About John

“John Abele is a pioneer and leader in the field of less-invasive medicine, For more than four decades, John has devoted himself to innovation in health care, business and solving social problems.” He is retired Founding Chairman of Boston Scientific Corporation. John holds numerous patents and has published and lectured extensively on the technology of various medical devices and on the technical, social, economic, and political trends and issues affecting healthcare. His major interests are science literacy for children, education, and the process by which new technology is invented, developed, and introduced to society. Current activities include Chair of the FIRST Foundation which works with high school kids to make being science-literate cool and fun, and development of The Kingbridge Centre and Institute, a conferencing institution whose mission is to research, develop, and teach improved methods for interactive conferencing: problem solving, conflict resolution, strategic planning, new methods for learning and generally help groups to become “Collectively intelligent.” He lives with his wife and two dogs in Shelburne, Vermont.”

How do you introduce a totally new concept to a skeptical market?

Posted on June 17, 2013 by John

Explore some of the idiosyncrasies of changing not only organizational culture but market perception with John Abele, Co-Founder Boston Scientific – a medical device company that helped pave the way for less invasive medicine.

Today’s Kingbridge Insight from Owner, John Abele:

“When introducing a new idea to a skeptical group, market or society, it is important to start small and build a band of disciples. They must be believers who are knowledgeable, eloquent, passionate and resourceful. They won’t be present leaders. They will be future leaders. The establishment is inherently resistant to change. They need to be won over by demonstration and understatement, not hyperbole. The successful future leaders will be courageous and patient.” ~ John Abele

Collaborative crowdsourcing the Boston Marathon bombers, and more

Posted on May 2, 2013 by John

For me, the response to the marathon bombings has been a fascinating example of the new open and empowered world we live in today. I am fascinated by the collaboration between expert groups and the public at large in putting this story together.

As these two young Chechen terrorists discovered, it’s hard to hide nowadays. Multiple security cameras documented much of their movements at the bombing site and many more personal digital cameras, both still and video, covered other aspects of the event, and much of their movements afterwards.

More importantly, tweets, Facebook pages and other social media, along with more traditional television news , kept massive numbers of both local and distant observers up to date on what was going on minute by minute. A lot of the early reports were wrong, but gradually the wisdom of crowds phenomenon, along with dogged reporting by professional journalists kept putting the pieces together and got it right. Despite strong criticism from the FBI and some older professionals about the out-of-control speculation that would damage reputations of innocent people (“leave the police work to the professionals”), it is hard to argue against the fact that public participation, and collaboration, substantially shortened the time frame to capture and understanding why and how it happened.

Just as important and amazing was the extraordinary leaderless collaboration from hundreds, maybe thousands, of individuals, including runners, observers and total strangers who rushed to help the wounded at the site and in the hospitals. They knew what to do without guidance. Area hospitals were well coordinated to share treating the wounded. Hospital personnel, many off duty, heard the news and returned to help staff their team in preparation for the arrival of a rash of ambulances. Others organized fund raising drives to help the families whose lives had been so disrupted.

Perhaps the greatest outcome of this outpouring of caring and constructive assistance is the positive culture of this community that comes from recognizing they can all contribute to overcoming tragedy.

I’d like to think every community can do this.

This week’s Kingbridge knowledge gift is a suggestion for creating a climate of collaboration. And it is to practice random acts of kindness. You might say my “knowledge gift” is to share knowledge gifts. If you give something away with no expectations of getting something in return, you can create a “pay-it-forward” mind set. But, there is a delicate balance and a bit of a paradox. It can’t be seen as selling. That will be viewed as a hidden agenda. And it shouldn’t be seen as sympathy, or just kindness. That can come across as disempowering or condescending. Ideally it should come across as sharing a passion or a lesson that shows caring and respect.

Go Green and Beat Brain Fatigue

Posted on April 18, 2013 by John

Every Friday night in summer the mass exodus from the city begins as urbanites head north for some time in nature to relax and ‘recharge’. It seems instinctual that rejuvenation both physical and mental is best achieved surrounded by green space and now thanks to researchers at Heriot-Watt University and The University of Edinburgh our instincts have been confirmed.

Our “Kingbridge Knowledge Gift” for this week comes from owner, John Abele.

