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Innovation is a priority for organisations today, Joyce Wycoff details “The Big Ten Innovation Killers and How to Keep Your Innovation System Alive and Well” (hat tip to Be Excellent).

The top ten reasons for innovation failure

1. Not creating a culture that supports innovation
2. Not getting buy-in and ownership from business unit managers
3. Not having a widely understood, system-wide process
4. Not allocating resources to the process
5. Not tying projects to company strategy
6. Not spending enough time and energy on the fuzzy front-end
7. Not building sufficient diversity into the process
8. Not developing criteria and metrics in advance
9. Not training and coaching innovation teams
10. Not having an idea management system

Ten Practical Steps to Keep Your Innovation System Alive and Well

1. Remove fear from your organization. Innovation means doing something new, something that may fail. If people fear failing, they will not innovate.
2. Make innovation part of the performance review system for everyone. Ask them what they will create or improve in the coming year and then track their progress.
3. Document an innovation process and make sure everyone understands it as well as his or her role in it.
4. Build in enough looseness into the system for people to explore new possibilities and collaborate with others inside and outside the organization.
5. Make sure that everyone understands the corporate strategy and that all innovation efforts are aligned with it. However, also create a process for handling the outlier ideas that don’t fit the strategy but are too good to throw away.
6. Teach people to scan the environment for new trends, technologies and changes in customer mindsets.
7. Teach people the critical importance of diversity of thinking styles, experience, perspectives and expertise. Expect diversity in all activities related to innovation.
8. Good criteria can focus ideation; however, overly restrictive criteria can stifle ideation and perpetuate assumptions and mindsets from the past. Spend the time necessary upfront to develop market and success-related parameters that will take you into the future.
9. Innovation teams are different from “regular” project teams. They need different tools and different mindsets. Provide enough training and coaching so that when people are working on an innovation team, they can be successful.
10. Buy or develop an idea management system that captures ideas in a way that encourages people to build on and evaluate new possibilities.

Technorati Tags: inovation, business, management, leadership

The story of Roger Bannister is an inspirational one. For many years it was widely believed to be impossible for a human to run a mile (1609 meters) in under four minutes. In fact, for many years, it was believed that the four minute mile was a physical barrier that no man could break without causing significant damage to the runners health. The achievement of a four minute mile seemed beyond human possibility, like climbing Mount Everest or walking on the moon.

It was a windy spring day, on the 6^th of May 1954, during an athletic meeting between the British AAA and Oxford University, that Roger Bannister ran a mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds. He crossed the finish line with a time of 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds, and broke through the “four munite mile” psychological barrier. John Landy a great runner of that day never run faster than within 1.5 seconds of the four minute barrier. Then 56 days after Roger Bannisters breakthrough, John Landy ran the four minute mile in 3 minutes and 57.9 seconds in Finland. Later Bannister and Landy raced in the Mile of the Century where Bannister won in 3 minutes and 58.8 seconds.

The breaking of the four minute mile was so significant, that is was named by Forbes as one of the greatest athletic achievements. What made this event so significant is that once the four minute barrier was broken by Roger Bannister, within three years, by the end of 1957, 16 other runners also cracked the four minute mile. Describing the psychological impact of the four minute barrier in an interview with Forbes, Sir Roger Bannister, who was knighted in 1975, related that:

The world record then was four minutes, 1.4 seconds, held by Sweden’s Gunder Haegg. It had been stuck there for nine years, since 1945. It didn’t seem logical to me, as a physiologist/doctor, that if you could run a mile in four minutes, one and a bit seconds, you couldn’t break four minutes. But it had become a psychological as well as a physical barrier. In fact the Australian, John Landy, having done four minutes, two seconds, three times, is reported to have commented, “It’s like a wall.” I couldn’t see the psychological side.

So what happened to the physical barrier that prevented humans from running the four minute mile? Was there a sudden leap in human evolution? No. It was the change in thinking that made the difference, Bannister had shown that breaking four minute mile was possible. Often the barriers we perceived are only barriers in our own minds. Previous runners had been held back by their beliefs and mindsets. When the barrier was broken other runners saw that is was possible and then 16 runners went on to do they same.

