Jeff DeGraff - Competing Values Framework - Green (Part 4)

Summary

Jeff DeGraff humorously explores the 'Green' side of the Competing Values Framework, focusing on pleasure-driven innovators known for radical ideas but less about long-term execution. Greens thrive on envisioning new businesses, reveling in creativity and novelty, often flirting with chaos and unpredictability. Their environment celebrates diversity and experimentation, pushing the boundaries of conventional strategies, but comes with risks of instability and lack of focus. This engaging talk highlights the need for balancing qualities across different organizational cultures for optimal growth and innovation.

Highlights

• Greens are characterized by their epicurean nature, geared towards innovation and envisioning new possibilities. 🥳
• Their creative spirit leads to new markets and products, but they often neglect the actual execution. ⚙️
• Greens thrive on diversity, often forming eclectic teams that mirror a 'freak show' vibe. 🎪
• Their projects sometimes go unfinished or forgotten if they lose interest quickly. 🌀
• Despite their chaotic nature, they are essential for breakthrough innovation and creativity in organizations. 💡

Key Takeaways

• Greens are epicureans who love pleasure and envision bold ideas, focusing more on creativity than execution. 🌿
• They thrive in encouraging breakthrough innovations, entrepreneurship, and envisioning new markets. 🚀
• Greens can be unpredictable, often causing chaos but also sparking radical innovations. 🎨
• They love to diversify projects and people, welcoming variety akin to a freak show. 🎭
• Managing Greens requires understanding their need for novelty and creativity which drives them but also poses risks. ⚖️

Overview

Welcome to the world of Greens – not the veggies on your plate but the fun-loving, idea-generators in the Competing Values Framework. Jeff DeGraff paints a vivid picture of these epicureans who thrive on pleasure and innovation. Greens are the visionaries, always thinking up the next big thing and brainstorming at lengths about the future. While their ideas are often audacious and groundbreaking, the execution can be lacking, as they prefer the rush of the conceptual over the grind of the practical.

What sets Greens apart is their knack for embracing diversity and change. Imagine a creative space where every meeting feels like the opening act of a festival – colorful, vibrant, and slightly chaotic. They're the ones who bring a seemingly random bunch of talents together, proving that innovation thrives on the edges of convention. This diversity isn't just in personalities but in the projects they choose too. They're not afraid to dive into the unknown and explore uncharted territories.

However, this pleasure-driven pursuit of innovation isn't without its challenges. Describing this group as a 'burning man of intellectuals,' DeGraff doesn't shy away from pointing out the risks. Greens often struggle with follow-through, leaving projects unfinished if they lose their initial excitement. Their sporadic nature means they're amazing for inciting creativity and radical change but can lead to organizational chaos without careful management. Balancing their strengths with the stability of other organizational archetypes is key to reaping the benefits of their boundless creativity.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Greens The chapter titled 'Introduction to Greens' humorously discusses the character traits of greens, implying they are pleasure-seeking and egotistical. It suggests that if not part of the current discourse, they would be involved in activities like forming an IPO while enjoying themselves. The presentation seems to conclude the discussion about greens by saving it as the last topic due to these traits.
• 00:30 - 02:00: Greens' Approach to Innovation In 'Greens' Approach to Innovation,' the focus is on fostering breakthrough innovations and envisioning new business opportunities. It involves creating new products and services, identifying new markets, and anticipating customer needs. The chapter also highlights the importance of creative experiential learning and strategic planning to usher in change and development.
• 02:00 - 05:00: Challenges and Characteristics of Greens This chapter explores the nature of 'Greens', particularly focusing on their challenges and characteristics. It highlights 'Greens' as individuals who excel in future planning, flexibility, and adaptability. However, it criticizes them for being more focused on strategizing and articulating plans rather than taking action. The chapter humorously refers to 'Greens' as 'idea guys' who are excellent at conceptualizing but often don't translate their ideas into concrete actions, as noted in meetings and discussions.
• 05:00 - 09:00: Greens in Business Contexts The chapter discusses creative brainstorming and idea generation within business contexts, using a metaphorical and humorous scenario involving the Grateful Dead, showcasing a mix of spontaneous ideas and unconventional setting. This emphasizes living in the moment and the unpredictability of innovative thinking.
• 09:00 - 15:00: Managing Different Value Propositions This chapter discusses strategies for managing different value propositions, particularly focusing on how to deal with unconventional ideas in a professional setting. It suggests responses to unique or 'weird' ideas by relating them to something seen online, which can negatively impact the person's enthusiasm. The chapter touches on leadership dynamics, questioning how leaders are chosen and pondering the absence of traditional leadership structures in certain groups or cultures, with a critical perspective on American practices.

