The systems we design

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old

Peter Drucker

“My mum will not knit at night”
“My Boss said the files must be kept at 45 degree angle”
“Our tribe doesn’t dance when the fire goes off ”
“When I was your age, we weren’t allowed to voice our opinions ”

From the tribal display of an antiquated society to running a company in the 21st century, there is the disputation over our cultural system(s), the acceptance of status quo, the upholding of ‘the way we are,’ the revolt and defiance to the existing institutions. The question is, who designed those systems? How effective are the systems? What is the cost of such system? Why was the system institutionalized with these evident parameters?

Time, handlers of information & experiences are the weavers of behavioral exhibitions, the very liability of our passivity; with systems, life is either regimented or adventurous, consequential or disconnected, frivolous or realistic, profitable or obligatory.

The optimal solution is to ‘root out’ unfavorable ideologies and embrace the disruptive approach. The disruptive approach gives rise to new innovation, better ways, modernity, new perspectives, shift in paradigms; we should bear the consequences to find our aspirations. Even when a system is tested, tried and trusted, there is always room for improvement.

Through the eye of a Child

Children are our most valuable natural resources

Herbert Clark

Stupid thing to do? See through the eye(s) of a child sometimes. Ask a child his solution to a problem. We have heard of and had those “power moments” of brainstorming, the big board meeting, the big tables and the big chairs, the markers with big wigs and their gadgets that lead to nothing.

Adults could be regimented because of their formed opinion and experience but the heart of a child is always inquisitive, curious and wanting to know. Children aren’t afraid of making mis-take, they see the fun in the activity, and are willing to make ‘trying’ a tool for exploration. Everybody thinks. Everybody including children thinks. This is the age of Experience. Children are quick to state their experiences about places, products and services.

I once went to a “Bank” in Nigeria, after spending half an hour on the queue, a child next to me said, “Mummy, I don’t like this place!” Those lines triggered my thinking system. I was curious to know why he said so. Was it because of the crowd, the long queue, the time spent and wasted? I asked the child, “Why don’t you like this place?” He said, ‘cause he needed to go do his homework’. For the Child, other than spending long time in the bank, there are priorities of his to be taken care of; perhaps the Bank didn’t know that the long queue is an indicator of ineffectiveness. Of course you will say that the Bank is not an environment for play or a classroom for working on an assignment, but what if the bank makes her brand homely & friendly? What if the bank redesigns its process of attending to customers? What if there is a special section for nursing mothers, for physically challenged? What if the bank values the time of my client’s client invariably? When as a business or a freelancer you have succeeded at making your client’s client better, then you are in business.

The creative prowess of a child can be utilized to solve a problem. Children are valuable natural resources. Don’t be afraid to ask a child to come up with a recipe, the prototype of your next product, the sketch/wireframes of your next app, the answer to your research questionnaire, the script for your next play… The result might be the next BIG THING; the result might just be phenomenal.

The God Factor

Our greatest dignity as creatures is not in initiative but in response. God speaks, we hear. He knocks, we open

C. S. Lewis

Ihave chewed the knob of my pen and left the nib idle in time past, I have sought the stars at night and had to wait till dawn if inspiration will rise with it; I have tried to fill the air with substance but all that was left was the intellectual dust. I have had days without inspiration, days that the client demanded result or else, the cheque is not gonna be signed. There are days the ‘world inside’ is clumsy, that we have this inward uneasiness, that the mind knows nothing but the ‘writer’s block’, that the brainwave frequency is flat due to several interferences, that the inspiration dead-end is met, there will be such days. The best place to seek solution is to have an external influence for immediate opening and revelation. In the words of Og Mandino, “ Who is of so little faith that in a moment of great disaster or heartbreak has not called to his God? Who has not cried out when confronted with danger, death, or mystery beyond his norm experience or comprehension?

There is ‘the God factor’ in processes, in making, in designing, in planning, in invention, in modification, in coordination, in creativity. There is no veil that can conceal him in our affairs. He’s very evident in acts. I myself, I have reasoned God: He’s unreasonable, the reason I go to him for reason. The best advice I give to myself is to call him in the days when revelation streams less. He’s the Creative Force “…and the Word became flesh”.

