Category Archives: General Topics

I love ideas. I think it’s because an idea is always the starting point for a journey. And who doesn’t love a journey?

The ideas that draw my attention are often those that are both practical and creative. That’s not a paradox. Practical and creative are the two criteria that propel society forward. That’s a good thing.

To me, worthy ideas must be either useful or interesting.

A useful idea is one that helps me be more effective. It might make me personally more effective. Maybe it helps me be a better writer, or employee, or musician, or woodworker. Or maybe the idea helps my groups be more effective. Groups are the backbone for major changes of any type. And isn’t that why you join a group? Because you believe in what that group is doing and you want to help it accomplish its mission? So, an idea that helps one of your groups? Golden.

My personal scale for evaluating a useful idea is its ability to meet four criteria:

• Is the idea simple?
• Is the idea practical?
• Is the idea logically complete?
• Is the idea sustainable?

An interesting idea, on the other hand, is not (yet) useful. It’s new to me. It’s creative, often coming from unexpected sources. An interesting idea is one that is potentially useful. Profoundly useful? Even better. It’s the potential that makes it interesting. The more the merrier.

One more thing – and maybe this is obvious. An interesting idea needs to be incomplete. It must have gaps, either logically or procedurally. It needs me to invest some thought to fill in those gaps. Because it’s the gaps that make it interesting. That’s where the potential hides.

Once those gaps are filled in, then the idea either becomes useful, or not. But no longer interesting.

I take satisfaction from useful ideas. But I derive joy from interesting ones.

I’m not sure, exactly, why I thought about this. But it turns out that there’s a good metaphor in here.

You have to understand. Even though I’m working on creating several business opportunities, I’m not sure that I really think of myself as an entrepreneur. I’m not doubting my skills. I’m doubting my interest in doing all of those things that entrepreneurs really do.

Something I read recently made me think of flowers as a metaphor for ideas.

See, I love ideas. That’s what drives me. I read a lot. I synthesize concepts from one domain and see parallels in other domains. Or, sometimes, I see an “awesome” new idea that’s “taking the country by storm” and know that it’s really just crap. It’s the same-old, same-old with some consultant’s enthusiastic diatribe heaped on top.

So, here’s my parallel to flowers.

I plant flowers. I plant lots of flowers. Some grow. Others don’t. But I do it because I enjoy the flowers. The flowers, themselves, make me happy.

Entrepreneurs arrange those flowers. Maybe my flowers, maybe someone else’s. But, they turn an abstract concept (beauty) into something that is packaged and can directly impact a consumer. More power to them!

And, to flesh this out, managers are different, still. They are more about maintenance. They make sure that the flower vase has plenty of water. It’s important to get as much value as possible out of the flower arrangement.

I know that I could arrange flowers if I wanted to. It’s not rocket science. I would probably do a better job than most. In fact, I’m working on a couple of flower arrangements at the moment. But, they don’t compel me deep into the night. It’s just not my first instinct. I would rather plant a hundred more flowers and see which ones are prettiest and healthiest.

Sometimes I think I have too many flowers. I probably need a flower arranger as a partner.

So, last night I was working on some new idea. As I was fleshing out this idea (it will end up being brilliant, no doubt) I needed to answer the question of who I share it with. In other words, who benefits from this idea?

Who’s it for? Well, for everyone. But, not because I truly believe my idea is that impactful. It’s actually because it would be way too presumptuous for me to categorize others and say, essentially, that “this is for you, but not for that other person”. Ideas need to be set free. I need to trust others to decide if there’s any tiny bit of value that they can pluck out.

But I know that understanding a new idea can be a lot of work. And if I make that work too hard, they’ll drop it. And maybe lose out in some small way. That got me thinking about “viewing ports”.

I know that I could be in one of many different frames of mind at any moment. Sometimes I’m a writer. Other times a parent. Or employee. Or lots of other things. If I viewed some new idea, especially a complex one, with my “writer” lens, I might dismiss it. But if I viewed the same new idea with my “parent” lens, it might impact me profoundly. It seems a shame that I might miss out on some profound parent-insight simply because I was in the wrong frame of mind when I started reading about some new idea.

So, here’s the concept. I have something that I want to explain. Rather than make the other person do the extra work to sort it out, I wonder if there might be some value in me doing the extra work to create multiple viewing ports into my idea. Then I could explicitly say if you’re in this particular frame of mind start with this part of the idea and I’ll walk you through it. But, if you’re in this other frame of mind, start over there and I’ll walk you through it a different way.

I’m not exactly sure how to do that yet. But it seems like yet one more idea worth considering.

This was a beautiful week for walking here in the Chicago area. I thought this might be a down year for fall colors, but I was wrong. It’s been spectacular. That got me thinking about trees. Trees get to the end of a successful year. They celebrate their success openly and spectacularly. Then, they go dormant for a while and focus on what’s important to their health. They take the time to get stronger – because next year won’t be the same as last year. Different amounts of rain, heat, sun – something is always different. So invest the time to prepare for the challenges that come next. Reinvention is built right into their growth cycle. First, gather strength. Then grow and thrive. Then celebrate. Then — reinvent and start again, always becoming stronger for the next set of challenges.

My name is Charles D. Schrock. My friends know me as “Bud”. Everything I say here is strictly my own personal thoughts and opinions. These are not necessarily endorsed by my employer or anyone else.

I have been an internal audit and risk management professional since I left my ‘mandatory’ post-college  public accounting stint in 1979. Virtually all of my career has been in the commercial banking sector. I started with a fabulous banking group in suburban Chicago where I  worked alongside extremely smart and successful entrepreneurs (our owners and executive leadership team). As Director of Internal Audit I saw that  managing risk (not necessarily “ERM”) is something that successful leaders do. Unfortunately, all these years later, risk management is still a poorly understood concept that is much beloved by big consultants looking for ever bigger consulting fees. That doesn’t need to be the case.

I will be writing about risk management, entrepreneurship, internal audit, and management practices. My goal is to help make these concepts accessible to other entrepreneurs.

I’m not sure yet exactly what direction this blog will take. I hope to periodically comment on current events relating to internal audit or risk management. However, knowing myself reasonably well, I often get so immersed in my day job that it may take some weeks before my next blog post. During those weeks something significant may have slipped by me. So, please don’t count on me to summarize the important risk management events of the day.

Thanks. Stay tuned.