February 21, 2010
You Decide the Value of Our Services

Ten months ago, I heard an intriguing report on the radio. Seems like the Java Street Cafe in Kettering, Ohio, slammed by the economic meltdown, had erased all prices from its menu and was letting customers decide what they wanted to pay...

And so, in the spirit of innovation and removing all obstacles to entry, Idea Champions has decided to make the same offer to all organizations who have never done business with us.

For the months of March, April and May, any organization who engages the following services of ours (High Velocity Brainstorming, Banking on Innovation, Do More With Less, Team Innovation, or Applied Innovation), only pays expenses and what they think our services are worth.

Interested? Call us at 845.679.1066 and let's talk turkey -- or turkey burger.

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)

The Rise of the Innovation Ninjas

Every once in a while I come across a quote or excerpt from an article that I want to immediately post on the windshield of every client of mine. It cuts to the chase and lucidly states what I've been trying to say, in various Neanderthalic ways, all these many years.

Take Einstein for example: "Not everything that counts can be counted; and not everything that can be counted counts." Bingo! Bullseye! What a perfect way of explaining to a left-brained addicted world that metrics and analysis is not the only game in town.

And then there's Gary Hamel. He takes a bit more time than Albert to make his point, but hey, it's all relative isn't it? Check this out from the man behind one of my favorite business books of all time:

"Today, innovation is the buzzword du jour in virtually every company, but how many CEOs have put every employee through an intensive training program aimed at boosting the innovation skills of the rank and file? Sure companies have electronic suggestion boxes, slush funds for new ideas, elaborate pipeline management tools, and innovation awards -- but in the absence of a cadre of extensively trained and highly skilled innovators, much of the investment in these innovation enablers will simply be wasted."

"Imagine that you coaxed a keen, but woefully inexperienced golfer onto the first tee at Pebble Beach. After arming the tyro with the latest titanium driver, you challenge him to split the fairway with a monster drive. You promise the neophyte a $100 bonus every time he hits a long bomb that stays out of the rough, and another $100 for every hole where he manages to break par.

But what you don't do is this: You don't give him any instruction -- no books, no tips from Golf Digest, no Dave Pelz and Butch Harmon, no video feedback, and no time off to perfect his swing on the practice range. Given this scenario, how many 200-yard drives is our beginner likely to land in the fairway?

How long is he likely to stay avidly devoted to the task at hand? And what kind of return are you likely to get on the $2,000 you spent on a bag full of high tech clubs and the 450 bucks you shelled out for a tee time? The answers are: Not many, not long, and not much. And no one who knows anything about golf would ever set up such a half-assed contest.

"That's why I'm dumbfounded by the fact that so few executives have invested in the innovation skills of their frontline employees. The least charitable explanation for this mind-boggling oversight: senior managers subscribe to a sort of innovation apartheid.

They believe that a few blessed souls are genetically equipped to be creative, while everyone else is a dullard, unable to come up with anything more exciting than spiritless suggestions for Six Sigma improvements.

A more charitable reading: CEOs and corporate HR leaders simply don't know how to turn on the innovation genes that are found in every human being.

"Obviously, you can't teach someone to be an innovator unless you know where game-changing ideas come from. In other words, you need a theory of innovation -- like Ben Hogan's theory of the golf swing.

This is why, a few years back, I and several colleagues analyzed more than a hundred cases of business innovation. Our goal: to understand why some individuals, at certain points in time, are able to see opportunities that are invisible to everyone else. Here, in a pistachio-sized shell, is what we learned:

Successful innovators have ways of seeing the world that throw new opportunities into sharp relief. They have developed, usually by accident, a set of perceptual "lenses" that allow them to pierce the fog of "what is" in order to see the promise of "what could be." How? By paying close attention to four things that usually go unnoticed:"

1. Unchallenged orthodoxies -- the widely held industry beliefs that blind incumbents to new opportunities.

2. Under-leveraged competencies -- the "invisible" assets and competencies, locked up in moribund businesses, that can be repurposed as new growth platforms.

3. Under-appreciated trends -- the nascent discontinunities that can be harnessed to reinvigorate old business models and create new ones."

4. Unarticulated needs -- the frustrations and inconveniences that customers take for granted, and industry stalwarts have thus far failed to address."

Thanks Gary!

Clearly, what's needed these days are organizations full of Innovation Ninjas. Skillful, agile, perceptive, courageous, and highly trained individuals who know how to find their way through the seeming obstacles in the way in order to get a result.

These obstacles might be "internal" -- as in the outdated assumptions, paradigms, and habits of people with three letter acronyms after their name. OR the obstacles might be "external" -- as in an organization's funkadelic infrastructure, protocols, and processes.

But whatever the obstacles encountered (not counted!), our nimble ninjas of necessity manage to find their way to the goal. Imagine if you had hundreds of these people working in your company. Imagine you had thousands.

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:57 AM | Comments (0)

February 17, 2010
Kaleidoscopic Leaders

"Creativity is a lot like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. You look at a set of elements, the same ones everyone else sees, but then reassemble those floating bits and pieces into an enticing new possibility. Effective leaders are able to shake up their thinking as though their brains are kaleidoscopes, permitting an array of different patterns out of the same bits of reality." - Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Thanks to Chuck Frey for the quote.

Image

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2010
SOS from Mexico!

If you are reading this, please help me. I need your help!

For the past eight days, I've been in Mexico, being deprogrammed. My captors are quite clever -- latino ninjas, I believe. They never show their faces. But they are definitely having an effect on me.

Two days ago, I completely lost my desire to log on to Facebook. I can't remember any of my passwords. Or the name of my insurance agent.

What in the world is happening to me?

And it's getting worse. Last night, after being fed some "fresh" guacomole, I found myself looking at the moon instead of my email.

Have you ever heard of such a thing? Is it reversible?

For a couple of days, I thought my shaky state of mind might be due to "something in the water," but then I remembered I've been drinking mostly margaritas and cervesa.

These deprogrammers are extremely accomplished. They stop at nothing. I don't know how they do it.

My ability to comprehend the basics of my life? Rapidly deteriorating. I have no idea how many hits my website got last week. I have no clue how the Knicks are doing. The sun is up. That I know. But the Dow? Beats me.

Please, help me!

Do you know anyone at the U.S. Consulate who can intercede? A website I might check out when no one is looking? Something! Anything! Please!

Wait... shhhh... can you hear it? There... off in the distance... church bells... many church bells ringing... Listen.

Photograph

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:58 AM | Comments (1)

Who Are We?

Idea Champions is a consulting and training company dedicated to awakening and nurturing the spirit of innovation. We help individuals, teams and entire organizations tap into their innate ability to create, develop and implement ideas that make a difference.

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Storytelling for the Revolution is Mitch Ditkoff's newly published book about the power of personal storytelling to elevate the conversation on planet Earth. Provocative. Evocative. And fun. YOU have stories to tell. This book will help you tell them.
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"The world is not made of atoms," wrote the poet, Muriel Rukeyser. "It's made of stories." Learn how to discover, honor, and unpack the stories of yours that show up "on the job" in Mitch Ditkoff's award-winning 2015 book, Storytelling at Work.
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