Don’t beat yourself up against it further whenever you are short of revelation, inspiration or insight; all I’m saying or have been saying is simple: believe in your heart, call Him, he will tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.’

Seek continuous education

I once told a ‘pastor’ that he needs knowledge of project management, he looked at me and said, “but I am not into construction business”. It took another 10 minutes to outline how project management could make his ministry better and effective.

You walk into a hospital and you see the nonchalant attitude of the registering officer, I say, “you need a customer service development training”. You walk into an establishment and you see the disarray and disorganization of things, “I say you need training on project management”. When a delivery or courier service fails regularly to deliver on due period, then the need for time management course. When a fashion designer doesn’t not adhere to the work defined by his clients or has added materials or pattern beyond documented design (gold plating) I say, “he or she has no understanding of scope management”. Ineffectiveness of a system is a pointer to an area for adjustment, remedy, modification and development. No knowledge loss as long as it makes your profession, product(s) or service(s) better. The exposure to industry standard/process gives the edge sooner or later.

There are courses I recommend for everybody e.g. design thinking, project management, customer care, strategic management, leadership management regardless of the office you are occupying or your designation.

We are always lacking in one area or the other, the remedy is to seek knowledge and improve our effectiveness and services to others daily.

Free your mind

The Eyes are useless when the Mind is blind

Anonymous

We all as Creative professionals are performers. A performer could exhibit stage fright on function. Let’s admit it, the artist shivers at the sight of a blank canvas, a writer could stare at a blank page for hours without a drop of ink, the Composer might dread the sound of silence looming his studio. It is easier to watch the ‘Angel on the piano play’, ‘the butterfly fluttering its wings’ but such grandeur takes immense practice and conduct at act.

Fear has a way of blocking the “muse”, the source of inspiration. The mind breeds various studs; some are bold but lack wisdom; some are skillful but lack a muscle of boldness. A free mind knows no bound and fear, It is like a boundless galaxy liberated from various species of monsters. To free one’s mind is to allow the exploratory spirit to be at work. Take that step; forget the naysayers, forget those that are ready to ruin before the product is formed and bring your Chutzpah to work.

Maximized Mentorship

When the student is ready the teacher will appear

Zen Proverb

I like great lives. Every great man was mentored at point. Albert Einstein had Max Talmey, Da Vinci had Andrea del Vercocchio, Isaac Newton had Isaac Barrow; even in spiritual things, Elisha had Elijah.

Do you have someone you can imitate and emulate his virtue, the finest part of him?

What mentoring does is, the mentor passes the condensed knowledge, the curated experiences, his mastery of a subject and confidence to his mentee. Mentoring cuts your years of floundering by half; the other half should be spent honing one’s skill. Mentoring affords one the opportunity to ask question(s) and receive quick judgment. Mentorship is not monitorship.

Don’t forget to pay attention; everything becomes your teacher when you pay attention. But you have to be willing, disciplined and patient.
*On Africa, one of Africa’s problems is leadership. Many so-called “leaders” in African aren’t interested in the survival and making of the upcoming generation. Leadership is the finer and successful replication of oneself both in skill and grace, worthiness and impression. The joy of life is that you pass your knowledge to someone, yes, to the next generation. The essence of life is that we serve as a bridge of knowledge for the generation to come.

From the Movie LUCY (2014), Let professor Norman [played by Morgan Freeman] be the mouthpiece,” You know…if you think about the very nature of life. I mean, from the very beginning. The development of the first cell divided into two cells. This whole purpose of life has been to pass on what was learned. There is no higher purpose. So, if you’re asking me what to do with all this knowledge you’re accumulating, I’d say, pass it on. Just like any simple cell going through time”.

