in Innovation
Innovation is a front-and-center part of the CEO agenda in business today – but all too often good ideas die on the vine. Why? Sometimes corporate naysayers are to blame.
Yesterday, I’ve received an email from Innovation Consultancy ?What If! with, what else, 4 comic illustrations of innovation’s greatest foes, including “The Silo, The Yes Man, and the Gatekeeper.” These characters personify the challenges innovators often face in the corporate landscape.
I’m sure you’ve met them before……
in Innovation
After meeting with a client yesterday, I was reminded of this quote:
“Semco has no official structure. It has no organizational chart. There’s no business plan or company strategy, no two-year or five-year plan, no goal or mission statement, no long-term budget. The company often does not have a fixed CEO. There are no vice presidents or chief officers for information technology or operations. There are no standards or practices. There’s no human resources department. There are no career plans, no job descriptions or employee contracts. No one approves reports or expense accounts. Supervision or monitoring of workers is rare indeed… Most important, success is not measured only in profit and growth.” – Ricardo Semler
This scares the hell out of everyone and so no one believes this is possible (it is). And because no one believes it, they will never try. …
If you like these links, check out all the previous “Innovation Must Reads of the Week“. And don’t forget to Follow @jorgebarba
This is the tenth of a series of weekly posts where I will answer a few common questions about innovation. Please feel free to add your own response. Also, if you have any questions you think we should discuss, let me know.
Organization get the behaviors they reward. And this is especially true when it comes to innovation. Let’s suppose you want to become more innovative (who doesn’t?), where would you start? Everyone will start at the front end of ideation. But before you go there, ask yourself these questions:
The answer: trust.…
in Innovation
After an 8 year hiatus, I went back to Disneyland last weekend. If you’ve read my Twitter profile, you know I’m a Disney Fanatic. Disneyland, for the most part, is still the same magical place as 10 years ago with a few tweaks here and there.
One peculiar thing I did notice though was that at the end of the Star Tours ride, as you exit to the Star Wars Store, there is a DIY Lightsaber Workstation. Parts of Anakin, Darth Vader, Darth Maul and Luke’s lightsaber are scattered around this huge table. You can combine the parts to create your own lightsaber.
This is Young Padawan’s Paradise.…
in Economics, Innovation
Early this year a Groupon copycat was in my office building: Grupongo.
I don’t know if they exist anymore but they’ve since closed operations in Tijuana. I have no insight into why they closed operations, but I do have an idea since I got to talk to the Regional Sales Manager a few months before.
See, Tijuana is a conservative market. The nature of Groupon, and all its copycats, is that it stimulates randomness. It lowers the barriers to doing things you’ve never done before. This happens easily in markets where diversity exists.…
If you like these links, check out all the previous “Innovation Must Reads of the Week“. And don’t forget to Follow @jorgebarba
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