Fans of edgy comedy—and critics of the political establishment—are mourning the death of George Carlin. Most of us know this game-changing comedian through his riff on the "seven words you can never say on television." (Warning: This "Seven Dirty Words" clip on YouTube does indeed contain some pretty dirty words.)

But George Carlin made another contribution to the language—believe it or not, to the language of business and innovation. The term he coined was "vuja dé"—and it's become a battle cry of sorts for innovators who aspire to make big change by identifying opportunities that others don't see.

We all know déjà vu—looking at an unfamiliar situation and feeling like you’ve been there before. But what's valuable to innovation is vuja dé—looking at a familiar situation with fresh eyes, as if you’ve never seen it before, and with those fresh eyes developing a new line of sight into the future.

Let's face it: Most companies in most industries have a kind of tunnel vision. They chase the same opportunities that everyone else is chasing, they miss the same opportunities that everyone else is missing. It’s the companies that see a different game that win big. The most important question for innovators today is: What do you see that the competition doesn't see?

Answering that question requires vuja dé. And vuja dé requires a radical shift in perspective—which is why outsiders often see the future first. It’s also one of the big limitations of benchmarking. The most creative CEOs I’ve met don’t aspire to learn from the “best in class” in their industry—especially when the best in class aren’t all that great. They aspire to learn from companies far outside their field as a way to shake things up and make real change.

I first heard the term from Tom Kelley of IDEO, in his book The Ten Faces of Innovation. Tom reports that he heard the term from Stanford Professor Bob Sutton, who explores it in his book, Weird Ideas that Work. And Bob reports that George Carlin was the original inventor. This blog post from Tom gives a pretty good history of the term.

And now you've heard it from me! (Actually, in psychological circles, the more formal term is jamais vu, defined as "a sense of eeriness and the observer's impression of seeing a situation for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before.")

So the next time you feel stuck, like you're cycling through the same tired thinking about the same old problems, figure out a way to look at things fresh—to apply the virtues of vuja dé. It just might unleash a new approach to innovation—and prevent you, in your frustration, from using one of the seven words you can can never say on TV!

Thanks for the laughs, George, and thanks for helping us see the world with fresh eyes.

Boston is bathed in green now that the Celtics have secured their 17th World Championship banner after a 22-year drought. I had the great fortune to attend Game 6 and cheer on this likeable team, as three spectacular performers (Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen) coalesced to do together what none of them had ever been able to do on their own—win an NBA title. It was a memorable night, filled with respect for the players and their coach, with nostalgia for the great teams and players in Celtics history, and with anticipation that this banner might be the first of several to be hoisted in Boston in the next few years.

It’s always fun to try to apply lessons from sports to the world of business—even though usually, as I’ve written in a previous post, the lessons are pretty limited. In this case, though, the re-emergence of the NBA’s most storied franchise can teach important lessons about leadership and teamwork—and teach us why, even as so much of the competitive environment changes all around us, the rules of success remain largely the same.

Indeed, what struck me most about Game 6 was how the success of the 2007-2008 Celtics blended leadership wisdom from the past with a cultural sensibility rooted in the present. Or, to put it more simply, how the unlikely combination of Red Auerbach and Archbishop Desmond Tutu inspired the team on its championship run.

The influence of Red Auerbach is obvious. I was choked up and literally choking towards the end of Game 6, as fans around me lit up cigars in tribute to the legendary coach, general manager, and president of the Boston Celtics—the man most responsible for those first 16 championship banners.

The best way to understand the genius of Red Auerbach, and to appreciate how relevant his ideas were to the current Celtics, is to re-read an interview he did with HBR back in 1987, shortly after the Celtics won their 16th title. My friend and Fast Company co-founder Alan Webber conducted the interview, and it is filled with insights about how to create teamwork in an organization, how to evaluate performance in ways that go beyond statistics, and how one bozo at the top (in this case, John Y. Brown, who co-owned the Celtics briefly) could jeopardize in a year what it had took decades to build.

