Tag Archives: Leadership

Why you should tell your colleagues how you come up with your ideas

As the leader of your organization, do you ever think about how you come up with your ideas? Do you think about what your preferred creative style is? Do you think about how you could improve your thinking? Do you think about how you could improve your organization’s thinking?

When going through the creative process to arrive at a solution, I ask people to tell how they arrived at their solution. Or, how they got their idea. In detail. Yes, I’m that curious. Tell me how. I could care less about the “what”, I want to know how you came up with it.

What’s your insight? How did you arrive at it?

And, I also advice them to tell others how they got their idea.

Why do I do this?…

6 Attributes of an effective strategy

Jorge in Leadership, Strategy

Picture credit: Martin Oberhäuser

At its essence, strategy is a guide to behavior. And, when communicating your strategic intent, the most important goal is conveying your unique aspects and advantages with specific and engaging words.

This is hard. But, if you’re not being challenged at coming up with an effective strategy statement, you’re not trying hard enough. Because It is a real challenge to translate strategy into execution, this is something we must continually work at, that is, communicating strategy. Research has found that only %14 of employees understand their company’s strategy and direction.…

Start out with a purpose, not a plan

Jorge in Leadership, Strategy

To be honest, I LOVE to strategize. But, planning by itself is boring. In the last few weeks, I’ve been asked to look at a few business ideas and projects. The central question being: Does the plan look like it is in order?

Me: Nope.

Them: What’s missing?

Me: Why are you doing this? What’s your purpose? Why is this cool? Are you waking up everyday to follow a script?

Them: Dunno.…

Innovation must reads of the week: Do companies require radical innovations to woo consumers? No

Jorge in Must reads of the week

What Doesn’t Motivate Creativity Can Kill It by @teresamabile – Follow @teresamabile
The 8 Essentials of Innovation – Forbes
What Consumers Really Want: Do companies require radical innovations to woo consumers? New research suggests…no! – INSEAD Knowledge
How Great Leaders Create Game Changers by @mikemyatt – Follow @mikemyatt
How to Spot the Future – Wired
4 Steps To Getting The Market Timing Right For Your Innovation by @philmckinney – Follow @philmckinney

Innovation must reads of the week: The fallacy of the “rapid pace of innovation”

Jorge in Must reads of the week

Should Failure Be Rewarded To Spur Innovation? – Slashdot
Forbes Leadership Highlights of the Week: All About Innovation – Forbes
The Role Imagination Plays In Innovation – Fast Company
The Innovation Matrix Explained: Innovation Commitment by @timkastelle
What Really Replaces Marketing (Madness) by @wimrampen
The fallacy of the “rapid pace of innovation.” – Slate Magazine

Everyone wants to follow the leader, not many want to be one

Jorge in Innovation, Leadership

We all have access to the same information. To the same quotes, to the same people, to the same sources. To the same…

Regurgitation has taken center stage.

For example, those of us ‘in the know’ have a pretty good idea about how Apple works. We know they don’t do focus groups, that they don’t follow traditional management protocol. And that they are ferocious in the pursuit for perfection. Is there anything else we need to know?

Except for all the nitty gritty details, not much else I think. Yet people still love to debate about the same stuff over and over again.…

Leading with questions

Jorge in Leadership

As leaders we have all the answers right?

Wrong!

We don’t. And we know we can’t possibly know everything. That’s why we’re always learning by asking questions, reading, tinkering, observing and listening.

But also influencing others by the questions we ask.

Here’s a short story:…