Jeff DeGraff - Competing Values Framework - Green (Part 4) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 last and certainly least we saved the greens for last because they're epicurian which means they love pleasure and love to hear about themselves and they'd be across the street drinking forming an IPO right now if we didn't save it for last now what this will be funny greens
• 00:30 - 01:00 what you got greens encouraging breakthrough Innovation encouraging envisioning new businesses oh envisioning and Gooding entrepreneurship identifying new markets and opportuni identify creating new products and services identifying New Market and unities anticipating what the customer was who anticipate I like that starting creative experence strategizing change Str strategize that's pretty big stuff Joe strategize big word for me too
• 01:00 - 01:30 articulating future possibili emphasizing flexibility and adaptivity strategizing planning articulating emphasizing not actually doing squat planning to do squat but not actually really doing squat right youve been you've seen these guys right you've seen these guys to the meeting you have been to the green meeting oh you're probably still therapy over right what goes on in the green meeting idea guys oh their idea guys yeah and I have an
• 01:30 - 02:00 ideas is and it starts out somebody saying hey you know um we got to figure out how to make these engines better and somebody says I was reading in nature magazine about squiding and it just goes from there and then it turns into a Grateful Dead concert there's a girl in the hallways there too many mushrooms cherri's playing and people are the micr bus out the back and the singer painting and what's it mean I don't know I'm living in the now right and it's all Higgly Piggly now incidentally if you really want to piss the Reds off I fist
• 02:00 - 02:30 the greens off here's how you do it when they tell you about their super weird idea tell them you saw it on the internet last night I saw something like that in the internet they'll hate you they'll just totally hate you they really ruin their Buzz man they'll ruin you bringing them down how do they decide who becomes a leader how the idea guys leader they think about it do they have leaders that's right they don't have stinking leaders SW you Americans make my ass
• 02:30 - 03:00 twitch what they follow themselves they follow yeah themselves my inner child Big Ideas you know.org bio don't look at the light H pretty colors never ask a green what they really do because they get it's like a cab driver you know cab driver actually interest in poetry or something always say no I hate poetry because what's what what's the next phage oh I'm a poet here's my book or I'm really I'm really
• 03:00 - 03:30 the Queen of sha whatever the hell is that's the green problem they don't they're never what they seem to be now what tools methods of processes do they use to improve the per think about it think about it think about what do they do to improve the per tools methods and processes yeah now that's the original answer and it's it's the right answer but I want to give you this the the more the basic answer they love to invent tools methods and processes they just don't actually like to use them
• 03:30 - 04:00 look at that yes I've designed a beautiful way does it work you know I'm done with that now you'll always know cuz if you get some strategy you got to go like this does it go this way or it's like modern art you know you got a green on your hand and they've been talking to other greens which is always very very dangerous right very dangerous so what tools meth of process use three things about Greens Greens absolutely love
• 04:00 - 04:30 projects that are experiments now I got to tell you something right that you probably already know do you know that this group up here has a dozen projects that never hit the p&l you know that I bet you do you know why because they're good at hiding they're always under the radar they're always right at the boundaries it's in or out of bounds whatever the law is they're right on the law right they you know they're this close to doing so now here's the here's the the bad news they got 12 projects but there's some good news here's the good news six projects they forgot about by the time they got off the airplane because they had the attention span of a
• 04:30 - 05:00 n three of the projects are so stupid and illc conceived that they're not going to go anywhere two of the projects turn out to be mediocre which they lose interest in immediately what's the problem there's one left and what is it it's big it's huge it's fresh it's new it's wild it's crazy and it doesn't work very well who's going to solve it than you good luck yeah I got the idea it's pretty close to working it's it's 90% there they love to say crap like that it's like 10% there and you guys have to
• 05:00 - 05:30 make the rest of the whole thing work so they love to widen the array of projects or diversify the project which is their big big big thing second thing they love to do they love diversity absolutely love diversity it's like a felini movie it's like going to the Carney you know the guy in the D with aluminum coil on his head who's drooling mumbling about socialist scrambling his brains he's on the team right who knew right they love to change the gene pool it's their favorite thing in the world to do right true story went out to idio a few years back friend a friend of one of my
