Innovation Challenge - Week 2

Developing the habits of highly innovative people

Remove Self Limiting Inhibitions

This week has presented a number of opportunities for me to reflect and do something about this habit.  I am sure I am not alone when I say that the idea of picking up the phone to make sales calls fills me with dread.  I find it much easier and safer to rely on email communication.  Of course, this is a self-limiting inhibition and it’s all to do with rejection. 

I decided this week I would grasp the nettle and instead of my usual approach to send emails, I actually picked up the phone and attempted to make contact with a few people by way of follow-up communications.   I enjoyed about 50% success rate in that I did actually get through to the person and had a productive conversation. 

So, why am I not able to feel comfortable about doing this every day and just do more of the same?  What I seemed able to do before making each call was to turn off my negative inner dialogue which was saying things like “they won’t want to talk to you”, “you’ll be interrupting them when they are busy and then they will be annoyed ....”  I replaced this negative inner dialogue with some positive dialogue along the lines, “you’ve met these people and they will want to talk to you even if it is not necessarily what you want to hear right now” and “if they answer their phone they will not be annoyed as they have a choice to answer or not”

By removing this self-limiting inhibition about rejection helped me to feel courageous and pick up the phone and this action actually paid off.   I spoke to a few people and have a better understanding of their situation and am able to amend my follow-up campaign with them more effectively. 

http://change-effect.com/2011/11/21/the-courage-to-believe/

Of course, I could have received the same information via email but the opportunity to actually have a conversation with someone is much more pleasant and fulfilling.

As with the previous habit of persistence, employing a more positive mindset can be very helpful.

Next week’s focus is Habit No 3: ‘Take risks and make mistakes’.

Level Seven’s Innovation Challenge – Week 1

Developing the Habits of Highly Innovative People

To quickly recap, I decided at the beginning of this week to conduct some Action Research focusing on how to develop some personal skills of innovation and adopted as my framework, the 7 Habits of Highly Innovative People.  I thought I would focus on one habit each week and report back.

http://thinksimplenow.com/creativity/7-habits-of-highly-innovative-people/

The theme of this first week has been Persistence.  At the start of the week I felt a structured approach would be helpful and decided to apply the idea of persistence to some goals in the short, medium and long term. 

My short term goal was to be more persistent towards drinking more water (I thought this could only be a good thing and good for my health too). How could I develop a more persistent approach to my water-drinking behaviour?  I’ve tried to do this in the past but failed, I just seem to forget to drink.  Even having bottles of water on my desk or in my bag do not seem to have worked, so I thought this time I would resort to a slightly Pavlov approach.  I set my iphone alarm during the day to remind me to drink water.  It has worked in that I have drunk more water than I usually would in a week.   Only time will tell if this behaviour has become habitual and whether I can disassociate the sound of my alarm with the need to drink water! 

My medium term goal was to take a persistent approach to engaging more often with our social media strategies for our business development.  As part of my plan I attended a workshop in the week at the British Library on the subject of Marketing and Social Media.  I must admit at times during the workshop I felt rather over-whelmed by what is required to develop a good, effective strategy.  My persistence is driven by the commitment to write these blog entries for the next 7 weeks and now that I’ve made that commitment, I intend to keep them going.

My longer term goal of persistence links to continuing to build a thriving business in these somewhat challenging economic times.  ‘Seven Habits’ define persistence as not giving up, undertaking hard work and keep on keeping on, even in the face of adversity, rejection and sometimes feeling of getting nowhere.  To me this is about developing a persistent attitude or mindset which I like to think I possess but every now and then it is worth doing a reality check.  This week has provided me with some space and time to think about our goals, plans and opportunities.  This time has been very useful for getting some projects back on track.  So to coin a phrase, persistence is about keeping that glass half full, not half empty (that is if I remember to fill it in the first place!)

http://www.level7live.com/lid.html

So next week the theme is Removing Self Limiting Inhibitions.  Now, this could be fun!

Level Seven's Innovation Challenge

There is a lot that has been written about developing creativity and innovation skills and whilst it was a while now since undertaking my doctorate research I thought it would be fun to undertake some practical personal research.  So I have decided to undertake some ‘Action Research’ and report back my findings.

The following provides me with a simple structure and focus for my research:

http://thinksimplenow.com/creativity/7-habits-of-highly-innovative-people/

My plan is to adopt a new habit each week and report on my reflections and any insights at the end of each week.  I will summarise my views in the New Year.  So, this is my focus for the next 7 weeks:

Week 1 - Persistence

Week 2 - Remove self limiting inhibitions

Week 3 - Take risks and make mistakes

Week 4 - Escape

Week 5 - Write things down

Week 6 - Find patterns and create combinations

Week 7 – Curiosity

If anyone wants to join me in this challenge and share their outcomes each week, I’d be delighted to hear from you.

Gill Stevens

Who's the Talent?

It seems as if everyone is talking about talent in the workplace. A multitude of surveys, articles, conferences and workshops expound the importance of recognising, retaining, motivating and developing talent in organisations. We’re not knocking this – after all talent development is Level Seven’s raison d’être.  There is a danger, however, that yet another word in the HR lexicon is being dropped randomly into conversations about employees without carefully considering the meaning and appropriateness of the word. In so doing the term and all associated strategies and initiatives could be in danger of becoming devalued.

So what do we mean by the word talent? Should the word be used to describe the entire employee population and all related HR activity? There is something ethically attractive about acknowledging that everyone in an organisation has talent to be nurtured and developed according to their performance objectives. However, does such use dilute the value of the term? Is the term more strategically valuable if it is focused explicitly upon a specific pool of employees who are exceptional in relation to some technical proficiency or competence that supports the achievement of organisational goals?  Current challenges of where to invest often limited employee development resources can compound this dilemma and can become a strong determinant of resultant talent development strategy. Whilst it could be argued that an all encompassing definition of talent provides an equitable basis for investing limited L & D budgets, there is also a credible argument that supports differentiation in order to ensure the necessary investment in those high potential groups that are crucial for ensuring ongoing and future delivery of organisational performance objectives. How then do you ensure the continuing engagement and performance of those outside of the differentiated talent pool?

Let us know what you think?

(Have a look at the theories and research gathered by Silzer and Dowell in their book ‘Strategy Driven Talent Management: A Leadership Imperative’ at http://bit.ly/vBh6y2)