“Process it a little more and add some polish to it” is what we tell others or do ourselves to improve a creation. Unprocessed & unpolished is somehow seen as inelegant. Let’s turn the thought on its head and ask ourselves the reverse question:
In what situations does ‘quick & dirty’ become more desirable than ‘processed & polished’?
Recall that moment? In your kitchen garden? When you spotted that fresh tomato hidden in that plant? You wanted it straight off the plant… right then! Without bothering about that little dirt on it. The dirt really assured you of its freshness. A bottle of ketchup made from the best tomatoes, untouched by human hand and processed using the best additives in the world wouldn’t have done for you. It would have been totally inappropriate and inelegant.
Now let’s consider an analogous scenario. A team is racking its brains at coming up with an idea that could form the central theme for the presentation they have to make to the client in a few hours. Nothing really fresh seems to be bubbling up. One of the members decides to call a friend who usually has interesting perspectives to things. A quick five-minute call later the team has four rough but totally fresh themes to work on. For this team four inelegantly articulated thought starters thought aloud by an unprepared friend casually, are much much better than a well written out presentation by an ‘expert’ the next day.
There’s something about the raw, the unpolished, the ‘inelegant’ thoughts that makes them more playable, more malleable, more inclusive, more easy to own and therefore really far more elegant.
Picasso said: "You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea."
Too clear an idea ensures you end up with just that. A vague idea lets you grow it in many serendipitous ways ☺
You know what! The Tribe of Greedy Givers is about the Quick & Dirty. That’s our character. So quick just punch in a few perspectives on this fresh, juicy, slightly dirty tomato. Let a few typos creeep in (I admit this one was planned ;) … this tribe’s not about elegant English but really about elegant new thoughts ☺
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Supposing you are heading a ailing organisation or an organisation going through a bad phase. Wake up in the morning and tell yourself somebody just gifted you this failing business now do what your want to. God knows from where and how but you just got it quick and dirty. The aggression and positive thoughts that come after that is a sure shot route to success.
ReplyDeleteworks as good with a well organised business. just the feeling of dirty and raw brings positive aggression;)...control! dont let your mind go wild.
thats an interesting thought, raw ideas being more inclusive..and now that I think about it, it is probably because raw ideas are simple, as things in their original form mostly are. The polishing and the shaping make it more complex by adding multiple dimensions to it, progressively making it difficult for a number of people to understand it as well as limiting its use to specific situations
ReplyDeleteThere is indeed a special importance of raw ideas as catalysts for streams of thought and instigators of new solutions; while most raw ideas hold relevance in multiple contexts, the polishing helps in their application to any given particular context and so making it exclusive
Linus Pauling, scientist and two-time Nobel Prize winner, “To have a good idea you must first have lots of ideas.” Raw ideas allow you that freedom!
This is really a good one and thought provoking ! Not able to express. But, for the moment THANK YOU !
ReplyDeleteIn a group, accepting and even valuing raw ideas might also encourage team members to think on their feet and voice their ideas without fearing judgement on its 'inelegance'.
ReplyDelete@ Kamini - oh absolutely! Different people pick the same 'raw' idea and grow it differently to suit their context and purpose. A polished & processed one suits only the predefined context and purpose... doesn't it?
ReplyDelete"things in their original form" - unpolished rice, unrefined sugar, unaffected people :)
@ Ashok - You're welcome!
@ Tanu - you're right. If you wait for the best idea ever you'll wait forever. Best is to go with the best quick-and-dirty idea right away. BTW, The Tribe of Greedy Givers is about quick-and-dirty responses to quick-and-dirty questions/thoughts. No premeditation and no pre-processing. Just quick-and-dirty in all it's glory! :)
Hey, This is exciting ! For me it represents that the journey is more important than the end ...we need to stay with the journey, savour it and the fruits aka 'end' will follow... one recent analogy ....am part of a support group and the members equate smartness, polish with a power point presentation to make a point while I suggested the use of a 'story telling mode' ..one to one, from the heart instead of the ppt . Reluctantly accepted ,but worked beautifully in the context of a cancer survivor telling her experience.
ReplyDeleteWe focus on the 'becoming' and forget the 'being'...specially in the case of raising our children...who will you become? is the oft repaeated question . He/she already is !! In focusing on the future we forget to savour the moment, the now .
What an amazing thought Pansy! "We focus on the 'becoming' and forget the 'being'... He/She already is!" :) Somehow we make the children believe that they have to prepare for the 'life that they want to live'. The 'life' is right now. If you are not enjoying it right now... possibility is you will never.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely !....and this forum of 'ideas' ...brilliant!!
