10 Levels of Communication Intimacy
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 06:38 AM | Comments (1)
January 28, 2011If You Want to Innovate, Listen!
If you're interested in raising the bar for innovation in your organization, start listening more. Listening, quite simply, is the most powerful form of influence.
Generally speaking, when we think of influencing others we are thinking about our ability to get others to think and act in ways we want them to, in ways that serve our interests and objectives.
The influence process is most often conceived as the ability to provide compelling arguments -- that is, arguments that are indisputable and indicate there is only one way to proceed.
The influence process is seen as the ability to turn aside all alternative ways of thinking, to demonstrate their inadequacy in the service of making one's own position more compelling.
The ability to influence goes beyond the ability to make a compelling argument, of course. It can also involve the use of power, seduction, or fear to drive others to a particular outcome.
What is much more rarely recognized is the role of listening and empathy in the influence process.
Listening to what concerns and drives others provides a powerful basis for influence because it is by showing how your perspective will affect the concerns and interests of others that you gain others' interest and support.
But the case for listening and empathy goes much further.
If you can truly understand what others value and are concerned about, it can lead you to change your position about what is required to achieve the goals you are striving for.
If you deeply understand others, you can mobilize them, not by manipulation -- but by gearing your approach to address the real needs and interests of your stakeholders.
Listening and appreciating multiple viewpoints can help you gain more acceptance for your ideas and better ideas. And, as it all plays out, these better ideas will eventually attract more support and increase your influence -- so you can then listen more and attract more support.
-- Barry Gruenberg
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:45 AM | Comments (4)
January 27, 201136 Awesome Quotes on Time
The biggest excuse people make about why they can't innovate is the lack of time. Really?
1. "Time is a created thing. To say 'I don't have time' is to say 'I don't want to.'" - Lao Tzu
2. "To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time." - Leonard Bernstein
3. "Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein." - H. Jackson Brown
4. "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." - Albert Einstein
5. "The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time."- Abraham Lincoln
6. "Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in." - Napoleon Bonaparte
7. "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." - Steve Jobs
8. "Time isn't precious at all, because it is an illusion." - Eckhart Tolle
9. "Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time." - Jim Rohn
10. "Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends." - William Shakespeare
11. "Time is what we want most, but what we use worst." - William Penn
12. "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in." - Henry David Thoreau
13. "Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity." - Henry Van Dyke
14. "You may delay, but time will not." - Ben Franklin
15. "If you want work well done, select a busy man -- the other kind has no time." - Elbert Hubbard
16. "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." - Saint Augustine
17. "Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, but spare the right -- it holds my golden time!" - Oliver Wendell Holmes
18. "Both young children and old people have a lot of time on their hands. That's probably why they get along so well." - Jonathan Carroll
19. "My time is now." - John Turner
20. "All my possessions for a moment of time." - Queen Elizabeth
21. "What may be done at any time will be done at no time." - Scottish proverb
22. "Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save." - Will Rogers
23. "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." - Groucho Marx
24. "I've been on a calendar, but I have never been on time." - Marilyn Monroe
25. "The surest way to be late is to have plenty of time." - Leo Kennedy
26. "A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours." - Milton Berle
27. "The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet." - William Gibson
28. "The key is in not spending time, but in investing it." -
Stephen Covey
29. "It's not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?" - Henry David Thoreau
30. "Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves." - Lord Chesterfield
31. "In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking." - Sir John Lubbock
32. "I am definitely going to take a course on time management -- just as soon as I can work it into my schedule." - Louis Boone
33. "You will never 'find' time for anything. If you want time, you must make it." - Charles Bruxton
34. "The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot." -
- Michael Altshule
35. "Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can't afford to lose." - Thomas Edison
36. "The time for action is now. It's never too late to do something." - Carl Sandburg
Idea Champions
Time to think creatively
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:57 AM | Comments (1)
January 26, 2011Obama's State of the Union WordCloud
Size of the words indicate frequency of use.