• 05:30 - 06:00 students was developing uh was work for ID the big design firm they were developing shoes for Jimmy cheu anybody heard of Jimmy Chu to make ladies shoes but expensive lady shoes so I go to the first guy on the team I said what do you do he said my name's Bob from Chicago what do you do Bob I'm a structural architect these are the guys that build those 110 story buildings you go these shoes are going to have high heels I guess they're going to stand up really well goes to another guy what do you do my name's Mona where you from Mona I'm from Manan what do you do I make window treatments dar
• 06:00 - 06:30 it took me a while what's a window window treatment is a a drapery it's a tapestry one think of these shoes are going to be nice here the other guy what's your name my name's Tim what are you Tim I run a porn site for guys with a foot fetish nice to meet you Tim I'm not going to shake your hand Tim so about a year goes by these shoes come out I'm hearing from everybody how beautiful the shoes are my students are asking were you an idea when they did this and you say I was and they say how do they design these shoes and you say you don't want to know it was a freak Show it's was a total freak Show they
• 06:30 - 07:00 love the freak Show now the final thing how much data is there on the future none what's the one group in the room that tries to see the future first take a good look you ever go to a futuring session you ever been one of these things you get a bunch of smart people in the room some tarot cards you read the bumps on your head the position of the Moon a couple reports about something that are really Arcane and you try and look into the glass but they always know where the next turn is it's annoying isn't it they get they're always in the right County but always in
• 07:00 - 07:30 the wrong City you know what I mean so this is the group that kind of gets it generally right first cuz they're looking out so they love to spread the product array the project array they love to diversify the kind of people and they love to speculate like crazy why do they fire people why do they fire people they're stagnant they're stagnant yeah in incidentally epicurian people don't fire people you know because they hate pain now you used to be interesting but you're not interesting anymore because now I know you really well right so familiarity breeds contempt in this
• 07:30 - 08:00 group so they move on they're what we call serial monogamist you know what I mean serial I used to love you but now I love someone else they moving on but they're fully in love at all times now here's the thing greens you need to know there are people who work for you that used to love you who now hate you right they hate you because you moved on and you didn't think they were interesting anymore right because they're oh I've moved on to the next next great thing now where do we find these people in the per where do we find the greens r& R&D for
• 08:00 - 08:30 lucky where else strategy that's true strategy where there is no data on the future that's why strategy so Wiggy cool sometimes where else we find them in product development a lot of times in marketing we find them in spin-offs right where those where those new functions are going to happen we're going to find them in those functions we're going to find them in boundary functions we're going to find them where our organization touches the rest of the world we're going to find them a lot in those functions what kind of companies are greeing make turns into another one why are
• 08:30 - 09:00 entrepreneurial concerns almost always green the dominant profile for an entrepreneurial concern because they can't compete on scul or scale right they have to compete on novelty right we've known this for for for almost a century so the notion is they have to be new because you'll crush them other life what other kind of firms are agreeing think back to our list Apple Google ver Wang you know Pixar you know uh people who make
• 09:00 - 09:30 entertainment kind of things people make blockbuster drugs people are startup companies right software some types of software companies not all but some types of software companies companies that basically make all their money on useful novelty that's where we're going to find those green firms what value they create why Happ them because they really are quite literally impossible to manage their whole world view and we call this group Outsiders on the inside their whole world view is that they're not you seriously so the minute you go oh we're going to go to open collaborative type of learning then
• 09:30 - 10:00 they'll then they won't like that either oh it's oh the man's making me collaborate you know fine they're like pet you I'm never happy because I don't want to be like you but I want to be affiliated with you somehow right they got all that screwy stuff going on so what value do they create we can't manage it creativity they create creativity at a large scale these are the Breakthrough Innovation Guys these are the oh my God kind of stuff what what else do we get for this
