Leadership and Innovation

Does Your Employer Have Life Insurance on You?

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 10:07:00 +0000

Chief executives are always going on about how employees are their companies’ most valuable assets. They say it even as wages stagnate and executive pay skyrockets. They say it amid layoffs and as non-executive jobs are shifted overseas along with company profits.

And they say it even though it is wrong in a technical, yet important way. For all the talk about what valuable assets employees are, employees do not show up as assets on the company’s balance sheet, for good reason. Because the company does not and cannot own its employees, they are not and cannot be assets of the company.

Yet your employer can put a value on your head.

The NY Times’s David Gelles wrote recently about banks and other companies that buy life insurance on their employees, naming the company as beneficiary. In the process, the company reaps tax-free windfalls: The company-paid premiums are tax free; the investment returns on the policies are tax free; and the death benefits eventually received by the company, sometimes decades after employees have left the company or retired, are also tax free. To sum up: By purchasing a financial product (life insurance) the company has turned you (your life and your death) into an income generating asset for the company, and a tax free one at that.

It’s not illegal, but it’s dubious in the extreme.

One thing is sure: COLI is popular. A federal law from 2006 says that companies can insure only the highest paid 35 percent of employees, who must give their consent. That law slowed the practice, which was growing unchecked before, but companies still go beyond insuring key executives whose deaths might cause economic disruption.

About one third of the largest 1,000 corporations have COLI policies and an estimated $1 billion worth of new policies are put in place every year. As much as 20 percent of all new life insurance is taken out by companies on their employees.

What do the employees get? Banks and companies say the earnings from the policies are used to cover long term health care, pension obligations and deferred compensation. But in many cases they can use the tax free-gains however they want.

Banks, for instance, max out on life insurance for employees because the policies can be redeemed for cash on a moment’s notice, if needed, and are thus counted by regulators as top quality bank capital. Non-bank corporations don’t have to report their insurance holdings so there’s no reliable way to track who is buying the insurance or how it’s used.

At the very least, there needs to be better disclosure; after all, the public subsidizes COLI through generous tax breaks on the policies and so deserves to know what’s going on.

More also needs to be done to thwart the potential for unjust corporate enrichment. The law requires employees to consent to an employer buying life insurance on his or her life. But why doesn’t that consent come with strings attached? Say, that investment profits from the policies are split with employees, and death benefits shared with the employees’ families?

That arrangement would still have a queasy feel to it, but at least employees would be getting some direct benefits, rather than simply serving — alive and dead — as insurable assets of corporate owners.

(This article is excerpt from a NY Times article entitled "What Are You Really Worth to Your Employer - Teresa Tritch).

CIO's, Think Like a Business Executive

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 12:43:00 +0000

The one-two punch of digital technology and massive enterprise disruption has left many CIOs feeling as though they've been unexpectedly dropped into a war zone. What's more, there's a growing recognition that many of the tried-and-true systems and tools of the past are no longer completely effective in running IT and the business of today.

Like business executives, CIOs should actively manage their IT portfolio in a way that drives enterprise value and evaluate portfolio performance in terms that business leaders understand—value, risk, and time horizon to reward. CIOs who can combine this with agility and align the desired talent can reshape how they run the business of IT.
This means tying together disruptive technologies, including crowdsourcing, mobile only, big data and cloud. Unfortunately, the current tools for managing risk and leveraging assets may not work in this new world,

Here's what business-based CIO thinking looks like and what IT leaders need to focus on:

Valuation. Understand the quantitative and qualitative value the IT organization contributes to the business.

Handicap. Grasp how the competitive landscape will likely evolve by more fully understanding product and technology roadmaps.

Hedge. Develop a strategy to invest and divest technology and assets.

Promotion. Build an IT brand that is respected, if not admired, within the organization.

Talent brokering. Identify skill gaps and understand which capabilities the organization can develop internally and how to tap external talent.

Agility. Balance nimbleness and responsiveness with architectural integrity.

A CIO must possess a complete technology inventory, have the means to evaluate the portfolio (including risk, value and strategic importance of each portfolio item), double down on winners and fold losers, and have direct line of sight to revenues.

Deliberate Practice makes perfect

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 10:17:00 +0000

Simply put, there’s a difference between doing things you already know
how to do and doing things that force you to stretch and improve your
skills.

