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Casual Articles - Innovation and Culture: Necessity isn't the Mother of Invention - Culture is!
An advertising agency will get your business noticed by those you want to be noticed by. We build interest. We create excitement. If we do our job right, we tell your story like it’s never been told before. If you do your job when new prospects come to you, your bottom line increases, exponentially in some cases. Despite this simple explanation, planning and executing an effective advertising campaign is anything but.Consider that we are bombarded by hundreds and perhaps more than a thousand ad messages every day. We tune most of it out. Most of it doesn’t even pique our interest. Effective advertising seems to be an insurmountable obstacle. Does anything really work? The short answer is yes.To draw attention to your business, you have to think different. If all of your competitors are doing it, don’t. You ha
The magic? Only that I required them to distinguish between facts, assumptions, opinions and unknowns. Not so complicated, but very important. They were now willing and able to get caught with their assumptions down. And they had learned that in doing so, they were better able to understand one another’s thinking and come to decisions that made sense.
Getting caught with your assumptions down enables lively and genuine conversations instead of those circular muddles. These conversations are ke
Much has been written over the years about business. Much has also been written over the years about war. There are many parallels between the two. The more business people from the shipping dock to the executive suite view business as war, the more the spoils of war: success.The TroopsArmies since ancient times have not been known for selecting the best and the brightest. At times, the bulk of armies were criminals, debtors and drunks. How did these cast-offs of society become armies able to conquer huge areas of the world and win massive battles? Training and discipline. Businesses today are so enamored with the best and the brightest that they seem to forget about the importance of training and discipline. Forget this bunk about baby boomers, gen-X and gen-Y. For a competitive edge, a business wou
Organizationally speaking, our environment is the organization’s culture - an all-pervasive force that shapes our individual expectations, actions, interpretations and responses to events. There are certain mandates in the culture that make it more natural for members of the organization to innovate. Typically, when you see a list of these, it includes things like trust, communication and risk taking. While those are all valid, they’re a little too abstract to be readily used in leading an organization. Instead, here are three simple mandates that can help you create an environment that supports innovation.
MANDATE 1: GET CAUGHT WITH YOUR ASSUMPTIONS DOWN
Have you ever been in one of those meetings where people aren’t really talking to one another and the discussion goes around in circles?
I was recently working with the executive team of a technology start-up – very smart guys. They wanted to speed up their decision making process. During an offsite, a strategic issue came up. I could tell immediately that the discussion was one of those circular muddles. After about ten minutes, I asked them how much of what they had just heard was “new news” – information that hadn’t been discussed before in this group. The answer? About ten percent! Imagine how much time they were wasting if ninety percent of what they were discussing was old news!
I re-started the discussion by asking them to tell me only the known facts. A team member would put out a fact. I would ask others if it was really a fact. Some pretty wild debates ensued. After nearly thirty minutes of this discussion, the team said they finally understood why they had been discussing this issue for three months! They were now ready to move forward.
The magic? Only that I required them to distinguish between facts, assumptions, opinions and unknowns. Not so complicated, but very important. They were now willing and able to get caught with their assumptions down. And they had learned that in doing so, they were better able to understand one another’s thinking and come to decisions that made sense.
Getting caught with your assumptions down enables lively and genuine conversations instead of those circular muddles. These conversations are key
The other day I was giving a speech to a group of Business Students at a local High School, it seems that the local Future Business Leaders of America has heard I was in town giving a speech to a nearby college. Sure enough it is a somewhat small town and the asked if I would speak. How could I say no? You see, as a high school student I was President of my Future Leaders of America Club for 3-years and well I attribute at least some of what I learned in those early years to my early success.It makes sense to give a little back as you grow. Anyway we got on the subject of marketing and of course these kinds love marketing and they love brands and yet when I started to discuss brands I got some funny looks meaning I better explain exactly what a brand is before I go much further. Since this was a rural school when I
MANDATE 1: GET CAUGHT WITH YOUR ASSUMPTIONS DOWN
Have you ever been in one of those meetings where people aren’t really talking to one another and the discussion goes around in circles?
I was recently working with the executive team of a technology start-up – very smart guys. They wanted to speed up their decision making process. During an offsite, a strategic issue came up. I could tell immediately that the discussion was one of those circular muddles. After about ten minutes, I asked them how much of what they had just heard was “new news” – information that hadn’t been discussed before in this group. The answer? About ten percent! Imagine how much time they were wasting if ninety percent of what they were discussing was old news!
I re-started the discussion by asking them to tell me only the known facts. A team member would put out a fact. I would ask others if it was really a fact. Some pretty wild debates ensued. After nearly thirty minutes of this discussion, the team said they finally understood why they had been discussing this issue for three months! They were now ready to move forward.
The magic? Only that I required them to distinguish between facts, assumptions, opinions and unknowns. Not so complicated, but very important. They were now willing and able to get caught with their assumptions down. And they had learned that in doing so, they were better able to understand one another’s thinking and come to decisions that made sense.
