Why Diversity is the Mother of Creativity
Diversity is the key to creativity. Not just diversity in your workforce, but in your personal life, the teams you form and the managers whom you hire and promote, explains Jeffrey Baumgartner.
Developing an Innovation Toolbox
InnovationManagement spoke to Alexander Osterwalder, sought-after author, speaker, workshop facilitator and adviser on the topic of business model design and innovation. Find out more about his views on innovation management, what projects he is currently working on, and why big organizations should enable their creative innovators.
Personal Innovation: We Need to Stop and Think
Innovation experts love to make lists of obstacles to innovation. These lists include issues like lack of time, resistance to change, poor communication, middle management and so on. Employees like to cite obstacles such as these in part because they place the blame on the organisation and their mangers rather than on themselves. And, indeed, can you imagine a middle manager responding to a questionnaire on obstacles to innovation with the answer: “Why, I believe I am a major obstacle to innovation in this firm.”? But the truth is, possibly the biggest obstacle to innovation is simply that people do not stop and think!
Recruiting Tomorrow’s Innovative Minds
Amid news headlines of financial crisis and unemployment rates, China is moving ahead, steadily bouncing back from any dips in the country’s growth during the last two years. Multinational companies in China are bracing for a renewed talent war of job-hopping and poaching, as economic growth accelerates. Although the talent war will likely emerge first in the East, it will spread to become global as demographic shifts become more pronounced. InnovationManagement interviewed Sam Kondo Steffensen, CEO of MillionBrains, to get his perspective on how talent should be recruited and managed.
Reinventing Knowledge Management to Innovate
There has been a shift from the emphasis on what people called the “information value chain” to “knowledge value chain” for quite some time. The environments are shrewd and unpredictable in this world of growing competition and rapid technological progress. The information value chain just served as a database of “best practices” whereas “knowledge value chain” emphasizes on the active sense making of human beings handling business.
Does your Firm Have an Innovation Czar?
It never ceases to amaze me. I’m meeting with the executive committee of a major global company. I’ve just asked if innovation is one of their top strategic priorities. Their unanimous answer is “yes”. I then ask about their individual responsibilities. “Which one of you is the CFO?” “Who is head of HR?” “Where’s the CIO?” One by one their hands go up. Yet when I ask to see their global director of innovation, nobody raises a hand. Everyone just looks at me with a blank expression. So, sure, this company understands the innovation imperative. But nobody in its leadership team is directly responsible – or accountable – for making innovation happen across the organization. And they don’t even seem to be aware of the paradox.
Study Proves that Living Overseas Boosts Creativity
It has long been said that travel broadens the mind. That has never been tested empirically until recently. And the result is that travel alone is not sufficient to boost creativity. Living overseas, however, has been demonstrated to improve creative thinking ability, according to a new study.
Be Careful: Downsizing your Workforce Downsizes Innovation, Too
There are two key reasons why downsizing is bad for innovation. Neither is immediately obvious, explains Jeffrey Baumgartner in this must-read article.
Eight Critical Ingredients for Successful Corporate Innovation
Jeffrey Baumgartner shares eight ingredients that are critical to the success of any innovation program.
Being Innovative in a Big Company
One of the problems that many large organizations face is how to innovate successfully within the confines of a massive, bureaucratic operational structure. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of research and development, where small, entrepreneurial firms routinely do end runs on large companies will multi-million dollar research budgets.
Put your Best People on Innovation
Many businesses make the mistake of giving innovation projects to junior executives. It seems natural to hand innovation opportunities to enthusiastic and promising upstarts. But generally it is the experienced heavyweights who can overcome all the process and political obstacles that will occur, explains Paul Sloane.
Innovating to Benefit your Company – and Your Employees
To what extent does an employee work – and innovate – to benefit the organization and to what extent does she work and innovate to benefit herself? Senior managers would like to believe that employees are a team of selfless workers who – in exchange for a monthly wage and odd benefits – work exclusively to the benefit of the organization. As the organization grows, the employee receives promotions, salary increases and additional benefits that encourage her to continue serving the company 100%.
Imagination: The Number One Tool for Innovation and Creativity
Imagination is not a word you hear much about in business. Few companies, outside electronic game producers, would describe themselves as imaginative. That is a shame and a mistake. Imagination is the number one tool for creativity and innovation.