ReplyDeleteI find that I perform better when I know my stuff but I did not rehearse a speech or presentation: being "prepared and polished" often leads to lacking spontaneity, thinking too much and feeling too little.
ReplyDeleteI think that in order to be ready, you don't necessarily need to prepared.
@Ranjan. Very interesting. Sometimes presentations are so made-up and packaged, that you cannot see the base underneath. Like someone hiding behind too much make up ;-)
ReplyDelete@Tanushree. I agree with you, and furthermore I have found that when I voice my sudden spur-of-the-moment ideas in a group, then 8 out of 10 times, we will stop it right there, but the last 2 times, the idea might trigger a thought process in someone else, and something fruitful comes out of the halfbaked idea. Maybe it is not something building directly on this idea, but the crazy idea still moved us along.
Rough & ready ideas are more synthesizable (leading to superior outcomes) than prim & proper (which are more idiot-proof-execution-ready on the other hand)
ReplyDeleteRanjan: This tomatoes idea is very juicy :-) Just right for the digital social media era!
@Benedikte. :) Spontaneous quick-and-dirty ideas happen when unusual dots connect for us suddenly... and we articulate the idea in all its authenticity - warts and all. This warts-and-all aspect makes them truely real. The fact that the person didn't bother to remove the warts allows others to feel comfortable enough to share their ideas-with-warts easily... like Tanushree mentioned.
ReplyDelete@Shiv. Thanks! Great to have you on board. I hope this will become a platform for people to share fresh insights as soon as they are discovered... straight off their lives :)
To take the idea further, into the way we live, .... when in pain, hurting or in an uncomfortable situation, we want to get out of it quickly into a restful/peaceful state. If we allow the chaos to churn and us to get thrown around a bit , just stay with it, we will discover new aspects of ourselves; resilience, strengths, talent and maybe paradigm shifts in our thinking.
ReplyDeleteGrowth stems from chaos , not order.
Most organic stuff available off the shop shelves are unprocessed and unpolished and they're healthy too! Polish and process quite often leads to cloning that in turn leads to 'commoditizing'. No? :)
ReplyDelete@ Sujit. Absolutely Sujit. Unpolished rice, unrefined sugar and unaffected people all are far more desirable than their polished & processed versions :)
ReplyDelete@Pansy. Well put. A seeming 'bad' might really be a 'good' in the log run. Let's not rush to rescue our children from boredom when they begin parroting "I'm bored". Let them deal with it... they will discover their own ability to either escape it or even like the bliss of nothing-time :)
Most of the teams, when brainstorming, tend to get focused on creating an elegant wow outcome instead of leaving it as a consequence of a fantastic, non judgmental thought process packed with insights. Hence the outcome becomes the driving force as against the joy of thinking, looking beyond and creating something new. In the example shared, the friend who is sharing his perspectives is not locked into the outcome. He seems to be a guy who just enjoys picking up a fresh juicy tomato at every possible occasion. And that's who we need to be to be greedy givers. What say?
ReplyDelete@Anuj. :) Agree with you. 'Raw' and 'dirty' do appeal to our primal instincts. An instinct that says... I've got to get it / get there...and I've got to find a way...there's no other option :)
ReplyDelete@Gokul - Loved your perspective. And yes Greedy Givers love to share...it's incidental that they get much much more in the process than Greedy Grabbers :)
Ranjan...found this discussion very constructive,
ReplyDeleteThe team and the freshness brought by a friend of the team member suggests that the friend looked at the entire presentation with a fresh mind, without any blinkers and I think this is the crux of it. It is not necessary to call up a friend for a new perspective, the team could have also built in the same incase if the leader takes out the blinkers from the team and ask them to think wildly:-) Infact Tanushree touched upon it.
Fresh tomatoes are all about removing the blinkers !!
Am not sure if the theory of processed tomatoes being not good. Once the raw tomatoes are picked, it definitely needs to be processed to get the best taste out of.
Thank you so much for giving us permission to be simply ourselves. This makes it so much more fun for all of us. It saves much time in rereading and thinking, "Oh, I hope I sound intelligent enough for the rest of the group." Hurray, I can just be me and just put it out there. Creative Connie
ReplyDelete@Madhusudan - You want ketchup when you want ketchup... a fresh tomato won't do. You can process the fresh tomato to get ketchup or tomato juice or tomato sabzi...but you can't process the ketchup to give you a fresh tomato or tomato juice or tomato sabzi... can you? That is the point. An idea processed and polished to suit a particular purpose suits that purpose the best... and mostly nothing else (it's too configured for the defined purpose) but if it is unprocessed, it can be processed to suit any context or purpose by the user.
