Aha!

When was the last time you had one of those "light bulb" moments? You know, like a cartoon character that suddenly gets a brilliant idea and a light bulb appears over his head. Or like the famous legend about the ancient Greek Archimedes.

He'd been asked by the king to find out whether his crown was pure gold without destroying it. Getting ready to step into his bath, as Archimedes put his foot in the water, he noticed how the water rose as his foot went in. That's when insight struck. He saw that all he had to do was submerge the crown in water to determine its density.

He got so excited that he shouted "Eureka!" – which means "I have found it!" --and ran out into the street, forgetting he wasn't wearing his toga. Well, ever since then, people have noticed these special moments when insight suddenly strikes. The challenge lies in knowing why these moments happen and what can be done to encourage them.

From scientific research on the brain, it seems that our usual logical thinking approach is handled by the left side of the brain. But those sudden insights appear to come from the right side of the brain. And when those aha moments come, your brain does literally "light up" – there is a burst of high-frequency brain waves. It seems that the right temporal lobe of the brain is used for drawing together distantly related information, so when it all comes together, it's like all the pieces of a puzzle suddenly falling into place, and you've got your "light bulb" moment.

So how can you encourage these sparks of insight? The most important thing seems to be not to think about it! Using the left-brain logic sometimes just doesn't help us solve problems. You can literally "think" too much. Instead, try doing something else, put your attention elsewhere. Take a walk, talk to a friend, do a chore. Maybe even take a bath, like Archimedes. Just be sure to put on your "toga" when insight strikes!

Using Positive Questions to Make Positive Connections

While I was traveling last week, I picked up a book that I have had on my buy list for a few years. It is called Encyclopedia of Positive Questions - Volume One by experts in Appreciative Inquiry, Cooperrider, Whitney, Trosten-Bloom and Kaplin.

At the beginning of the book they offer these 11 ways to use positive questions.

• Get staff meetings off to a good start
• Coach for high performance
• Transform "problem talk" into "possibility talk"
• Create dialogue to foster shared meaning
• Demonstrate positive intent and trust with customers
• Create a learning organization
• Build high performance teams
• Conduct project reviews that make a difference
• Build self-esteem
• Plan a course of action for the future
• Create your own interview guide

Positive questions can do all that?

Asking great questions can make a big difference to how your teams feel and perform. Here are just a few of the questions from the book. I think every manager ought to have a copy of this book.

• Tell me about a time when compelling communication allowed you and another person to really connect and to work together exceptionally well. What was the situation? What was it about you, the other person, and the communication that made this possible?
• Dream into the future...your organization and your community have a wonderful mutual partnership. What does this look like? What three things might have been done in order to create this partnership?
• Tell me about a time when you were part of an exceptional cooperation with a customer or customer group. How did this happen? What made it so special? What did you learn from the experience?
• When you reflect on your time with this organization, what is the greatest contribution it has made to you and your life?
• Where in the organization is participatory decision-making at its best? What contributes to it? How does it work?
• Tell me about a time that was particularly fun at work. What was the high point of this time? What made it fun?
• When people are in leadership positions, what two or three things can they do that will help you be the best you can be?
• If positive energy were the flame of the organization, how would you spark it? How would you fuel it to keep it burning bright?
• What trends and changes are you seeing in the world that excite you and give you a sense of the confidence in the possibilities for the organization's future?

Cool questions and just a sampling. I like questions like these, they help expand the mind and prevent us from going to that cold, dark, cynical small place we all have in our brains (some more than others!).

If you were building the project from the ground up and resources were not a barrier, what would you do?

What's the wildest idea that just might work?

Do You Have the Luck of the Irish?

Are you "lucky"? Well, that may just depend on your state of mind – at least according to a British psychologist, Professor Richard Wiseman. I was reading about a study he had done of 400 people from all walks of life, half of whom considered themselves "lucky" and the other half classified themselves as "unlucky." It seems that those people who considered themselves lucky had certain differences in how they thought and acted from the "unlucky" group.

The lucky people were relaxed, open to new things and new people, and were quick to spot opportunities. Unlucky people tended to be more tense, stuck in routines and afraid of anything new, and unwilling to take a risk. Lucky people trusted their gut instincts and had a positive attitude – they expected good fortune or a good outcome. And, as you can guess, the unlucky ones always expected the worst.

