Chasing the shiny new things Last week in a tweet I mentioned fad-surfing and some of my followers were not aware of this and requested an article - so here it is! Fad surfers are the management or leadership equivalent of the magpie, they love collecting shiny new things from other people. A management or leadership style where there is a lot of sizzle but little substance What is "fad surfing"? In simple terms Adopting one fashionable management style or strategy after another. The … [Read more...]
Bullying at work, recognising it & its impact on innovation
Bullying at work on the increase Or so the reports and surveys tell us. What we do know is that where bullying exists, trust does not. We also know that innovation requires openness and trust. So what do we really have in our organisations - innovation OR bullying? Are you being bullied at work – or are you a work place bully? As employers we have a responsibility to our employees, customers and suppliers for them to be respected and not bullied in any way. To deliver on that … [Read more...]
Innovation, the first step – dare, change, take a risk
Innovation is about the first step Innovation is the buzzword of the late naughties, but what does it mean? "Innovation is the act of introducing something new" Often we focus on the act of creating, indeed many training and development programmes look to developing creativity in order to create innovative cultures. Is this right? Innovation can mean two very different things, I suspect that often we confuse the two. many organizations take innovation to be something to do with product … [Read more...]
Humanification by Christian Kromme – book review
Humanification – Go Digital, Stay Human. It has been a while since I Last reviewed a book, but this one first grabbed my attention, if for no reason than it’s title. This was followed quickly by the description: Imagine being able to spot the next big trend, all being able to predict the next big wave of change. Imagine having encouraged that gives you the power to invent, predict all harness the next big technology. Humanification is going to help you unlock the DNA of innovation itself, your … [Read more...]
Developing entrepreneurial skills into business people
HAVE-DO-BE or DO-BE-HAVE? In business we often hear terms like ‘business person’ or ‘entrepreneur’, but what do they mean and can we train these skills. Let’s look at what these terms mean before we explore any route to development: Business person “a person engaged in commercial or industrial business (especially an owner or executive)” Entrepreneur “An individual who, rather than working as an employee, runs a small business and assumes all the risk and reward of a given business … [Read more...]
Becoming an Innovative leader – the eight faces of innovation
Becoming an Innovative Leader When we take innovation away from the technologists and start to look at innovation as a set of behaviours that can drive change and culture, we start to look at innovation as a leadership model. Using the Creatrix from the Richard Byrd Co in MN USA, we can identify the eight faces of innovation. All have there place and strength in today’s organisation, however the balance and focus will need to adapt for each need the organisation faces. What type of … [Read more...]
Innovative Business Culture – a fresh perspective
Building an innovative business culture - a fresh perspective Introduction What is innovation? Ask people to define innovation and you're likely to get a diverse range of responses, new ideas, creativity, pushing the envelope, breaking new ground, developing new markets, the fruits of research and many more. The theme for many is newness, something fresh and of course that is part of the equation but it misses an essential component - risk-taking. Even a casual study of great innovators quickly … [Read more...]
The Capacity to innovate
Jacqueline Byrd looks at our capacity to innovate. Dr. Jacqueline Byrd--the brains behind the CREATRIX Assessment explores Creativity, Risk Taking and Innovation-- What do they all have in common? How do you assess them? How does understanding your own creativity and risk taking help you in your every day life? What gets in the way of businesses being creative and taking risks? Why is a simple exercise like introducing yourself in a new way so difficult--what does that … [Read more...]
Creativity, Risk Taking and Innovation— Innovation doesn’t happen without people!
Innovation starts with your people. Every individual has the capacity to innovate. Every single one of us that the capacity to be more innovative that we are at the moment. We can all increase our innovative capacity. Jacqueline Byrd looks at our capacity to innovate. Dr. Jacqueline Byrd–the brains behind the CREATRIX Assessment explores Creativity, Risk Taking and Innovation– What do they all have in common? How do you assess them? How does understanding your own creativity … [Read more...]
Why is introducing yourself in a new way so similar to innovation?
Jacqueline Byrd looks at our capacity to innovate and how a simple introduction demonstrates the basis of innovation and the fear it often facilitates. Byrd describes the rules of innovation Dr. Jacqueline Byrd–the brains behind the CREATRIX Assessment explores Creativity, Risk Taking and Innovation– What do they all have in common? How do you assess them? How does understanding your own creativity and risk taking help you in your every day life? What gets in the way of … [Read more...]
