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Professionals

Where Does Innovation Come From?

where-does-innovation-come-from

The theme of Vanity Fair’s inaugural New Establishment Summit in San Francisco was “The Age of Innovation.” As overblown and overhyped as the word is these days, even a cynic has to admit it would be nice to know where innovation actually comes from.

Perhaps it’s even more important to understand where innovation doesn’t come from.

It doesn’t come from a blog, a book or an article. It doesn’t come from inspirational quotes and stories. It doesn’t come from LinkedIn Influencers or anyone you follow on Twitter. It doesn’t come from motivational speakers. And it most certainly doesn’t come from any kind of self-improvement or personal productivity.

Innovation comes from inside you. Ideas, inspiration and innovation only seem to come from outside you, but they don’t. They always come from inside you. The only exception is small teams…but only intimate groups in real time in the real world, never large-scale or online collaborations.

It comes from obsession. Albert Einstein believed light was special, unique. He was obsessed with light. Elon Musk is obsessed with manned space travel and electric cars, among other things. Every successful founder was inspired by obsession. If you’re obsessed, you never need to be inspired by anything else.

Innovation comes from history. Microprocessor architecture comes almost entirely from the way mainframe and minicomputers were designed decades ago. So much innovation comes from ancient history it isn’t funny. Why reinvent the wheel when you don’t have to?

It comes from perseverance. Steve Jobs said, “You’ve got to have an idea or a problem or a wrong that you want to right that you’re passionate about, otherwise you’re not going to have the perseverance to stick it through. I think that’s half the battle right there.”

Innovation comes from focus, discipline and patience. These days, everyone is obsessed with squeezing every ounce of personal productivity and self-improvement out of themselves. That only takes you further away from innovation. Innovation comes from focusing on one thing and letting everything else fade to black. It’s the big picture that drives you and that’s also what drives you to come up with unique solutions to tough problems.

It comes from the need to prove yourself. The human mind is surprisingly powerful, especially in terms of the need to prove yourself. While it usually manifests early in life, the motivation tends to stick with us and often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It doesn’t even seem to matter if you know to whom you’re proving yourself – your father, yourself or teachers who said you’d never amount to anything.

Innovation comes from your subconscious. Brilliant ideas often come when you least expect them or when you’re not even paying attention. They may come to us in dreams, during meditation, in the shower, or when we’re otherwise preoccupied with some menial or repetitive task that allows our deeper emotions and thoughts to engage. And no, distracting yourself with games or social media does not qualify.

It comes from identifying problems. Granted, there has to be a solution but the problem comes first and foremost. The reason is simple. Without a pressing problem, there’s no real need of a solution. And until you correctly identify the problem, your solution is suspect and lacking innovation. Always focus on the problem. What do people need or want to do that they can’t currently do or do cost-effectively?

The most important thing to know about innovation is that it’s not the same as invention. We might even go as far as to say that, in the world of startups, invention is sort of immaterial. Just come up with problems that need to be solved and solutions that are unique and that people can actually use. More often than not, that will do the trick.

 

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Professionals

5 Secrets For Building A Highly Successful Career

building success

Everyone wants to build a successful career: to get promoted, to gain new responsibility and authority, to earn a higher salary.

