Tag Archives: Leadership

Culture tells us what to do when the leader isn’t in the room

in Leadership, Strategy

How does a leader build a sustainable company cultureCulture tells us what to do when the leader isn’t in the room. We’ve all heard this before, and being able to achieve this is one of the daunting challenges of leadership.

It is not unusual to be in a strategy session and come up with all kinds of great quotes and soundbites, that are quickly forgotten when everyone leaves the room. The key is to be able reduce those great quotes into “concrete behaviors” that happen on a daily basis.

For me, the challenge is ongoing. And to face this challenge, I use a code: FLUSH.…

To innovate better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission

in Innovation, Leadership, Strategy

Cultures of innovation are naturally dynamic. Employees think of new ideas and try them on the fly. Processes and procedures are fluid. There often is no one right answer to a problem, but rather experimentation drives many projects, efforts, assignments, and ultimately opportunities for improvement.

With that said, in my neck of the woods, businesses are the complete inverse.

Take a recent experience I had with the marketing manager of a telecommunications company based in Tijuana. With Startup Weekend Tijuana 4 coming this week, this marketing manager enthusiastically let me know that she signed up to participate. “Great!”, I said. But there was one minor problem: she didn’t want me to tell her boss about it.

Sucks!

According to her, the boss doesn’t want people to have their head occupied in anything other than what they’re supposed to be doing at work.

Sound familiar?…

What can business leaders do to ensure they are enabling and not blocking innovation?

in Innovation, Leadership, Question-To-Innovate

What can business leaders do to ensure they are enabling and not blocking innovation?

Paul Hobcraft recently reviewed a couple of innovation reports. One implies that executives say that innovation is important for growth, and the other says that executives nods their heads in agreement but don’t follow through.

I’m not surprised by this. Of course, it all comes back the the beloved ROI. And, innovation outcomes, like everything else, are hard to predict. This is a classic case of analysis paralysis, and by being in this state, these leaders are blocking innovation.

If they were to commit, what would “enabling innovation” look like?

In our current interconnected and transparent world, there are a few things that immediately signal that management is enabling innovation:…

The one thing any non-innovative leader can do to enable innovation

in Innovation, Leadership
Teams working on ideas

multidisciplinary teams working on ideas

So, you’re the CEO of a company and you are not known to be innovative. What do you do?

No fear, for you are not alone.

For all the talk about the need for innovation, the truth is most CEO’s are not innovative. They are much more focused on maintaining the current narrative than on discovery. But, there is one thing they can do to walk the talk:

Get out of the way.

Even though there is a lot of literature about how to innovate, many leaders have not understood and implemented a key insight about how to create the conditions for innovation to happen. And so it is here, where they can have an immediate influence!

How to start?…

Getting the small things right is a first step towards innovation

in Innovation, Leadership, Strategy

Nobody likes to be rejected. But, there are times when you know you’ve provided value by facilitating clarity. This happened to me recently…

Last week I had a meeting with a very public mexican CEO, where we talked about innovation and its various forms. He clearly wants to innovate in various areas, but was honest in expressing his understanding that his company is not prepared to do so.…

If you don’t like how things are done, tell a different story

in Innovation, Leadership, Strategy

If you don't like where you are going change your direction

A typical marketing and sales person recently asked me why I don’t place ads on my blog to generate additional revenue. Being that this blog gets between 6K – 9K visits/month, I’m in a very good position to do so (I have gotten requests from companies to place ads). But, I don’t want to place ads.

I simply don’t like advertising. And, generating revenue from ads is not a narrative I want to be a part of.

When he heard my response, he thought I was crazy. In his own words: that is not smart.…