To get better—and win the promotions and opportunities
most of us dream about—we must set out to intentionally improve our
performance. In studying why some people develop remarkable careers,
this is a key unheralded distinction between the average knowledge
worker and the stars at most companies: the former work hard while the
latter systematically practice hard skills --this type of structured
activity is called deliberate practice!!

1) Deliberate practice
requires clarity. Set a clear goal slightly beyond your current
abilities, but not too far beyond, and list specific actions that
advance you toward your goal.

2) Deliberate practice requires
feedback. Assuming you don’t reach your goal on the first try, you need a
source of objective feedback so that you can improve on your next
iteration. Without frank, even harsh, feedback, your progress will
likely stall.

3) Deliberate practice is unpleasant. You have
to stretch yourself beyond where you’re currently comfortable—not a
pleasant feeling. To make deliberate practice work, you must not only
tolerate unpleasantness (and stick with the task, regardless of your
urge for relieving distraction), but learn to seek it, like a
bodybuilder seeks muscle burn.

True standouts systematically
develop rare and valuable skills. Building these skills requires
practice, and it is not something that you gravitate toward naturally.

3 Practical Ways to Become An Innovative Leader

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:21:00 +0000

Innovation doesn't require genius, luck, or magic--but it does require talking to the right people, being able to clearly articulate a vision, and putting the right partnerships in place. Having a practical guide can help anyone develop into an innovative leader. Here are my top three steps:

Step #1. Talk to the Right People
Your most important asset is your mind. Your experience, expertise, and know-how governs your understanding of what is possible, the options you see, the strategy you formulate, and your assessments of the environment around you. To expand your vision, meet with other minds! Make it a habit to identify and visit the people who will provide you with fresh ideas, key learning, new tactics, and strong strategies.

Step #2. Articulate the Way Forward
People rely on their leaders to craft a vision of the future that makes sense and can guide their everyday decisions. Some of the leaders I have met improvise this activity and many do it badly. And yet articulating a rousing vision of the future isn’t difficult. It can be your secret super-power, if you just master three tactics:

Be explicit about your conclusions and how you came to them. Speak in terms people can understand and relate to. Do more than share judgment--provide insight to your reasoning.

Give people the opportunity to ask questions. Encourage diverse points of view and different backgrounds. Let people react, inquire, challenge, and extract the information they need to satisfy their understanding. Then you will be in the best position to move forward together.

Customize your message to your audience. Include something useful in their day-to-day work--utility helps information stick.

Step #3. Build Informal Partnerships that Generate Synergy
Leadership today is largely about identifying the partnerships that will lead to broad, powerful impact and growth. I’m talking about supportive and symbiotic relationships here, not contractual business partnerships.

Some many leaders shy away from informal partnerships, fearing the vulnerability that comes with relationships. If you overcome that fear, you get the benefits. Here are tips to help you master the third step of innovation leaders:

Be clear about what you hope to get out of the partnership. Take the time to articulate the value to both parties that makes it worth pursuing.

Share the goals of the partnership with others who have a stake in its success. Initiate informal conversations, over the phone, via email, or over coffee, with the clients, vendors, industry experts, investors, and others who can share their perspectives how to get the most out of your partnership. Then share what you learn with your partners.

Take the lead in coordinating partnership activities. Be the one who identifies and handles important issues as they arise. Take responsibility for planning and facilitating joint events. Foster joint development. Provide regular assessment of the partnership that prove its value.

1+1+1 = > Sum
These three tasks required of innovative leaders--talking to the right people, articulating the way forward, and building informal partnerships--work together. The interaction of these contributions produces a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual components. Together they ensure your leadership is well informed, a source of unambiguous guidance, and reinforced by powerful allies.

Are you using these steps to become an innovative leader? What steps do you find most successful?

Innovation's Magic Is In The Turn, Not The Prestige

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:39:00 +0000

I recently attended a conference where the keynote was entitled "Innovation is Analogous to Magic" and it reminded me of the opening dialogue of Christopher Nolan’s 2006 film, The Prestige:

"Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course…it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn”. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.

It made me think that innovators take something ordinary, do some extraordinary things to it, and then make it re-appear in grandiose fashion. It’s a great trick. It’s so good, in fact, that I think it’s fair to call it true magic. 21st Century innovation remains focused on The Turn, the process by which they make the ordinary extraordinary.