[tabs type=”vertical”][tabs_head][tab_title]Be Deeply Curious.[/tab_title][tab_title]Learn how to get the people around you to do the best they can.[/tab_title][tab_title]Find a work-life rhythm you can maintain.[/tab_title][tab_title]Care deeply.[/tab_title][tab_title]Build your team.[/tab_title][/tabs_head][tab]When looking for people to place in leadership positions, especially senior leadership positions, look for people who deeply understand the business. Probe deeply into most companies and you’ll find way too many senior executives understand their role and their division but not the overall business, much less the broader economy. An outstanding executive: 1) Deeply understands their specific areas of responsibility; 2) Thoroughly understands the aspects of the rest of their company; 3) Has a solid understanding of their industry, other industries, and macro-economic forces and trends. Sound like a lot to know? It is – but it is knowledge that will separate you from the pack. Most people work hard to check the “I’m doing a great job in my job” box, but to be a leader you need to be able to step up, care about, and truly understand the larger issues of the business. People instantly recognize when you truly care about your business and truly care about learning. That always shines through – and will always take you far. [/tab][tab]Remember: different people have different leadership styles and different ways they influence others. Authenticity is the real key to leadership at any level, especially the senior level. The goal is to be authentic and learn to work within the framework of your personality to get people to follow your lead. Be yourself and leverage your strengths. Don’t try to act like someone else; people can instantly tell. If you’re casual and easygoing, don’t try to switch personalities and become refined and polished. You’ll just come across as insincere and plastic. People like, respect, and follow real people. Be yourself and learn how to get people to do what you want them to do – as yourself.[/tab][tab]You can’t treat your career like a crash diet: Cut your calories in half and exercise like crazy and you will lose weight, but eventually you won’t be able to stick with a program like that and you’ll gain back the weight you lost. A career works the same way. While there will be periods of intense stress, in general you must find a business and life rhythm you can maintain over the long term. Find a rhythm where you can have enough time for family and friends, feel satisfied emotionally, and still excel at work, because building a great career is a marathon, not a sprint.[/tab][tab]Don’t kid yourself: Everyone knows when you’re only in it for yourself. Unless you truly care about the company you work for and are personally invested in its success, you will never work as hard as you need to work to truly succeed. Every great leader is deeply invested in the success of others; every great business leader, regardless of position or level, cares deeply about their company and the people around them. If you don’t care deeply now, find something you do care deeply about: Another function, another mission, another company, etc. You can only reach your full potential, both personally and in a career, when you truly care.[/tab][tab]Outside of work we all need a broader group of people we can rely on to provide advice and guidance – people who care about our success the same way we care about theirs. In other words you need a team. The people on your team don’t need to be older, grizzled sages – they just need to know you and care about you. Make sure you have people in your life you can always turn to and for whom you will always do the same.[/tab][/tabs]

Professionals

Establish and Maintain A Successful Working Relationship

working_relationship

Building a trusting relationship is critical for the start and continuation of any business relationship.

A “true partnership” – takes some hard work – and time. Laying the foundation for a solid working relationship from the very beginning should make everyone feel comfortable that a working business partnership will be worthwhile in the long run. Both the investor and investee should consider these strategies for getting to know each other before signing any contract:

1. Be Available and Responsive

Spending time to get to know the other party is important. Whether it’s in person, by phone or in an online meeting, plan a regular meeting as often as is comfortable. And do meet in person, which is still the easiest way to communicate. Meet for lunch, take a hike, play golf, go running or just be available to really get to know the other party’s strengths and weaknesses – on a business and personal level. In addition, get back to them in a timely manner when they call or email. While surprising, many a relationship has failed because one party did not respond promptly enough to a message.

2. Be Open

Be transparent about how you conduct business, including how you resolve problems as they arise. Share what has worked well in the past and what you might need to improve upon. Give examples. The more open communication there is between parties, the easier it will be to keep everyone satisfied and any issues resolved. Keep each other informed about new services or any news pertaining to your businesses that might help either party decide to go ahead with the investment.

3. Be Prepared

Whether you are the investor or investee, come to each formal meeting armed with the information you need to demonstrate why you should work together. Discuss the success of past investments by bringing along a case study or two. Highlight a recent client relationship that went especially well – and why – or one that didn’t go so well but disclose the steps you took to resolve it. Or if you’re at the right point in an investment-type relationship, bring in your company’s revenue data showing the projected growth to further demonstrate why you’re an attractive investment.

4. Be Quiet

As in any successful relationship, you need to really listen to fully understand what the other is looking to accomplish. So make sure that when it’s your turn to listen, you do.