Tips to help you maximize mentorship;

Know your field/Area needing improvement
Be submissive and patient; you are not in competition with your mentor
Check the mentor’s spirit. Ensure he’s not a slave driver
Have a time frame
Listen and ask question
Don’t become a ‘bug’ on your mentor; don’t demand irrelevant things from him.
Self-study/Practice
Appreciate your mentor
Teach others too
Assess your growth

Profit from the power of immersion

I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight

Robin Green

The mind is the playground/breeder of various monsters, seraphic creatures, and all things that are to take their realistic forms. Creativity broods in our minds and hatches in our hands. Formation is first within, reality is without; the former requires concentration, the latter execution. Nothing worthwhile was ever achieved without the power of immersion through the mechanics & workings of the mind.

I have always been inspired by what man has accomplished through the power of immersion. It’s amazing, the rate or how swift the mind works to produce result, analyze situations, or for example, have curative measures to deadly diseases; the rate of failure skyrockets at an innumerable attempts. Take the disease “black death” for example, men weren’t scared to try pseudo-curative processes like: “to live in the sewer, let leeches suck to dry, exorcises the patient or the victim of such terrible woes, wash with urine”; immersion makes man ‘attempt’ because there is a stipulated time attached to its completion.

It is amazing what an immersed mind can achieve when brought to a focus for a solution. When the mind is fully immersed, it leaves no room for defeat; it drives men within the bound(s) of ingenuity to produce result. It was the power of immersion that possessed the severally expelled Karl Marx to pour countless hours into his radical writing, his masterwork of economic theory, his belief or ideals; the self-proclaimed revolutionary spent his 5-month Paris honeymoon publishing a revolutionary work called The Franco-German year Books, followed by a 15 months studying and writing.

The Messiah anthem, an oratorio was completed in 24 days of swift composition by George Frideric Handel. Such vivid or imaginary demonstration of finest / ethereal performance could only have been created from crossing the bound of consciousness into something spiritual; when on the dying bed, men are often immersed in the now, to summary and give meaning to their lives.

So, when next you are faced with a monstrous problem or like to breakthrough a situation, it will only take time, but it will be done; engage ‘the power of immersion’, Learn from saadi’s lines and become the achiever you have always dreamt of becoming:

A little and a little, collected together, Become a great deal; the heap in the barn consists of single grains, And drop and drop makes an inundation.

Tips:

1. For you to utilize the power of immersion, you must find your passion as it relates to meaning in life. Your passion will keep you awake. Your passion is the burning desire of your heart, the prime concentric possessor of your time.
2. Believe in what you are doing. Believe sustains passion. A grain of faith is all you need to push passion to profitability.
3. Do good, it entices mighty force(s) to assist.

Shrinkage,the old world business killer

A friend recently told me how he lost millions to a business or supposed investment. I couldn’t stop querying what could have been responsible for the collapse of the business… the word that kept popping in my head is “SHIRNKAGE”. You might not have heard of the word, but it is a silent deadly killer of Nigerian businesses. The term shrikage refers to ‘consumer theft’ or in pidgin, ‘obtain’, ‘shop lifitng’. If for example you run a store, and you periodically notice several items missing, as a manager, you might tend to blame it on the ‘shop girls’ or ‘sales girls’ …”the pikin don steal my goods again”… and it comes with pusnishment or loss of job but might have been ‘lifted’ by ‘lift-shoppers’. Another way to look at the word ’shirnkage’ is employee theft. Instead of the employee recording N200, he records N198. If you want your business to survive, you have to be the eye and watchman for every moulding coin or ‘bankable note’. 40% loss of profit could be attributed to shirnkage in comparison to business incompetence and economic influences.

Some ways to prevent shrinkage;
1. Camera: CCTV has helped so far reducing the percentage of cases to 80%. Install cameras!!!. When staff knows that there is hidden camera monitoring their progresses, they tend to compose and operate at their best.

2. Roam your business physically and remotely. How do you roam your business? The essence of accounting software running on web is to help track every part of the operations of your business. You are not there but you can monitor income remotely, visually and analytically.

3. Understand business enterprise architecture. Enterprise architecture enforces discipline and standardization of business processes. What is your business process?

4. Design your own business enterprise architecture. Because this is how it has been done doesn’t mean it is rightly done. Observation should lead to improvement and better automation.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

Observation should lead to improvement and better automation.