In This Issue: November 2006

• In the main article, I'm looking at how to hunt the hippo - that is, ways of facing the chaos in your life - and I offer up three possible strategies for doing it in style.
• "Don't Take My Word For It" captures others' thoughts on surfing the wave of chaos.
• Got It Going On: see the cool and funky places where I'm speaking in the coming months - with a special focus on this month's free teleclass.
• The Coolest Cool Site - and I've got proof
• Market Place Products of the Month:
  • A "Yes, the holiday season is coming" Eight Irresistible Principles special
  • The second coolest site I know - and the email I most look forward to receiving.

Did you say "hunting hippopotami?"

Last week I was in St Louis speaking at the annual ICF conference. On one of the afternoons I slipped out to the art museum, bang-smack in the middle of the park that hosted the 1904 World Fair.

It's a terrific gallery - a potpourri of art and artefacts from different cultures and eras around the world. I was particularly taken by a small bronze hippopotamus from the 13th Dynasty of Egypt - in other words, some 3,800 years old (you can see the statue I'm talking about here).

In those days, the hippo wasn't the cute pair of nostrils in the pond at the local zoo. It was a force of destruction that left the river at night and trampled the farmers' fields.

Hippos became a symbol of chaos, and the Pharaohs hunted them as an early "photo opportunity" to show the populace that they could control evil and subdue chaos.

In this edition of Outside the Lines I'm looking at three ways to manage the chaos of modern life.

Know anyone else who's a little out of control? Please forward Outside the Lines (in its entirety please) to anyone you think might be interested. This community grows with your help.

I'd be delighted if you should wish to reprint (for free) any part of Outside the Lines in your newsletters, websites, and message boards. Contact me at michael@boxofcrayons.biz for further details.

Michael Bungay Stanier
Principal, Box of Crayons

Don't Take My Word For It

Smart folks musing on the necessity of embracing chaos

"A whole new way of seeing change in evolving systems has been rigorously described by [the mathematics of chaos]. Two new principles of change emerge from chaos theory. Small changes at the beginning of a process of evolution can have very large effects further downstream. Second, the outcome of a process is dependent upon the path it took to get there. Small, almost random changes accumulate over time to make the developmental path of every system in nature unique, if only slightly. On every tree, the leaves are very similar but not identical. In the universe, there are many spiral galaxies, but none is the duplicate of our own Milky Way. Uniqueness is the product of every unique event that occurs along the way, adding up in this instance to leaves or galaxies of slightly different shapes and sizes."
Peter Schwartz, American business author

"We live in a rainbow of chaos"
Paul Cezanne, French painter

"Planning is the substitution of error for chaos."
Anon.

"We adore chaos because we love to produce order."
M C Escher, Dutch artist

"The winners of tomorrow will deal proactively with chaos, will look at the chaos per se as the source of market advantage, not as a problem to be gotten around."
Tom Peters, American business pontificator

"Chaos demands to be recognised and experienced before letting itself be converted into a new order"
Herman Hesse, German author

"The creative act is to let down the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended and then to attempt to bring out of it ideas."
Terence McKenna, American philosopher

"There is chaos under the heavens and the situation is excellent."
Chinese proverb

"Freedom is just Chaos with better lighting"
Alan Dean Foster, American sci-fi author

The Coolest Cool Site

It's official - The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun is the coolest site of the year - at least, so far.

Having been coolsiteoftheday.com's nominated site for October 28th, we were rated an impressive 9.055 out of 10 by thousands of people - a score that betters the next best by more than half a point - thank you for your support!

(YouTube, when put to the same test, merely scored 5.6. And they're worth $1.6bn... I've got my fingers crossed for an offer from Google...)

So with the Eight Principles nearly priceless - why not spend 6 minutes now to reconnect to the Principles.

And check out the Market Place below, where we're offering a celebratory sale on all Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun goods.

Managing the chaos

One of the earliest images of chaos that I know is in the National Gallery in London. It's Paolo Uccello's painting of St George and the Dragon (you can see it here). I love the combination of action and stillness in the scene in the foreground - St George and his rearing horse, the neatly patterned garden, and the dragon's look of outrage as it is pierced by the lance.

But I'm most drawn to the swirl of clouds in the top right-hand corner behind St George. Art historians have suggested that the clouds represent divine support, but I imagine this dark vortex as a manifestation of the sinking feeling that George has in his stomach - "I may have killed THIS dragon, but I'm not sure it's going to be as easy as all that..."

We're all faced with chaos, and we all have our own strategies for trying to control it - whether it be hunting hippos, spearing dragons or invading the Middle East.

Here are three strategies you might like to consider to embrace the chaos

1. Over commit

Alexander the Great sought victory in India, and was attacking the hill fort of Multan. The Indians were repelling the attack, and for once Alexander's army was sensing defeat.

Alexander, aware that this was a tipping point, took a small number of his elite troops, the Companions, and attacked again - and soon found himself standing on the parapet with just three others.

Those outside the fort shouted to Alexander to leap back down to safety - it was madness for the four of them to be in such a vulnerable position. And Alexander did leap - but inside the walls of the fort and out of sight of the army.

This was the moment. The army, confronted with the imminent death of their charismatic leader, charged. They did anything they could to get up and over the walls.

Alexander survived (two of three Companions who had been the first to leap down with him were dead), and the fort - and soon India - was taken.

If you threw everything you had at the situation, what would you do? What would be possible?

2. Invite others in

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the chaos, then at least don't do it alone.

