Everything Connects

How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity,

Innovation, and Sustainability
Faisal Hoque and Drake Baer

McGraw-Hill © 2014
getAbstract © 2014

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Take-Aways
You can increase your firm’s innovation and creativity by making it a
“holistic business.”
The humanistic understanding that all “working lives” connect can promote
business growth.
To foster creativity, cultivate the mental state Buddhists call “beginner’s
mind” – being open to new ideas.
Practicing “mindfulness meditation” helps you achieve beginner’s mind,
understand yourself and understand your context – that is, your
environment.
To meditate, sit quietly and simply pay attention to your breathing.
As thoughts flood your brain, say the word “thinking” to yourself and let
them pass.
Innovation and technological change – enabled by beginner’s mind – are
the bedrock of economic growth.
Relationships can be “the bandwidth within an organization” if people trust
each other.
Organize clusters – “time-bound collection[s] of people assembled around a
specific task” – within your firm.
Create and maintain a personal “observation notebook” and a “decision
notebook.”

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Review
The new generation of executives applies humanism to its work processes. Its
humanist outlook embraces both new and ancient methods to drive creativity,
innovation, collaboration and long-term value. This fresh mind-set requires
staying open to new ideas and avoiding unnecessary stress. Some executives
turn to ancient Eastern techniques, including meditation, to gain mindfulness
and become more open to new ideas. Entrepreneur Faisal Hoque, writing with
Drake Baer, unveils a wide range of mindful behaviors that fuel innovative
firms. This esoteric report – while not your normal business read – proves
thoughtful, interesting and philosophical. Although the episodic presentation
tends to jump a bit from concept to concept, the quality of the ideas will inspire
you to persevere. getAbstract recommends this insightful manual to serious
business readers who prefer long-term solutions over short-term fixes.

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Summary

Disruptive Times
Disruption is the order of the day. Upstart innovative firms offering increased
value are knocking established companies off their pedestals. Rigid companies
that fail to adapt to new circumstances won’t last. Today’s crucial
organizational values are innovation, originality, flexibility and sustainability.
These attributes and the employees who share them drive contemporary profits.
To be a wise leader, never forget that you lead human beings, people with
“consciousness and memory; favorite colors, foods and smells; first loves and
heartbreaks; parents and grandparents; ambitions and fears; known and
unknown capabilities.” Treat those you lead with respect and sensitivity. To
increase their innovation and creativity, create a “holistic business” based on
the idea that all “working lives” are connected – a humanistic, holistic attitude
that promotes strong relationships and solid business growth.
With awareness of your employees’ personalities and individuality, identify the
context they each need to achieve alignment. Acknowledge their individual
“interior complexity” so you can help assure their alignment with your
company’s goals and ethos.

“Mindfulness Meditation”
To foster creativity, cultivate the mental state that Buddhists call “beginner’s
mind,” Instead of relying on previous expertise and assumptions, beginner’s
mind remains deliberately empty, ready to generate creative insights and attain
new skills. Mindfulness meditation can help you develop beginner’s mind by
enabling you to focus on the present moment with “curiosity, openness and
acceptance.” Most people are “reaction machines,” but those who meditate can
become more objective about – and respond more mindfully to – their
environment.
During meditation, pay close attention to your breathing, while noting what
goes on within you – changes in your breathing, heart rate and emotions. Daily
meditation enables you to gain nuanced perceptions into your own nature and
your immediate environment. The Sanskrit word for mindfulness meditation is
shamatha, which means “calm abiding.” Think of mindfulness meditation as “a
safari of the mind.” Try it for “10 minutes every day for three weeks.” Follow
these four steps:
1. Sit with both feet flat on the floor and your spine straight. Rest your hands
on thighs.
2. Become conscious of your breathing by following your inhalations and

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2.
exhalations.
3. Get in touch with all that your senses reveal – “the light on the walls, the
sounds on the street, the taste in your mouth.”
4. Don’t worry if your thoughts wander. That’s part of the process.
Acknowledge these thoughts and let them pass by simply saying the word
“thinking” to yourself.

