Category Archives: Leadership

6 simple questions that yield better decisions

in Creativity, entrepreneurship, Innovation, Leadership, Strategy

decisive bookHow can we become better at making decisions? There is wide literature, blogs and books on the topic of decision making , and you wouldn’t go wrong reading most of them. How and why we make the decision we make is one topic I believe we would all do well know about more because it influences everything we do.

The most recent books about decision making I’ve read is Decisive by the Heath Brothers, authors of Made To Stick and Switch. I’m a huge fan of them because they take on interesting topics, and they make the content interesting and useful to any type of reader. With that said, I’m subscribed to their newsletter and yesterday I got a nugget of information in a series of questions that appear, in some way or another, in their latest book about decision making.

Remember, everything is a matter of perspective. So, if you’re struggling with a decision, see if any of the following questions helps you see differently.

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8 strategies for overcoming resistance to change

in Innovation, Leadership

As innovators that want to make things happen and are constantly seeking ways to counter resistance to change. It comes with the territory and is the most predictable challenge we will encounter. At this point, the literature around innovation is vast, so we can all agree that there are many common sources of resistance to change inside organizations and from potential customers: inertia, indecision, fear of making mistakes, lack of best practices and lack of care for your product/service.

How do you overcome them?…

What World Cup winner Germany can teach us about developing a culture of excellence

in Innovation, Leadership

brazil vs germany world cup 2014

Picture: EPA

The 2014 World Cup has ended! For me it was one of the most memorable, the first round alone is worth watching again. Anyway, the Germans won. And they have lots to teach us about developing a culture of excellence, no matter what people say about their “efficient” driven culture.

Here are a two takeaways:

To play to win, not to lose, requires a different mindset

Two weeks ago I watched as Mexico gave up a 1 goal lead to the Netherlands and eventually lose the game on a questionable penalty kick. As all of this was unraveling I wasn’t surprised. I had started watching the game at the 60 minute mark, but I could tell Netherlands was going to even things out, and maybe even win the game.

I knew because they were the aggressors. Mexico was sitting back, playing not to lose. But this isn’t an isolated incident, Mexico has a history of letting up. It doesn’t have anything to do with strategy and tactics, but with, I believe, psychological and cultural issue.

I believe that conformity is the enemy of greatness. There are other countries in this World Cup who are exemplary of how defeating conformity is less a matter of strategy and more about mindset.

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So what? Finding a hook for your idea is an innovation imperative

in Creativity, entrepreneurship, Innovation, Leadership, Marketing

Innovative ideas, initiatives, products, culture transformations, have little chance to succeed if they aren’t enabled by smart communications. And it all starts with a simple and easily understood message. 

I’m in the process (pre-production) of co-producing a film with a Director friend of mine. The idea for the film wasn’t mine, so one of the first things I asked him after I read the script was: what’s the hook?

That was at the end of October last year. To this day, that question remains unanswered. And as we’ve been casting for the last two weeks, most of the actors have asked us the same question: what’s the hook?…

Innovation begins in the heart

in Innovation, Leadership

How diluted has the word innovation become that, on top of confusing it with anything new, we rationalize why we should innovate.

Here are a few:

  • Let’s innovate so we can grow our business, otherwise we won’t!;
  • Let’s innovate so we can eek out a little more revenue from existing products and services;
  • Let’s innovate so we can develop new revenue streams, new business, new products & services;
  • Let’s innovate so we can be competitive with the rest of the world;
  • etc..

I’m sure you’ve heard some version of these before, and there are more like these. The above rationalizations are correct, but does it get you fired up? I’m sure it doesn’t.

An indicator that all this rationalization it doesn’t work to spur action is how many people still ask themselves: what’s the point?

Why do you want to “innovate”? Seriously, think about it…

Is it because you’re embraced common rationalizations followed by everyone else who can’t think for themselves? If you are, it sounds to me like you are playing not to lose.…