One of Steven Covey's useful tools in his classic Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is his distinction, in the Third Habit, between what you control and what you influence.

Bottom line is that most people overestimate how much they control, and underestimate how much they can influence.

And the amount of influence you can bring to bear on any situation is strongly correlated to the quality and quantity of relationships you have.

I see this particularly with people I coach in organizations. They are often focused on doing the task, and a useful shift in focus is often to the relationships they need to define and cultivate to increase their influence.

(This is also connected to the NLP exercise I mentioned in September's Outside the Lines)

If you had to call on help, who would you ask? What help do you most need?

3. Don't over plan it

I see many clients trying to tame uncertainty by writing long and detailed plans to help figure things out.

In fact, one of the more painful jobs I had resulted in my spending six months writing eight different strategic plans (all with different formats, structure and emphasis) in what I realise now was a genius way to avoid tackling the real issues and doing anything about them.

I tend to stick by the motto "planning is useful and plans are useless" - whatever your plan is, it's almost certain to be wrong about 3 minutes into implementation.

Get clear (and ambitious) about your goal. And realise that when your goal becomes clear, any number of paths will open up to get you there. Part of the fun is exploring those paths to see which ones work.

(Caveat: my personal bias is for the big picture - so all you folk with a more detailed orientation might want to just take a deep breath and move on)

If you had to start something right now, what would be the next action?

SOMETHING TO PRACTICE

Pick one of the three strategies.

Practice it. But practice it undercover. Don't tell anyone. Just do it on the sly and see what happens.

WANT TO LEARN MORE? HERE ARE SOME USEFUL RESOURCES

Eating the Big Fish, Adam Morgan. The book is on branding - and specifically, on how to be a successful #2 brand - but I think his insights resonate on a personal level too. He suggests eight credos for a successful brand, the sixth of which is "over commit" - and which is also the source for the Alexander story. Useful for the first strategy above. Buy here

Birth of the Chaordic Age, Dee Hock. Dee Hock started Visa, an organization that is central to most of our lives - and yet one that almost no one knows anything about. (For instance, I bet you don't know anyone who works for Visa). Part of that is because Visa's organizational structure is anything but the traditional control and command form. Rather it's a complex system of relationships with almost everything decentralized. (For instance, have you ever seen the Visa headquarters?). Useful for the second strategy above. Buy here

Stumbling into Happiness, Daniel Gilbert. Gilbert's the Professor of Psychology at Harvard. For that he writes in a brilliantly engaging way about how our brain gets in the way of us being happy. One of those is that we're absolutely lousy at guessing what the future's going to hold. Bottom line: it's never as bad as we think it's going to be, and Gilbert tells you why. Useful for the third strategy above. Buy here

Comments? Feedback?
michael@boxofcrayons.biz

Market Place Products of the Month

1. It's All About The Fun

Yes, there's no doubt that The Eight Principles of Fun is the coolest cool site there is (he says modestly).

And to celebrate, we're holding a sale at the store - which is handy, because I've got some funky products that make perfect stocking stuffers for an upcoming holiday arriving soon...

For the next week we're got two great offers at our Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun store.

• First, everything's 10% off. We've set up the store so that all prices are reduced by 10% (which makes the Fun Pack - which was already 10% off - a complete bargain)
  
• Second, buy 10 of the Eight Irresistible Principles card sets - the perfect stocking stuffer for family, clients, colleagues and friends - and we'll give you an extra one for free.

The offer's good until end of the day on Wednesday 15th - you can check out the store here.

2. The Other Coolest Site

The past Saturday I went to a one day workshop with Mike Dooley, the creator of TUT - Totally Unique Thoughts.

Mike's on a world tour, and he's got a quirky, interesting and provocative outlook on life. (You can see what cities he's speaking at under "Resources and World Tour".)
At the very least, consider signing up for his free emails - TUTs, or Totally Unique Thoughts.

It is the one email I get that I most look forward to receiving every week. It's a dose of eclectic, funny and expansive wisdom in one minute or less. You can sign up under "The Notes".

Got It Going On

I'm done! No more public appearances this year! (And I might say, after a hectic three months, I'm enjoying being at home in Toronto).

However, you are welcome to attend my next open and free Get Unstuck & Get Going teleforum which is on Wednesday, November 15 at 2pm EST.

I'm speaking on the three barriers that get in the way of doing what you want to do - you can register here.

As you might be able to guess, I love to speak and run workshops or teleforums for groups! Read more about the keynote and workshop topics I offer in this PDF.

'The Scribbler'

Look for the next edition in your Inbox on Thursday November 23 with guest writers Cinnie Noble and Nicki Weiss.

Michael Bungay Stanier is the Principal of Box of Crayons, a company that works with organizations, teams and individuals to help them move from doing Good Work to doing Great Work. He is the author of Get Unstuck & Get Going ...on the stuff that matters, a coaching program and tool endorsed by leaders in the coaching and training professions, and creator of The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun, a movie that's taken the internet by storm. He is the 2006 Canadian Coach of the Year. You can find out more at www.boxofcrayons.biz or you can contact him directly at Michael@boxofcrayons.biz or +1 (416) 532-1322.

To subscribe to Outside the Lines & The Scribbler click here. If you have any trouble accessing the form, send an email to subs@BoxofCrayons.biz.

Outside the Lines is distributed on the 2nd Thursday of every month. The Scribbler is distributed on the 4th Thursday of every month. Your contact information is never traded, never rented, never sold.

©Box of Crayons 2006. Box of Crayons is a registered trading name of Maida CC Inc.

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