When something unfortunate happened to the lucky ones, they were able to deal with it in a positive way. They did this by imagining that things could have been worse, and didn't dwell on their misfortune, but took control of the situation. The unlucky ones of course brooded on their misfortune, and it only confirmed to them how "unlucky" they were.

"There are only two types of person who cannot become lucky," Wiseman suggests. "There's the person who is happy to be unlucky, for whom misfortune is a central part of their identity. And there's the person who's not prepared to put the work in; there's a lot of effort involved in applying the principles."

So that old saying about "you make your own luck" could turn out to be true. Here are a few tips you might want to try, to increase your own "luck."

• Write down six new things to try out (anything from a new food, or a visit to a new place, or a new hobby) that you can accomplish in a month.
• Be more open to talking to people you don't know.
• Start your own "network." The more people you know, the more ideas and opportunities you have access to.
• When you get up in the morning, assume that the day will be a good one and everything you do will turn out for the best.
• Keep a "luck" journal. At the end of each day, take a few moments to write down only the positive and lucky things that happened.

After a month, you can't help but recognize all the good things that are happening.

Good luck!

CNBC Announces Executive Leadership Awards

The third annual Executive Leadership Awards were announced last night on CNBC. The show itself was an hour long and not that exciting, as you might imagine.

The stories behind each of the winners are fascinating though. CEO's that have had the vision, confidence and hard work necessary to lead extraordinary companies and set the example for corporate America. Take Herb Kelleher at Southwest Airlines. They've been around 35 years now, have always run a profit and have a lot of fun doing it. In the AIRLINE INDUSTRY, no less! These folks represent the best of the best.

Here are the winners:

• Business Leader of the Future-Sallie Krawcheck-CFO, Citigroup Inc.
• Leader in Business Practices-William C. Weldon-Chairman & CEO, Johnson & Johnson
• Leader in Innovation-Eric Schmidt-Chairman & CEO, Google
• Entrepreneurial Excellence-Herbert D. Kelleher-Chairman & CEO, Southwest Airlines Co.
• Leader in Human Capital Practices-George David-Chairman & CEO, United Technologies Corporation
• Lifetime Achievement-Dr. Alan Greenspan-President, Greenspan Associates ; Former Chairman of the Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System

The stories we see of corporate executives on the front page too often are steeped in Enron-like ethics. There are a lot more leaders like the ones above who are in it to make a difference for their customers, their employees and common shareholders. These are role models, grooming the next generation of leaders to carry on the tradition of American excellence.

Salute!

Innovative Leadership: Progress at Warp Speed

If you’re going to get your organization to make radical changes that will slingshot it warp speed ahead of your competitors, it’ll be due to dedicated, passionate, and visionary leaders who think and act boldly. That’s the essence of innovative leadership!

Latest estimates tell us there are over 500 different definitions of “leadership.” Perhaps the only common denominator of those is that a leader has followers. Although an executive or manager can be a “leader,” leadership is more a role and state of being than a position or title. Leadership is not about systems or procedures. It’s about people—about motivating, inspiring, directing, and developing them for peak (goal-oriented) performance.

I define leadership as the ability to get followers deeply committed to fulfilling a vision, objective, or course of action that they believe is achievable and worthwhile. An innovative leader, though, is an exceptional and rare one; a person who promotes and focuses maximum effective creativity from followers to achieve remarkable breakthroughs in the organization. These “galvanizers” get people to attack things they’ve only longed for and dreamt of previously. Look at the successful leaders in any industry today and you’ll see 11 common characteristics.

Characteristics of Innovative Leaders

Fast and action oriented. Speed, responsiveness, and agility are everything to innovative leaders who analyze situations, make decisions and act on opportunities. They find shortcuts to slash red tape. They’d rather make a wrong decision than blow a potential opportunity by cautiously sitting still and playing it safe until all the data are in.

Immersed in progressive change. Innovative leaders build organizations and foster a culture of on-going, never-ending change. They ensure that their organizations continually learn, adapt, evolve, and improve. Their first objective is to deal with turbulent change around them, then become master of that change.

Future-obsessed. The beckoning horizon ahead excites them. These leaders visualize their organization’s future and plot its course. They’re always asking, “What next?” “Where else?” They create the future by visualizing it now.

Masters of motivation and inspiration. Vanguard leaders first get people excited, then committed, and finally moving swiftly. They tap into secret chambers of the minds, hearts, and souls of people and know which “buttons to push” to activate their staff’s pride, faith, hope, drive, and perseverance. Innovative leaders make their followers feel special as if they were an elite exclusive team fulfilling some noble destiny. They help their employees fulfill a deep longing for creativity and innovation. They impart a sense of invincibility, power and control over their situations. These leaders accomplish two overwhelmingly important things: they make people feel good about themselves and they make them feel good about what they’re accomplishing.