5. Be Flexible

As you’re listening, be open to suggestions on running your business or providing your services. As you grow, needs change, and as your competitive environment shifts, how you provide the services may not work as well as it previously did. Know that when both parties learn to work together, both will bring ideas to the table and learn from each other.

 

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://www.ceo.com/leadership_and_management/establish-and-maintain-a-successful-working-relationship/” target=”blank” ]Source[/button]

Professionals

6 Tips for Young Professionals Flustered by Small Talk

success

1.    Don’t Go It Alone

No question, it can be intimidating to go solo in a professional setting. You’re putting yourself out there with potentially serious ramifications for your career. Instead, it can be helpful to have a friend to watch your back and advocate on your behalf.

At networking events or professional conferences, the ice between making new contacts can be too thick to break on your own. Working as a team doubles your chances of being seen and heard.

2.    Keep Your Eyes Open

When in a group conversation, a lot of seasoned professionals will maintain a conversation but as they’re talking, they’re also scanning the room for people who might want to join the group, but aren’t sure how. There’s no reason why you can’t do the same when you see someone you know struggling to join the conversation.

3.    Protect Your Credibility

It’s important to be an advocate for others, especially when they’ll return the favor for you, but be cautious about putting your credibility on the line.  As a young professional, you don’t have the stock to vouch for just anybody if they truly aren’t a good fit.

Whoever you bring into the group conversation is a reflection on you and your credibility. If you bring in someone who fits in perfectly, you’ve just established yourself even more. But bring in someone who appears incompetent and the group is going to think you’re no better.

4.    Start Positive

When you have an “in” with a group, start off by making a good impression. Chime in to the conversation when somebody says something you agree with so you can engage on a positive note.

You can play contrarian later, after you’ve developed some rapport, but a simple affirmation helps set the right tone for the conversation and ensures the group you’re not out to second guess them on every topic.

5.    Watch the Group’s Dynamics

In most circumstances, it’ll be easy to tell whether the group wants you in or wants you to move along. If you stumble upon a group that is close-knit, they might not want to include you right away. Don’t force yourself on them if they’re not welcoming.

If the members don’t step back to include you in the circle after several minutes of standing nearby and a few attempts to join the conversation, look elsewhere.

6.    Start Now

Networking and personal interaction in a professional setting doesn’t come easily to most people. But the data shows it’s still expected of you. Failing to practice can hurt your chances at landing a job or moving up the corporate ladder.

It’s best to start early. People expect young professionals to come off a little awkward and unpolished, at first, because it’s a new experience. Most people will be empathetic to nerves when you first start out. However, if you’re 45-55 years old and still learning the ropes, people might question your interpersonal skills.

Take advantage of the leniency while it’s granted, or your friend might soon outrank you.

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236190” target=”blank” ]Source[/button]

Professionals

10 Qualities of Highly Successful People

The attributes here are shared by successful people everywhere, but they didn’t happen by accident or luck. They originate in habits, built a day at a time.

success-sign

1. Drive – You have the determination to work harder than most and make sure things get done. You pride yourself on seeing things getting completed and you can take charge when necessary. You drive yourself with purpose and align yourself with excellence.

2. Self-reliance – You can shoulder responsibilities and be accountable. You make hard decisions and stand by them. To think for yourself is to know yourself.

3. Willpower – You have the strength to see things through–rather than vacillate or procrastinate. When you want it, you make it happen. The world’s greatest achievers are those who have stayed focused on their goals and been consistent in their efforts.

4. Patience – You are willing to be patient, and you understand that, in everything, there are failures and frustrations. To take them personally would be a detriment.

5. Integrity – This should not have to be said, but it’s seriously one of the most important attributes you can cultivate. Honesty is the best policy for everything you do; integrity creates character and defines who you are.

6. Passion – If you want to succeed, if you want to live, it’s not politeness but rather passion that will get you there. Life is 10 percent what you experience and 90 percent how you respond to it.