Innovation Index – measuring the unmeasurable or re-inventing the wheel?
Innovation means so many things to so many people, so first we need to have a common understanding of what innovation is. Dr Richard Byrd from the University of Minnesota in the 1960s and 70s undertook some interesting work (see A Personal Guide to Risk Taking Richard E Byrd, AMACOM 1974), which has been further developed by Dr Jacqueline Byrd from a tool that looks at the innovation capacity of individuals to that of teams and organisations (see The Innovation Equation - Byrd & Brown, … [Read more...]
Brainstorming technique for innovation, creativity and problem solving – a business strategy
Introduction to Brainstorming Brainstorming as an approach or technique can be an effective way of generating many ideas on a specific issue which can then be filtered and reviewed to determine which idea or approach is the most appropriate. Brainstorming as a technique is most effective with groups of between 8 and 12 people performed in a relaxed environment. History of Brainstorming Brainstorming is a technique often used by groups, but can be done alone (although this is not as … [Read more...]
Entrepreneurial Innovation – Fad or key to success?
Entrepreneurial Innovation - Fad or key to success? The world economy is changing… are we reacting fast enough? For many entrepreneurs innovation is just not happening fast enough according to recent articles and research from Boston Consulting Group’s annual study on innovation. Many organisations know that in order to survive and then to grow they need to innovate. In recent years the focus of innovation has been on creativity and the innovative process, but the lack of results show that … [Read more...]
Cut or increase innovation in a recession?
Innovation, is it a burden or opportunity when things are difficult? This morning I was reading an article in Business Week about the need for organizations to cut back on innovation (article). The article starts with the opening line "When times get tough, one of the first things we do is think about what we can do without, like cutting latte consumption from five a week to two" with which I totally agree. However an assumption in the article drives the reader to believe that INNOVATION … [Read more...]
Black Swan events – or unknown unknowns
Black Swan events - or unknown unknowns #BlackSwan #Innovation It was once believed that all swans were white, because until that time the only swans had been seen (northern hemisphere) were white. It was believed that all swans were white and that black (or any other colour) could not exist. The belief was destroyed when a Black Swan was discovered in Australia. Hence the term “Black Swan” became used for unpredictable or unforeseen events - the unknown unknowns... As the changes … [Read more...]
Ansoff matrix – product market grid – Management theory & model
Introduction to the Ansoff matrix Igor Ansoff is known as the father of strategic management. He was a mathematician and business manager. In the 1950s his work was developed and eventually published providing managers and the marketing world with a simple, practical tool that is in use 50 years later. In essence the Ansoff product/ market matrix is a tool that helps businesses decide their product and market growth strategy. Ansoff's product/ market matrix suggests that a business' … [Read more...]
Innovation creating an organizational wide culture of executive innovation
Executive innovation – creating the culture Ever heard your people say… “What we need in this organization is innovation” or “Creativity will give us the edge”. Executives and leaders often utter these words with little realisation of the difficulties of bringing about a fundamental shift in the behaviour necessary to create an innovation culture across the organization. “We can empower people to bring new ideas, we’ll run some workshops on creativity” if only it were that simple. But … [Read more...]
Innovation – Individual or team effort – “Collective Leadership”
Today I read an interesting blog article on Innovation which starts with: "To generate creative business ideas, breakthrough innovators must be fiercely tested and wisely deployed (…) Truly innovative people are rare. Perhaps, 5% or 10% of the high potential managers within a company at any given time have the skills and attributes to become innovators.”Read Jeffrey Cohn, Jon Katzenbach, and Gus Vlack’s paper, “Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators,” on HBR." The author … [Read more...]
Disruptive innovators – Can your organization cope?
Wanting change is one thing but can your organization cope with disruptive innovators? We often hear that businesses and organizations of all sizes crave to be more innovative. They certainly do not want to be 'out of date', and want to keep providing customers with the products and services they need. But do we really understand innovation and the costs? Do we really want innovative companies? Are we prepared to disruptive our whole industry, and put some of our cash cows to bed? There … [Read more...]
Leadership & Innovation do we really learn?
Growth and development are critical for all parts of the world. Developing infrastructure is a key solution for long term sustainability and growth. Hot in the world news at the moment is the need for India to have a more structured financial system, for more of its population to have bank accounts, and yet only a small percentage of the population does. To meet this goal the Indian government is currently offering licenses to open new banks, and the requirement of being granted the license is … [Read more...]
