Pablos Holman embodies the hacker ethos – he believes every barrier can be conquered; his curiosity and sense of exploration define his being. He believes in defying traditional approaches, challenging “proven” assumptions. His disregard for current systems, coupled with a desire to break things for the sake of breaking them, makes him perfectly equipped to tackle problems in any field. Embrace hacker mindset #1 – Every Barrier Can Be Penetrated – and you’ll be equally suited to topple the most insurmountable obstacles you face.
COMPASSES OVER MAPS
This principle is based on a directional aim at a desired outcome rather than a focus on a specific route to the finish line. Hackers shun step-by-step directions and believe meaningful progress is achieved better and faster by a willingness to adapt quickly along the journey. Hundreds of course corrections or micro-innovations yield a better result than pre-programming a route in advance and mindlessly following directions.
A map, you may say, is certainly a handy tool to help you reach your destination. When the map is accurate, you can sit back and follow your course, no thinking required. Your brain can really take a vacation if you’re using the GPS guidance from Google Maps or Waze. When the system tells you exactly how to navigate every twist and turn, you can focus elsewhere and simply comply. But what if the map is wrong? When conditions change, such as roadwork or an accident, your GPS system no longer maximizes efficiency. Or when new roads are built before the system is updated, you find yourself relying on an outdated set of instructions.
Think about how you and your team navigate the work in your own organization. Do people require detailed, step-by-step maps of exactly what to do at every moment? Management-by-operating-manuals worked fine back in the days when markets were local, customers were homogenous, product cycles occurred over decades, and complexity was minimal. Workers didn’t need to think all that much on their own, as long as following the map would ensure their safe arrival.
But with today’s furious speed and mind-numbing complexities, there’s no such thing as a map to success. Naïve bosses who still hand out maps don’t understand that the model no longer works. The cost to produce a map in the past may have been justified, since change was slow. But we now face a rapidly proliferating rate of change – imagine the difficulty of creating a street map if the roadways completely changed five times an hour. Not to mention, business victories now involve pioneering new ground, requiring the equivalent of off-roading through uncharted territory.
When teams or organizations turn off their brains and simply follow the corporate GPS, progress shrivels. Empowering employees to use a compass, by contrast, is a far more effective approach to leadership. Provide a clear vision of your destination point, and give your team the tools to navigate their own paths. Encourage them to make their own informed decisions in the face of ambiguity. Give them the target and resources and then let them use their ingenuity and judgment to find the best route.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that allowed Jessica O. Matthews to chart an unlikely and unprecedented course.
Her eyes were burning, her chest pricked from coughing, and she began to feel dizzy. Seventeen-year-old Jessica was attending a family wedding in Nigeria, but her mood was anything but festive. The trouble began when the power went down, a common occurrence in a region with an insufficient electrical grid. Locals are accustomed to losing electricity seven to nine times a day, forcing their routines awry, but they have routines for the blackouts, too. A diesel generator that was fired up to re-light the wedding was the culprit of Jessica’s discomfort, as exhaust pollution made all the guests’ lungs begin to burn. Her cousins reassured her not to worry, that she’d get used to the poisonous exhaust fumes.
At the point when the air was the cloudiest and thickest, and her oxygen most depleted, Jessica had her moment of clarity. “The saddest thing to me,” said Matthews, “is that they had gotten used to the idea of dying.” This poignant insight led to her mission: to improve humanity by energizing the world.
Jessica went on to earn a Harvard MBA, but instead of following her classmates to Wall Street for a six-figure gig, she decided to double down her commitment to energizing the world. In 2011, she launched a company called Uncharted Play. Her idea was to use kinetic energy to create clean electricity. She recalled her cousins – the same ones acclimated to choking on exhaust fumes – running with joy on the soccer field. “I thought, why can't you take a soccer ball that is already in motion and harness the energy that is being generated during play as an off-grid power source?”
Her passion for creating electricity in non-traditional ways led to her first invention, the Soccket ball. Essentially, she inserted a micro-generator inside a soccer ball that harnesses energy from play. The Soccket can produce three hours of light from each hour on the field.
This is the point where most of us would call it a day. She had created a great soccer ball company that had the added benefit of generating electricity. Jessica’s Harvard training would tell her to pursue distribution channels, maximize profits, and refine production for scale.
But Jessica didn’t think that way. She didn’t think of her company as a soccer ball manufacturer, but instead she was building an organization committed to using movement to create energy. The next invention came quickly, an energy-producing jump rope that could be used indoors. The logical next step would be to expand her business into other energy-creating toys. The company’s mission was to use play to create energy. Or was it?
Remember, she didn’t set out to build a toy or fitness company. Her mission was to generate electricity through movement. The Soccket was just the first stop-off, not the destination on her journey. So her next move was to use her core technology called MORE (Motion-based Off-grid Renewable Energy) and expand into other concepts that could generate power. What about strollers or suitcases that could charge a mobile phone as they are rolled about? The product ideas started to flow. What about licensing their micro-generating systems to other manufacturers so they could be integrated into thousands of products around the world?
Deeply connected to her purpose, Jessica’s company has taken off. Inc. named Uncharted Play one of the “Top 25 Most Audacious Companies in the World.” Fast Company included them among the “World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies,” while Popular Science added them to the “10 Best Things” list. Uncharted Play has been profitable for the last three years, with profit margins doubling each year. At the time of this writing, Jessica is about to close “The largest Series A financing that any black woman has ever raised.” After learning about, and subsequently playing with Jessica’s first invention, President Barack Obama commented, “The Soccket turns one of the most popular games in Africa into a source of electricity and progress.”
Capturing the attention of world leaders, building a remarkably successful company, and driving game-changing humanitarian impact was propelled by the core hacker mindset of Compasses Over Maps. Shifting terrain, unexpected roadblocks, and surprise attacks can be conquered only by travelers who can think and act without detailed instructions. Creativity over compliance. Empowerment over control. Thinking over following. Compasses over maps.
The leaders at software giant Intuit have a saying: “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.” Jessica’s success was fueled by her