7. Connection – You can relate with others, which in turns makes everything reach further and deepen in importance.

8. Optimism – You know there is much to achieve and much good in this world, and you know what’s worth fighting for. Optimism is a strategy for making a better future–unless you believe that the future can be better, you’re unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.

9. Self-confidence – You trust yourself. It’s as simple as that. And when you have that unshakeable trust in yourself, you’re already one step closer to succeeding.

10. Communication – You work to communicate and pay attention to the communicators around you. Most important, you hear what isn’t being said. When communication is present, trust and respect follow.

No one plans on being mediocre; mediocrity happens when you don’t plan. If you want to succeed, learn the traits that will make you successful and plan on living them out every day.

Be humble and great. Courageous and determined. Faithful and fearless. That is who you are, and who you have always been.

SOURCE

Professionals

3 Communication Fundamentals You Should Know

If you want to be effective at interpersonal communication in areas like managing conflict, negotiating, managing performance and coaching, here are three fundamentals – a theory and a two related skills – you really ought to know and be good at. The theory is attribution theory. And the skills are active listening and delivering feedback.

pmo-fact-find

The Theory

The theory is called attribution theory. It is about how we explain why other people do what they do. According to the theory, there either are external causes – e.g. the dog ate the homework – or internal causes, something about the individual or the group to which the individual belongs – e.g. he doesn’t get his work done because he’s lazy.

The truth is we often don’t know why someone does something. You should be aware of this theory because the best way to blow up a negotiation or a coaching session or almost any interaction with someone is to impute a negative motivation to something that person has done. Being wrong about it only makes the situation worse.

The Skills

Now that you know what attribution theory is, you know exactly what not to do when delivering feedback or when you are engaged in active listening: do not make attributions. Do not tell someone what he or she is thinking, feeling, or intending. Instead, pay attention to what the individual is saying and doing.

Feedback
The purpose of feedback is to give the feedback recipient information about his or her behavior that he or she can use to decide whether to continue that behavior or to change it in some way. When delivering feedback, instead of beginning with the impact of someone’s behavior and assuming the individual knows exactly what you’re talking about, begin by describing what that person did using specific behavioral language and then identify the impact of the behavior.

The point about language is important because the same behavior can impact different people in different ways. For example, behavior that some would call aggressive might look confident or arrogant to other people. That’s why it’s important to be specific about what the individual is doing. Please note that the words aggressive, confident and arrogant do not describe specific behavior. They describe someone’s interpretation of someone else’s behavior. They are attributions.

Active Listening
Most people think of active listening as going “uh huh” every now and then and paraphrasing. These are techniques intended to encourage the other person and to let them know you’re listening. The techniques work best if they support the actual goal of active listening, which is listening to understand.

Here’s how to become an active listener: Do not assume that your interpretations are their intentions. Do not use attributions. Paraphrase when the other person says something that appears important and then, if it seems appropriate, add on a response or a clarifying question. For example, “As I understand it now, your perspective on this topic is… Mine is different. I view the situation this way…” That gives the other person the opportunity to clarify your understanding of their position and to hear your view.
As with feedback, active listening is useful in most interactions with other people whether those interactions are personal or business related. And both skills are essential for things like negotiating, managing conflict, coaching and managing performance. They are not the only skills you’ll need, but without them, you will be much less effective. That’s why they are among the fundamentals of interpersonal communication.

Source: CEO.COM

Professionals

10 Things Real Leaders Always Do

Lead
This is not complicated, folks. Lead is the opposite of follow. When you spend a lot of your time trying to replicate how others do things, that’s not leading. It’s following. Great leaders lead by example. First they do, then they point the way for others to follow. You’re either one or the other, not both.

Manage
Yes, leadership and management are different. Hallelujah. Whether it’s managing their company’s organization, brand, products, customer experience, operations, finances, whatever, business leaders spend most of their time managing. Leadership is a skill set. Manage is what they do.

Strategize
In the old days, the big buzzword was invention. Then it was innovation. Now it’s improvement. Whatever. If you want to lead in business, you have to come up with a unique solution to a big problem that people are willing to pay for. You can call that Sylvester if you like, but I call it strategy.

