The LIT Manifesto
Our highest priority is to share light and warmth.
We seek to do this in ways that bring people together and equip them to do good work that makes a positive impact in the world. We choose to dedicate our skills and gifts towards that end.
We help teams build, evolve and sustain innovative cultures.
We focus our culture building practice on collaboratively identifying, selecting, and expressing productive beliefs through collective behaviors.
We help teams adopt systematic innovation structures...
...not workflows or processes or checklists. These structures are based on tools and methods that are playful and powerful, rooted in experimental practice and tailored to each team. These structures help teams see and remove barriers that prevent them from innovating or implementing new ideas effectively.
We value collaboration over competition.
We believe in learning together and helping teams develop collective competencies that amplify individual competencies. We have assembled a loose network of practitioners and coaches, authors and speakers with deep and diverse experiences. Our network is filled with people who are generous, curious, playful, and humble.
We value simple, low-tech, high-touch, human-centric approaches.
We find them more effective than complicated, tech-centric, impersonal, digital engagements. We believe intellectual capital solves problems better than financial capital.
We believe the best thing anyone can do with a question is share it.
We do not have all the answers, but we have outstanding questions. We help teams discover their own questions and work through them to achieve clarity and consensus that leads to action.
We believe failure is never the end of the story, nor the whole story.
Failure is only part of the story. We define failure as “when effort does not produce the desired result.” Failure is something to be faced, named, and understood – not denied, avoided, or feared.
We believe experiments foster learning and growth.
The best experiments are quick, focused, collaborative, and iterative. We help clients perform experiments that follow a three-part structure: Make a real thing. Show it to a real person. Get a real response.
We believe in the power of "Let's try this.”
The number one risk for any solution is that it goes unused, and an excellent solution that nobody uses is actually a crummy solution. To address this risk, we adopt a collaborative, experimental, inclusive approach designed to ensure people understand, accept, and are willing to try the solution.
We define innovation as “novelty with impact.”
We value impact over novelty. We believe the most impactful solutions are typically rooted in thrift, speed, and simplicity.
Effective solutions to gnarly problems are the primary measure of our success.
In order for a team to develop an effective solution, they must first establish a shared understanding of the problem itself, then build clarity and consensus around what success looks like.
We believe the time to start is now.