Our beliefs and mindsets limit or expand our world. Beliefs have power over us because we treat them as though they’re true. Beliefs influence what you attempt or choose not to attempt in life. They determine what you pay attention to, how you react to difficult situations and ultimately your attitude. Success and failure begin and end in what the mind believes is possible.
The first step a leader can take in influencing the world around them is to change how they think about it. If Roger Bannister accepted that the four minute mile was a physical limitation, he would never had tried to break it. Just like the runners of time past, many of the barriers that hold us back today exist only in our minds.

• What are the four minute miles that are holding you back in your personal and professional life?
• Are their any role models who are challenging existing limits that you can learn from?

If you’re interested in learning more about Roger Bannister’s story I recommend you read his book….

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Role Models, Business, Psychology, Running, Thinking, History, Book, Beliefs

The study of more than 1,400 leaders and managers by global consultancy the Ken Blanchard Group, cited in Management-Issues found that:

• 41 per cent felt inappropriate use of communication or listening was the biggest mistake leaders made when working with others.
• More than a quarter felt the major failing was in under or over-supervising people, providing a lack of, or too much, direction and delegating, either too little or too much.
• A lack of management skills was cited by 14 per cent, a lack of or inappropriate support by 12 per cent and a lack of accountability by 5 per cent.
• The most critical skill a leader could possess was communicating and listening (cited by 43 per cent), followed by effective management skills, emotional intelligence and empathy, values and integrity, vision and empowerment.
• The one that came up the most was not providing appropriate feedback (cited a whopping 82 per cent).
• Failing to listen or involve others in the process was nearly as big a failing, cited by 81 per cent.
• More than three quarters raised failing to use a leadership style that was appropriate to that person, task or situation, and a similar percentage (76 per cent) felt leaders failed to set clear goals and objectives.
• Nearly six out of 10 complained that leaders failed to train and develop their people.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Development, Research

Monique Rissen-Harrisberg, chief executive officer of The Voice Clinic, in this article, outlines the following questions to ask yourself when preparing to communicate effectively and concisely:

• What is your objective?
• What response is necessary from readers or listeners? Do you want recipients of your communication to act or think differently? Do you want to reinforce existing thinking or behaviour?
• Why would they respond to your message?
• What message content will motivate them to act?
• How will you present that content?
• How often will you have to repeat the message?
• If you quantified your objectives, would the value of meeting the objective exceed the cost of communicating?

Technorati Tags: Communication, GTD, PowerPoint, Management, Leadership

I found these 25 Lessons from Jack Welch that are worth some time and consideration:

1. Lead Managers muddle - leaders inspire. Leaders are people who inspire with clear vision of how things can be done better.
2. Manage Less “We are constantly amazed by how much people will do when they are not told what to do by management.”
3. Articulate Your Vision “Leaders inspire people with clear visions of how things can be done better.” The best leader do not provide a step-by-step instruction manual for workers.
4. Simplify Keeping things simple. “Simple messages travel faster, simpler designs reach the market faster and the elimination of clutter allows faster decision making.“
5. Get Less Formal “You must realize now how important it is to maintain the kind of corporate informality that encourages a training class to comfortably challenge the boss’s pet ideas.“
6. Energize Others Genuine leadership comes from the quality of your vision and your ability to spark others to extraordinary performance. Getting employees excited about their work is the key to being a great business leader.
7. Face Reality Face reality, then act decisively. Most mistakes that leaders make arise from not being willing to face reality and then acting on it.
8. See Change as an Opportunity Change is a big part of the reality in business.
9. Get Good Ideas from Everywhere New ideas are the lifeblood of business. “The operative assumption today is that someone, somewhere, has a better idea; and the operative compulsion is to find out who has that better idea, learn it, and put it into action - fast.“
10. Follow up Follow up on everything. Follow-up is one key measure of success for a business.
11. Get Rid of Bureaucracy The way to harness the power of your people is “to turn them loose, and get the management layers off their backs, the bureaucratic shackles off their feet and the functional barriers out of their way.”
12. Eliminate Boundaries In order to make sure that people are free to reach for the impossible, you must remove anything that gets in their way. “Boundarylessness” describes an open organization free of bureaucracy and anything else that prevents the free flow of ideas, people, decisions, etc.
13. Put Values First Don’t focus too much on the numbers. “Numbers aren’t the vision; numbers are the products.“
14. Cultivate Leaders Cultivate leaders who have the four E’s of leadership: Energy, Energize, Edge, and Execution
15. Create a Learning Culture “The desire, and the ability, of an organization to continuously learn from any source, anywhere - and to rapidly convert this learning into action - is its ultimate competitive advantage.“
16. Involve Everyone Business is all about capturing intellect from every person. The way to engender enthusiasm it to allow employees far more freedom and far more responsibility.
17. Make Everybody a Team Player Managers should learn to become team players. Take steps against those managers who wouldn’t learn to become team players.
18. Stretch Stretch targets energize. “We have found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible; and even when we don’t quite make it, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would have done.“
19. Instill Confidence Self-confident people are open to good ideas regardless of their source and are willing to share them.
20. Have Fun Fun must be a big element in your business strategy.
21. Be Number 1 or Number 2 “When you’re number four or five in a market, when number one sneezes, you get pneumonia. When you’re number one, you control your destiny.“
22. Live Quality “We want to change the competitive landscape by being not just better than our competitors, but by taking quality to a whole new level.”
23. Constantly Focus on Innovation “You have just got to constantly focus on innovation. And more competitors. You’ve got to constantly produce more for less through intellectual capital. Shun the incremental, and look for the quantum leap.”
24. Live Speed “Speed is everything. It is the indispensable ingredient of competitiveness.”
25. Behave Like a Small Company Small companies have huge competitive advantages. They “are uncluttered, simple informal. They thrive on passion and ridicule bureaucracy. Small companies grow on good ideas - regardless of their source. They need everyone, involve everyone, and reward or remove people based on their contribution to winning. Small companies dream big dreams and set the bar high - increments and fractions don’t interest them.“

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Role Model, Vision, Strategy

I stumbled accross this great explanation of creativity from Steve Jobs:

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.”

Image from chuybregts

Technorati Tags: Creative, Creativity, Thinking, Quote, Innovation

The book “The Creative Habit : Learn It and Use It for Life” by Twyla Tharp is a practical book describing how you can develop a creative habit. I really enjoyed this book, it’s an engaging read, worth the time and effort.

The author, Twyla Tharp, is one of America’s greatest choreographers. She has created more than 130 dances and is a pioneer in melding modern dance and ballet with popular music. In 1993, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and in 1997 was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She has received eighteen honorary doctorates.

Overview of the Book

The book consists of twelve chapters, each chapter provides a practical guideline of a creative habit you need to develop to make creativity a habit. Each chapter then ends with a section suggesting exercises you can use to apply the what was described in the chapter.

I Walk into a White Room

This chapter sets the foundation for the book with the premise that creativity is a habit. In the book Twyla state that:

“I’ve learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns….. The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more. And this routine is available to everyone….. Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That’s it in a nutshell…… there’s a process that generates creativity - and you can learn it. And you can make it habitual.”

To support her argument she quote’s Mozart who wrote:

“People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied many times.”

The bottom line is that creativity is the result of hard work and the development of the appropriate daily habits.

Rituals of Preparation

It’s usually difficult to begin the creative process. To help Twyla recommends that you develop rituals to “kickstart” the process. She says that it’s

“Vital to establish some rituals - automatic but decisive patterns of behavior - at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.”

These rituals help get the creative process started, using rituals provides a comfortable starting place, starting from a comfortable routine helps to replace doubt and fear to overcome daunting “blank page” faced by many artists.

Your Creative DNA

This chapter talks about the importance of understanding yourself and your unique creative abilities. Twyla states that:

“The better you know yourself, the more you will know when you are playing to your strengths and when you are sticking your neck out. Venturing out of your comfort zone may be dangerous, yet you do it anyway because our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable….. Another thing about knowing who you are is that you know what you should not be doing, which can save you a lot of heartaches and false starts if you catch it early on.”

Harness Your Memory

This chapter explores the benefits of tapping into and using the memories, stories and metaphors stored away in your memory to inspire your creativity.

Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box

The ‘box’ that Twyla is referring to is a place to store all her research as she explores, information such as, notes, ideas, articles and clippings, she writes that:

“The box is not a substitute for creating. The box doesn’t compose or write a poem or create a dance step. The box is the raw index of your preparation. It is the repository of your creative potential, but it is not that potential realised.”

Scratching

This chapter discusses the generation of ideas, which Twyla calls “scratching”, ideas are usually generated from reading, conversation, handiwork, mentors, or nature. Ideas inspire you to create and having a good one is important, Twyla writes:

“A good idea is one that turns you on rather than shuts you off. It keeps generating more ideas and they improve on one another.”

Twyla emphasis the importance of combing ideas:

“the unshakable rule that you don’t have a really good idea until you combine two little ideas…. That is why you scratch for little ideas….. Remember this when you’re struggling for a big idea. You’re better off scratching for a small one.”

Accidents will Happen

Creativity requires preparation, a plan and a goal in mind.

“This, to me, is the most interesting paradox of creativity: In order to be habitually creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative, but good planning alone won’t make you efforts successful; it’s only after you let go of your plans that you can breathe life into your efforts”

Creativity is where preparation meets opportunity and luck.

“The key words here are “prepared” and “lucky”… You don’t get lucky without preparation, and there’s no sense in being prepared if you’re not open to the possibility of a glorious accident”

Twyla goes on to warn against over-planning and perfectionism at the start, the wrong structure and the wrong materials.

Spine

Spine is about having a goal or message that underlies, supports and guides your work.

“Spine is the statement you make to yourself outlining your intentions for the work…..It keeps me on message, but it is not the message itself….. Having a spine will snap you to attention quickly and, as a result, will inject speed and economy into your work habits. Energy and time are finite resource; conserving them is very important.”

Skill

Skill is important in any craft or practice.

“Leonardo understood that the better you know the nuts and bolts of your craft, the more fully you can express your talents….. Skill is how you close the gap between what you see in your mind’s eye and what you can produce; the more skill you have the more sophisticated and accomplished your ideas can be”

Although skill is important a passion to do what you love is also necessary:

“Without passion, all the skill in the world won’t lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life”

Ruts and Grooves

Twyla explores ruts and how it can trap you and sap your creative power, instead we need to strive to get into a groove.

“When I’m working, I’m always asking, “Is this peace moving forward or staying in place? Am I in a rut or a groove?” A rut is when you’re spinning your wheels and staying in place….. A groove is different: The wheels turn and you move forward effortlessly.”

She goes on to explore how you get into a rut and how to get out of it.

An ‘A’ in Failure

The ability to effectively learn from failure is discussed in this chapter, Twyla notes that:

“Every creative person has to learn to deal with failure, because failure, like death and taxes, is inescapable.”

To learn from failure we need understand the reasons for the failure, she discusses reasons for failure such as, a failure of skill, of concept, of judgment, of nerve, of repetition, and of denial?

The Long Run

You need to be successful in the long run and Twyla writes that:

“There is no long run without devotion, commitment, persistence.”

One way that Twyla is most successful is when she is in what she describes as a creative bubble:

“I eliminated every distraction, sacrificed almost everything that gave me pleasure, placed myself in a single-minded isolation chamber, and structured my life so that everything was not only feeding the work but subordinated to it. It is not a particularly sociable way to operate. It’s actively anti-social. On the other hand, it is pro-creative.”

Summary

The book does a good job of describing how creativity is a habit and provides plenty of guidance as to what it takes to develop a creative habit. The advice offered in the book is insightful and practical. The author draws from her extensive experience to support the application of creative habits discussed in each chapter. The book is well structured, with each chapter ending with a set of exercises that you can use to apply the various habits. The book’s layout and style make’s it an easy, comfortable read.

The book inspired me, I’ve become a lot more aware of my daily habits and how they affect my creativity. It is one of the more interesting and practical books I’ve read on creativity. I recommend this book be read by all leaders and managers a who would like to improve their creativity.

Technorati Tags: Creative, Creativity, Habit, GTD, Book, Book Review, Leadership, Management, Business, Personal Development, Art, Write

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