Create culture
The root of the word culture is cult. Steve Jobs created a unique, cult-like culture at Apple. Likewise John Mackey at Whole Foods and the original Trader Joe … Joe Coulombe, that is. If you’ve never been to Google, check out the movie “The Internship.” Great leaders are not cast in a mold. They break the mold.

Inspire
We all need inspiration at times, but real leaders are usually inspired by their lives, which typically revolve around work and family. And since their job is to inspire and motivate others, they tend to have a pretty big source of it inside. If you’re in constant need of inspiration, you’re probably not leadership material.

Prioritize
Before everyone became so obsessed with personal improvement, productivity, and time management, real executives and business leaders learned to prioritize their time. And they prioritize their organization’s time by setting direction and goals, as well. That’s how the work gets done on time.

Juggle
No matter how well you prioritize or delegate, when your business is growing, you’ve got to keep a lot of balls up in the air. And if you’re not growing, you’re stagnating. For CEOs, especially in high-growth industries, multitasking is just a way of life … and I don’t mean tweeting while watching a YouTube video.

Plan, execute, adapt
There’s a three-part cycle to operating just about any business: plan, execute, adapt. In the beginning it’s mostly ad-hoc, but the bigger a company gets and the faster it needs to scale, the more formalized its operating processes must be.

Make smart decisions
Life is full of decisions but the vast majority — like what to eat for dinner or which phone to buy — aren’t super critical. Business is not the same because, unlike food choices, competitive markets are essentially zero-sum games. The bigger your title, the more critical your decisions. Great leaders make smart decisions.

Win
Just about any type of human performance is described by a bell-curve. Every field has its top performers, its bottom performers, and everything in between. Leadership is no different. Good leaders win more than they lose. Great leaders consistently beat the competition. That’s just what they do, and they do it better than anyone else.

Bottom line: Leaders lead and followers follow. It’s not complicated — you’re either one or the other. Which are you?
Source: Entrepreneur 

 

Professionals

Decision Making Types

 

decision making concept on blackboardDecision Making types. Which one are you?

You know you need great ideas, a critical mass of talent, and a decent amount of luck to build a successful business. But there’s something even more fundamental to putting together a smart organization.

Before everything else, you, the founder, need an honest understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. Without it, you won’t know how to build a great supporting team. One place to start is to look at how you make decisions.

A new survey of about 5,000 McKinsey Quarterly and Harvard Business Review readers might offer some insight. After in-depth work on 1,021 of the responses, study authors Dan Lovallo and Olivier Sibony identified five decision-making styles. They are: Visionary, Guardian, Motivator, Flexible, and Catalyst.

Each style is a combination of preferences from a set of six pairs of opposing characteristics:

 

  • prefers ad hoc or process
  • prefers action or caution
  • gathers information narrowly or widely
  • believes corporate interests or personal interests prevail
  • likes continuity or change
  • prefers storytelling or facts

Although the authors stress that the research is still in an early stage, here is a summary of what they have learned so far.

Decision makers all have particular ways they like to work and there are actions each should take to keep their tendencies from undermining their intent.

Visionary

The visionary decision maker is “a champion of radical change with a natural gift for leading people through turbulent times.” Such people like change, gather information relatively narrowly, and are strongly biased toward action but “may be too quick to rush in the wrong direction.”

If you are a visionary leader, you should seek the opinions and views of a broad group and “encourage dissenters to voice their concerns.” Only that way can you get a wider set of views and information that can be critical to success.

Guardian

A guardian is a “model of fairness who preserves the health, balance, and values of the organization.” Such people have sound decision-making processes, try for fact-based choices, and plan carefully. They like continuity, are moderately cautious, and gather information relatively widely.