Thanks to Jean Marie Bonthous for the heads up.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:21 PM
January 25, 2011We're All in This Together!
COMING SOON! Idea Champions' new virtual collaboration training, featuring Master Coach/Trainer Paul Roth. Watch this space for the announcement.
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January 24, 2011The Genie Is a Leprechaun Today
When was the last time
you saw a genie
dressed like a leprechaun?
Probably not
in this lifetime.
Well, thanks to my awesome
16 year old son, Jesse,
and his trusty sidekick,
Photoshop,
the last time
is now just a few seconds ago.
Let Idea Champions' genie help you
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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2011Listen to Your Subconscious Mind
If you study the lives of people who have had Eureka moments, you'll discover that their breakthroughs almost always came after extended periods of intense, conscious effort.
They worked. They struggled. They abandoned all hope. They recommitted -- and then the breakthrough came. And often at the most unexpected of moments.
They weren't buying lottery tickets at their local deli, hoping to win a breakthrough fortune. They were digging for treasure in their own back yard.
Rene Descartes (Mr. "I-Think-Therefore-I-Am") got the Scientific Method revealed to him in a dream. Elias Howe arrived at the final design for the lock stitch sewing machine in a dream. Richard Wagner got the idea his uber work, Das Rhinegold, while stepping onto a bus after long months of creative despair.
In other words, the conscious mind works overtime in an attempt to solve a problem or achieve a goal. Unable to come up with the solution, the challenge gets outsourced to the subconscious mind, which then proceeds to figure things out in its own, sweet time.
Of course, all of this assumes we are listening to that still small voice of wisdom within us.
Well then, what's a not-so-still, left-brained, bottom-line-watching business person to do if he wants to increase the odds of tapping into his inner Einstein.
Here's a start:
This week, keep a log of your most inspired ideas, intuitions, and dreams. When something pops for you (an inspired thought, an inkling, a sudden insight) write it down -- even if it doesn't make sense. Then, at the end of the week, read your log.
Look for clues. Notice patterns. Make new connections. See what insights come to mind -- and if they do, let us know.
More on the subconscious mind
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:48 PM | Comments (3)
January 19, 2011Creativity as Applied Imagination
Lucid exposition on creativity by Sir Kenneth Robinson. (Hint: it's not just about thinking stuff up. It's about DOING things...)
My kick asss on creativity
Close the gap between thought and action
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:07 AM | Comments (1)
January 13, 2011To VLOG or not to VLOG
I'm thinking of starting a VLOG and want your input. Instead of just writing a bunch of stuff, what about me delivering the message, on camera? Here's how the Geico caveman does it.
PS: My award winning book, features the most innovative caveman of all time -- Og, the inventor of the wheel. Buy it on Amazon
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:38 PM | Comments (7)
January 06, 2011The Homeless Man with the Golden Pipes
If you're one of the 12 people left on planet Earth who hasn't seen this video, here ya go -- the story of a homeless man who went from the streets to the airwaves overnight, reconnecting with his gift, his dream, and his faith. Never give up! Anything is possible!
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 05:32 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2011Do You Really Need More?
An investment banker was standing at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The banker complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The fisherman replied, "Only a little while."
The banker then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"
The fisherman said, "Why bother? I now have more than enough to support my family's needs."
The banker then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"
The fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening and spend time with my family, I have a full and busy life."
The banker scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat! With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to the capital city. After that, who knows, maybe you could take on the world!"
The fisherman asked, "How long will all of this take?"
To which the banker replied, "I'd say about 15 to 20 years."
"But what then?" asked the fisherman.
The Banker laughed, "That's the best part! When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."
"Millions?...Then what?" the fisherman replied.
"Then you would retire and do whatever you want," said the banker. "What would you want to do?"
The fisherman answered: "I would sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening and spend time with my family."
Idea Champions
My book
Free the Genie
Thanks to Neil Evans for submitting this wonderful story.
Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:53 AM | Comments (0)
