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)

What does innovation mean to you?

In a straw poll among a small, mixed population of our corporate client colleagues, we asked, “what does innovation mean to you in the context of your day-to-day work?”  Here’s a summary of the more interesting comments:

Not a lot, it’s down to the marketing department.

Our R&D department look after that sort of thing.

We have a suggestion box we’ve nicknamed the ‘Black Hole’.

It’s one of our corporate values but personally it doesn’t affect what I do daily.

Innovation, just another management fad isn’t it?

Clearly there are different ways of looking at innovation and where responsibility for innovating lies.  Level Seven’s approach to innovation is that it is a mindset and attitude.  A sentiment echoed by others and the MD of BSkyB in his presentation at last year’s IOD Annual Conference.

Some industries take the innovation agenda a lot more seriously as it is often at the core of what they do, for example, IT is an industry continually looking for innovations. 

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/hiner/how-master-innovators-play-by-different-rules/9482

Some principles borrowed from their quest include:

·         Keep focused (whatever pressures you may be facing)

·         Keep to a plan but build in flexibility

·         Do your research and have a deep understanding about your situation

·         Look to the future rather than the past (i.e. what do we want to achieve rather than what did we do before)

Arguably, these principles could apply across any sector and any discipline and we attempt to reinforce this message wherever and whenever appropriate.

Our innovation diagnostic, the LID, aims to help leaders get to grips with how they can foster this spirit within themselves, their team and more widely within the organisation. 

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

So, what does innovation mean to you?  Let us have your comments.

Gill Stevens

Director

Warming up the Organisation Through Talent Development

The recent Hay Group ressearch into workplace climate in European countries resonated with us at Level Seven, particularly at this time of the year when the UK weather slips into its cooler autumnal phase. We really like the warm metaphor used by Hay in relation to the impact that a leader can have on their team and ultimately their organisation’s performance.   The findings of the research highlight the leadership styles that support a positive and collaborative workplace climate and validate our key foci in developing leadership talent in organisations, i.e. the development of affiliative, democratic and coaching behaviours.  

In developing future leaders we bring talented people together from across organisational boundaries: improving interpersonal understanding encourages tolerance and respect which in turn supports an affiliative and democratic culture. Working on strategically focused business projects in multi functional teams helps develop ways of working that break down silos and improve organisational knowledge and relationships. Encouraging and developing the skills of coaching amongst peers and talent sponsors helps embed a developmental environment beyond formal learning into the wider organisational culture thereby supporting high levels of business performance.  Supporting organisations in the development of their talent demonstrates clearly to us that focusing on these key leadership behaviours can be very powerful in moving from cool to warmer organisational climates whatever the time of year.

http://www.personneltoday.com/pages/hay-group-job-climate-map/

Creative Leadership

Linking our two core interests together, creativity and leadership, we came across these thoughts on the role of creativity and the challenges of leaders in organisations.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1764044/ken-robinson-on-the-principles-of-creative-leadership

Evidence from a longitudinal study run over 10 years, found that teams who were run by project leaders with creative characteristics made 13 times more money for their company than those teams run by less creative leaders, a compelling argument that supports the notion that creativity and innovation are indeed areas for personal and organisational development.

We are about to launch the LID™ a new diagnostic tool that allows leaders of teams doing innovation type work to get some structured feedback on where they should focus their energy to help channel the creative energy of their team appropriately.  http://www.level7live.com/home

We are interested to hear from organisations who would be interested in contributing to our norm database http://www.level7live.com/contact

Gill Stevens

Director

Key Driver for Talent Development Programme

How to think and act differently

If you asked us to state the key driver for our talent development programme, Putting Your Talent to Work, we would say it is to encourage leaders to think, feel and act differently about the challenges they face in the workplace.

I recently worked with a group of senior executives who talked about the need for diversity of thought in the workplace and the need to encourage it, however, their actions and behaviour were at odds with what they were saying, not an uncommon challenge for leadership development interventions.  There is much research to support the argument that developing the capacity to think in a balanced way, using both intuition and logic appropriately differentiates successful leaders from average leaders.

In a recent study conducted by Kahneman, Lovallo and Sibony they refer to intuitive thinking and rational thinking as System One and System two thinking.  Their evidence suggests that when problem-solving and decision-making, particularly when weighing up recommendations that you are being asked to endorse, it is important to be aware of your cognitive biases. http://hbr.org/2011/06/the-big-idea-before-you-make-that-big-decision/ar/3

Below is a summary of 12 questions you can ask yourself when faced with having to approve a recommendation or decision made by others which requires your support or approval. (Kahneman et al, 2011)

1.        Is there any reason to suspect motivated errors or errors driven by the self-interest of the team?

2.       Have the people making the recommendation fallen in love with it?  (Minimising the risks and exaggerating the benefits)

3.       Were there dissenting opinions within the recommending team (Avoid groupthink)

4.       Could the diagnosis of the situation be overly influenced by salient analogies (Repeating success from past experiences but avoiding whether these experiences are relevant to this instance)

5.       Have credible alternatives been considered (Are there more options on the table?)

6.       If making the decision in 1 year from now what information would you want and can you get it now?

7.       Do you know where the numbers came from (credibility of data)

8.       Is there a halo effect?  Is the ‘story’ simpler and more coherent than it really is?

9.       Are the people making the recommendation overly attached to past decisions?

10.   Is the base case overly optimistic?

11.   Is the worst case bad enough?

12.   Is the recommending team overly cautious?

For more info about Putting Your Talent to Work, contact us at www.level7live.com