Stand By Me
Some people say that laughter is the universal language. Others say love. Still others say stock options. The producers of the video below say music. Whatever language you speak, one thing is clear: at the core of who we are, beyond our differences, titles, and strategic plans, we all speak the same language.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:36 AM | Comments (1)
May 26, 2009Blue Sky Thinking for Fun and Profit
In 1989, Gary Kasparov, the Soviet Union Grand Chess Master, played a two game match against "Deep Blue," the reigning supercomputer of the time. Kasparov won easily.
When asked by the media what his competitive advantage was, he cited two things: intuition and the ability to fantasize.
(And this from a master strategist!)
Few of us, in the workplace, are ever encouraged to fantasize -- a behavior most commonly associated with children, slackers, and flakes.
And yet, fantasizing is exactly how many breakthrough ideas get their start -- the act of some off-the-grid maverick entertaining the seemingly impossible...
HERE'S A SIMPLE WAY TO FIND SOME BLUE SKY
1. Make a wish for the successful resolution of your challenge (i.e. "I wish I had more time").
2. Extend your wish by making a wild wish (i.e. "I wish I didn"t have to work my regular job").
3. Extend your wild wish further by thinking of a fantasy solution -- a seemingly impossible way to get a result (i.e. "a fairy godmother shows up at midnight to do my work").
4. Distill your fantasy solution down to a core principle (i.e. "I get more help" or "I outsource my responsibilities").
5. Using this principle as a clue, brainstorm new ideas for the successful resolution of your challenge.
Photo
Excerpted from Awake at the Wheel
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2009You're Right!
There is a scene from Fiddler on the Roof that has taught me more about life than most holy books I've read.
In it, two men are heatedly arguing over the age of a horse. When they see Tevye, the town milkman/sage, walking by, they begin passionately pleading their case.
"Tevye!" blurts the first, "I've been cheated! Last month a bought a horse from this sorry excuse for a man. He told me the horse was six, but it was 12!"
Tevye listens carefully, strokes his beard, nods his head, and smiles. "You're right!" he says.
"What!" screams the second. "No way! Not true! The horse I sold him was six years old and I have the papers to prove it!"
Again, Tevye listens, strokes his beard, nods his head, and smiles. "You're right!" he says.
A third man, who'd been watching the argument from the beginning, boldly steps forward.
"Tevye... with all due respect for your great insight and wisdom, how can he be right" (pointing the the first) "and he be right" (pointing to the second).
Tevye listens, strokes his beard, nods his head, and smiles. "You're right!
Then he starts dancing like a madman.
Next time you think you're right... remember Tevye.
Business and innovation are FULL of paradox, contradiction, and seeming dissonance. See if you can dance your way through them without making anyone wrong. You'll enjoy the process more AND fabulous new things will manifest as a result. To life!
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:44 AM | Comments (2)
May 16, 2009TED VIDEO: Seth Godin on Tribes
Lucid, entertaining, informative 17-minute video on the power of tribes -- the most ancient and organic way to get a message out to the world. Want to make a difference? Got something to say? Looking for a simple way to connect with those who want to go beyond the status quo? Listen to the bald-headed wonder, Seth Godin, introduce you to what's already happening...
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:47 AM | Comments (0)
May 13, 200956 Reasons Why Most Corporate Innovation Initiatives Fail
Innovation is in these days. The word is on the lips of just about every CEO, CFO, CIO, and anyone else with a three-letter acronym after their name. As a result, many companies are launching all kinds of "innovation initiatives" -- hoping to stir the soup. This is understandable. But it is also, far too often, very disappointing...
Innovation initiatives sound good, but usually don't live up to the expectations. The reasons are many.
What follows are 56 of the most common ones -- organizational obstacles we've observed in the past 22 years that get in the way of a company really raising the bar for innovation.
See which ones are familiar to YOU. Then, sit down with your Senior Team... CEO... innovation committee, or best friend and jump start the process of going beyond these obstacles. Let the games begin...
