Genius Machine: Part 1

Note from Phil: Recently I had the opportunity to spend an hour talking with Gerry Sindell, author of the The Genius Machine: Eleven Steps That Turn Raw Ideas Into Brilliance. Not all that applicable to managers, right? WRONG!

Rosabeth Moss Kanter from Harvard Business School had this to say about this book: "The Genius Machine is passionate, provocative, powerful, and practical. Gerald Sindell weaves his experience into an essential guide for creating ideas with impact. What better gift for today’s troubled world than this compelling method for finding smarter solutions and getting them working."

And after reading this book, I can tell you it’s never been MORE applicable.

So without further ado, I’m going to share my questions and answers from my time with Gerry. We talked so much, I’m splitting this into 2 days for you, so stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow!

Interview with Gerry Sindell, author of The Genius Machine (part 1)

Phil: Why would a manager care about creativity?

Gerry: If we understand how to think something through before we do it, we’ll save ourselves a lot of wasted time. And the manager will look more intelligent.

The Genius Machine is really a wisdom system – it’s a process for thinking things through thoroughly. It doesn’t mean that you’re always going to get it right the first time, but rather it provides the manager with a way of thinking things through, and making the right decision the first time.

If you take any innovation or implementation project through these 11 steps, you get a fairly robust solution. At the same time, The Genius Machine system will be working on you, and you’ll begin to internalize a richer way of thinking. And your gut feeling gets way better.

Phil: What do managers need to think about when working with something they haven’t come into play with yet?

Gerry: The first thing when confronting something new is simple: Find out who has solved this before so you can find some good examples of others who have been successful. You only want to reinvent the wheel when you are actually reinventing the wheel. The gear, for instance is a reinvention of the wheel. So are those little nano machines that will soon be cleaning out an artery near you. So if we can find a precedent close to what we’re doing, we’ll be miles ahead by taking the time to learn what worked and what we need to look out for.

Phil: Sounds like the opposite approach to the school of hard knocks.

Gerry: Absolutely. And someone using The Genius Machine will probably be perceived as being more intelligent. And this has huge advantages because if people think you;re smart, when you screw something up you’re more likely to get it seen as a learning experience than as a complete failure.

Phil: You put a lot of value in getting it right the first time.

Gerry: Yes, it’s really important to me. The last thing you want is is to be brilliant AFTER you’ve put the system into place and then realize all the things you should have thought about. You might still be able to do them, but it’s way more expensive and you’ve probably lost some respect from your team. So how can you be brilliant BEFORE you hit to Go switch? That’s what The Genius Machine system is all about.

You want build 1 as close to right as possible.

Here’s where I caught this disease:  I used to be a film director, and I remember when I was making my first full length feature film I had this sudden terrifying understanding that if I had a brilliant idea AFTER the actors and crew had gone home, it was going to be too late to go back and reshoot. There would NEVER be a time to fix things later.

Phil: Gerry, this book seems so simple. I’m curious why think nobody has written this book before.

Gerry: That really worried me as I was shaping the book. I kept thinking that surely someone else had put together a book on how to think things through. There are some good books on creative thinking, but nothing I have ever found combines strategic thinking, clear and evolving goal setting, a deep understanding of who we are and what success will look like in the near term and years out.

But, yeah, a whole bunch of people who liked the book also said it was pretty much common sense. They’re right, but it’s also fairly contrarian. The Genius Machine tells you when to walk away, as well.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s thrilling conclusion, where Gerry talks about how to use the book for maximum effectiveness, how and why he settled on 11 points, and all about the questions you need to ask yourself so you can achieve maximum results.