While it lacks the pomp and circumstance of a Prestige on stage at some big event, this interaction is much more intimate, and as such, much more powerful. You may not perceive it directly, but the care and craft of The Turn percolates through your hands and eyes. Within minutes or even seconds, you just know this is something different. Something far beyond what others are doing with their false magic. You want this. You need this.

As an innovative leader are you focused on The Turn or The Prestige??

HR And Leadership Development

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 14:14:00 +0000

Taking a look at the 2012 Society for Human Resource Management ((SHRM) survey, Challenges Facing HR Over the Next 10 Years, ‘developing leaders’ takes the number two spot of concerns HR must address as identified by 52 percent of respondents. This is a big jump from the 2010 survey, in which a mere 29 percent of respondents named leadership development a pressing HR challenge. In business, as in the rest of life, leadership skills are critical now more than ever.

The number one spot in the SHRM survey with 60 percent of respondents is ‘retaining and rewarding the best employees’. This makes sense as a lead-in, since I’d argue the best employees are leaders – people leaders, management leaders, creative leaders, technical leaders or sales leaders. We need to fill the leadership gap, and fast.

Here are the top four challenges to developing leaders and a bit about how to address them.

1) Invest in leadership development. Whether you believe leaders are born or made, companies still need to invest in their best employees to develop and sustain leadership qualities.

2) Create a culture of collaboration. Leaders are at their best when the company culture demands collaboration. Rewarding individual success is necessary but not sufficient.

3) Develop communications skills. We may expect our leaders to be good communicators but too often it’s not the case. Good communicators build teams and trust; poor communicators create and feed uncertainty.

4) Drive and sustain real accountability. Leaders must be accountable. They must own the problems they need to solve and own their failures to be credible when claiming success.

HR and leaders alike have many responsibilities. Maybe among the most important is developing the next generation of leaders and being more innovative as times change rapidly before our eyes. Where would you start?

Innovative Leadership Workbook

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 14:42:00 +0000

Metcalf & Associates, Inc. announced the publication of the Innovative Leadership Workbook for Emerging Leaders and Managers, written by CEO Maureen Metcalf, Founder and CEO of Metcalf & Associates. This workbook is a companion to the winner of Best Business Reference Book in the 2012 International Book Awards.
“Leadership needs innovation the way innovation demands leadership. By combining them, you improve your capacity to deliver results and your organization’s capacity to affect change,” says Metcalf.

The Innovative Leadership Workbook for Emerging Leaders, designed specifically for busy people, includes field-tested processes and worksheets for innovating how you lead, transforming your organization, and creating sustainability. The workbook takes readers on their own leadership journey through a series of development activities while providing insight into the thought processes of a two different and highly successful emerging leaders whose unique challenges provide invaluable insight into how a leader develops and incorporates innovation both personally and professionally.

Read more: http://www.innovativeleadershipfieldbook.com/book-series/innovative-leadership-workbook-for-emerging-leaders/

Can't Have One Without The Other

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 12:47:00 +0000

There is a huge role for leadership in creating and living a culture that values innovation. In this culture, innovation becomes everybody’s job, with all brains engaged in the pursuit of what now and what’s next.

So, the question is, what must be present and valued in an organization in order to create this innovative culture?

Well, probably lots of things but here are four things at the top of my list:

Diversity ~ in every way that one human being is different from another.
While our natural tendency is to gravitate towards those who are like us, innovation lies most often in unexplored places and with people who vary in thought, background, experience, gender, age, ethnicity and skill. The wider the net is cast, the greater the opportunity for innovation.

Relentless Change ~ as an accepted norm.
Those who embrace innovation, also embrace change. They expect it. They create it. They even demand it. Innovation and change are inextricably linked. As the song goes, “ you can’t have one without the other”

Open communication ~ at all levels
Innovation requires us to listen deeply, speak candidly, question constantly, challenge openly, and get a little messy in the process. In other words, an organization that values innovation will be light on bureaucracy and heavy on curiosity and transparency.

Failure ~ as a learning tool
In order to break through the barriers of sameness and routine, we have to experiment and risk failure. Failure happens. In an innovative environment it is also expected because with each defeat we get closer to learning about what it will take to succeed.

So, what would you add to the list of must have leadership values for an innovative culture to thrive? How do you encourage innovation in your organization?

