I’m always fascinated with the day-after fallout of the Super Bowl adfest. There are plenty of people doing their Monday morning armchair quarterbacking thing, lamenting how terrible the commercials were and how much they continue to suck year after year. It’s at this point I try to take my branding hat off and recognize something I think is rather important. The commercials were not made for us. They were made for the 95% of everyone else who wants to be entertained. They were made for people like my dad who could give two craps if there was an overabundance of slapstick violence and dudes trying to pick up chicks (Love you, Dad!). The only metric here is whether the ads were amusing and some of them were very amusing and entertaining, indeed.

Time for all of us who claim to be brand and online cognoscenti to get off our high horse and recognize that Super Bowl ads are not Shakespeare and they don’t need to be earth-shatteringly original. These commercials are made to appeal to a broad population and that population sits right in the middle of America. Like it or not. They like watching Betty White and Abe Vigoda get creamed in a football game, they like dudes wearing Doritos and attacking people, (and I guess they must like guys wandering the African savanna in their underwear).

Of course, feel free to not take my word for it. I grew up on Benny Hill and The Three Stooges so dumb, risque, slapstick humor is part of my cultural heritage.

I love Iron Man. It just happens to be one of my favorite (and best written) comic book series being published right now. And as for the movie…I saw it twice in the theater and I’ve seen it three times since buying it on DVD. On my daily walk this morning, Black Sabbath’s Iron Man came up on my iPod and I started to think about scenes from the movie. One particular scene flashed across my thoughts and led me down an interesting path of reflection.

[SPOILER ALERT: the scene below is a crucial plot point so if you haven't seen Iron Man...Wait...you haven't? Okay, hurry up, buy it, and watch it...then come back. I'll wait.]

Toward the end of the movie, Tony Stark/Iron Man battles his business partner, Obadiah Stane, who proves to be a megalomaniacal character with no remorse when it comes to selling weapons to both the U.S. and the terrorists that the U.S. fights. Stane also manages to steal the designs of Tony’s armor and has his engineers secretly build a much larger, more powerful version, which – at least in the comics – is referred to as the Iron Monger armor. So, this final smackdown between two metal giants becomes one between creator and imitator. Which, to me, is the connection to the fallacy of best practices.

Because Stane didn’t understand how his armor really worked, he became overreliant on someone else’s technology. Our heroic Iron Man took advantage of this by climbing on his back and ripping out Stane’s weapon targeting system which ultimately proved to be crucial to the villain’s defeat.

This isn’t the first time I’ve teed off on best practices (see here), but I’m also not completely opposed to them, either. The critical difference is how they are applied. If you blindly accept best practices without fully considering how they’ll work or without determining how they’ll integrate with your own systems, then you’re missing the whole point. And you’re likely in for a surprise when you find that you get some exceptionally poor results.

Instead, try this: BE UNIQUE for goodness sake. You have all kinds of creative ideas floating around your organization. They exist inside the heads of your people. Rather than looking for that next great idea outside your organization, look inside. Your people are the ones who have an intimate grasp of the challenges you all face…and likely they have some solutions, as well.

The BBC reports that McDonald’s is working to get the word ‘McJob’ stricken from the Oxford English Dictionary. The dictionary defines it as, “an unstimulating low-paid job with few prospects.” Will McDonald’s next go after Grey’s Anatomy claiming that McDreamy sounds too much like one of their frozen desserts?

Boomerang, Cartoon Network’s retro channel for old cartoons, decided to connect St. Patrick’s Day with Gazoo, the snarky, little green alien on The Flintstones. In one episode, Fred gets tired of being kicked around by his boss and asks Gazoo for help. Gazoo’s suggestion? Why don’t you try to be boss for a day. Great idea, right? Fred thinks so. He thinks a boss’s job is all about spying on him (particularly when Fred is at his laziest), smoking fine cigars, eating a lavish lunch in the executive cafeteria, and generally keeping him down. He soon finds out the Mr. Slate isn’t actually the big boss, but the underling of the chairman of the company board of directors. And man…Mr. Slate’s life must really suck.