1. "Innovation" framed as an initiative, not the normal way of doing business
2. Absence of a clear definition of what "innovation" really means
3. Innovation not linked to company's existing vision or strategy
4. No sense of urgency
5. Workforce is suffering from "initiative fatigue"
6. CEO does not fully embrace the effort
7. No compelling vision or reason to innovate
8. Senior Team not aligned
9. Key players don't have the time to focus on innovation
10.Innovation champions are not empowered
11. Decision making processes are non-existent or fuzzy
12. Lack of trust
13. Risk averse culture
14. Overemphasis on cost cutting or incremental improvement
15. Workforce ruled by past assumptions and old mental models
16. No process in place for funding new projects
17. Not enough pilot programs in motion
18. Senior Team not walking the talk
19. No company-wide process for managing ideas
20. Too many turf wars. Too many silos.
21. Analysis paralysis
22. Reluctance to cannibalize existing products and services
23. NIH (not invented here) syndrome
24. Funky channels of communication
25. No intrinsic motivation to innovate
26. Unclear gates for evaluating progress
27. Mind numbing bureaucracy
28. Unclear idea pitching processes
29. Lack of clearly defined innovation metrics
30. No accountability for results
31. No way to celebrate quick wins
32. Poorly facilitated meetings
33. No training to unleash individual or team creativity
34. Voo doo evaluation of ideas
35. Inadequate sharing of best practices
36. Lack of teamwork and collaboration
37. Unclear strategy for sustaining the effort
38. Innovation Teams meet too infrequently
39. Middle managers not on board
40. Ineffective rollout of the effort to the workforce
41. Lack of tools and techniques to help people generate new ideas
42. Innovation initiative perceived as another "flavor of the month"
43. Individuals don't understand how to be a part of the effort
44. Diverse inputs or conflicting opinions not honored
45. Imbalance of left-brain and right brain thinking
46. Low morale
47. Over-reliance on technology
48. Failure to secure sustained funding
49. Unrealistic timeframes
50. Failure to consider issues associated with scaling up
51. Inability to attract talent to risky new ventures
52. Failure to consider commercialization issues
53. No rewards or recognition program in place
54. No processes in place to get fast feedback
55. No real sense of what your customers really want or need
56. Company hiring process screens out potential innovators
Others we may have missed?
We can help. Click here for more.
Photo by Tuli Panka
Thanks to Barry Gruenberg, Bill Shockley, Chuck Frey, and Farrell Reynolds for their sage input.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:17 PM | Comments (2)
May 09, 2009STICKY IDEA: Post-It Entertainment
If you can spell "innovation," you've probably heard the story about the origins of the post-it note -- how it was an accident in one of 3M's labs and how Art Frye and others saw a market for something that didn't quite stick all that well.
Relax. I'm not going to tell that story again.
What I AM going to do is call your attention to the next creative use of the omnipresent post-it -- a use you are unlikely to have considered yet: the post-it as pure entertainment.
When you're done viewing the 3:19 video, take a few minutes to conjure up some non-traditional uses of your company's best (or worst) selling product. If you don't work for a company, think of some new uses for whatever product or service you are offering the world these days.
As one wise pundit put it, "Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought."
(Thanks to my very creative, 14-year old son, Jesse, for turning me on to this video).
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)
May 08, 2009Smoke Signals in Cyberspace
Hey innovation-seeking humanoids!
Back in my day, whenever we wanted to get the word out, it was dirt simple. Smoke signals was the name of the game. Or maybe a primal scream or two.
We didn't have no email, no YouTube, no Twitter, no FaceBook, no MySpace... or the ten thousand other things you modern day Technoids use in your endless effort to make sense of things.
And we certainly didn't have no PR Web Press Releases either, like the one Digital Diva Nettie Hartsock just forwarded to Mr. Finally-Got-Use-of-His-Opposable-Thumbs-Axiom-Award-Winner What's-His-Name today.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:58 AM | Comments (0)
May 05, 2009Seeing Through the Eyes of a Child
Tonight, I came home from a meeting, and the image above was waiting for me in my inbox. Somehow, when I was gone, my 14-year old son figured out how to do this. (That's him). I will ask the wizard in the morning and let you know how he did it.
"The greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child." - Thomas Edison
"Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas." - Paula Poundstone
"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." - Pablo Picasso
EXERCISE: Today, present your biggest problem to a child and ask him/her for three possible solutions.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:37 AM | Comments (0)
May 03, 2009Reboot yourself with this one
Think you're underpaid? Complaining about your boss, the economy, or the price of avocados? Read this juicy quote aloud, then see how you feel.
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."
- George Bernard Shaw
OTHER QUOTES FROM GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
"Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week."
"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will."
"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh."
"The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time."
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 03:06 AM | Comments (0)
May 01, 2009"Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted, counts." (Einstein)
Some things we can measure. Some things we can't. And just because we can measure something doesn't make it more real or significant.
Einstein knew this. There was always the "X factor" for him -- mystery, the unknown, and the impossible to quantify.
That's why he used to conduct "thought experiments" in his lab -- times when he turned away from the blackboard with all those exotic formulas and simply daydreamed -- letting the intuitive side of him take over for a change.
Hmmm... what might YOU be attempting to quantify or measure that would best be left alone?
What might you be needing to TRUST that abides outside the boundaries of the rational, logical, analytical, scientific mind?
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)
