platform, he told her to skip the funding and the prototype. Pin a note to your door and see who knocks.
That will never work.What Marc Randolph's wife said about the idea for Netflix
The WHY and WHY NOT page
The most useful tool Caspar has found for impossible challenges is a sheet of paper with a line down the middle. It turns overwhelm into a to-do list.
WHY
Why does this matter to you? Go as deep as you can. A weak why runs out of steam when the going gets tough.
WHY NOT
Write every reason it will fail. Don't hold back. Get them out of your head and onto paper.
Your to-do list
Each WHY NOT is a problem to solve. Ask: what's the one thing that makes everything else easier, or unnecessary?
Test one idea cheaply
Take one idea you've talked yourself out of. Draw a line down a page and fill in WHY and WHY NOT. Then design the cheapest possible test of the biggest WHY NOT, and run it this week.
Turn "never" into experiments
Take one idea the team has dismissed. Separate the opinions from the facts.
Want Caspar to take your team through this? casparcraven.com