ReplyDelete@Connie - Thanks for bringing in cheer... we all got into intense and serious conversations. Please be you... totally you... unadulterated you :)
@Ranjan - I am sitting here laughing very hard. You know not what you are asking for, I can be pretty unadulterated at times LOL My mind can go in some pretty offbeat directions. This will be fun, fun, fun :) I am slinging ketchup all over the place!
ReplyDeleteQnD is simbly great. I remember QED from school which put an end to things. QnD could start a revolution. It is the opposite of LnD (Long & Deliberate). People tend to pretend that they are using LnD when we ask for QnD. They do neither and wait for some one else to say something so that they can PnD (Pounce & Destroy). My vote is for QnD. This comment is evidence of my OnD this morning - with an excellent cup of South Indian Filter Coffee make my brain go on an over drive.
ReplyDelete@Sridhar. Love it! What a build on the conversations! Thanks Sridhar. This adds to the Tribe's idiom. People... let's use this terminology... QnD, LnD, PnD... let's come up with more :)
ReplyDeleteDo a QnD (Quick-n-Dirty): It's a license to experiment, a license to play. It's self entitlement :)
thanks Ranjan...I guess you are right...vow...it's opening up...This group rocks. Infact no other group has anything very relevant like this...Way to go !!
ReplyDeleteSridhar : Q&D; L&D, P&D...very very interesting !!
Hey ranjan : this is really ticking now.
ReplyDeleteWhat is Q&D : Is it a state of mind ?
Is it a creative mind ? OR you create an ambient atmosphere to be a Q&D
Which one actually becomes a better greedy giver ?
Do a QnD (Quick-n-Dirty): It's a license to experiment, a license to play. It's self entitlement :)
ReplyDeleteA Q&D (quick & dirty) idea must under go P&D (Pounce & Destroy(opposition party)) test. If passed will have to under go LnD (Long & Deliberate (nurturing)) before becoming worthy. Each stage has its importance but yes QnD is the most exciting.
ReplyDeleteNot talking about brainstorming session. As you grow up the ladder their are more and more yes men arround you. A person of authority should have the ability to make a QnD under go some amount of PnD before sharing it. or it may lead to disasters.
ReplyDelete@Anuj: Well synthesized! My personal opinion... The PnDs need to be kept more out than in. Who wants to know why the idea won't work... we are Greedy Growers... generative people... We only want to know how we will make it work. The PnDs are tools that can be exploited at prototyping stage when we want to play with the idea in extreme conditions. They shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the idea upstream... they can be totally toxic there :)
ReplyDeleteJust an opinion- PnD to ones ability is also important. Case Study- Their was a Super market in in DLF phase 3 doing well. The owner set up another one in Galleria DLF 4 Gurgaon (both round the corner markets) both were doing grt. Then he opened one in DT city centre(mall) in the basement next to parking lot. It was a ambitious project, Surly funded with loans. Some how buying grossary from the basement in a mall didnt work. Disastrous consequence. All closed down.
ReplyDeleteWith Success comes arrogance, blinders and inability to PnD to some.
Also Fear of failure is a sure shot guarantee to failure. I am just propagating the test of PnD
This 'raw, unfinished tomato' also reminds me that I prefer books and stories and movies which have no closures and allow me, the viewer, to step in and interpret and get drawn into ....I become a participant , play a more active role than i would have if ther had been an 'end' , coz I 'engage' ...infact the best ones are that way...unfinished ...Milan Kundera , Murakami .... there is no obvious 'end' ...not meant to be either...beautiful!!
ReplyDeleteAnuj - what Ranjan is talking about is at the time of Q&D. When you are at Q&D...you should not have blinkers of why it would fail. The Q&D should be an independent act without failure's attitude.
ReplyDeleteLet me give you an example...In one of my assignments, the only way to do business was X...the team sat and did Q&D without the blinkers..the result was about a dozen of ideas which were absolute fresh. Post the Q&D, L&D was a process to polish the idea and to ensure that it gets implemented. While it may have lots of people who may quash a new way of business, the leaders were ready to take the risk. The Result was a hopping 50% jump in the business.
If I were to relate it to the DLF example, I do not think opening one more outlet at DT mall was a result of Q&D. It was just an extension of what he did in the other two malls.