“How do you motivate the players?” Alan asked, expecting, I imagine, a complicated, multi-faceted answer. “Pride, that’s all,” Red answered. “Pride of excellence. Pride of winning. I tell our guys, ‘Isn’t it nice to go around all summer and say that you’re a member of the greatest basketball team in the world.’”

No wonder so many fans at Game 6 wore T-shirts emblazoned with messages about “Celtics pride”—a mystique that Red Auerbach invented, and this team finally restored, not because they won this game, but because of how they played all year.

But there was a second legendary leader whose values hovered over the court during Game 6. At the beginning of the season, searching for a way to inspire three great players to sacrifice on behalf of team goals, coach “Doc” Rivers read a collection of speeches by South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu. At the center of the speeches was the concept of “ubuntu”—a term from the Bantu languages of southern Africa that’s hard to translate into English but boils down to a simple but rich idea: “I am because of you.”

As Tutu explained, “A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished…”

The players took to the idea with real passion—they wore “ubuntu” on their wristbands, they chanted “ubuntu” as they broke the huddle, and, most important, they played selflessly, as if infused by the philosophy about which Archbishop Tutu spoke so eloquently.

Call it pride. Call it something more exotic. But it’s still what separates mediocre organizations from champions. And it’s why, the morning after Game 6, I ordered a different kind of T-shirt. It’s green, of course, featuring the Celtics shamrock, but it has only one word on it: Ubuntu.

Dave Balter, founder and CEO of BzzAgent, is my kind of innovator. First of all, he hasn't just started a high-profile, fast-growing company—he helped invent an entire field. To be sure, word-of-mouth marketing was around long before Dave and his colleagues started their agency in Boston. But BzzAgent's success, and Dave's personal thought leadership in the area, has taken the field to whole new levels of impact and professionalism.

Second, he is the kind of entrepreneur who insists on walking his talk—no matter how controversial the actions may be. Dave's entire philosophy of business is about the virtues of transparency and the power of interaction. So, as I have written in a previous GameChanger post, he and his colleagues have opened up the inner workings of BzzAgent, turning their corporate blog into a warts-and-all look at how BzzAgent really operates.

Well, in the spirit of walking the talk, Dave has done it again—and all of you get to benefit from his commitment to innovation! Like many idea-driven entrepreneurs, Dave decided to publish a book, in this case, a short, insatiably useful guide to the state-of-the-art in his field. The book is called The Word of Mouth Manual Volume II, and if you have any curiosity about how to get customers to start talking about your products and services, you simply must get a copy.

And that's where the innovation comes in! Dave has persuaded a collection of bloggers who believe in what he is doing to write about the book and suggest that their readers check it out. We're all doing it on the same day—today—and of course we're free to say whatever we'd like. In return for our being part of this experiment, our readers—that's you!—get to download Dave's book for free.

That's right: This book, which I guarantee will be of tremendous value as you think about the best way to raise the visibility of whatever you're doing, is available to you at no cost. You can download it here. Of course, if you're a traditionalist, you can also buy it from Amazon.com here.

I hope Dave's publishing experiment works for him (and you) because it demonstrates some game-changing approaches to the new world of marketing. It starts, of course, with a terrific product—something worth talking about. It then leverages a strategy to get people talking—in this case offering a valuable book at no cost. And finally, that strategy relies on allies and enthusiasts to help carry the message—people who are prepared to talk about what Dave and his colleagues are doing because they believe that they are advancing a cause, not just peddling a product.

My advice? Download the book, talk about it inside your company, and ask how you can apply its ideas to get other people talking about your products.

I’ve always believed that the first step in any successful venture is to establish a clear definition of what it means to succeed. And there’s something about business that convinces most executives that being successful means doing more: generating more revenue, hiring more people, launching products with more features. If you want to win big, the only choice is to “one-up” your competition and “out-do” your rivals. Right?

Not if you’re one of the programming wizards at 37Signals, a fast-growing company that is winning converts in the marketplace based on its commitment to “one-down” the competition and “under-do” its rivals. Talk about a strategic mind-flip: In a competitive environment defined by bloated products, hyped-up marketing, and financial excess, the way to succeed more is to do less.