Those are fine characteristics for normal times. But the guardian can be too cautious and slow moving during a crisis, when there is “desperate need for change.” That is why a guardian should talk to people outside the organization and have them “challenge deeply held beliefs about the company and its industry.” Task forces are then in order to “explore major changes in the environment.”

Motivator

Motivators are good choices for change. They are charismatic, can convince people of the need for action, and build alignment among parts of the company. But like all good storytellers, they risk believing the story in the face of countervailing facts. They gather information relatively narrowly, and strongly believe that self-interest prevails over corporate interest.

Rather than looking simply for outside counsel, motivators need to explore the existing facts and see if there are other ways to interpret them–ways that do not necessarily play into the narrative they have created. Formal processes are a help. Motivators can use surveys to get a realistic sense of the rest of the company.

Flexible

Flexible leaders are, as you might expect from the name, more versatile than other types of leaders: “comfortable with uncertainty, open minded in adapting to circumstances, and willing to involve a variety of people in the decision making.” They mildly lean to ad hoc approaches rather than formal processes and are fairly cautious.

The problem with flexible leaders is that they can become too open-minded. Looking at all the potential issues, solutions, and outcomes can paralyze the decision-making process. They should set deadlines for decisions before the paralytic debate can commence. It can also make sense to create a framework for ordinary repetitive decisions, making them the subject of a set of rules so as not to waste time on reconsidering.

Catalyst

The catalyst is an excellent person to lead the work of groups, whether making decisions or implementing them. They are balanced, being in the middle on four out of the six characteristics, although they slightly prefer action to caution and are slightly biased toward broadly, rather than narrowly, gathering information. The more extreme the necessary decision, the more they can naturally resist inherent biases.

That said, being middle of the road can yield only average results. To avoid that, a catalyst should watch for circumstances that require high-stakes decisions and realize that they may need a different type of decision process, like having a team look at the situation and suggest potential approaches.

How does this research square with your assumptions and decision-making tendencies?

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Professionals

5 Team Building Exercises

Teamwork: team working together.

Five main categories of team building exercises exist. They consist of activities that build communication, promote problem solving and decision making, encourage adaptability and the ability to plan, work to build trust, and develop a cooperative spirit. The team building exercises that promote these various skills are meant to be enjoyable and instructional.

Depending on what you want to improve on your team, you can try some of the following activities:

1. Build communication. Activities that develop open lines of communication and listening increase communication. Try games like telephone, where you sit in a circle and one person whispers a scenario into the ear of the next person, such as how an important report was not delivered to the president in time. The “telephone” chain continues until the last person, who announces what he or she heard. Generally, by the end of the chain the story has been altered substantially. This gives employees a chance to discuss how the story changed along the way and methods they could use in the future to improve communication.

2. Promote problem solving and decision making. Used often in science fairs, the egg drop is a particularly effective activity for promoting problem solving. Split the employees into two groups and have them rig up a package that ensures a raw egg doesn’t break when dropped from a distance. Make it more challenging by timing them and limiting the types of materials they can use to protect the egg.

3. Encourage adaptability and planning. Survival scenarios work well to encourage planning and adaptability. Announce a survival situation, such as the fact that everyone will be deserted on an island indefinitely. Instruct the group to come up with a list of 15 items they must bring with them in order to ensure their survival. The process of choosing will require that they adapt and plan for the unexpected.

4. Build trust. One of the most efficient ways to test the trust between two individuals is to have them protect one another physically. This can be done by having one person close his or her eyes and fall backward into the arms of another. Or, you could have employees stand facing each other in pairs; with their elbows bent, they place their palms together, leaning toward each other and moving their feet back further and further until they’re supporting each other. Such exercises quickly highlight trust issues and help everyone learn to believe in one another.

5. Nurture a cooperative spirit. Assigning employee teams to volunteer with charitable causes is the best way to encourage cooperation. When people work on a cause that the team cares about, they will bond. The opportunity to give back to those less fortunate often creates a charitable, cooperative attitude among everyone involved.

Armed with these ideas for team building exercises, you can create the best working culture for your business.