The Most Important Leadership Quality

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 12:50:00 +0000

Ask chief executives what skills are required to successfully compete, grow and succeed in the 21st century and you’ll receive conflicting answers. The global economy swings from signs of recovery to predictions of collapse and the business sector seems paralyzed and often confused. Though many businesses are cash-rich, they’re risk-averse, strategically incremental and lacking fresh ideas and innovation.

However, ask chief executives how important creativity is to a 21st century leader and the response is unanimous - it’s not important, it’s crucial for sustainable business. Today more than ever, creativity and innovation are core competencies for leaders and managers. It is their role to teach people how to perceive the world in new ways; find hidden patterns, make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, ask important questions and generate solutions.

Finding fresh solutions to problems and the ability to create new products, processes or services for a changing market, are parts of the intellectual capital that gives a company its competitive edge. Creativity is a crucial part of the innovation equation.
But still, in many organizations, there’s no clear pathway for developing personal creativity and a way to nurture, develop and celebrate ideas and this is despite leaders’ recognition that creativity is key. Visit a kindergarten however and you’ll be immersed in a culture of creative thinking. Imagination and learning isn’t stifled but encouraged; color, movement, sound and communication thrive. So what happens between the open and effortless experimentation of childhood and the struggle to think creatively that is experienced by so many in adulthood?

Changing the work culture and selectively forgetting past success formulas, and co-creating future products and services with employees, customers, and external partners are hallmarks of creative leaders in organizations from the US, Europe, and Asia. Firms exhibiting creative leadership out-performed their competition during the recession.
We need to develop creative and courageous leaders and build a culture of innovation where failure is acceptable and successfully implemented ideas are rewarded and celebrated. Successful workplaces of the future will incorporate programs and develop an organizational culture that offers employees a voice and a greater understanding and fulfillment of their potential.

Creative leadership programs will take people outside of their traditional comfort zones and lead to improved employee well being, engagement and self-awareness, to increased leadership and productivity, and to a greater ability to innovate and make a difference. In the face of competitive and economic pressures, many organizations are convinced that creativity and innovation are the keys to success.

Leadership and Innovation Gap

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:19:00 +0000

McKinsey research reveals a wide gap between the aspirations of executives to innovate and their ability to execute. Organizational structures and processes are not the solution.

More than 70 percent of the senior executives in the survey say that innovation will be at least one of the top three drivers of growth for their companies in the next three to five years. Other executives see innovation as the most important way for companies to accelerate the pace of change in today’s global business environment. Leading strategic thinkers are moving beyond a focus on traditional product and service categories to pioneer innovations in business processes, distribution, value chains, business models, and even the functions of management.

Like short skirts, innovation has traditionally swung into and out of fashion: popular in good times and tossed back into the closet in downturns. But as globalization tears down the geographic boundaries and market barriers that once kept businesses from achieving their potential, a company’s ability to innovate—to tap the fresh value-creating ideas of its employees and those of its partners, customers, suppliers, and other parties beyond its own boundaries—is anything but faddish. In fact, innovation has become a core driver of growth, performance, and valuation.

Are you experiencing the effects of this leadership and innovation gap and how are you bridging the gap?

Innovation Leadership, a Matter of Behavior

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 13:43:00 +0000

A recent innovation leadership study (http://www.capgemini-consulting.com/ebook/Innovation-Leadership-Study/index.html ) carried out jointly by IESE Business School and Capgemini Consulting suggests there are five key areas that affect a company’s innovation success: the innovation function, innovation strategy and innovation governance (formal mechanisms), innovation leadership and innovation culture (informal mechanisms).

The study notes specific differences in behavior of innovation leaders versus laggards across these key area. The behavior of leaders has an impact in the ability to drive innovation.

Additionally critical to innovation success is the development of a well-articulated innovation strategy. The lack of such a strategy is by far the most important constraint for companies to reach their innovation targets, followed by a lack of understanding of the external environment. There is a need for innovation strategy development in a more bottom-up manner, focused on people as the key source of competitive advantage. One needs to capture all those individual insights from managers and employees to better incorporate an understanding of the external environment in the strategy development process.

Have you developed an innovation strategy and are you achieving success with it?

Can Leaders Harness The Hyper connectivity of Everything?

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:55:00 +0000

Think of the Hyper connectivity of Everything as the convergence of multiple "Connections": the Connections of Information (World Wide Web and systems), the Connections of People (social networks), the Connections of Things and the Internet of Places. These Connections can produce much value on their own (e.g., social networks), but it is the convergence of the multiple Connections that produces the greatest value, innovation and potential for competitive advantage.

