Thomas Edison

  • LESSON: Create a creative and productive environment.

Background

Biography: Inventor, entrepreneur, public figure. In addition to the light bulb, phonograph, and motion picture, he created the world’s first industrial research laboratory.
Goals: Become the world’s most successful inventor; create an invention engine; solve problems with technology.
Governing Principle: Every problem can be solved with time, energy, intelligence, and observation.

Traits

Enthusiastic, driven, obsessive, playful, observant, tireless, unvarnished (in speech and appearance), organized, consumer-focused, persistent, patient

Values

Genius requires keen observation and hard work to be valuable to others. Innovation is only worth pursuing when commercially viable. People need resources and latitude to be successful. Team success requires knowledge and resource sharing as well as careful recordkeeping so work and thought processes can be replicated and disseminated.

Questions

  • Which actions will stakeholders reward me for? Why?
  • Why should we be excited about this?
  • Do you understand how things work to the point where you can repeat desired results?
  • Are employees being intelligent and observant?
  • How do you turn individual learning into institutional knowledge?

Behaviors

  • Demand excellence – Demand that your employees work hard, smart, and passionately.
  • Do not tolerate lazy thinking or slacking – If employees slack or show apathy, minimize time and energy spent with them.
  • Work obsessively – You enjoy work and become oblivious to time.
  • Share your enthusiasm – Be an ambassador for your work, helping your employees and others understand why a project excites you and should excite them.
  • Create a fun workplace – Work is fun, and you make sure your workplace shares in it by engaging in pranks and jokes, giving your employees nicknames, and sharing meals with them.
  • Provide employees with resources – Provide employees with all the tools and political support they need to be successful with their projects.

Related Personalities
investor

Warren Buffett

Lesson: To maximize future rewards by leveraging assets and mitigating risks in a highly rational fashion.
Genius

Albert Einstein

Lesson: Think great thoughts by bucking convention and being open to opportunities.
CEO

Steve Jobs

Lesson: Use perfectionism and obsessive behavior to achieve excellence in quality and innovation.

More Icons
Business Leader

Warren Buffett

Lesson: To maximize future rewards by leveraging assets and mitigating risks in a highly rational fashion.

Read More »
Business Leader

Steve Jobs

Lesson: Use perfectionism and obsessive behavior to achieve excellence in quality and innovation.

Read More »

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Instructions

Here are some suggestions for using the icons. Click on the i icon to open this box again.

One-on-Conversations

The icons are useful when conducting any kind of port mortem or difficult conversations, like project, progress, or performance reviews. 

Each person chooses a card that reflects the perspective he wants the other to hear. One person shows the card, and, together, both brainstorm the feedback that the persona would give. Repeat using the second person’s chosen card. Both compare and contrast the feedback and agree on lessons going forward. If deadlocked or otherwise desired, they can choose a third card and perform the feedback again

Expectations Setting

Use the icons at the start of project or with a team to understand each person’s default behaviors and identify potential conflicts.  

Each person chooses three cards: one that best represents her, one that she would most like to work with on the project, and one she would least like to work with. Each discusses her picks and agrees to actions for working together.

Team building

The goals are to create awareness of missing skills and traits on the team, use the personalities to fill those gaps, and to improve team creativity by role-playing other perspectives.

Review the cards to determine which personas the team needs but is lacking. Conducting the expectations setting exercise first may help. Create virtual seats for these leaders and assign team members the responsibilities for representing these perspectives.

 

Brainstorming

During brainstorming, choose cards at random and generate ideas as the leader personas. Alternately, team members can act as the leaders during the meetings.

Meeting feedback

At the end of the meeting, each participant, including the meeting leader, chooses a card, either randomly or deliberately, and takes turns providing feedback in the manner of the personality. Alternately, the meeting leader can choose cards at random and ask participants for feedback in that leader’s perspective.

Personal Development (method acting)

1. Look through the profiles and read the summary sections with the lessons, goals, principles, traits, and values. Find one that “speaks” to you or that has a lesson you could use at the moment. Liking the person or sharing that person’s values is irrelevant, though it may require slightly more effort on your part.

2.  Keep in mind that you control the experience and can adopt as much or as little as you feel comfortable doing. Most of the changes you will be making will be internal, in your thought processes and resultant behaviors, and you are not expected to impersonate someone outwardly like you would for Halloween or a play.

3. Explanation of sections:

  • To get into character– This section describes clothing, speech, and eating habits to adopt. The purpose of this is to break out of your routine and ingrained patterns of behavior. If you start the day eating or dressing differently, you will be more likely to act differently. Use your judgment to determine the extent of the changes needed to change your habits without being disruptive.
  • Activities Alone – Conduct these activities first as they are meant to help you get into character and better understand that person’s values and motivation. They are also indicative of activities the character performs on a regular basis. Again, use your judgment regarding which activities make sense for you, but please make sure you do at least some.
  • Activities with Others – Again, choose which activities pertain most to your situation. These are an excellent opportunity to practice being your persona and solicit advice from others on “What would this person do?”
  • Behaviors – While activities are one-off or have a concrete start and end, the behaviors and questions should be ongoing when you are enacting the profile.

4. It should take you somewhere between 1-3 weeks to master the character. We recommend that you plan on two weeks, and continue if you need more time to fully internalize the persona. Thinking like the persona or exhibiting their behaviors without thinking are signs that you have internalized the skills. We encourage you to tell the people you are with what you are doing so that they can help you master the character and provide feedback. It’s perfectly acceptable to ask others what they think that person would do.

5. If you have trouble getting started or feel stuck, just ask yourself “What would this person do?