There’s no question that 37Signals is succeeding. The company doesn’t just have customers, it has raving fans, and its leaders are certified Web celebrities. Its offerings, such as its Basecamp project-management software and its Highrise contact-management software, are refreshing models of simplicity in an industry ruled (and haunted) by complexity.

During a recent visit to Chicago, I visited 37Signals and spent some time with founder Jason Fried and his colleague David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the much-celebrated Ruby on Rails programming framework. (Twitter and many other Web 2.0 services are built on Ruby on Rails.) As it turns out, Jason, David and their colleagues don’t just have a simpler-is-better philosophy for writing software—they have a philosophy for building a business, and it’s every bit as well-defined as their code.

“When you’re competing against companies that have so much more, the only answer is to do less,” Jason and David told me. “Do less than your competitors to beat them. Instead of one-upping other companies, one-down them. Instead of out-doing other products, under-do them.”

I get it, I responded: Less is more, right? Jason and David shook their heads. “No, less is less—because more is not better! Everyone tries to do too much: solve too many problems, build products with too many features. Our goal is to do less, to build half a product rather than a half-assed product. So we say ‘no’ to almost everything. If you include every decent idea that comes along, you'll just wind up with a half-assed version of your product. What you really want to do is build half a product that kicks ass.”

That’s why, as products strategists, Jason and David focus on customers with smaller budgets, less bureaucracy, and fewer headaches. Most technology companies are obsessed with the “enterprise” market—Fortune 500 giants with complicated problems and big budgets. 37Signals builds software for entrepreneurs and small companies where the executives who buy the product also use the product—a market that they call the Fortune 5,000,000: “We solve the simple problems and leave the hairy, difficult, nasty problems to everyone else,” the company likes to say.

It’s a provocative challenge to a business culture addicted to more—whether that’s features of finances. “Revenue growth in and of itself is not a goal,” Jason and David insist. “We are about profits—profits per employee. And growth forever is not sustainable. There is a right size for certain things, at least if you want to do them well.”

That’s why, as entrepreneurs, Jason and David push themselves to spend less money and hire fewer colleagues. They also insist on working fewer hours. The company recently adopted an official four-day workweek, the better to keep everyone fresh, energized, and forced to avoid distractions.

“Don't hire people,” they implore in Getting Real, their Web-based book that is chock-a-block with great advice. “Look for another way. Is the work that's burdening you really necessary? What if you just don't do it? Can you solve the problem with a slice of software or a change of practice instead?”

Products that offer fewer features. Fewer employees who work fewer hours. Leaders who reject growth for growth’s sake. It’s the formula for success at 37Signals—and food for thought for the rest of us. Are you ready to succeed by one-downing the competition and under-doing your rivals?

Every so often, writers click with their audience in ways they never expect—and learn something important in the process. I’ve had that experience in the last week, when my most recent "Game Changer" post spread across the media landscape like wildfire, generating all sorts of attention on the Internet, landing on a national radio program, even being featured in the pages of The New York Times and other major newspapers.

My original post focused on what Zappos, the online shoe retailer, calls The Offer. When Zappos hires new customer-service employees, it provides a four-week training period that immerses them in the company’s strategy, culture, and obsession with customers. After a week or so in this immersive experience, though, the company says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit! Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you don’t have the sense of commitment Zappos is looking for.

When I wrote about The Offer, I thought it was interesting because of how it applied to companies: Should more organizations pay their people to quit? But I’m convinced that my blog post generated so much attention because readers began to apply it to themselves: How big a “bribe” would I accept in order to stop doing what I am doing—and what does my answer say about how satisfied I am with my position and career?

As it turns out, that’s a question some high-powered business thinkers have asked as well. Jim Collins, one of the world’s most influential strategy gurus, began Good to Great, his record-shattering bestseller about corporate performance, with a story about what he did as he was finishing the manuscript. He went for a long run up a steep trail in Colorado, stopped to enjoy the view, when, he says, an “odd question” popped into his head: “How much would someone have to pay me not to publish Good to Great?” As the hypothetical price got higher and higher, and he still was prepared to publish the book, he finished his “interesting thought experiment” and came down from the trail convinced about his enthusiasm for the project.

