Leaders get fresh.

To get fresh, you have to break habits and do things differently.  This will keep your brain stimulated and will help you find flexible perspectives.  ~Chris Barez-Brown

While our habits bring a sense of security and predictability, they can also stifle creativity and lead to tunnel vision.  The final two words of the quote from Chris Barez-Brown – flexible perspectives – seemed especially descriptive of effective leaders.  Leaders certainly need to have a clear vision and focus in order to enable others to follow them to their destination.  But at the same time, they need to remain open to new and flexible perspectives so they can alter their course.  It’s very rare that the journey from where you are to where you want to be is a straight line, so having flexible perspectives to generate creativity and new ideas is critical to effective leadership.

Chris conducted an experiment.  He, somehow, persuaded 30,000 people to break their habits for five days, starting with simple things like sleeping on the other side of the bed or swapping their iPod with a friend’s.  More habits were added as the week progressed.

By the end of the experiment, he had received mountains of positive feedback about the way people felt – freer, with better ideas and more energy.

Chris provided an example of staying fresh from one of our century’s greatest idea generators, Steve Jobs.  We all know that Steve dropped out of college.  But he still took classes, just the ones he was really interested in.  One of those classes was calligraphy.  He was interested in it but had no reason to believe that it would be of any particular benefit to his life.  Years later when he was designing the Mac, it all came back to him.  That’s why the Mac had such unique typography and a new way of laying out symbols.  This became the benchmark for every computer in the world.

Several years ago I purchased a book that had to do with managing money written by Keith Cameron Smith.  I was interested in the topic, but I really bought it for the example the author provided that classified people into three different groups based upon what they talk about.  He used the example to categorize people by how much money they made, but as I read it and reread it again recently, I use the same categories to differentiate leaders from followers. 

Keith says there are three categories: a) those who spend most of their time talking about ideas, b) those who talk mostly about things (their stuff), and c) those who spend most of their time talking about other people.  It’s probably not surprising to learn that it’s the wealthy group who spend their time talking about ideas.  It wasn’t hard for me to immediately translate that same thinking to people in organizations.  There are the leaders – those who are focused on ideas and that’s what you hear them talking about.  Then there’s the mid-level or middle management staff, you’ll hear them talking about things – their to-do list, this project or that project, what needs to be fixed or repaired, etc.  Then the frontline or support staff you’ll hear talking about people – who did what, who took credit for something they did, and who is currently getting under their skin, etc.  

Get fresh.  Spend time talking about ideas.  Stimulate your brain with flexible perspectives.