Scientists have known for some time that the brains ability to stay calm and focused is limited and can be overwhelmed when inundated with the noise and chaos of city living. This inability to focus and forgetfulness that comes from the brain being overwhelmed is known as brain fatigue. Although the cause of brain fatigue has become common knowledge there hasn’t, until recently, been any credible method to confirm the theory that time spent in green space not only does not induce brain fatigue but can in fact relieve it.

In The New York Times article “Easing Brain Fatigue with a Walk in the Woods” author Gretchen Reynolds summarizes the study originally published in The British Journal of Sports Medicine where researchers attached cutting edge portable Electroencephalograms to 12 healthy adults in order to measure brain wave activity in different environments.

Once outfitted with their portable equipment each subject was sent out for a short walk that would take them through 3 different sections of Edinburgh. The first half mile took the walkers through a historic shopping district with attractive old buildings and minimal traffic. The next half mile led through a park like setting with plenty of green space. Finally, the last leg of the walk took them through a busy industrial area with concrete buildings and heavy vehicle traffic.

The researchers compared the EEG readings for wave patterns related to frustration, mental alertness and calm or meditative. The results finally confirmed the long standing theory that time spent in green space relieves brain fatigue.

The results consistently demonstrated that when the walkers were in the urbanized areas, particularly the industrial area at the end of the walk, that their brain showed frustration and distraction. However, while in the park setting brain waves were more meditative and mentally quieter.

Now, mentally quiet does not mean the brain is not engaged, it simply means that the engagement is effortless. Thus, the brain is not taxed and is able to contemplate and reflect clearly at the same time as opposed to urban environments that consume our brain function preventing us from focusing our attentions effectively elsewhere.

This study suggests that taking a break from work for a walk in the park or even pausing to spend some time looking out the office window at green space is not at all unproductive, in fact quite the opposite. Taking some time during the day to quiet our brain can serve to prevent brain fatigue and therefore increase our ability to focus and work productively.

The TED Meeting Phenomenon – Chapter 2

Posted on March 4, 2013 by John

In the previous blog I explained the history of the TED Meeting (actually the official name is the TED Conference) and how it has become a new genre of dialogue that has both grown and been copied around the world.

Richard Saul Wurman sold the TED Meeting to Chris Anderson, a British entrepreneur and publisher in 2001. Anderson bought it through his Sapling Foundation so that it became a not-for-profit. Despite the high cost of admission, which was $6000 per person in 2007, demand for the event and related activities, including international meetings, continued to grow dramatically, and the prestige of having given a “TED Talk” grew with it (great for your resume). Anderson was a creative marketer and came up with TED Prizes, TED Fellows and other initiatives which strengthened the TED community.

He continued to video the presentations as Wurman had done before, but decided to experiment with the idea of putting some of them online for free. The response was so phenomenal that he decided to turn his concept upside down. Since his vision had always been “Ideas Worth Spreading” he built a website around the talks. The conference was the engine to generate the great content, but the website was the amplifier to take these ideas to the world. In July 2012, a total of 1300 TED talks had been posted, with 5 to 7 additional talks posted every week. In June, 2011, the number of views passed 500 million. By November, 2012 it had exceeded one billion! If you’ve watched a TED video you have to appreciate the production quality of each talk. Multiple cameras, excellent audio and professional operators assure first class output.

Obviously not every talk is fabulous. So, not every talk is posted. But the real reason there are so many good talks is that Anderson introduced a new concept in 2009 called “TEDx”.

As the TED website explains, Continue reading →

The TED Meeting Phenomenon

Posted on February 25, 2013 by John

Why are lessons from TED meetings so extraordinarily relevant to running successful businesses and organizations?

Have you watched a TED video? Many millions of people have. The TED meeting and its children, TEDx meetings, have become a popular genre for sharing ideas. Indeed, the motto of TED is “Ideas worth sharing”. There are many thousands of these meetings conducted around the world today. Understanding where they came from and how they work will be the subject of several upcoming blogs.

The TED meetings were started by Richard Saul Wurman, an architect and prolific author, in the early 1980s. “TED” stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. For Wurman, the idea was like having a personal dinner party in which the guests were very knowledgeable and experienced in certain fields, extremely articulate, and passionate about their beliefs. They weren’t trying to sell you anything, they were sharing their most intimate discoveries and passions. Speakers came from many backgrounds and spoke about totally unrelated topics. Architects have to be integrators, so he was ‘architecting’ a meeting. He even wrote a fascinating book called “Information Architects”.

