American Chopper - How Personalities Clash At Work
Today we take a look at the popular Discovery Channel series American Chopper, featuring the misadventures of the Teutul family (Senior, Junior and Mikey) and their company, custom bike manufacturer Orange County Choppers. The relationship between Junior and Senior illustrates two opposing Myers-Briggs type preferences extremely well.
By now, you probably know that every episode of American Chopper features a heated, no-holds-barred argument between Senior and Junior. The argument is about the same thing every week - whether it’s more important to make a good product, or stay on schedule. We witness a classic clash of personality types that might look like something you’ve experienced in the workplace yourself.
Sphere: Related ContentHow To Leverage Collaborative Innovation
Every now and then I read an article like this one in Forbes that touts the virtues of looking outside the walls of your company for innovation. There is a whole section in Mavericks at Work devoted to this, and the concept was, in fact, a partial inspiration for the name of this blog. I’m an outwardly focused individual, and naturally seek opportunities to collaborate and increase my knowledge. Similarly, organizations can seek the same opportunities for all kinds of situations - new products, new business solutions, new technologies, new perspectives on old problems.
Sphere: Related ContentHow To Transform A Culture With Innovation
Have you ever witnessed an innovation that transforms everything in a culture?
It doesn’t happen often. Most of the time innovation improves rather than transforms. Well over 90 percent of the time, in fact.
There’s a good reason for that. Change is hard. In Myers-Briggs terms, most people in our culture (75 percent) prefer ’sensing,’ and one of the aspects of sensing is resistance to change. Incremental change, if useful, might be OK. Transformational change is painful.
Sphere: Related Content“They Just Don’t Make ‘Em Like They Used To”
“Horton Hears a Hoo” is the latest Hollywood attempt to cash in on the legacy of Dr. Seuss. This follows two live action films - one mediocre (”How The Grinch Stole Christmas”) and one catastrophically bad (”The Cat In The Hat”). “Horton” is neither - it’s a solid effort, compared to the other two. And yet…
Each of the films features the latest in makeup, special effects, and animation. Each features famous comedic actors. And yet…
Each of the films stretches out the original source material into full-length features, but don’t match the quality of their respective half-hour TV versions. And yet…
NONE of them are as good as this 10-minute Looney Tunes animation of “Horton Hatches The Egg,” circa 1942. In 65 years Dr. Seuss features have REGRESSED.
What makes it better? Two things - the classic animation is top-notch, and the screenplay STICKS TO THE ORIGINAL SOURCE MATERIAL. Special effects and makeup can’t make up for a lame screenplay.
Remember: Sometimes innovation doesn’t pay dividends unless it’s applied in the right places.
Sphere: Related ContentHow The US Patent System Crushes Innovation
Forbes Magazine recently interviewed Michael Meurer and James Besson, authors of Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk, a massive study on the costs and benefits of holding patents. Their chilling conclusion:
Sphere: Related ContentMeurer and Bessen concluded that in every industry, except pharmaceuticals and biotech, publicly traded companies spend more money litigating to protect existing patents and paying fees to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office than they earn from the same patents. (Bessen and Meurer evaluated patents issued by all publicly traded companies between 1984 and 1999.)
7 Things Innovators Do That You Don’t
What prevents you from being a great innovator? Not much. Innovators by and large aren’t creative geniuses gifted with da Vinci-like talent. It’s not what they ARE - it’s what they DO. They do these seven things you most likely do not.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Organizational Character Index
After an overly long transition, we’ve set up shop in our new home. To celebrate I’m giving everyone a gift. I’ve coded William Bridges’s “Organizational Character Index” (OCI) into a survey-style page. Now anyone can apply the principles pioneered by Myers and Briggs to their organizations. The OCI is not an adaptation of the MBTI® - it is an experimental tool based on the same type research and using the same dimensions:
- Energy - how your organization gets energy (Extroversion or Introversion)
- Perception - how your organization gets information, what it pays attention to (Sensing and iNtuition)
- Judgment - how your organization uses information to make decisions (Thinking and Feeling)
- Orientation - how your organization shows itself to, and deals with, the external world (Judging or Perceiving)
Three Amazing Reports On The State Of Innovation - Part II
Table of contents for State of Innovation
- Three Amazing Reports On The State Of Innovation - Part I
- Three Amazing Reports On The State Of Innovation - Part II
In our first installment, the Boston Consultancy Group identified innovation trends via a survey of over 2400 senior level executives. In this installment, Booz-Allen-Hamilton studies the world’s largest R&D investors to determine what innovation strategies succeed.
Sphere: Related ContentThree Amazing Reports On The State Of Innovation - Part I
Table of contents for State of Innovation
- Three Amazing Reports On The State Of Innovation - Part I
- Three Amazing Reports On The State Of Innovation - Part II
In December, three international consultants published the results of their research on the current state of innovation. This four-part series will cover each in turn, then I’ll add a conclusion that ties them together. First on the block - Innovation 2007 from the Boston Consultancy Group.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Next Big Disruptive Innovation Platform
This article in PC World describes Samsung’s two latest television prototypes that use an astounding new technology called organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). But the article is remarkable not for the new product but for the new disruptive platform it represents.
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