. . . that performance management should be like. . .

...good typography, a balanced interplay between positive and negative space, with focus on the positive.

No one pays attention to the negative space, alone, in a letterform. It's counter intuitive (pun intended). When the counter becomes dominant the beauty and function of the letterform is lost in a jumble of shapes that have no meaning.

Likewise emphasis on team members' weaknesses render their positive contributions meaningless.

Strokes, terminals, shoulders, ascenders, descenders, serifs--line and shape make up the contour map of the alphabet. A repetition of curves, verticals, horizontals, and serifs are combined to bring variety and unity to well-designed fonts.

I once read that the greatest potential for growth is in one's areas of strength. Recognizing these strengths and cultivating them through activities that thrill and challenge a particular team member can help them accomplish exponential results personally and as part of a team.

Focus on the positive. Foster the strength. Allow the counter space to support the whole, but recede into the background.

Quotable

The most important thing I have learned is that legibility and beauty stand close together.
~Adrian Frutiger

. . .that design is not a manufacturing activity.

The process of design and design thought is not something that can be corralled into processes that work well for coding.

A developer works to build, or assemble code into a working product. They don't sit and ponder if one set of code instructions is better than another or more beautiful or pleasing. They just know it needs to work flawlessly. The goal is to produce predictable results every time.

The goal of design is to arrive at something new and fresh. For that, design thinking needs time, space, breathing room. It is intensity, then lull, for this is often when ideas are born, solutions become evident, or the right design coalesces. This "loafing" can be seen as unproductive by some, but is essential for designers.

Trying to force the visioning part of the process into the same methods that work for the development part of the process is square-peg-in-round-hole uncomfortable. Each process has it's place in the overall success of a user's experience and should be not only allowed to exist, but supported and encouraged and sought after in the company.

Quotable

Let each person exercise the art they know best.
~Aristophenes

. . .that the right seed planted at the right time. . .

is all that's needed to inspire a person, then a group, and maybe even an entire organization.

Recently I recommended a book to a design manager as an interesting take on managing a group of creative people in a corporate environment. (See below.) It's not the first book I've passed along to a person with the hopes of making a difference. It's the first I've seen devoured, internalized and even evangelized. It validated my friend's thinking and management style, but, more importantly, inspired him with ideas for the next evolution of his department and provided an approach that may possibly influence an entire organization.

There are a lot of great business ideas and books out there whose authors are hoping for just such a thing—the right timing into the market, and the right circumstances in someone's life for it to "take off".

It's great to see a planted seed, sprout, grow, and take root. That doesn't happen often. And perhaps the fruit will benefit many.

The right idea, in the right hands, at the right time. It's all about the timing.

Quotable

Timing, degree and conviction are the three wise men in this life. ~R. I. Fitzhenry

. . . that the gravity of the hairball is strong.

I've just finished reading Orbiting the Giant Hairball, A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie. A good read, done in a couple of hours...and funny! Gordon worked for 30 years at Hallmark (the hairball) and managed to keep his sanity.

He says a hairball is formed by two hairs uniting, joined by other hairs that get twisted into a tangled impenetrable mass.

(Though not fluffy as pictured...Gordon must not own a cat. -Aack, aack-)

Anyway, the corporate hairball is made up of established guidelines, techniques, methodologies, systems and measures. This mass exerts a relentless pull of gravity on original thinking and creativity. And many are sucked down into the security of past successes, becoming so attached to a specific outcome, that they feel compelled to control and manipulate.

It's hard for corporations to understand that creativity is not just about succeeding. It's about experimenting and discovering.

Gordon says it's possible to Orbit around a corporate Hairball, to find a place of balance, where you benefit from the physical, intellectual and philosophical resources of the organization. You must invest enough individuality to counteract the gravity. You must find the personal courage to be genuine, to take the best possible course of action to get the job done, without being sucked into the nothingness of the hairball or flung out into deep space.

Yes, it's been a long while since I've posted...I've been hacking my way out of the GH.

More:
Luke W
Fast Company
Idea map by Megan Clark
Amazon

Quotable

We can lick gravity but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.
~Wernher Von Braun, 1912-1977, German Rocket Pioneer

. . . about art and nourishment

Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor and photographer, living in Scotland, who produces site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. His art involves the use of natural and found objects to create both temporary and permanent sculptures which draw out the character of their environment. [1]

In the documentary Rivers and Tides he speaks of a sacredness in all rocks and trees, of walking around for several hours looking at all the stones on the other side of the river near his home place, of knowing that there is a stone, a strong stone with an incredible shape, that he's been avoiding and and on finally examining the stone says, "I have to do it, I have to work with it."

"There is something that drives me to make certain works on occasion even though in my mind I'm telling me, 'no don't do that, it's too much trouble. No, don't lie in the rain in the street just now' and the next thing I know I'm lying in the rain in the street [making a "shadow" of himself where he lies.] There is something inside me saying this is something I have to do."

For me, this is powerful and comforting: knowing an artist who does what he "has to do", what is inside him; knowing someone who is doing what they love, feeling impelled to work, to create, regardless of other considerations (weather, their surroundings, what others think and so forth.)

He goes on to say, "There is balance between the ephemeral and permanent. The ephemeral work is done with the sense of not knowing what I will make or where I will make it. It's intuitive and it changes as the day progresses. And that has a sense of discovery and that's how I learn, that's the nourishment, that's the breathing in of my art, the lifeblood of my art. I need that. Then every so often I make the permanent work and that draws on what I've understood from the ephemeral."

Art is shared nourishment. What nourishes the artist ultimately nourishes us.

I recently saw Andy Goldsworthy's installation "Roofs" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. It is a series of domes of stone, one piece of slate set on another in a circle, around and around forming a roof ending with a hole left open in the top. The domes of stone are mostly outside in the courtyard, but in a few places they are inside impinging on the glass wall of the gallery.

I wondered if they were receding out of or advancing into the atrium, so convinced was I that the shapes were whole units. Could they be roofs of an ancient people existing long before and somehow preserved in place as the gallery was built around them? What made the artist decide on this installation? What about the space inspired the thought to build 9 domes, 5 and half feet tall and 27 feet in diameter? Is there greater meaning to be derived from them? And so my thoughts spin on, nourished by his art.

Now, when I need a meditative moment in my day, I dwell on that one artist somewhere in the world contemplating a stone, a leaf, a petal, a twig, an icicle...impelled to do what he has to do. Just the knowing that he is there. This is restorative, stabilizing, calming, comforting, nourishing.