Tag Archives: Leadership

Want people to believe innovation applies to their role? Give them a reason to care

in Innovation, Leadership

Among the many innovation myths businesses take as givens, I believe the most common and disruptive one is “innovation doesn’t apply to my role”. When this is the case in most organizations, and when just one-fifth of employees report believing that their workplaces strongly value them; it’s worth asking,  “Is innovation everyone’s job?” And what would make employees feel they are innovators?

In a traditional organization, innovation isn’t everyone’s job. But in a maverick organization, it’s a given that everyone sees his/herself as an innovator. …

What is a mindset and why does it matter?

in entrepreneurship, Innovation, Leadership, Question-To-Innovate, Questions

What is a mindset?

If you are really ambitious, I believe that rather than setting out to accumulate as many material things as you can, you should be aiming to spread mindset; a point of view. This blog is very much focused on innovation as a mindset, not as a collection of tools and frameworks that anyone can pickup and magically turn him/herself  into an innovator. …

Serious about innovation? Here 2 more questions that demand the attention of leaders

in Greatness, Innovation, Leadership

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

If a project has disruptive potential, it should make you uncomfortable.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 best leaders are pattern thinkers

in Innovation, Leadership

the best leaders are pattern thinkersLook at any of the top innovative businesses in the world and you will see that it is driven by an innovative leader. So I was not surprised that yesterday’s post, 5 future-proof questions to ask people in the know, resonated with you.

Jack Martin Leith commented: “Great post. Thank you Jorge. A prerequisite for someone asking those five questions is to be in a state of perpetual curiosity, and I don’t think that can be acquired. Any thoughts?”.

My answer:…