If you don’t have a method, you will be forced to use someone else’s.

Welcome to the first in a collection of posts about The Montandon Method.

The first point that I want to make clear, and its really important to understand, is that if YOU don’t have a way of doing things, you will be forced to use someone else’s way of doing things.

This goes for absolutely everything in life.

Ever since we were children in school we were taught to follow rules. We were taught to arrive at school at a certain time, to do our work in a certain way, to eat our lunch at a certain time, to sit next to certain children. Everything within the classroom had a system, a way of doing things.

This prepares us for real life, where most people fall into the trap of accepting other peoples ways of doing things. You must go to work, you must pay your bills on time, you must do this thing this way and that’s it.

I have found that this is a very hollow way to live your life.

Just because someone else does something should never be a reason for you to do it.

Why should you change?
By having your own way of doing things, you can:
1) Live on your own terms instead of someone else’s.
2) Find more efficient, productive, effective and creative ways of doing things.
3) Have a greater belief that you can change “the system”.
4) Have a greater control over your reality.

How should I change?
1) Start with the small stuff, and work up to something big.
2) Believe that any system can be changed.
3) When you start to see results from your smaller changes it will give you the confidence to go for bigger challenges.

Here is a really nice example of how you can change a system.

There was a point in the life of HMC Interactive where we had to change the allocation of shares in the company, and divide it by the 3 directors of the company. That meant that each director owned 33.33333% of the company.

Our lawyers told us that we couldn’t have the remaining .33333% , one of us would hold on to the extra 1%, splitting it 33% 33% 34%. Normally one person was nominated to hold on to the extra 1%.

Well, that didnt seem like a very good system, to just randomly nominate someone to hold on to 1%!! No one wanted to let go of their precious .3333% so we decided to fight for it.

We set aside an entire afternoon to compete for the 1% in a DEATHMATCH. Solving our arguments in a virtual video game arena. An independent referee was chosen, and we fought it out in a multi player death match arena.

For a while, I was in the lead, and had picked a good position with the sniper rifle. But in the end Mike surprised me with a rocket launcher and at the last moment took the lead and won the 1%.

We called this idea “shooting for shares” and it was so unusual to have the lawyers preside over a deathmatch frag session that the story ended up making the careers section of The Times.

To be honest, it feels so much nicer to loose a share by staring down the barrel of a rocket launcher than on the pages of a legal document, and it really set a precedent that any kind of takeover or share deal in the future would in all likelihood be solved in the video game arena rather than the legal arena. Its just so much fun and so cool to do. It brought the whole team together.

To add a little bit of extra fun, we often challenge any member of the team at HMC Interactive to a video game face off to try and win back the extra 1%. My video game of choice is Dance Dance Revolution, and so far none of the team would dare to look so silly jumping up and down for shares, but the challenge always remains open!

This may seem like a silly example, but it really gave us confidence to do things our own way.

This is really important in large corporate culture. Just because there is a “normal” way doesn’t make it the best way.

So, we started finding our own ways to do everything. Like answering the phone first thing on a Monday morning and giving the first caller of the week a prize of strange Dutch chocolates.

Like finding ways to get clients on top of 8 foot high bouncy balls whilst in meetings.

Like finding new ways to promote ourselves, new ways to advertise ourselves, new ways to work in crazy situations.

Over the next few weeks I will be sharing with you some of the benefit of this first idea, so bookmark this site and check back in tomorrow for the next instalment.

You know, it might all sound a bit silly, but we got such a reputation for doing things our own way, I was asked to go to Westminster and talk to politicians, to help them make a system for funding creativity in the UK, and to go to Austria to talk to Europe’s leading multimedia producers to tell them how to smash the system and re-establish it for themselves.

So, if you ever find yourself saying “I cant change this system, its the law” maybe you should consider calling a few politicians and getting that law changed. Its all do-able, and its easier than you might think.

Go on then, get started.

See you tomorrow.

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