| Greetings!
As we climb out of the recession the leaders of most organisations have some tough choices to make. How can we innovate to provide better services at lower cost? How can we find the resources needed for the development of new products and methods? What can we do to delight our customers and gain competitive advantage? How can we better manage risk? If you want to find creative answers to these kinds of questions then I can help with a creative thinking workshop.
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| Think like a Venture Capitalist |
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The most innovative leaders have a mindset like that of a venture capitalist. They take a portfolio view of innovation projects. The venture capitalist will invest in a basket of different start-up companies, fully knowing that most will fail. A few might break even and one or two might be successes. But one big success can pay back the costs of all the failures. Even though he is smart, the VC does not know at the outset which ventures will succeed and which will fail so initially he backs them all. As time goes on he cuts funding for the failures and gives more to the winners.
It is the same with prototypes in business. The leading innovators run many different pilots and measure progress carefully. They chop the losers but pour more resource into the successful trials. That way they are first to market with the real winners. Full Article on Innovation Tools. |
| Break the Rules.... |
 If you can find a way to rewrite the rules of the game so that it suits you rather than your competitors then you can gain a remarkable advantage. In the late 1970s the Swiss watch industry was suffering from fierce competition from the Japanese. Major brands like Omega, Longines and Tissot were in serious trouble. Nicholas Hayek took dramatic action. He merged two of the largest Swiss watch manufacturers ASUAG and SSIH to form a new company, Swatch. It took a radically different approach to watch design, creating a low-cost, high-tech, artistic and emotional watch. Within five years the new company was the largest watch-maker in the world. Swatch rewrote the rules of the watch industry. Swiss watches had competed against mass produced brands by focussing on tradition and quality but Swatch changed the parameters by making watches that were fun, fashionable and collectable. |
| 10 Great Ways to Crush Creativity |
Leaders have more power than they realize. They can patiently create a climate of creativity or they can crush it in a series of subtle comments and gestures. Their actions send powerful signals. Their responses to suggestions and ideas are deciphered by staff as encouragement or rejection. If you want to crush creativity in your organization and eliminate all the unnecessary bother of innovation then here are ten steps that are guaranteed to succeed.
1. Criticize
When you hear a new idea criticize it. Show how smart you are by pointing out some of the weaknesses and flaws which will hold it back. The more experienced you are, the easier it is to find fault with other people's ideas. Decca Records turned down the Beatles, IBM rejected the photocopying idea which launched Xerox, DEC turned down the spreadsheet and various major publishers turned down the first Harry Potter novel. The same thing is happening in most organizations today. New ideas tend to be partly-formed so it is easy to reject them as 'bad'. They diverge from the narrow focus that we have for the business so we discard them. Furthermore, every time somebody comes to you with an idea which you criticize, it discourages the person from wasting your time with more suggestions. It sends a message that new ideas are not welcome and that anyone who volunteers them is risking criticism or ridicule. This is a sure fire way to crush the creative spirit in your staff.
See all 10 ways on Life Hack. |
| Anagram Tube Map |
| I like the London Underground Anagram Tube Map. Just hover your cursor over the anagram to see the real name of the station. |
| The Inspiration Afternoon |
'Practical and fun tips that will be easy to implement in the office' was one of the many positive comments we received after our first Inspiration Afternoon. We are running another one on October 26 in London. It is a great opportunity for you to enjoy a dose of creative thinking and idea stimulation with highly effective methods that you can take back to your workplace.
There is an early bird discount if you book before Sept 30th so there is no time to lose - reserve your place now. More details. |
