Being told to “have patience” can be a major buzz kill when it comes to pursuing potentially innovative ideas. Nobody wants to hear that they’ll need to wait to see their innovations take hold and achieve success. Businesses have a schedule and a budget. They have investors and stakeholders. There are expectations. But Warren Bennis […]
Its that time of year again when managers deliver annual performance reviews. Over my career, I’ve been shocked on how few managers have the leadership skill to properly deliver constructive criticism. This morning, I came across an interesting column by Tony Schwartz on hbr.org about mistakes we make in delivering criticism. He makes the point that in […]
One of the more common excuses used by management for innovations not making it in the market is a “failure to execute”. Is it really a failure to execute or a failure to give innovations enough execution focus compared to the core business? In the 7 Immutable Laws of Innovation, the Law of Execution […]
Below are 10 quotes from Bill Hewlett and David Packard that I use as a periodic kick in the pants. 1. The greatest success goes to the person who is not afraid to fail in front of even the largest audience. 2. Set out to build a company and make a contribution, not an empire […]
Patience is not a skill that comes naturally. At least not to me. I’m just as aggressive as the next person when it comes to wanting to see the impact from my ideas. What I have plenty of is impatience. I want to see the results now, not years down the line. The reality […]
Seth Godin recently made a post on his blog about putting yourself into an impossible position and then setting back and watching incredibly things happen. I’m a big believer of constraint based innovation where leaders purposefully restrict some key resource(s) (people, money, time, etc) and then force the team to solve the task by creating a unique approach […]
Best practices for innovation makes no sense. The consulting industry is built up on the idea of taking the “best” from each of their clients and merging them together and then selling them to all the companies within a given industry. So why is this a bad idea? Best practices make everyone the same — […]
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Rich Karlgaard, Publisher of Forbes, and I had a recent discussion on the changing role of the CIO. When I was a CIO at a public company (Teligent), my role was clearly defined by my boss at the time, Alex Mandl. One of Alex’s first guidelines he gave me was to make sure his name […]
One of the challenges for creating a culture of innovation within an organization is the ability to get along with others. Innovation is about constant change which is uncomfortable and stressful. The result is that some individuals/groups will not respond and actually become quite negative (corporate anti-bodies) to the innovation effort. What are you to do? How do you build a bridge to these individuals/groups? How do you get along with people who react so negativly to your ideas?
Do you have the right to question or even argue with your boss? In most cases, people would say ‘are you kidding!!’. Without the right to argue, how can management even hope to avoid the potholes and cliffs that we all face. In the case of innovation, the right to argue is paramount to creating […]