Getting caught with your assumptions down enables lively and genuine conversations instead of those circular muddles. These conversations are ke
Working on the road can be a very difficult task. Office jobs offer employees many advantages that most of the time are taken for granted: internet access, phone lines, copy machines, faxes, paper, pens, even the desk!!! After a few days away from home, you find out how difficult the job conditions are over the road and you start to notice those small details. All Truck Drivers and especially Long Haul Truck Drivers face this fact everyday. Fortunately, today the world is growing smaller and technology increases minute by minute allowing many people to reap the benefits of it. Truck drivers are no exception. Many technological advances have improved their quality of life.A few years ago, no one would have thought that a truck driver would ever implement the use of the internet in his day to day job. Electronic de
I was recently working with the executive team of a technology start-up – very smart guys. They wanted to speed up their decision making process. During an offsite, a strategic issue came up. I could tell immediately that the discussion was one of those circular muddles. After about ten minutes, I asked them how much of what they had just heard was “new news” – information that hadn’t been discussed before in this group. The answer? About ten percent! Imagine how much time they were wasting if ninety percent of what they were discussing was old news!
I re-started the discussion by asking them to tell me only the known facts. A team member would put out a fact. I would ask others if it was really a fact. Some pretty wild debates ensued. After nearly thirty minutes of this discussion, the team said they finally understood why they had been discussing this issue for three months! They were now ready to move forward.
The magic? Only that I required them to distinguish between facts, assumptions, opinions and unknowns. Not so complicated, but very important. They were now willing and able to get caught with their assumptions down. And they had learned that in doing so, they were better able to understand one another’s thinking and come to decisions that made sense.
Getting caught with your assumptions down enables lively and genuine conversations instead of those circular muddles. These conversations are ke
Sometimes, the difficult questions to manage in an interview are not questions at all. Here are three common interview scenarios that a candidate may be asked to resolve.1. Tell me how you resolved an incident where you were asked to do the impossible.This exercise has a number of possible directions to examine. First, the statement presumes the candidate has met with impossible tasks, and in so doing, has had to come to some kind of resolution. If you are willing to take the bait, it would be good to relate some kind of situation which seemed impossible for others, but was resolved through personal efforts. In my own experience, the “impossible” merely needs to be redefined to become an attainable goal. For example, in one consulting situation, the supervisor asked me to gather information on an issue t
I re-started the discussion by asking them to tell me only the known facts. A team member would put out a fact. I would ask others if it was really a fact. Some pretty wild debates ensued. After nearly thirty minutes of this discussion, the team said they finally understood why they had been discussing this issue for three months! They were now ready to move forward.
The magic? Only that I required them to distinguish between facts, assumptions, opinions and unknowns. Not so complicated, but very important. They were now willing and able to get caught with their assumptions down. And they had learned that in doing so, they were better able to understand one another’s thinking and come to decisions that made sense.
Getting caught with your assumptions down enables lively and genuine conversations instead of those circular muddles. These conversations are ke
There are many freelance job opportunities on the internet, writing jobs is one of the most popular online jobs, the reason is very simple, there is so much that can be done. You can find a lot of businesses looking for people that want to work from home.There are different work at home online jobs for freelance writers, here are some of the things that you can do, with an online writing job: You can write articles for any webmaster than needs content, you can also write books as a ghostwriter for someone else. Most of the online writing jobs, can be extremely easy for you, some people can write several articles in the course of one day or even in a few hoursWriting articles some times can be tedious, but this type of online job will give you constant work for a long time. While you make your re
The magic? Only that I required them to distinguish between facts, assumptions, opinions and unknowns. Not so complicated, but very important. They were now willing and able to get caught with their assumptions down. And they had learned that in doing so, they were better able to understand one another’s thinking and come to decisions that made sense.
Getting caught with your assumptions down enables lively and genuine conversations instead of those circular muddles. These conversations are key to innovation.
MANDATE 2: THINK OUTSIDE IN
What is “outside” and what is “inside” depends on your perspective. If you’re in fifth grade, everyone in the fourth grade is “outside.” But if you’re the principal, all of the students are “inside.” Who is “outside” your organization and needs to be brought in? Customers, suppliers, community partners and anyone else who is critical to your success.
These stakeholders are not part of your formal organization. And no doubt you have mechanisms for communicating with them, gathering data from them, and solving their problems. That’s good but not good enough if you want an innovative culture. If you’re like most leaders, your “default setting” for these folks is “outside” of processes such as strategic planning, designing systems and processes and establishing metrics.
Flip it! Make the default setting “inside” – assume that key stakeholders will play an active role in critical business processes. Instead of having to make a case for bringing them in, ask your team to make a case for when they need to be left out.
By thinking outside in, you’ll increase the likelihood for innovative ideas many times over.
MANDATE 3: HAVE NO “KNOW” BOUNDARIES
You already know that you can’t be the expert at everything. Technology is too complex and moves too fast to make that possible. Whatever your position, whatever your field there are likely folks on your team who can add to your expertise. Especially now that you know that your “team” includes external stakeholders like customers and users. Imagine what they know that you should know!
How do you create a culture where everyone can contribute her expertise fully? Where gaps in knowledge are considered normal, not a “problem” but a routine part of exploring solutions. The most powerful single thing a leader can do in this arena is to say “I don’t know.” If the leader feels comfortable acknowledging that he doesn’t have all the answers, others will begin to assume it’s ok for them to not know. And when it’s ok to not know, we can iden
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