“Creative Destruction”
In economist Joseph Schumpeter’s 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism and
Democracy, he describes the creative destruction that characterizes capitalism.
He explained that innovation and technological change – which beginner’s
mind helps make possible – form the bedrock of economic growth.
Findings about 200 Silicon Valley firms from a longitudinal research study
conducted in the mid-1990s by the Stanford Project on Emerging Companies
indicates that positive qualitative factors – for example, how well employees
work with and relate to each other – are directly proportional to an
organization’s quantitative results. The study found that the workers in Silicon
Valley firms seem to fit one of five personality constructs:
1. “Star” – The best workers who do the most demanding work.
2. “Commitment” – Workers who believe in the company and dedicate
themselves to it.
3. “Bureaucracy” – Workers who document everything and gain necessary
approvals.
4. “Engineering” – “Technical people” who “do technical work.”
5. “Autocracy” – Managers who make key decisions and reap the greatest
rewards.

Firms That Listen

Deliver value to your customers by taking care of their needs. And, learn what
they need by listening to them. “Commitment-based” firms listen to their
customers and their employees. These firms share three characteristics:
1. “Converged disciplines” – Attitudes, practices and goals cross-pollinate
throughout the organization. “Ideas from one discipline aren’t isolated from
another. Management isn’t removed from technology. In the same way that
rivers and streams converge to form a delta, the disciplines in a sustainably
innovative organization form a single entity.”
2. “Cross-boundary collaboration” – Connections within the firm drive
productivity. “No person or element...operates in a vacuum.”
3. “Sustainably innovative structures” –The structure of a firm determines
the quality, quantity and nature of its products and services. Innovative,

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3.

visionary companies set their strategies for the long-term and encourage
“organizational mindfulness.”
Strong companies need “vision,” which defines “the soul of an organization,”
and a “platform,” the set of core competencies that define its body. Innovative
firms engage in “platform generation” – a search for novel ways to use their
assets. They promote innovation by hiring a diverse workforce. Diversity leads
to sharing different viewpoints, building increased empathy and forming
productive partnerships.

Working Together
An ancient fable told variously by “Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sufis” tells of
men in blindfolds trying to define an elephant. The first man touches the
elephant’s trunk and describes the animal as rope-like. The second touches its
ear and describes it as fan-like. The third touches the elephant’s leg and
describes the animal as pillar-like. The fourth touches the tail and describes the
animal as a foul-smelling snake. Working alone, each man comes up with a
flawed perception. Working together, and combining their findings, they can
develop a more accurate understanding.
Employees working together accomplish much more than those who work
independently. Relationships can function as “the bandwidth within an
organization,” but only when people share trust. To build trust, staff members
must transcend the functionality of their “lizard brains” – which stay alert for
life-threatening danger – and instead operate through their “mammalian brains”
– which care about the collective and believe in mutual protection and
responsibility. These connections – the essence of partnerships – develop
through a sense of “shared experience” and kinship, which derives from
empathy. Such relationships form the basis of creative thinking. Managers
must decipher the relationships within their organizations and understand how
they align.
Larry Miller, co-founder of Activate Networks, a consultancy built on
“advances in network science,” studied an “innovation-centric” firm made up
of thousands of engineers. He determined that success correlated with “quality
relationships“ and solid connections within the firm. The best networks have
“broad connections” with “cross-departmental links,” as well as links up and
down each “hierarchical level.”

Crest Whitestrips
One major corporation, Procter & Gamble (P&G), provides a helpful example
of how quality connections work and how to take advantage of the “power of
intersectional thinking.” The profitable payoff for P&G was a popular new
product, Crest Whitestrips, which consumers use to whiten their teeth. Bruce
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Brown, P&G’s chief technology officer, explains that this is an example of
how the “connection of seemingly disparate technologies” often results in
disruptive innovations. “The magic in a big company is how to create space for
connections, so an idea person can bump into a technology person.”
Crest Whitestrips embody a combination of disciplines, capabilities and
company assets. P&G’s paper-products supplied the film for the strips, its
fabric-products division supplied the bleach and the glue came from another
P&G application. Professionals from each P&G product group worked together
to develop a highly successful collaboration between “laundry technology
(bleach)” and “toothbrushy institutional knowledge (what to do about the
teeth).”
P&G profited from its experts’ internal collaboration. To maintain its profitable
partnership with dentists – an important external connection – P&G developed
a professional-grade version of Whitestrips that dental-care providers can use
with their patients.