Cheers !!
@Anuj, As Ranjan said, if the PnD was done during the prototype phase, they could have probably got a Q&D way to make the supermarket work in the basement. :)
ReplyDelete@Madhusudhan - The 1st two supermarkets were in Localities not Malls. I totally agree with you If it was not for QnD the jump in business would not have been more than 5-10%. Just trying to give a new perspective with importance of PnD.
ReplyDelete@Mr. Malik - These discussions can become very involving.
Cheers!
Sridhar! Look what's happening thanks to you. Your compelling concepts (QnD, LnD, PnD) are really blossoming! :)
ReplyDeleteHi all - this is a wonderful and stimulating discussion. This is something which may make all of you laugh...but all this talk of tomatoes and ketchup brings back to mind some wonderful and appropriate memories.
ReplyDeleteI had joined J Walter Thompson as a raw trainee straight out of B-school while Ranjan was a senior colleague in another client team of the same group so he may remember. Basically, the very senior and respectable members of my team, were having a tough time creating a polished marketing presentation to highlight the success of Nestle's Maggi Tomato Ketchup and the contribution that JWT had made to this sucess. I being genuinely raw and unpolished at that stage made the suggestion without thinking, that I could write and organise the presentation for them using relevant scenarios, dialogues and cartoons from the Garfield series, as long as they were comfortable speaking with such material. Although most of the team was aghast at my crazy suggestion, the two seniors who were presenting decided to give me a chance as they were genuinely stuck and couldnt write. The rest as they say is history - they presented my Garfield filled tomato ketchup story and went on to win the best presentation award at the conference.
As I sit in my office polishing my conference presentations and intellectual writing so that it has a better chance of being published, I really wish there was a way to bring the freshness of the raw but dirty tomato back into the ketchup bottle.
Nowdays people value speed more than direction. Look arround. I am sure you will be able to pin point examples of new enterprenuers who started with grt enthusiasm. Now just calculate how many of these businesses lasted even one life time of a person. Just a thought. Building somethings that lasts more than a lifetime needs all (QnD, PnD, LnD) in right proportion.
ReplyDelete@Anuj. Absolutely. All are required in the right proportions at the right time. No EITHER-ORs here. Entrepreneurs not doing a good PnD at the right time produces failed entrepreneurs. A bigger problem however is entrepreneurs not able to do pure QnDs... worse still they do QnD and PnD at the same time. Result - no idea is allowed to grow enough to become great. This really leads to entrepreneurs with stunted growth - small-time entrepreneurs remaining small-time...and never reaching really big time...because they never did an audacious QnD in the first place.
ReplyDeleteMONALI! :) Welcome! Of course I remember. And what a refreshing thought - "a way to bring the freshness of the raw but dirty tomato back into the ketchup bottle."! Stay engaged. I, on behalf of the Tribe, demand a Fresh Juicy Tomato from you! :)
ReplyDeleteRaw and dirty...unpolished and unprocessed ,at times preferable to the polished:
ReplyDeleteMy country- India...developing, evolving , earthy,
Salt n pepper hair ...
A roadside dhabha meal in Punjab ...
Raw , unpolished ideas....with a life force of their own, organic ; fermenting, incubating ...Newton's laws, Copernicus's discovery...the challenge of validating these radical ideas,facing the criticism,having faith to pursue them...so many ideas fail at this stage ,coz we give up quickly , or the ideas are too radical
hi, thats a beautiful thought, some raw and simple ideas do come from unexpected areas of society -- people from villages, house wives or even somtimes children at home. people from villages have some exellent ideas which are simple and easy to apply--- taken from nature--- and presented well too but --- do we have human resources to understand that simple and raw language, in todays world or polish and complexities.
ReplyDeleteWhat I understand from all the eminent fellow tribe is as follows :
ReplyDeleteTypically the organisations until and unless led by leaders who have the risk taking ability and the conviction of handling the failure would never travel the Q&D route.
Mostly the Q&D's are sabotaged by us only. Unless Q&D becomes your DNA, you may find as Sridhar said people would log onto P&D's. The reason for such behaviours are possessiveness or insecurity within the team or I know what am I doing attitude.
Q&D is all about :
1. You think outside the box
2. You explore what you don't know
3. You anticipate future customer needs
4. You let things emerge
5. You allow freedom and flexibility
6. You avoid process and encourage unstructured interaction
My favorite people are the P&D. I often had dreams of grandeur because I was born into a quite humble environment. I have spent my entire life surrounded by P&D. They open my eyes to the obstacles I may face. However, because I am a dreamer, and I believe in Q&D, I made a success of myself, acquired my education, and my business has flourished. So I say thank you to all the P&D in my life. You told me why it was impossible, and so I set about on my Q&D ways and just did it.
