While most everyone has their own perspective about what makes up a solid foundation for innovation inside organizations, one of the key ingredients necessary for innovation to happen in any type of environment is freedom.…
Category Archives: Leadership
Serious about innovation? Here 2 more questions that demand the attention of leaders
Last week I shared with you what I call the litmus test for innovation leadership, two questions I ask leaders to get a feel for if they have what it takes to innovate; or create the context for innovation within their organization.
Those two diagnostic questions are key for me when I’m asked to help companies innovate. As I’m always on the hunt for new questions to add to my arsenal, while reading Alan Webber’s book Rules of Thumb I found two more questions that I believe demand attention from leaders:…
Stagnating? Innovate how you innovate with these 5 ideas
in Innovation, Leadership
Throughout this past year, I’ve been having conversations with innovation leaders from a couple of BIG companies about re-inventing their innovation capability. The pattern of conversation: we’ve had a good run, but feel that our process for making innovation happen is delivering incremental results. Bureaucracy has developed, and so we aren’t taking a lot of risks anymore. How do we shake ourselves out of it?
This is a classic situation of the initial innovation enthusiasm becoming stagnant because innovation’s main killers are not kept at bay: GroupThink and ExpertThink.
One leads to consensus, and the other to unchallenged best practices. In combination both lead to stagnation. Later on, it will become more difficult to innovate because silence and fear will become the norm. Then you will really have a challenge in your hands!…
The litmus test for innovation leadership
in Innovation, Leadership
People are the biggest barrier to innovation. Be it the executive who dominates every conversation, the one that talks but doesn’t walk the talk or the one that kills all ideas just because it’s not in his/her best interest. Unfortunately that’s the sad truth about how innovation dies in large organizations; there are people who kill innovation.…
The question Google asks itself to create the future and avoid irrelevance
in Innovation, Leadership, Strategy
How does Google do it?
I just finished reading How Google Works, a tell all book by Eric Schmidt’s and Jonathan Rosenberg about their experience working at the innovation powerhouse. It’s a quick read, and much of the material covered, such as how Google manages, makes decisions, innovates and hires, have been well covered in other Google books as well as in the tech media.…
Homogeneity in an organization breeds failure
Excellence is contagious. A business is only as strong as its people, which is why it’s so crucial to hire the right ones.
A recent experience triggered this post, one that comes up all the time in the world of entrepreneurship and innovation: how to maintain a culture of excellence.
In my experience, it all starts with vision and values, and that determines the type of people you will bring in to help you reach that vision. Very straightforward, but most of the time the “people” part is kicked to the curve in favor of “people who can come in and fill a void” to get things done as efficiently as possible; whether or not they fit the culture (if there is one). …
How to think what no one else thinks
Image source: http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/07/fish-dont-know-theyre-in-water/
Want to think what nobody has ever thought? Easy, question assumptions.
There comes a moment in time where everyone agrees with everybody about pretty much everything. For any sized organization that are focused on creating a culture of relentless innovation, hardened dogma is an innovation obstacle they must overcome.…