Wurman was able to attract some amazing leaders in various fields to come and share their ideas. He was also very good at juxtaposing speakers in a way that inspired the audience to think. The audience members were just as prestigious in their fields as were the speakers. Part of the ritual was that speakers had exactly 18 minutes to do their presentation. Wurman would give a short introduction and let them speak. As they got close to the allotted time, he would come on stage and start walking closer. In extreme cases he would escort them off. There were no questions allowed. Instead, he provided for one hour breaks between groups of talks to give the audience plenty of time to interact with both speakers and each other.

He developed a “10 Commandments for TED Speakers” that exists with some variations to today. Here is the version I received in preparation for my TEDMed talk in 2009: Continue reading →

Finding the Right Language

Posted on February 4, 2013 by John

We may all speak English, but “language”, in this case, refers to how we communicate to find common understanding. And that’s hard.

It’s not just academics versus business people. Different businesses have different languages. Different departments within businesses have different languages (finance versus sales versus R and D, versus production, etc.). Children and adults have different languages. And, of course, different disciplines within the sciences speak and think differently. We tend to think that when we’ve made a point the other person obviously understands it. But they’ve actually heard something else. We all have our special tribal language.

It takes a special skill to be a translator, negotiator or bridge builder between different tribes. One strategy is to constantly rephrase the same point in multiple ways. Another is to turn it into a story with a debriefing at the end that explains some insights about the conclusion. Sometimes it helps to start with a story whose conclusion is not so obvious and then carefully lead the group through the logic of why things turned out the way they did. Malcom Gladwell does this very artfully in most of his writing. He loves to have you jump to the wrong conclusion and then explain why. That way you get surprised and are more likely to remember the point that he was making. Employing the right metaphor or multiple metaphors with the right timing, humor, confidence and humility is part of the skill.

Good leaders must be masters at communicating in a way that is understood by many tribes. It is their job to make sure they are understood individually and collectively about organizational goals, principles, issues and values. One of the best ways to do that is how one deals with a problem, challenge or crisis. These are teachable moments. They are real time stories where everyone is listening. In describing the problem and the strategies for action, the leader can express values, process and desired outcomes (how success will be defined). They can create a mindset that defines expectations and can inspire small groups to do better as an organized team than they would have as individual tribes.

This is the job of great sports team coaches. It’s what a symphony conductor does. It’s what business leaders do. And it’s what Research and academic leaders do. Finding that right language is part of the magic of great leadership.

A common concern among leaders is the idea that they won’t be able to successfully change their mindset – the “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” outlook. Good news! There is a large body of research called neuroplasticity outlining the brain’s powerful ability to change itself and adapt to changing environments. Neuroscientist Michael Merzenich’s research in neuroplacticity suggests that in order to be more open to others languages and find common understanding we need only to engage our brains differently. In the below TED talk Merzenich looks at one of the secrets of the brain’s incredible power: its ability to actively re-wire itself allowing us to update our “Mindset”. For several real world examples and stories about the endless adaptability of the human brain check out Norman Doidge’s best seller “The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science”

Resiliency in Leadership

Posted on January 28, 2013 by John

Leaders and motivated individuals alike are becoming well acquainted with the new forms of technology and platforms for communication in order to be collaborative and inclusive but all too often the behavioral side of utilizing and implementing these actions isn’t considered a priority – an issue being addressed at the 2013 World Economic Forum themed “Resilient Dynamism”. Forum founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab says the theme was chosen because resiliency is the ability to adapt to changing contexts and withstand sudden shocks, both of which are increasingly common occurrences. In addition Klaus asserts that either attribute — resilience or dynamism — alone is insufficient, leadership in 2013 will require both.

Author and leadership advisor, Don Tapscott described the Davos program as ambitious to the point of mind-boggling, and built on three pillars. The first is “Leading through Adversity,” which means boosting the resiliency of organizations, improving decision-making, and strengthening personal resilience. The second is “Restoring Economic Dynamism,” which means that we achieve inclusive prosperity, rebuild economic confidence, and encourage entrepreneurial innovation. The third is “Strengthening Societal Resilience,” which means reinforcing critical systems, dealing with natural resources in a sustainable manner, and establishing shared norms.
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It can no longer be ignored that the world is changing, becoming more volatile and unpredictable, and making the traditional leadership systems and mindsets counterproductive to governments and corporations alike. In order for organizations to grow sustainably it is imperative that leaders learn and embrace a new paradigm of behaviors including adapting to rapid change, encouraging collaboration both internally and globally as well as fostering creativity and entrepreneurialism.