ReplyDeleteSigned,
one smart tomato :)
My Fresh & Juicy Tomato No. 2 - Have Undo will Do. Check out the new blog post and let the Tribe have your perspective.
ReplyDeleteLook, as consultants we all know that our best ideas were all QnD. Then we go LnD so that the client is willing to pay a higher fee.
ReplyDeleteWant fresh tomatoes? Take a cab ride to a client meeting with nary an idea on what you are going to recommend. Don't drive yourself.
Look outside for five things you haven't noticed before. Connect it to the problem at hand. And you will have five fresh tomatoes.
You don't even need to look outside. Just the adrenalin rush of your ego will generate better ideas than the hours / weeks / months of processing before hand.
What's even better is that your presentation will be unpredictable.You might even surprise your colleagues.
C'mon, admit it. Didn't your best ideas happen on the way to the client meeting?
QnD is always fresh. But ketchup gets you a better price.
@Connie. Smart one! Come to think of it. PnDs coming in in very early stages helps! You have a bunch of totally pissed off QnDs. With an even stronger resolve - "So you mean it's impossible?! Let me prove you wrong!" :)
ReplyDeleteUndo will Do? Huh!
ReplyDeleteIntriguing.
I keep asking "What should we stop doing?" Is it the same thing? Undo will Do has feel of "Chalse", "Chalega" "Pavayille"
I did not equate QnD with 'will do'. Now I am in a state of CnD - confuded and distracted!
Regarding Sumit's point on Ketchup will get a better price - I think it will happen provided the ketchup does not look, feel & taste like Ketchup. Otherwise client says "We could have done this ourselves". We then have client disllusioned with PnP - the Person & The Process!!
@Sumit. Wah! "QnD is always fresh. But ketchup gets a better price." Absolutely. But only until we do another QnD on how fresh tomatoes can be made a more compelling proposition that attracts a bigger value. :) We pay more for not-so-great-looking organic country tomatoes today. Don't we?
ReplyDeleteLoved the cab ride! Spontaneous theater works on the same principles... doesn't it?
@Sridhar. "Have Undo will Do" is a fresh new tomato. It's a new discussion. Please read it. Would love your QnD on it :)
i just finished writing a paper on israeli innovation and success in hi-tech. visiting israel and meeting scores of cos there, cud really appreciate QnD. they see a gap, the engineers dont seek permission, they just dive into cracking it! it just gives them a big high. no thought on commercials, logical spreadsheets etc....just a tech solution that's far superior than anything else.
ReplyDeletephilosophy is - make something for 'here and now', never mind if it will work 5-10 yrs later...who cares....world/consumer changes so fast what's the point in all that forecasting and future-proofing...all it does is over-engineer and inflate costs.
Have always been a big fan of the rough 'n ready over the polished/refined variety.Truly so.However,this is a real world we inhabit,and over time,if not by conscious choice,then by unconscious conditioning,we steadily learn the art of polish as being indispensable to our well beings.Insecurity in ourselves/colleagues,a desire to project ourselves at our best all the time,expediency in situations demanding of us a degree of "finish" as it were...all of these add on to the syndrome.It is the privileged few who would perhaps unlearn their prejudices..seems more like a luxury than a matter of considered choice.Thats my QnD to the thread...could change with more polish.were I to ignore the spirit of this thread... ;)
ReplyDeletePolish is never a problem, it surely is a desirable. It becomes an issue when it becomes a bigger focus / preoccupation than the substance. In such situations people seem to see it as an EITHER-OR and not an AND. A situation where pursuit for polish begins to compete for resources with the pursuit for substance. And the pity is polish in such situations and for such people wins the battle...it happens at the cost of substance.
ReplyDeletePolish usually is what is on the outside and apparent (visible) and substance inside. If the purpose is only to project a certain image of oneself to the world, spending limited resources on the substance (internal, not visible) seem like a waste of time (to people who are driven just by external recognition and affiliation). They usually spend their 'limited' resources on acquiring polish believing that world will assume that the substance exists. Sad.
ReplyDeleteIts fascinating to see how this stream of thought has grown organically, through the quick and dirty approach - started somewhere and has "tunelled" itself to create many choices in thinking. Always in a state of forming itself..
ReplyDelete