• 10:00 - 10:30 group we get one other thing that'll scare the blues good drugs good drugs we trying to keep those out of the workplace these days wasn't always that way but we are now what do we get for this group we get we get we get we get radical Innovation and we get organic growth because the only way to organically grow is you make something new what's the second part you sell to someone new this is the group that speculates new markets so they spec culate new markets they develop radical
• 10:30 - 11:00 new products and services are they fast or are they slow who knows something's going to happen tomorrow some stuff's going to happen when hell freeze is over because it's crazy stuff right it's not going to happen at all so the Delta is huge on this group in terms of speed are the approaches breakthrough incremental well of course there a breakthrough group in the room what's the incredible dark side of the greens huge risk this is the riskiest group this is the group that's either
• 11:00 - 11:30 going to change the world or they're going to hit the brick retaining wall on the back curve and blow up R right this is the the guy at the hadrin Coller pulling the switch going ah soon hell right that's that group you got to keep an eye on this group because if you leave them alone too long they'll they kind of get together this is a burning man full of smart people you know a burning man of intellectuals right they're all going to do crazy crap this taken to far is chaos let's give him Round of Applause how
• 11:30 - 12:00 fast how much how fast how much iTunes Walmart little risk lots of risk how fast how much now three key learnings and one story one very brief story first key learning you're only as good as a leader as your ability to manage amodex Le across to the oppositional value proposition what that means is this every organization is somebody who's
• 12:00 - 12:30 good at all four quadrants what we know about creating value is the key is the reunion of these two quadas this way so the notion is I've got great ideas I've got them in R&D Center somewhere how does it actually get taken into production who's actually going to be able to do this a process isn't going to do that for you a strategy isn't going to do that for you it's a person who has range now not everybody has range I don't have a lot of range I came from building companies that's what I do when
• 12:30 - 13:00 I turn around very big companies I'm very green I got a lot of blue I don't have a lot of range I don't have a lot of red I don't have a lot of yellow so what's that mean to me means my rightand people have to be Reds and yellows now is that am I real happy about that oh I just love red to tell me where I need to go what I need to do and what I'm doing every second of my wake Waking Life no but if I don't do that I'm never going to scale my ideas so the first issue is you have to be am and if you have a lot
• 13:00 - 13:30 of range that's great but if you don't have a lot of range you have to hook yourself up with someone else because the key is every strength brings a weakness these guys are very good at short-term performance but they never build things that are sustainable you build things that are sustainable but you miss the interesting turn you have big ideas but you can't get them into operations you have great operational ability but you miss the big picture things are going to happen you guys are driven by process you guys are driven by goals you're driven by Vision you're driven by values you have different mechanisms that make you go that hold
• 13:30 - 14:00 you together and you're always surprised to see a firm that doesn't have your mechanisms and you're always surprised to see it can work we also use this morally so we'll say the Chinese are doing this thing with just through relationships it's immoral no it's not immoral it's just different it's just different than the way you do things and we have to sort of break out of that we're going to be innovators we're going to have to expand this so amod exterity is the first part and I'm a terrible hypocrite terrible because I'd much rather go across the street where we usually start course is my Innovation
• 14:00 - 14:30 life you know my Innovation right across the screen right what are we doing there we do all kinds of green stuff but every now and then you got to come and you got to say to the Reds we got to put some Manufacturing in here some manufacturing ability some operation ability we need you guys in the party because if we don't have you in the party we won't have constructive conflict and even though we might have great ideas or wild ideas we can't build them and we need you and that's the key we need the opposite Point number two it's about your portfolio isn't it it's about a portfolio life what happens if I manage all the things in my life the same way
• 14:30 - 15:00 what if I managed my Innovation lab my Consulting practice being a professor and having Journal articles and doctoral why do I manage them all the same way I probably destroy most of the value in my life and so we you