Passionate. Innovative leaders are incredibly driven. And that rubs off on their followers. They express emotions freely and showcase their excitement about new ideas and change.

Super-salespeople and evangelists. The secret of innovative leadership is not authority, but influence and loyalty. President Dwight Eisenhower noted, “You do not lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not leadership.” Innovative leaders persuasively communicate an optimistic, bright, enticing picture of the future for their followers. They elicit support along the way. They’re “dream merchants.” They keep the dream alive by referring to the grand vision or goal at every opportunity. They convince people to get on board and stay on board.

Rule breakers. The only rule they have is, “There are no rules.” Bureaucratic thinking, even in small organizations, focuses on strictly (oftentimes “blindly”) following rules, regulations, methods, procedures, formulas, policies, and playing it safe. It’s about “running a tight ship.” Unfortunately, it stays in the harbor a lot and that’s not what ships are built for. Innovative leaders get followers to discard their policy and procedures' manuals and, instead, create common sense, flexible, and ethical guidelines to creatively operate. Set sail!

Mountain climbers. What do Alexander the Great and Steve Jobs have in common? Both got their “troops” conquering more territory by repeatedly giving them challenging battles to fight and mountains to climb. But before the arrogance of complacency of victory set in, they announced yet another new and exciting goal—a new peak—to reach. “Are you ready for a bigger game?” they ask their followers. By creating on-going inspiring short-term visions and galvanizing followers to rush toward them, will innovative leaders keep interest and motivation peaked at all times.

Opportunists. Innovative leaders aggressively seek out and grab ideas and opportunities before others are even aware of their existence. They study trends, technological developments, and are well-rounded readers. They’re always asking themselves questions like, “How does ‘this’ apply to my organization?” How can I use it or get ideas from it?”

Builders. You can’t build good products in poor factories. The factory of creativity is the organization’s culture and operating climate. A major role of the leader is to create an environment where imagination, smart risk-taking, aggressive initiatives, and bold tactics are encouraged and rewarded. As builders, they design their organization’s infrastructure to support every aspect of innovation by helping to create or modify the organization’s collective values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

High-gain risk-takers. You won’t find innovative leaders thinking small. Their plans are grandiose; their actions big and daring. They seek large gains and aren’t afraid to take smart calculated risks. These are people who create industries and fortunes, not by cautiously holding back, but by boldly leaping far ahead of the average crowd.

Innovative leadership is the highest form of leadership because of the huge contributions made in the lives of employees, customers, and community. Innovative leaders take their companies to far away, exciting destinations. Let the journey begin!

Innovate this! Change is Good!

Sometimes we have to challenge ourselves and the way we look at things.

Many companies, organizations, as well as individuals, are still tweaking their '2007 Strategy' well into January. They do it either because the strategy was flawed and maybe incomplete, or they're not confident enough in the course of action they want to take.

This has been my experience over the years and I sometimes wonder why it takes so dog-gone long to get moving! I'm a 'get it done' type person and, yes, sometimes impatient. Reading anything from Tom Peters just exacerbates that mood! I love it!

Tom is an irreverent, rebellious maverick and encourages everyone to get out of their rut. Tom has a new book out, "Re-Imagine!", and it drove me to look for more of his short quips that may get you out from behind your desk and just DO SOMETHING! Execution and results are the things that matter! Execute, fail, innovate, start over! The harder you work, the luckier you get!

Here are some things to try if you need to look through a different lens, to see things differently or to get started on your innovation destination! (Hat tip: Tom Peters)

