Results don’t happen on their own, and you can’t do everything yourself. You have to collaborate; with insiders and outsiders. And mastering this unique skill in a world of work that is becoming more remote is essential. Think about people with whom you collaborate a lot, what makes them great? Why do you keep coming back to them? What is it that you enjoy about collaborating with them? I know this is an open ended question, and subjective to people’s own preference but let’s give this a shot.
Category Archives: Innovation
Influencer: 6 Sources of Influence
Think about a time when you had to introduce a new process, concept, or project to a friend, a manager, or an entire team. How did it go? What were the challenges? To carry out the change management process in an organization, you often have to effectively influence others.
Learn the Best and Easiest Way to Mine Cryptocurrency
The Helium Network technology is an incredible technology building the People’s Network of IoT and now, 5G. You can also make up to $10,000 a month passively. Read on!
Among all the cryptocurrency technologies, the Helium network system built to create the people’s network for the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G is one of the most meaningful and robust technologies while paving the way to generating significant passive income for its miners.
Adopting New Habits Leads To Transformation
We all have moments where we lose track of things, where we lose our mind and say things we should’t say. A few months ago, during a call with a client, the CEO of the organization did just that. For the last 6 months I’ve been consulting for this organization, helping them think and develop a new strategic direction, and culture to support that direction.
3 Reasons Why You Should Embrace a Moonshot Mindset
Why a moonshot mindset? Peter Diamandis says that having a Moonshot Mindset means applying 10X thinking (or 1,000%) to all of your efforts and challenges. The result of 10x thinking are breakthrough technologies and disruptive business models. Moonshot thinking is the opposite of what happens on a day to day basis inside organizations, where incremental improvements (if any) are the modus operandi.
Leadership Isn’t About You, It’s About Unleashing Other People
One of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs have is going from driving the business forward themselves to driving it forward through others. A former client of mine, from when I was in college, recently reached out to me. He wanted to chat because he wanted to catch up. The conversation quickly shifted to the topic of leadership and how his biggest challenges in building his businesses has been letting other people lead.
For Innovation Be Led By Ideas Rather Than Hierarchy
As a general rule, organizations optimize for today. That is, they play the game not to lose; the status quo is more important than the future. But innovation led organizations optimize for both today and the future; but with a long-term focus on protecting the future.
What’s the difference between organizations that are future lead versus those that bend the knee to the status quo?
Hierarchy kills innovation when its focus is the short-term
Innovation led organizations put a bigger focus on ideas that enable the future today. To be idea led is to be open to ideas from anywhere; not just from the boss. Organizations that bend the knee to the status quo are obsessed with certainty and want to avoid any mess.
We’ve all worked at an organization that bends the knee, two things happen: it pays lip service to innovation, and innovation is seen as a waste of time and resources. Typically, the people leading these organizations are Chief Idea Killers; they are first and foremost concerned with maintaining efficiency. It’s their mandate to screen or kill any ideas, if ideas are even encouraged, that challenge the status quo.
And they do this with gusto!
I’ve gotten calls, texts and emails from people I’ve mentored and advised on leading innovation telling me how disappointed they are that their employer doesn’t value their new skills. Or how their boss sees them as a threat because they’re making an impact, in spite of hierarchy. These people work at organizations where hierarchy kills creativity; and this is mostly the norm.
I’m not saying hierarchy is bad. There’s good hierarchy and there’s bad hierarchy; the right kind of hierarchy can help people become better innovators, unfortunately the latter is the most predominant across organizations.
Hierarchy leads innovation when it gets out of its own way
Leaders at innovation led organizations create the context for others to be innovators. Leaders at these organizations lead innovation; they don’t demand it. They create the conditions for others to be the rock stars. They focus on unleashing potential by removing obstacles; not by creating them.
These leaders understand ideas beat hierarchy when trust exists in the organization. So if you want to lead by ideas, don’t hog the spotlight. Remember that it’s not about you; it’s about them. Trust your people, encourage dissent, celebrate the weird to create an organization where new and better worlds can be created.