The Great Gazoo taught our guy Fred some interesting lessons.

1. No matter how far up the ladder we are in an organization, we always report to someone. That’s the fallacy of the increasingly anachronistic hierarchical org chart. So perhaps a better way to think of this is that we are always responsible for something or someone else. Even a CEO is responsible to her Board, as well as her employees; responsible for the welfare of the organization.

2. The management life isn’t a walk on the beach. When I first started working, I remember how much I pined for a management gig. I wanted the power and privilege without fully comprehending the responsibilities that naturally tagged along. Eventually, I got that management gig and I know now how challenging, frustrating, inspiring, and overwhelming that just being a good manager can be. I can now look upon my own manager and company executives with a sense of empathy.

Here’s a thought: what would happen if organizations would allow employees and managers to swap work for a day? For a week? It might just change a few perspectives.

3. Find appreciation for whatever work you do. At the end of the episode, Fred finally gets to go home. He’s exhausted and dispirited. Gazoo decides that Fred has experienced enough and returns him to his normal life. Once he gets home, Wilma says she has supper warmed up for him and he’s just in time to tuck Pebbles in. It’s here that Fred realizes that he’s got it pretty good. Too bad his taste of management is so sour.

Hope you’re wearing your green today.

From the Department of Silly Diversions (I consult there on a regular basis), comes this article asking Which Movie Boss Do You Have?

Here’s their list:
1. Andrew Shepherd, "The American President"
Friendly, popular but can sometimes make things difficult.

 2. Obi-Wan Kenobi, "Star Wars"
Wise, loyal and always there for guidance.

3. Bill Lumbergh, "Office Space"
Evil boss who loves tormenting employees and making them work weekends.

4. Coach Norman Dale, "Hoosiers"
Uses brash, unconventional tactics to motivate to success.

5. Franklin Hart, "9 to 5"
"Sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot."

6. Katherine Parker, "Working Girl"
Back-stabbing boss who steals your ideas and passes them off as her own.

7. Bernie Lomax, "Weekend at Bernie’s"
A crook who’s out to get rid of you (not to mention he’s really dead).

8. Dr. Evil, "Austin Powers"
Has two obsessions: himself and total world domination.

9. Cruella De Vil, "101 Dalmatians"
Rich, powerful and so mean she’d kill puppies.

10. Gordon Gekko, "Wall Street"
Unfriendly workaholic who expects the same from you.

Here’s a few that I’ll add:
11. Dean Vernon Wermer, "Animal House"
Always looking for ways to put you on "Double Secret Probation."

12. Morpheus, "The Matrix"
Truly believes in you and speaks in riddles about how you’re The One to lead the organization to the promised land.

13. Steven McCrosky, "Airplane!"
Decisive, but stressed-out leader who has an addiction to sniffing glue, amphetamines, and other drugs.

Do you have a movie boss not represented here? Let’s hear about it.

It’s funny how events sometimes happen in our lives, almost as if they have been planned and directed by someone else. Sort of like being in our own Truman Show. For instance: You sit down for a cup of coffee at Starbucks expecting to just be with yourself, but joyfully, you’re pulled into an amazing set of conversations that entertain, inform, even alter your worldview. It’s serendipity and when you’re open to all that the universe has to offer, it can lead to really great stuff.

As an aside, when I looked up the word serendipity at dictionary.com to make sure my spelling was accurate, I discovered the word’s origin:

We are indebted to the English author Horace Walpole for the word serendipity, which he coined in one of the 3,000 or more letters on which his literary reputation primarily rests. In a letter of January 28, 1754, Walpole says that “this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word.” Walpole formed the word on an old name for Sri Lanka, Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of “a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of….”

