Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)

20 awesome quotes on beginning
Awesome illustration: Gaping Void
Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)

OK, ladies and gentlemen of the innosphere, this is your lucky day. I'm not sure if it was the cappuccino or the Mexican sun,but I am compelled to give away three lifetime subscriptions to our very cool (and under-marketed) online creative thinking tool -- Free the Genie.

Here's how it works:

1. Send an email to info@ideachampions.com, with "Free the Genie" in the subject line.

2. We'll write your name on a 3x5 index card, fold it, and put it in a hat.

3. On March 5th, blindfolded, we'll pull out three cards. The winners!

4. If it's YOU, we'll send you a link to your lifetime subscription. And we'll post all the winners names on this blog the day after. Or maybe two days. Or whatever.

If you want to buy the hard copy deck, you are most welcome.

Review of Free the Genie
Main uses of Free the Genie
Just in case you want to read my book
Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)

"13" is traditionally considered an unlucky number. Today? Not so. We have just learned that Idea Champions' blog, The Heart of Innovation -- the one you are now reading -- was designated as the 13th best innovation blog on the planet by Feedspot, a leading, browser-based RSS reader.

Thank you, Feedspot. We appreciate your kind acknowledgment. Click here to see the top 50 innovation blog winners and a simple way to subscribe to any of them.

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:14 AM | Comments (0)

A guest post by Idea Champions' newest leadership development consultant, Dr. Barry Gruenberg.

When those in senior leadership positions avoid conflict among themselves, the unresolved conflict ripples throughout the organization and paralyzes action at every level. Key issues go unresolved and the tension at the top pervades the organization. Followers of each of the powerful protagonists must constantly demonstrate their loyalty to their sponsors in their words and deeds; they must scrutinize all that they do to ensure that they are not seen as violating the party line.

Lower level employees are often enlisted to participate in task forces or committees to deal with the various by-products of the unresolved issues.

These efforts are virtually guaranteed to fail since any recommendations for resolution will compromise at least one of the contending senior managers who will usually use their power to veto the idea, leaving the task force frustrated and progress hindered.

This is ironic because the members of the task force will have attempted to remain loyal to their constituency throughout the proceedings and will usually feel that they have salvaged the most important interests of their group in the negotiation process. But the senior managers, who have delegated their conflict, will generally take an all or nothing posture on the outcome.

The only true resolution to this phenomenon requires the direct participation of the protagonists -- their committed effort to resolve their differences before the symptoms of their misalignment irrevocably muddies the organizational waters.

Idea Champions
Becoming an Adaptive Leader
Listening With Impact

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:07 AM | Comments (0)

If you, oh life long innovator, are looking for someone to do your self-portrait or the portrait of a loved one (including your pet), The Heart of Innovation would like to recommend one of our favorite artists, Evelyne Pouget. All she needs is a good photo and your preference for the medium -- oils or oil pastels.

Her website

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Idea Champions is thrilled to welcome a fantastic, new member of our team, Brian Paul Allison. Brian plays two inter-related roles in what some past and present clients refer to as our "boutique consulting and training company": Sales Director and Creative Thinking Facilitator.

We like to think of Brian as a "polymath" -- a person of great learning in several fields of study. With a background in the human potential movement, Brian refined his many change agent skills as a holistic health coach and fitness professional, for 18 years, at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires.

Brian is also the former Creative Director for The Adventure Game Theater, a wildly popular experiential curriculum of play, theater, and team building, featured on PBS.

A certified Behavior Change Specialist and lifelong Brain Optimization savant, Brian has memorized hundreds of classic poems, the number pi to a thousand digits and, if you show him a randomly shuffled deck of playing cards, he will look at it once and tell you exactly the order of the cards. Will he remember your name? Highly likely. Will you remember his name? TBD.

In our clients words

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

Storytelling at Work
Our new storytelling workshop
Storytelling infographic
Storytelling at Work

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

My open letter to Donald Trump has just been published in the Huffington Post -- my attempt to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. If you resonate with what I've written, please forward it to friends and post on social media. Thanks! Mitch

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)