Integrative thinking is the process of using the tension from two conflicting approaches to a problem in pursuit of a new and innovative outcome. Instead of responding to competitive or strategic situations with the same approaches, try these 5 tools to identify new and superior approaches.
One of the most effective leaders I've worked for used his natural curiosity to infect us all with a sense of wonder, exploration and experimentation. Yet our practices in organizations today often stifle or manage curiosity out of the equation. Ironically, curiosity might just be that key ingredient required for survival and success in our era of change.
It's easy to fall into the trap of telling versus asking. Telling is fast and ensure that the work gets done to your standards. It's also the height of laziness and a profoundly powerful way to show your lack of respect for your team members. Try asking instead of telling. You will be surprised with the results.
There's no shortage of those in leadership roles who might reasonably be described as mundane. They focus on performance, but fail to inspire the pursuit of potential. That's too bad, because there's nothing secret or particularly difficult about pursuing extraordinary as a leader. Small changes in behaviors have the potential to yield big outcomes.
From our earliest days in school, we are taught to "color inside the lines." In a world where everything is changing, this advice might just contribute to the demise of your firm or career. It's time to push beyond the boundaries of those lines that constrain so much creativity.
Too often, we’re laser focused on the object in front of us; the next project or the person we’re working with, and our field-of-view is severely constricted. We fail to see the bigger picture until something from outside our narrow view of the world runs us over. Here are 8 ideas to help jumpstart your external scanning activities:
Ideas in the workplace that are voiced but never vetted or pursued are the corporate equivalent of those brilliant insights we have in the middle of the night that we don’t bother to write down. “I’ll remember it in the morning,” we think at the time. We rarely do. Here are 7 ideas to help you jumpstart your firm's "ideas to Actions" machine:
We tend to love our life and work routines. They are comfortable and comforting. And while there’s a certain amount of routine that’s inherent in successfully running any organization, the best leaders seek and create opportunities to breakaway from the mind-numbing, sense-dulling pursuit of routine. Here are 5 ideas to stimulate your own-thinking on breaking the routine with your team:
After a brief hiatus, the Leadership Caffeine podcast is back! I'm excited to be on the air again and I'm excited about the great line-up of experts, authors and executives ready to share their big ideas! Speaking of big ideas, there's no one better to kick us off for this round of podcasts than G. Michael Maddock (Mike), the leader of the innovation agency Maddock-Douglas, author of multiple books, serial entrepreneur and someone who is a one-person idea generating machine. Mike is here with his latest literary effort: "Free the Idea Monkey...to focus on what matters most," a follow-on to his excellent book, Brand New: Solving the Innovation Paradox.
There are many forms of ideation and all sorts of new tools available to facilitate web-based and remote brainstorming. The same issue in this post applies regardless of method: what are you going to do with the output?
