Four Traits Your Next CEO Must Have For Your Organization to Thrive

Want to ensure your organization will thrive over the long run? If so, then your next CEO must have these four traits – 1) relentless focus on the long-term future; 2) inherently entrepreneurial mindset; 3) solid grounding in reality and the fundamentals of business; and 4) behavior of a consummate diplomat.

Why Let Others Disrupt You? Take the Smart Self-Disruption Journey!

In a time when uncertainty reigns, the fear of being disrupted can brutally hurt any business. Responsible leaders who dare to anticipate disruption and take steps to self-inflict it to their organization in a smart and controlled way are best positioned for the future.

The Constant Tension Between Managing Innovation vs. Managing Risk

Managing innovation is a big role that puts a lot of weight on the shoulders of management teams. Depending on how much a company cultivates an innovative culture and environment, innovative ideas either go through chains of command, or are workshopped in specific departments.

Why is Crowdsourced Innovation Perfect for Nonprofits?

When the United Way told the story of their crowdsourcing program, Edwin Goutier, Innovation Lead at Unitd Way, said that one of the things that he hears a lot is that people don’t think of the United Way (or nonprofits in general) as innovative.

7 Ways to Keep Your Employees Engaged All Year Round

When your employees are directly and fully engaged, you will notice that their morale and overall level of job satisfaction are high. They are motivated to work harder and smarter for your company, and the result is high productivity and perhaps less employee turnover.

Here’s Why Consistency is Your Greatest Asset

Whether you’re an executive, a manager, or part of the team handling day-to-day operations, you’ve probably thought more than once about what you bring to the table within your organization. What do you feel is your greatest asset? Chances are, consistency never tops the list—but perhaps it should.

2021-12-14T13:19:49-08:00September 18th, 2017|Categories: Strategies|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

Can Everyone Be Innovative?

Innovation is an integral part of many organizations today, and for good reason: it helps companies stay agile, relevant, and evolving. However, innovation is often difficult to achieve—or is even met with resistance.

5 Strategies for More Effective Employee Onboarding

Over 69 percent of employees are still employed by a company three years after they start if they receive great onboarding. While training for job-specific skills should be part of an onboarding program, it is important that the program helps create connections between new employees and mentors, communicates the company's mission and core values and allows managers to make wise use of their time when bringing a new employee onboard.

Where to Start with Innovation? Begin by removing the Barriers

Surveys show that the large majority of senior executives see innovation as critical for their businesses but what if you want to make your organization more agile and innovative where should you start? You could launch a big initiative with grand statements, training classes and an ideas scheme but you tried all those last year and they fizzled out. It is better to begin with a brutally honest assessment of what is preventing innovation from happening today.

Struggling with Company Culture? Here are 3 Ways to Improve Your Work Environment

Company culture is an extremely important component of a healthy business. Culture serves as the personality of the organization and has a huge impact on the company's reputation with both internal employees and externally with customers and clients. In addition, workplace culture can influence an employee's productivity and results. Companies who focus on building a positive culture will reap the benefits of a motivated and high-achieving workforce as employees will feel much more contented and connected at work.

Citizen Science and Market Research: How the Public Can Help Prioritize

Regardless of whether the workplace is a public or private entity, departments often struggle to prioritize assigned projects, and align individual projects with overall objectives. In this case study, we’ll explore how the National Cancer Institute implemented crowdsourcing to enable the research community and the public to submit ideas on how best to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer - and how as a result, they were able to prioritize existing research and initiatives into areas where additional resources were needed the most.

The Eight Attributes of Bottom-Up Innovation Leaders

Bottom-up innovation is fueled by many ideas initiated by employees, as opposed to top-down innovation, which is fueled by a strong vision - often by the company’s founder. Bottom-up innovation leaders are entrepreneurial, supported by management’s emphasis on creativity and a can-do culture, and often share these eight attributes.

The Frustrated Innovation Team: What Should They Do?

Many executives talk a lot about innovation, but they don't really know how to make it happen. A corporate innovation team asks themselves: How do we "educate" our executives on innovation management and develop stronger corporate innovation capabilities together?