Want to get lucky? Try following these 50 (!) strategies:
1. At-bats. More times at the plate, more hits.
2. Try it. Cut the baloney and get on with something.
3. Ready. Fire. Aim. (Instead of Ready. Aim. Aim. Aim. ...)
4. “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”—G.K. Chesterton. You’ve gotta start somewhere.
5. Read odd stuff. Look anywhere for ideas.
6. Visit odd places. Want to “see” speed? Visit CNN.
7. Make odd friends.
8. Hire odd people. Boring folks, boring ideas.
9. Cultivate odd hobbies. Raise orchids. Race yaks.
10. Work with odd partners.
11. Ask dumb questions. “How come computer commands all come from keyboards? ”Somebody asked that one first; hence, the mouse.
12. Empower. The more folks feel they’re running their own show, the more at-bats, etc.
13. Train without limits. Pick up the tab for training unrelated to work—keep everyone engaged, period.
14. Don’t back away from passion. “Dispassionate innovator” is an oxymoron.
15. Pursue failure. Failure is success’s only launching pad. (The bigger the goof, the better!)
16. Take anti-NIH pills. Don’t let “not invented here” keep you from ripping off nifty ideas.
17. Constantly reorganize. Mix, match, try different combinations to shake things up.
18. Listen to everyone. Ideas come from anywhere.
19. Don’t listen to anyone. Trust your inner ear.
20. Get fired. If you’re not pushing hard enough to get fired, you’re not pushing hard enough. (More than once is okay.)
21. Nurture intuition. If you can find an interesting market idea that came from a rational plan, I’ll eat all my hats. (I have quite a collection.)
22. Don’t hang out with “all the rest.” Forget the same tired trade association meetings, talking with the same tired people about the same tired things.
23. Decentralize. At-bats are proportional to the amount of decentralization.
24. Decentralize again.
25. Smash all functional barriers. Unfettered contact among people from different disciplines is magic.
26. Destroy hierarchies.
27. Open the books. Make everyone a “businessperson,” with access to all the financials.
28. Start an information deluge. The more real-time, unedited information people close to the action have, the more that “neat stuff” happens.
29. Take sabbaticals.
30. “Repot” yourself every 10 years. (This was the advice of former Stanford Business School dean Arjay Miller—meaning change careers each decade.)
31. Spend 50 percent of your time with “outsiders.” Distributors and vendors will give you more ideas in five minutes than another five-hour committee meeting.
32. Spend 50 percent of your “outsider” time with wacko outsiders.
33. Pursue alternative rhythms. Spend a year on a farm, six months working in a factory or burger shop.
34. Spread confusion in your wake. Keep people off balance, don’t let the ruts get deeper than they already are.
35. Disorganize. Bureaucracy takes care of itself. The boss should be “chief dis-organizer,” Quad/Graphics CEO Harry Quadracci told us.
36. “Dis-equilibrate ... Create instability, even chaos.” Good advice to “real leaders” from Professor Warren Bennis.
37. Stir curiosity. Igniting youthful, dormant curiosity in followers is the lead dog’s top task, according to Sony chairman Akio Morita.
38. Start a Corporate Traitors’ Hall of Fame. “Renegades” are not enough. You need people who despise what you stand for.
39. Give out “Culture Scud Awards.” Your best friend is the person who attacks your corporate culture head-on. Wish her well.
40. Vary your pattern. Eat a different breakfast cereal. Take a different route to work.
41. Take off your coat.
42. Take off your tie.
43. Roll up your sleeves.
44. Take off your shoes.
45. Get out of your office. Tell me, honestly, the last time something inspiring or clever happened at that big table in your office?!
46. Get rid of your office.
47. Spend a workday each week at home.
48. Nurture peripheral vision. The interesting “stuff” usually is going on beyond the margins of the professional’s ever-narrowing line of sight.
49. Don’t “help.” Let the people who work for you slip, trip, fall—and grow and learn on their own.
50. Avoid moderation in all things. “Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess,” according to Edwin Land, Polaroid’s founder.

Now write down the opposite of each of the 50. Which set comes closer to your profile?*
In short, loosen up!

Creative Economic Development

Richard Florida a professor at George Mason University, has some very interesting views on economic development. His course on creative economic development cites Technology, Talent and Tolerance as three ingredients needed to become a center of creativity, from which will ensue further economic development.

Some major points:

1. Economic development is in the midst of a revolution. The state of the art was to offer tax or other business incentives. These days its become more complex than just that.


2. Today we know that in order to grow and prosper, communities and regions need to do more. Businesses are looking more and more for the right skills and talents in the local workforce.


3. Traditional economic development and growth strategies have directed at attracting jobs which will attract the people. Today's approach needs to be more 'supply-sided' - Attract a knowledgeable, skilled workforce that will lure business and industries.

Many local and regional elected officials would do well to take some time and read Richard Florida's body of work on the creative class and economic development.

It takes more than tax incentives and cheap land to encourage business development. It will take Innovative Leadership to embrace new ways of building a community in which individuals flourish before development does. If you build it, they will come!