From the Wharton School,
“In the following excerpt from Anticipate: The Art of Leading by Looking Ahead, business consultant Rob-Jan de Jong writes that you have to look beyond the obvious to what stretches the imagination without being absurd. A potent personal vision is imaginative, directed and often breaks paradigms. And it has the power to mobilize the people around you.”
For the article go here.
Now here is some sensible research that finds individual brainstorming before sharing ideas with your team outperforms team brainstorming. It makes sense
Terwiesch, Ulrich and co-author Karan Girotra, a professor of technology and operations management at INSEAD, found that a hybrid process — in which people are given time to brainstorm on their own before discussing ideas with their peers — resulted in more and better quality ideas than a purely team-oriented process.
“When it comes to innovation, however, what really matters is not getting many good ideas, but getting one or two exceptional ideas. That’s really what innovation is all about.”
More about the latest innovation research in the next blog.
“…we have to understand an area deeply enough in order to be able to identify the key problems….Once you have those insights, coming together in this process of combining different ideas makes a lot of sense. But if you just go straight for combination and diverse teams, you may be missing out on the highest impact ideas because you haven’t done what I consider to be the pre-work, which allows you to have that in-depth insight into innovation.” Sarah Kaplan, University of Toronto.
I find myself scratching my head a lot when reading about research that in the end, discovers something that common sense already has told us. This secondary research is often a “data mining” approach that often looks at flawed assumptions. In this study, it was the assumption that the number of citations a patent receives from downstream patents determines it’s novelty or innovative rating. I can hear Homer Simpson slapping his head “Doh” !!!!
Haven’t these researchers taken the time to sit in on brainstorming sessions and measure the capabilities of the group, monitor the ideas put forth, measure the “deep knowledge” in the room as well as the diversity of the group? Then it is a matter of measuring the innovative economically valuable solutions against the “big brain” matrix in the room. This process is dynamic, varied and perhaps most importantly unique to each situation.
Where management researchers go astray in my opinion, is they try to extract principles, techniques and measurable actions that can be put into a reproducible formula for successful management. In this case, determining the critical success factors (csf’s) of innovation.
I laughed when I read this statement on a key research finding: “Patents that were both novel and had economic value were the most valuable. And that was only about 1% of the total patents.” Let me see if I understand this, patents that are new and have economic value are valuable ! I must be missing something.
Oh well, academia marches on but you have to wonder how much of the increase in college tuition is piddled away on reasearch that common sense could have made moot. For the full article go here
A number of years ago I was on a Continental Airlines flight from Mexico to the U.S. On the second flight on take off from Houston to Albuquerque the right side engine blew up in a ball of flames and the plane leaned over and started going down. I could see the rooftops of the houses clearly. A group of missionaries started praying and one of the flight attendants completely lost her composure. I grabbed the phone on the seat back thinking I could call and say goodbye to my daughter…. more later on how this near death experience resulted in programs for airlines.
I had just delivered a hotel-based team building program we packaged and delivered in Mexico City using the hotel gardens and a large ballroom/salon for experiential activities. Being flexible with our programming and having lots of portable activities gives Santa Fe Learning Centers the ability to deliver impactful programs just about anywhere.
Back to the blown engine out of Houston. The pilot wrestled the airplane level but could not perform safely a bank turn so it took awhile to get back to the airport during which time I did leave a message for my daughter….”I love you” ….with a nervous tone which she detected and asked me about.
Finally on the ground, a series of unbelievable events took place which improved my ability to facilitate and brought me airline clients with whom I never thought I would work. More on the key learnings I took away from this event in the next post.
John Maxwell talks about 5 levels of leadership. Where does your “authority” as a leader come from?
Your title or position? Your ability to connect with others? Or from your ability to solve problems, produce results and build momentum? From your ability to form a learning organization (Senge), developing people and form effective teams who lead and perform well like you? Or from the deep respect that you have earned by performing on all these levels for a long period of time. By “modeling the way” (Kouzes and Posner) for others?
To find out where you are….what level of leader you are…..you need to take some time. Get quiet. If you know meditation or are practicing a form of mindfulness then get settled and calm. Make a list of the people you work with and ask which level of leadership you are at with each person. As John says, you will be at a different level with different people. Then make an action plan for each person to raise your level with each of them. More info go here.
They are “flippin” classrooms, using and researching experiential learning and more.Go to youtube or our facebook page.https://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=li00bOKcyp4&u=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DbCUptF3eaGI%26feature%3Dshare
We worked with TEC campus Estado de Mexico back in 2005. An impressive school. Along with other fields of study, they help supply the needed engineers that are making central mexico so hot right now. Manufacturing of automobiles and much much more.
Simon Sinek shows this basic model that all business leaders should check out before they revisit their Mission/Vision Statement. Asking everyone “WHY” the organization does “What” it does is an important conversation. Do this offsite in a retreat atmosphere where everyone can relax and think and feel without the pressures of the office or manufacturing plant.
Novarum Consulting together with Integra Mexico provided this corporate group the guidance and facilitation they needed while at the SFLC facility. Great meeting spaces, an exciting challenge course amidst ancient mesquite trees, lots of thermal pools and lush gardens. What more to ask for?
Mom’s and Kids, a 4 hour program to celebrate our mothers. Come to our challenge course and play, climb, have fun, laugh and be challenged.
Who Should Attend:
Investment:
What you will learn and do:
Kids are out of school and families are on vacation. Come and climb with us !!!! Receive 10% off your meal at the Casa del Sendero restaurant.
April 3rd, 4th and 5th (and the next weekend too: April 10,11,12) the high climbing wall at Santa Fe Learnning Centers is open extended hours 11am to 4pm. Groups of just 3 or more can call for their own session during the 2 week vacation ($ 100 pesos /perso; $150/two; $400 for families).
This is a special opportunity to climb, learn and love. Love for time outside in nature, love for your family and love for challenging yourself. Anyone can climb, from 9 to 90. Ask about “Hang Time”, a special activity to help younger climbers (8 and under) get used to hanging, swinging and defying gravity as they get accustom to being off the ground.
