With the explosion of information through the internet and social media, we never need to worry about lacking new ideas. These ideas and information regularly bombard us in an overwhelming flood. Which should I choose? How many of these can I do at once? Should I do any of them? Why did this seem so much easier for that other guy?

Shiny New Ideas

Conferences abound, and at most any meeting, you hear a series of “success stories.” Many of these are then followed up with a seminar or resource so you can replicate this given success for yourself. As a leader, I have often not known what to do with these. Should I try it or not? If I try it, how long should I give it before moving on?

Sometimes I’m not the one attending the conference, but it’s other members of my team. They return full of ideas from the experiences of others, enthusiastic about executing them in our context. How do I respond? I don’t want to extinguish their enthusiasm, but we can’t try all these today, and maybe none of them are a good fit for our setting; they’re just shiny and new.

How do you navigate this endless buffet of methods and barrage of ideas? How do you evaluate them and choose among them? Which ones are gems and to which you should say no? In all of this, how do you lead?

A helpful tool for discernment is to consider and differentiate between function and form.

Function & Form

Function relates to purpose. It answers the question, “why?” and defines the reasons you have to do something. Understanding function leads you to consider the necessary preconditions or assumptions for an activity and the desired outcomes. The 5 Whys is an excellent exercise for surfacing the function.

Form is the visible shape or configuration of something. It encompasses the methods and strategies. Form answers the questions of “what?” and “how?” After clarifying the function, form fills in the details and plan for how to realize the purpose.

Function must come first. It directs the purpose of your strategies and actions so they can take proper form rather than merely having activity for activity’s sake. Focusing on form without function leads you to emulate an activity without knowing whether it will help you reach your goal.

Function relates to purpose. It answers the question, “why?”

Function, or principles, enables you to adapt methods, or forms, to your circumstances and adjust to the continually changing environments around you. Function can act as a filter by which to evaluate new ideas.

One year, members of my team attended a conference, which I did not participate. When they returned, they brought with them new ideas, many of which were excellent. Some of them involved how to meet new people on different campuses. These were really creative and probably effective for their intended purpose.

The problem, though, was our team didn’t need to meet many new people at that point. We needed to engage deeper with the sea of people whom we had already met. I dismissed the idea, but in hindsight, I could have taken that enthusiasm and said something like, “that’s a great idea and seems fun, right now we seem to know a bunch of people already, how do we move from where we are now to a place where that strategy could help us?”

This approach could have taken their enthusiasm for the form, filtered it through the functions related to our reality, and then aimed it at something which met us where we currently are.

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Application of Both

In math, a function describes a line with a given reference point and a specific slope. Similarly, to discover the right function, you must have a reference point, where you are, and a slope, the direction you need to go.

If a team takes the time to define the reality of their circumstance today and the destination they hope to arrive at, they will begin to see the needed function of their actions. With the function clear, a team can now explore the possible forms those actions could take.

Principles are corollary to functions. They serve as a framework for discovering or discerning functions. Examples include sowing and reaping or simplicity and transferability.

As you focus on principles and habits, you'll develop a grid to see where you are and what needs to happen from here. These enable you to recognize the function relevant to your current reality. And this recognition is critical to growing as a leader.