Innovation Challenge Week 6

Find patterns and create combinations

This week has been one of tidying up things before the festive season takes hold.  However, I have kept to my word and combined last week’s habit (writing things down) with looking for patterns and creating combinations.  I decided to revisit a creative thinking technique called Morphological analysis whereby you analyse an element of your problem into discrete components and then combine these different components to see if anything interesting jumps out at you.  You can find more creative thinking techniques from this website.

http://www.mycoted.com/Category:Creativity_Techniques

The focus of my analysis was to see if there were any new and interesting ways of engaging with our clients and potential clients that were not part of our existing strategy.  Whilst there isn’t anything novel that appears out of this analysis, it has provided me with some useful insights that may have other uses.  So a worthwhile exercise.

As with many creative thinking techniques, I find it is important to practice using them in ways that are helpful and not to just slavishly follow the instructions.  In fact something novel may occur just because you are not exactly following the instructions!

Next week which is the last challenge looks at the role of curiosity.  I look forward to reporting on how my curiosity has been tapped during the festive week.

Signing off from Level Seven and wishing all our readers Happy Holidays.

Innovation Challenge Weeks 3, 4 and 5

Risk Taking / Escape / Write things down

Some interesting reflections about these habits and my lack of action.  First of all I’ll deal with risk taking; at the end of week 3, I left the UK for a long weekend to travel to sunnier surroundings with some friends.  During the week I reflected on the notion of risk taking and found it difficult to find something about which I could take a risk that was relevant, appropriate and timely and could write about before I left.  (Clearly my enthusiasm for the Innovation Challenge was waning!) I pride myself on being open to risk as throughout my life I’ve taken all sorts of personal and career risks and have always managed the consequences to my advantage.  So, on the basis of keeping things simple, I decided to risk not writing a blog entry for the 3^rd week.  My rationale was the belief that no one was actually reading our blogs, so I felt the risk would have little, if any, consequence.

Imagine my surprise when I heard that at least one person was following the blog and was looking forward to each instalment!  I have spent the day thinking about the consequences of my actions and how to manage them.  Of course, the easiest thing to do is to sit down and write a blog entry, which I am doing now.  The hardest thing to do is to deal with my feelings, which are a mixture of guilt (for not following through with the commitment I made at the start of this challenge) and the feeling of letting someone down (even 1 reader is worth continuing with the challenge).

My reflections have reminded me about the following:

1.        Every risk has consequences.

2.       Consequential actions are easier to manage than consequential feelings.

3.       Don’t make assumptions.

4.       Escape is not an option

This last point leads me to the previous week’s habit – Escape.  Using the definition within the Seven Habits of Innovation (my basis for the challenge); this is about escaping out of your usual environment to help with the creative flow.  Over the years I have learned that I am at my most thoughtful, creatively, when I am travelling in a car or by train.  Both the physical and metaphorical journeys of getting from point A to point B help me to think differently about things.  Whilst the previous week took me to a different environment, I did not have any specific problems to ponder on.  I am, however, confident that when I need to tap into some creative time, I can manoeuvre myself into an appropriate setting to help set the mood.

(Problem + Different environment = Potential Solution)

This week’s habit focused on writing things down.  A good habit to get into for all sorts of reasons, so in the context of this challenge I searched out my Creativity & Innovation journal which I write in periodically.  I use this to capture ideas and thoughts about creativity and innovation that will be useful in Level Seven's work and research.  Again, just like ‘Escape’ I do use my journal effectively but perhaps I could widen it out to include other topics.  There is benefit to be gained in cross-fertilisation of ideas, so next week I will attempt to be more proactive about this habit.  This could well help with next week’s challenge which is ‘Find Patterns and Create Combinations’.

I will report back next Friday.

Thank you to our readers!

Employment Law and Authentic Relationships

Government plans to overhaul key areas of employment legislation have not surprisingly led to the full spectrum of responses from those who say ‘jolly good, about time’ to others who see it as a charter for unscrupulous employers. The basis for the plans is the view that employment law impedes business growth and therefore changes are proposed to legal provision including dismissal and the employment tribunal system: http://bit.ly/u72lcK

Whether the proposed changes will lead to greater profitability can only be a matter of conjecture. Making it easier to dismiss someone, for example, is much more complicated than just getting rid of a problem person: covering that person’s work, finding a replacement and then training them up bring a raft of costs which need to be balanced against other savings. The law has a clear and crucial place in ensuring fairness, protection for employer and employee and consistency of practice but whether someone can legally be dismissed after one or two years is actually not the point. The point should be that we build good relationships and that those with people management responsibilities work to establish clarity and fairness. There is a danger that we can become so legally driven that the law becomes a distraction from basic good practice and authentic human relationships. An understanding of the legal risks must be part of the management ‘toolkit’ but this knowledge should support and rationalise business driven actions rather than be the sole driver.  

Creating an environment in which there is mutual trust and respect supported by clearly articulated standards, processes and sanctions provides the strongest context in which to develop happy, performing employees managed by effective managers and led by authentic leaders. 

Have a look at our Level Seven ‘7s’ to see how legal awareness can be created within an open and honest culture http://bit.ly/uRGEiG.