Establishing Clusters of Talent

For lively innovation, organize a talent “cluster,” a “taut, time-bound collection
of people assembled around a specific task.” Such clusters serve as lean
committees. Clusters combine “accountability, reward systems...measurement
of performance” and “bottom-up innovations.” A cluster has five traits:
1. “Tailored agenda” – Each cluster has a specific purpose.
2. “Time-bound existence” – The group disbands when the project is
complete.
3. “Evolving membership” – Talent comes and goes depending on project
needs.
4. “Self-organizing responsibility” – The group answers to itself.
5. “Adaptive ethos” – The group’s personality adjusts to the purpose of its
project.
Each person within a cluster fulfills a certain work-oriented role. Maximum
productivity and innovation occur when people step out of their preassigned
roles and take on whatever the project’s success requires. Generally, roles have
four forms: people in “ideation” roles imagine and invent; those in “guiding
roles” organize and manage; people in “building roles” transform ideas into
practical reality; and those in “improving roles” make processes and products
better.
Clusters rely on collaboration. Apple exemplifies a collaborative firm
dedicated to superior work. It gives each new employee a memo that says:
“People don’t come here to play it safe. They come here to swim in the deep
end. They want their work to add up to something...that couldn’t happen

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anywhere else.” Apple helps employees stay excited about their work so they
can attain full self-realization. Most innovative firms share these objectives.
Quality leaders must become “curators of talent,” working to locate and hire
the most promising employees.

The Power of Observation

New products depend on innovation, which depends on ideas and insights
gained from new experiences. To understand how ideas become reality,
consider Leonardo da Vinci, the artist, architect, anatomist and engineer. “I
roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand,”
he wrote. The more new experiences you can amass, the better. Da Vinci filled
numerous notebooks with his observations about life.
Do the same with your observations. Record what you see, hear and
experience. Seek diverse experiences, including the events in which you
participate, the people in your life and the media you follow. Work to satisfy
your curiosity.
In addition to your “observation notebook,” create a “decision notebook” to
map out the decisions and choices you must make, including strategic business
decisions. Factor in how you and your organization can take a long-range view
and aim for “continuous value creation.”
Make a blueprint of your assets – your people, your insights, your capital, your
infrastructure and the ecosystem in which you operate – and your basic
assumptions. Your primary asset is your “depth of understanding” of yourself
“and others.” All human interactions are “intra- and interpersonal,” so
“everything connects.”

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About the Authors
Faisal Hoque founded the MiND2MiND Exchange, B2B ForeSight and other
companies. Drake Baer, a business writer, covers the intersection of
psychology and work for Fast Company.

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Quotes
“If we are trying to get humans to do something together, we need to
understand our and their humanity. Such is the nature of holistic business.”
“Creating value for the long term is a holistic endeavor; it requires both
analytical and creative talents.”
“Meditation...is the batting cage for getting familiar with the fastballs and
curveballs of our conscious and unconscious habits.”
“The less diverse an organization is – whether in the sense of race, class,
gender or personality type – the less it can empathize with people outside of it,
and the fewer partnerships it can form.”
“We have to assume that everything we think is right today will be wrong
tomorrow. What this demands is a nuanced understanding of the timeless and
the timely.”
“Innovation does not happen on a spreadsheet, slide show or product line.
Innovation occurs in the interaction between people.”
“Management of tasks is actually management of time, which is actually
management of consciousness.”
“As companies become entrenched, they also become vulnerable, for they
settle into inward-facing habits, making them vulnerable to younger
organizations.”
“Just as da Vinci came to make realizations about his world by attending
closely to it, we can make realizations about our organizations by attending
closely to them.”
“It is only when devotion turns into discipline – and discipline into devotion –
that we can begin to lead ourselves.”
“Much of process and planning consists of the strange and serendipitous
occurrences that happen as an idea finds its form in the world.”
“As a society of professionals, we’ve received educations previously reserved
for royalty, made travels once only known to explorers and developed skills in
ourselves that are indistinguishable from magic.”
“There’s an old Chinese saying that when you’ve made it 90% down the path,
you’re halfway to your destination.”

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