The default approach in most organizations and on most teams for idea generation is to conduct a brainstorming meeting. You know the drill. A meeting notice is sent out, and everyone assembles at the appointed time, prepared to “ideate.” The moderator reminds...
One of the best leadership public services you will find is Dan McCarthy’s hard work to produce the monthly Leadership Development Carnivals.
Dan scours the world far and wide for compelling content designed to inspire, energize and challenge you to step up your leadership game.
In some organizations, there are so many systemic and cultural disincentives to experimentation that it’s a wonder that executives and employees are able to decide what to have for lunch today that was different from yesterday. In spite of the natural inertia towards the sure thing or the shortcut (external advice in lieu of more risky and time-consuming experimentation), I’ll offer my few cents worth on why and how you and your firm can use experimentation as a means of building value and confounding competitors.
The best leaders that I know are driven by an internal belief and desire to create something good and significant through their leadership efforts. They are egotistical enough to understand that they want to pursue greatness in some terms, and they are humble enough to know that none of this is about them, but rather it is for and with and by others that this something can be achieved.
In my opinion, Deming has never been irrelevant as a management philosopher, teacher and advisor, but our fast-moving, idol-for-a-minute, fad-crazed modern culture, we’re quick to write off those thinkers and doers from prior eras as yesterday’s relics…interesting perhaps, but irrelevant.
Thanks to Mark Bennett and the great people at Talented Apps for hosting the February, 2010 Leadership Development Carnival. Take a stroll through the Carnevale di Venezia Edition (you’ll have to click over to understand the creative tie-in to the Carnival in Venice) and check out some truly intriguing, inspiring and compelling posts from bloggers old and new. OK, instead of old, perhaps I should say familiar!
It never ceases to amaze me how many excuses people have for not succeeding at something they view as important to them personally or professionally. While behavioral psychologists might label this as an issue of “external versus internal locus of control,” as I listen to the excuses flowing for not getting the job, not losing weight, not saving money, not making it to class, not writing a book, not keeping up with blogging, what I’m really thinking is (in very loud terms inside my mind), “YOU HAVE NOT MADE UP YOUR MIND TO SUCCEED!”
Without exception, the healthiest businesses that I work with are those that offer a workplace environment and atmosphere that encourages a free-flow of ideas ranging from outlandish to “I can’t believe we didn’t think of that before.” It is the part of the natural culture of the firm to think in terms of “What if?” and “Why not?” Alternatively, the less than healthy firms that I encounter share many failure attributes, including a complete dearth of creativity and visible creativity-inducing practices and processes. What should you do if you are called upon to help jump-start the creativity culture where the creative processes have gone into deep-freeze?
As I continue expanding my writing and publishing activities in my growing multi-media and multi-medium world with multiple blogs and an e-newsletter as well as frequent writing for other publications, I feel duty bound to highlight some of the content that you won’t catch in this blog alone. Here’s the update on what idea and action stimulating content you might have missed on my Building Better Leaders blog or in the first edition of The Management Excellence Newsletter. Enjoy!
Far too many leaders that I work with lack awareness of the broader forces swirling around their firms, their customers and those shape-shifting clusters that we describe as industries.
Given the hurricane like market and societal forces buffeting our globe today, a strategy of boarding up the windows and hunkering down is tantamount to committing corporate suicide. Yet, mostly by the sin of omission, this is exactly what I’m observing inside too many organizations.
