How Do You Define Innovation and Make It Practical and Saleable to Senior Management?
The first major issue to be tackled by our distinguished panel of innovation practitioners is innovation itself. How do you define innovation? And how can you make it understandable and saleable to your organization’s senior management team? As expected, our panelists shared some keen insights and practical strategies that you can benefit from.
Creating a Culture of Innovation
Years of cost-cutting and focus on process excellence have created in many firms a culture that is focused on operational excellence and risk avoidance. For innovation to succeed as a corporate objective, the culture must change to accommodate the risk and uncertainty that accompanies an innovation focus. Luckily, several important levers can help you change the culture, as Jeffrey Phillips explains.
The Six Thinking Hats of Creative Communication
Edward De Bono’s Six Hats method is a powerful and creative approach for communication. If you design your communication efforts - such as speeches, meetings, dialogs, posters and ads - according to this model, you will increase your odds of getting your message through in an original yet clear and effective way.
Cultivating Idea Stakeholders
In many organizations, big ideas cause change, and thus they tend to encounter a significant amount of resistance and inertia. The solution, according to Jeffrey Baumgartner, is to cultivate idea stakeholders. Read on to learn how to build support for your big ideas.
Customer Intimacy and Empathy are Keys to Innovation
Just because a company is spending money on research (such as markets, customers, or new technologies) and development doesn't mean they will get innovation. Innovation, as with advertising, training, or many other organization investments, depends on the quality of the investment as much as the quantity of resources put in it. A high proportion of innovative new products, services, and companies flop. That's often because managers build better mousetraps without first making sure there are any mice out there. Or that people still want to catch them.
7 Strategies for Sustained Innovation
Sustained innovation comes from developing a collective sense of purpose; from unleashing the creativity of people throughout your organization and from teaching them how to recognize unconventional opportunities. Here are seven strategies for sustaining innovation in your organization.
Want to be more successful? Develop an attitude of service
If you desire greater success in your life, look for creative ways to increase your level and quality of service to others. Read on to learn some practical ideas and strategies that you can begin using today to increase the value you provide to others.
Presenting Innovation in a Way That Gets to ‘Yes’
As the global economy has improved and CEOs get past their hunker down/cut costs/survival mentality, the question of how to drive growth begins to dog them. But getting senior management to take action on innovation often needs a catalyst, and a solid strategy for getting them to say "yes" to innovation.