I like that…making unexpected discoveries through accident and sagacity. Here’s an idea for allowing serendipity into your life:

Ditch the script. Some of us have an easier time living spontaneously than others. That’s okay; we’re all made up differently. But, we all have the capacity to be spontaneous. If you find surprises and the unexpected scary, find the place where you are comfortable and hang out there. Notice what it’s like, what you are feeling and sensing. Then take a step toward discomfort (sort of like that first step into a cold pool of water). Again, be aware of what’s going on inside you and what’s going on outside. Take your time, but resist the urge to immediately go back to comfort. True growth occurs in places of discomfort.

What else has worked for you? Where else have you experienced a moment of serendipity in your life? Here’s hoping you make another accidental discovery today.

There’s an interesting critique of the business moguls on TV (Trump, Cuban, and Branson) and their leadership flaws in today’s Globe and Mail (Reality TV reveals real-life leaders’ flaws).

While each might provide great theater (Cuban and his reality show aside), I wouldn’t hold any of them up as outstanding models of leadership. But then, maybe it was foolish to expect this anyway.

I went on a rare date with my wife last night (those with kids understand the rarity) and saw the movie Ray with Jamie Foxx. I didn’t know much about the life of Ray Charles and found among the film’s themes someone pursuing his own voice. There’s an interesting scene where Ray is beginning to record for Atlantic Record execs and starts to imitate leading artists like Nat King Cole. For Ray, this is what he thinks the record company wants. But what the record execs want is Ray…they want HIS voice and what he brings.

It was a reminder of something that can elude me at times in my own work. It’s easy to imitate the work of already established voices. I mean, they’re established because the world knows and likes what they are saying, right? But the world doesn’t need one more person saying the same thing; the world wants a new voice. Continuing the thought of the last post, it may take time, patience, and courage for the world to understand that it needs this new voice. So, thanks for hanging out with me as I explore my voice and figure out what uniqueness I’m intended to bring to the discussion of careers, leadership, and organizations.

Isaac Cheifetz poses the following question: Can the principles of evolutionary biology be used to guide our careers?

In his article, he compares the “stop and go” path that some middle managers find in their journey to executive management to the evolutionary development theory of Punctuated Equalibrium popularized by Stephen jay Gould. In Gould’s theory, evolution tends to be characterized by long periods of inactivity that are “punctuated” by environmental forces leading to rapid, revolutionary development. Further in the article, Cheifetz clarifies what differentiates punctuated career development from a stagnant career path.

It reminds me of a recent episode of Lost where Locke talks to Charlie about the moth’s transformation and struggle to change. While he could help the moth escape from its cocoon with a slight cut of the knife, he would be doing it a disservice by robbing it of one of nature’s essential lessons. Struggle is what nature imposes in order to make things stronger. Without getting too Darwinian, there seems to be something there about our careers. Sometimes, there are lessons to be gained from struggle and if we give in and move on too quickly, we’ll rob ourselves of those necessary learnings.

When our careers seem like they’re stuck in low gear, maybe we need to be there for a reason. And maybe there is a rapid, revolutionary development on the near horizon if we’re open enough to look for it.

We all know how the United States basketball team fared at the 2004 Olympics and a similar thing seems to be happening with the U.S. Ryder Cup golf team. Both groups, filled with exceptionally talented individuals and seemingly dominant on paper compared to the competition, provide a stark reminder of one of the pitfalls of team-building. The pursuit to fill a work team with the best individual talent may actually lead to poor results. Instead, first consider the mission of your team (what’s your central purpose for existing as a group) and then build based on the answer. Need a strong marketing focus? Are you weak in bringing new ideas to the table? The best individuals to help with these needs may not be one of the “office all-stars.”

In the movie Miracle, Herb Brooks (played by Kurt Russell) tells his assistant, “I’m not looking for the best players, I’m looking for the right ones.” What he wanted was a team that shined together, not individual all-stars trying to shine on their own. Do you have the right ones on your team?