Kingbridge offers programs that help leaders develop the behavioral shifts needed to move their organizations forward and adjust to current and future requirements of business and the workforce. To learn more visit our website.

Collaboration and The Marshmallow Challenge

Posted on January 21, 2013 by John

Some years ago Tom Wujec, author, Senior Fellow at Auto Desk and an amazing graphic illustrator gave a TED talk called “The Marshmallow Challenge”(video below). In the talk he described how different groups of individuals approach a technical design problem. The objective of the exercise was for each group to build the tallest free-standing structure in 18 minutes with one yard of tape, one yard of string, 20 sticks of spaghetti and a marshmallow. The groups in this exercise ranged from CEOs to MBAs to lawyers, engineers, architects and kindergartners. The results of this challenge showed how these different groups worked together on the challenge.

Perhaps the most surprising result of this experiment was that the children did better than the CEOs and the MBAs were the worst! The reason the children did so much better was because their design process included prototypes and instant feedback from each other sharing what they learned along the way. They discarded the failed ideas and built on their successful structures. The MBAs on the other hand spent much of their time debating who would be in charge and what plans they would follow. Architects and engineers did pretty well. The message taken from this exercise is that how we collaborate is influenced by our habits and the cultures we come from. Understanding and managing those cultures is essential for effective collaboration.

Un-common Sense

Posted on August 2, 2011 by John

Duncan Watts has just written a new book with the title “Everything is Obvious (Once You Know the Answer): How Common Sense Fails. Watts explores how our reliance on commons sense and the idea of what is obvious in human behavior to govern our everyday lives often translates to errors when anticipating or managing the behaviors of many individuals in a complex setting over time – such as in a corporation, a culture or a certain market.

With common sense we can rationalize just about anything into an obvious conclusion. The study of social sciences is often looked upon as unnecessary for that very reason. If a study concludes that people living in the city are more likely to own vacation home then our common sense will tell us ‘of course they are more likely to own a vacation home so they can get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and relax’. While that same study could conclude that those living in rural areas are more likely to own vacation homes and again our ‘common sense’ would kick in and tell us that ‘of course it makes sense that those in rural areas would be more likely own vacation homes, they are more relaxed and aren’t as addicted to the corporate life and convenience of the city.’ It would be seemingly obvious either way but the accuracy of the pattern can only be determined through the study of social behavior.

For example, under the guise of common sense, marketers may feel that they have a good sense of what consumers want and how to sell them more. However, their predictions are often based on their own ‘obvious’ motivations rather than the complex variety of motivations that exist within a diverse group. The same is true for any problem that falls under the umbrella of ‘social’ rather than scientific. However, as Watts points out in his book we actually have a much better grasp on the physical sciences than managing problems with a people factor such as the economy or corporate culture.

“The paradox of common sense, then, is that even as it helps us make sense of the world, it can actively undermine our ability to understand it.”

Skepticisim vs. Cynicism

Posted on July 25, 2011 by John

Often the line between skepticism and cynicism is a blurry one or not differentiated at all. When working in a group on an issue or problem, skepticism can be constructive and helpful in creating understanding and teasing out potential issues by asking the right questions. Cynicism on the other hand is poisonous and creates an impervious barrier to new ideas or potential solutions. In other words, skepticism is open to explanation and new ideas. Cynicism is closed minded and not open to change.

Many people don’t have a clear understanding of the difference between skepticism and cynicism and as such may believe that by being cynical they are merely exercising their right to disagree when in fact their cynicism has the potential to infect other members of the group, destroy the group dynamic and an opportunity to collaborate and innovate towards a solution.

Sometimes a group leader will try to control the cynics by requesting that there be no criticism. That can be just as bad in the other direction. It’s important to create an environment where everybody is accountable and open to new ideas in addition to feeling comfortable questioning and being questioned. Constructive criticism is best expressed in the form of questions. Sometimes self-criticism from the leader can set the example for others to follow.

Cynicism has the power to eliminate hope and dis-empower people, but with a small shift in attitude cynics can become skeptics and skeptics can evolve to problem solvers.

Kingbridge Conference Centre and Institute

Open Minds and Expand Thinking "The paradox of real collaboration is that it is not about getting the best minds together – it's about creating a New Mind Set."

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