Michalko starts by expanding on the technique of association for generating ideas and spends much of the book on variations of this theme.  This was the least useful portion of the book.

Michalko does later present two ideas that I found extremely useful:

1.  Write a letter to your subconscious mind.  After mulling over the problem for a period of time, write an extremely detailed letter to your mind asking it to solve the problem for you.  Then days or weeks later, open the letter and see what your mind has come up with.

2. Ten minutes of stream of consciousness writing each day.  I think in pictures and bullet lists, so stream of consciousness writing is difficult for me.  Michalko makes the statement to write down anything – bullet points, words, sentence fragments, diagrams – anything that captures what you are thinking.  Do this for five days, and then on day six review what you wrote or drew on the previous days.  He states you will be surprised at the connections, insights and new ideas that will flood your mind.

All in all, this is not a bad read, but I would recommend starting with Michalko’s other books as opposed to this one.

The Layers of Execution

Organizational Excellence is all about execution. The traditional model of execution is to try to install a “culture of accountability.” While there is a need for this culture, this addresses only one of the four nodes that control human productivity.  We must address the processes of human productivity to affect execution.

In reality, there are 4 layers of execution. The bottom layers of personal and process execution must be laid before organizational execution can be achieved.

I believe we need to improve the tools and processes used by the organization and its people to maximize human productivity. We must concentrate our efforts on addressing the tools and processes that affect the foundation of organizational excellence – personal and process execution.

Personal Execution

The first of the two foundation layers of execution is “Personal Execution.”  People in the organization can only execute when they have control of all their tasks, projects, meetings, emails and records.  Inboxes that are overflowing, tasks that slip through the cracks or projects that never get completed are signs that personal execution is lacking.

I use the “Personal Execution Model”, below, to model and organize personal execution.  As we can see, items a person needs to do can be organized in two axis – the horizontal time axis and the vertical importance axis.  This two-axis arrangement is not new, Stephen Covey defined Quadrant’s I -IV in his “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, but we use these axes to specifically guide our process of personal execution.

Laid out in this model are the four types of tasks we need to understand, manage, control and accomplish – personal tasks (such as phone calls, emails, meetings, reading mail, etc.), tasks we are waiting on others for (perhaps tasks delegated to staff), tasks from organizational “production” systems (tasks from the actual value-added work an organization does) and tasks from projects.

Incorporating Urgency

What is urgency? Webster’s defines something as “urgent” if is calling for immediate attention. But when is something urgent?

I define urgency as the relationship between the amount of time a task will take and the time left to complete it. A task that is due at 5:00 PM may not be urgent if it takes 5 minutes to complete and it is only 8 AM, but that same task may be urgent at 4:55 PM. Project managers will recognize this definition as analogous to slack time.

The Human Productivity Model incorporates urgency by defining the amount of time individual tasks will take and then comparing them to the amount of time left.

Process Execution

The second layer of the foundation is “Process Execution.”  Before a team or organization can achieve excellence of execution, individual processes must be repeatable and achieve their goals.

Using the standardization philosophy from Lean and process improvement tools such as Six Sigma, processes can be created that do maximize human productivity.

Process improvement must be based on the following:

1. Focus on outcomes— process improvement must focus on improving the output results of the process.

2. Take a systems view— the process must be analyzed in relationship to the entire business and other processes it may touch.

3. Work with all stakeholders— all stakeholders in the process—workers, managers, customers, suppliers– must be consulted in the process improvement project.

1. Random Word/Phrase Generator – very few things stimulate creative thought more than random stimulation.  In this technique, random words, phrases or objects are used to form associations with the problem.  My random word and phrase generators are:
   • Random Word – presents one random word with definition
   • WordDot – presents a random pair of words.  You can add your own words, too.
   • Research – presents 3 words – a Subject, a Verb and an Object
   • Effective Mind – presents a random image and phrase
2. Creative Whack Pack – presents Roger von Oech’s famous Creative Whack Pack on the iPhone.  His method is described in his book “A Whack on the Side of the Head.”
3. SimpleDraw – I like to doodle and I find this app easy to use and free.

That’s it – my Creativity folder on my iPhone.