Things that just ain’t so

 

One of the most popular consultant visuals is the one that divides the topic in hand into things we know we know, things we know we don’t know, things we don’t know we know, and things we don’t know we don’t know. It’s a useful diagnostic tool.

Of course, there’s another category, not captured by the graph, but neatly expressed by the American cowboy Will Rogers (or was it wise Mark Twain?):

It's not the things you don't know what gets you into trouble. It's the things you do know that just ain't so.

Write as short as you can

“Write as short as you can / In order / Of what matters.” Thus American poet, John Berryman.

Certainly I endeavour to follow his advice in writing blogposts. I have just one thought – and come to it as briefly as possible.

Sometimes this seems to be difficult to achieve, as I wander round the houses.

But I never post a blog the day I write it. I always give myself the chance to make it pithier.

By and large I don’t like many blogs for this very reason. They go on (and sometimes on and on) beyond what’s necessary.

Often attributed to Mark Twain and to Oscar Wilde, it seems that it was the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, much earlier (in 1656), who originally wrote: "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.” (I have only made this letter too long because I have not had time to make it shorter.)

Walter Barnett at 150

I missed Walter Barnett’s 150th birthday. He was born on 25 January 1862.

Walter who? H Walter Barnett. Australia’s first world-class portrait photographer. I was lucky enough to rediscover him and his fine work and thought Something Should Be Done about it. But what?

So on a trip to Sydney, I went to see my friend Leo Schofield, at that time director of the Sydney Festival. Leo knows everything worth knowing about the arts in Australia.

“What do you think of Walter Barnett’s work, Leo?” I asked as innocently as possible.

“Walter who?”

“You know, the Australian portrait photographer,” I replied.

“No. Don’t think I know of him,” said Leo.

Cue for me to lay out on Leo’s desk a dozen or so photocopies of Barnett portraits – the writer Robert Louis Stevenson, the great pianist Paderewski, Mark Twain, the “father” of Australia Sir Henry Parkes, artists Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Charles Conder, Dame Nellie Melba, actress Sarah Bernhardt (above), sculptor Auguste Rodin and so on.

There was a pause.

“Will you curate an exhibition for the Festival?” asked Leo.

“Well yes. I’d be delighted to.”

That morning, Leo called Andrew Sayers, director of the recently-opened National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, and so Legends: The Art of Walter Barnett became an NPG project that ran in Sydney, Canberra and the Mornington Peninsula.

Overall it was visited by some 186,000 people.

Listening and Creativity

At the start of innovation workshops, I ask the participants to come up with some groundrules for working together productively and creatively.

Usually second on the emerging shortlist is LISTENING.

Prompted, the person proposing it will often say how important it is to pay attention to what others are saying, both during any presentations and in the course of discussion.

It’s often comes as something of a shock when I add to this item that it’s important to listen to oneself. In fact, in sessions where the point is to tap into our creative selves, it’s more important, much more important, than listening to others.

In this situation, what others say is valuable primarily not as information, but as stimulus – to help us to trigger new thoughts, new perspectives, new ideas. Never more so than during a long, fact-filled presentation.

As usual, Mark Twain (above) caught this brilliantly: “Life does not consist mainly – or even largely – of facts and happenings,” he wrote. “It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s head.”

The challenge, of course is not only to listen closely to that storm of thoughts, but also to catch plenty of them on the wing. For me, that means making brief notes as they flash by. And then reviewing them consistently for further consideration and development.

Richard Branson once told me that he does this every day( see blogpost 03/11/2009). And so do I!