I can't help it. I'm almost forty years old, and I love watching “Phineas and Ferb.” Yes, it's a children's cartoon. Yes, it's a little bizarre. Yes, it features a secret-agent platypus. But it's grown on me like mold on cheese, and I cannot contain my ruminations on the show any longer. First, a little background for those of you unfamiliar with the show: The title characters are creative, late-elementary school-aged step-brothers who can build anything…and do. Their goal is to make each day of summer vacation a spectacular one to remember. Each episode begins with a problem and revolves around the boys engineering an other-worldly solution (building a roller coaster, spaceship, clones of themselves, etc.).
The "B" plot always revolves around Perry, the boys' pet platypus, who works in the aforementioned secret agent role to thwart the inventions of the evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz. The show is more formulaic than algebra, but that's part of its charm. Each episode ends with Dr. Doofenshmirtz' invention destroying all evidence of the boys' project, much to the chagrin of their older sister, who expends all of her energies trying to "bust" her brothers and show her mom what they've been doing.
It's a fun and funny show, and as I said it grows on you, especially once you start to get the silly conventions. But this is not a TV review; it's a musing on building and maintaining high-performing teams. We know it's not rocket science, but it can be daunting. As with anything else, when you've got information overload, it's hard to know where to begin. Getting back to basics isn't a bad start. What better way to do so than to take a few tried-and-true clues from some high-performing kids! Here are three things that struck me about the show:
1. People make things happen when they're positive. From a parental perspective, I was very pleased to note how incredibly positive this show is. No matter the situation, the protagonists are optimistic. Every complication becomes a new challenge, welcomed as if it were a feature and not a bug. On the flip side, their sister spends all of her time pursuing a negative agenda, trying to bring Phineas and Ferb down. Best case scenario... it works. Worst case, you've spent all your time being angry, with nothing to show for it, and you may have missed out on a lot of fun along the way. This sets a great example not just for kids, but for adults as well.
2. You have heroes everywhere. Perry the Platypus saves the world in every episode, but nobody knows it. As Phineas says, "He's a platypus. He doesn't do much." While your employees may not be playing cloak-and-dagger to stop an evil scientist from, say, covering your city in tinfoil, or causing every building in the world to lean so that the Leaning Tower of Pisa would no longer be special, they may be saving your company in ways you never expected and will likely never know about, which is perhaps the real "evil" in corporate America today. Who are the Perry the Platypuses in your company? What are you doing to acknowledge them?
3. Know what you're gonna do today. When the main plot complication is revealed, Phineas' solution is not far behind. "Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today!" is the phrase that sets the brothers in motion on their adventure du jour and provides a singular focus for their ambitions for the rest of the day. It's amazing how often we adults lack this focus in our daily work. Too often we have a vague idea of what we're going to "work on" today, a notion that becomes ever dimmer as we get buffeted about on waves of email, meetings, and instant messages, all essentially pulling us to do something else. Therefore, I propose The Ferb Challenge. Take two minutes while you load up on coffee and your computer boots-up to verbalize to someone (anyone) the one thing you're going to get done today. If you've got a big project, do your best to define exactly which pieces you're going to get done. Tell your boss, your dog, or your mom. Yell it, whisper it, or Tweet it. Doesn’t matter how or to whom- just do it, and hold yourself accountable.
OK, so this post was a bit gimmicky, but you read it, didn't you? Hope it was worth a few minutes of your time. Now what are you waiting for? What are you gonna do today?