So, in the spirit of the zany folks at Zappos, and the classic work of Jim Collins, perhaps it’s time to think seriously about how you would answer that question: How much money would it take for you to walk away from your company and your colleagues? Would your answer surprise your friends and family because the price is so high? (Meaning that you love what you do.) Or does the answer make you uncomfortable because the price is so low? (Meaning that your current job is selling you short.)

There’s no right answer, of course. But the answer may help you to figure out if your current job is truly right for you.

I spend a lot of time visiting with companies and figuring out what ideas they represent and what lessons we can learn from them. I usually leave these visits underwhelmed. There are plenty of companies with a hot product, a hip style, or a fast-rising stock price that are, essentially, one-trick ponies—they deliver great short-term results, but they don’t stand for anything big or important for the long term.

Every so often, though, I spend time with a company that is so original in its strategy, so determined in its execution, and so transparent in its thinking, that it makes my head spin. Zappos is one of those companies. Two weeks ago, I paid a visit to Zappos headquarters in Henderson, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas, and spent time with CEO Tony Hsieh and his colleagues. I could write a whole series of posts (and just might) about what I learned from this incredible operation. But I want to focus this post on one small practice that offers big lessons for leaders who are serious about changing the game in their field—and filling their organization with people who are just as committed as they are.

First, some background. As most of you know, Zappos sells shoes—lots of them—over the Internet. The company expects to generate sales of more than $1 billion this year, up from just $70 million five years ago. Part of the reason for Zappos’s meteoric success is that it got the economics and operations right. It offers customers a huge selection—four million pairs of shoes (and other items, such as handbags and apparel) in a warehouse in Kentucky next to a UPS hub. (If Imelda Marcos visited that warehouse she'd likely have a coronary on the spot.) It also offers free delivery and free returns—if you don’t like the shoes, you box them up and send them back to Zappos for no charge.

So the value proposition is a winner. But it’s the emotional connection that seals the deal. This company is fanatical about great service—not just satisfying customers, but amazing them. The company promises free, four-day delivery. That’s pretty good. But most of the time it delivers next-day service, a surprise that leaves a lasting impression on customers: “You said four days, but I got them the next morning.”

Zappos has also mastered the art of telephone service—a black hole for most Internet retailers. Zappos publishes its 1-800 number on every single page of the site—and its smart and entertaining call-center employees are free to do whatever it takes to make you happy. There are no scripts, no time limits on calls, no robotic behavior, and plenty of legendary stories about Zappos and its customers.

This is a company that’s bursting with personality, to the point where a huge number of its 1,600 employees are power users of Twitter so that their friends, colleagues, and customers know what they’re up to at any moment in time. But here’s what’s really interesting. It’s a hard job, answering phones and talking to customers for hours at a time. So when Zappos hires new employees, it provides a four-week training period that immerses them in the company’s strategy, culture, and obsession with customers. People get paid their full salary during this period.

After a week or so in this immersive experience, though, it’s time for what Zappos calls “The Offer.” The fast-growing company, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit!

Why? Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later. (About ten percent of new call-center employees take the money and run.)

Indeed, CEO Tony Hsieh and his colleagues keep raising the size of the quit-now bonus. It started at $100, went to $500, and may well go higher than $1,000 as the company gets bigger (and it becomes even more difficult to maintain the all-important culture and obsession with customers.)

It’s a small practice with big implications: Companies don’t engage emotionally with their customers—people do. If you want to create a memorable company, you have to fill your company with memorable people. How are you making sure that you’re filling your organization with the right people? And how much are you willing to pay to find out?

More on Employee Management:

• Showcase Your Company's Employee Experience
• How Do You Motivate Employees?
• 10 Reasons Gen Xers Are Unhappy at Work
• The Steinbrenner Management Method
• Memo to a Young Leader: What Kind of Boss Are You?

Also of Interest:

• What It Means to Work Here ($6.50)


• Harvard Business Review on Talent Management ($19.95)