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.

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)

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