The "Hyper connectivity of Everything" will pervade business, government and society, creating new business models and transforming existing ones and successful leaders will be able to harness these new business models and continuously innovate.

As the Hyper connectivity of Everything develops, everything will have an IP address. The number of Internet-connected entities and the volume of Internet data will increase. Connected objects are driving hyperconnected businesses and extended value chains. This interconnectivity of objects, systems, information, people and places is creating many new business opportunities. Risks and issues of security, privacy, Internet network fragmentation and infrastructure congestion may slow or diminish aspects of the Internet of Everything trend and potentially impact the acceleration of innovation.

Are you building new leadership, business, technology models based on the Hyper connectivity of Everything Trend?

Rapid technology change impacting innovation

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 19:17:00 +0000

It's safe to say that at no point in history has technology changed so rapidly and created so many opportunities and risks. What's particularly unsettling about today's post-PC environment is that the rules and wisdom of the past often don't apply.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in managing the various sales and marketing channels that now exist. Once upon a time, enterprises communicated with customers in person, using the phone and via snail mail. Marketers placed ads in print, TV and radio, and used direct mail to interact with consumers.

Today, mobile technology is changing everything. It's not so much that social media, geolocation information, big data and other tools exist and require their own set of applications and strategies. It's that they create a three-dimensional chess game that's infinitely more complex and unpredictable. Brands and reputations soar or stumble in a matter of minutes in a world where consumers suddenly wield as much power as corporations.

That much you probably know. But what many business and IT leaders don't fully grasp is that channel integration must be approached from the customer's perspective rather than that of the enterprise. In this brave new world, the technology and devices used to access a company or an account are irrelevant for consumers. It's simply a matter of having a ubiquitous view of purchases, loyalty points, coupons and social media ties. Essentially, consumers want their favorite brands to follow them around everywhere, all the time.
In a business and IT world mired in legacy systems and cost controls, making the technology invisible isn't easily done. Success requires more than building out robust channels or tossing out mobile apps. It requires more than achieving goals for metrics. High click rates and hugely successful viral campaigns don't necessarily lead to bottom-line results.

Today, the most innovative leaders crumple silos. They put big data to use in new and inventive ways. They create micro-incubators for innovation and find people who can serve as intrapreneurs. They use big data, crowdsourcing and bottoms-up methods to identify new products and services that customers didn't know they wanted—and the business never thought of providing. They create marketing and sales channels that work so well that they're there, but they're not apparent to the consumer.

To be sure, leading with innovation in mind means a new style of leadership like never before.

Secrets of Top Innovators

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:48:00 +0000

Top innovators consistently drive success via a number of key strategies that may not be oblivious. One measure of these companies is the industry standard of sales per square foot. Despite the fact that these companies represent a diverse sampling of industries — from gadgets to gold to golf shirts — almost all of them have woven their success from common innovation secrets. Here is the list of the top ten companies and their sales per square foot:

1. Apple: $5,626

2. Tiffany & Co.: $2,974

3. Coach: $1,820

4. Lululemon Athletica: $1,731

5. GameStop: $1,009

6. Costco Wholesale: $998

7. Signet Jewelers: $955

8. Polo Ralph Lauren: $904

9. Whole Foods Market: $867

10. Best Buy: $831

So what is it that these star performers are doing to put up such extraordinary numbers? They innovate by using one or more of the following secrets.

They turn “I want” into “I need“: Other than Costco selling staple groceries, not one of these companies sells anything that anyone genuinely needs. But through a combination of drool-worthy products, exceptional merchandising, buzz, and fomenting what amounts to peer pressure among their target customers, these companies pull off masterful manipulations of customer psychology.

They aren’t afraid of high prices: On the contrary, high prices are a key part of the formula for nearly all of these companies (Costco being the most notable exception). More expensive suggests better (even if it’s not) and more exclusive (or elusive).

They employ “strategic scarcity”: It’s hard-wired that one of the best ways to make someone want something is to tell him he can’t have it. And many of these innovative companies use this secret, either in reality by controlling production (wait in line or you might not get one), or perception (only one purse in a heavenly-lit cubicle in a sparsely-stocked boutique). Both fuel rabid desire and support high prices.

Do you use these or other innovative secrets to drive business leadership? What ways are innovative strategies impacting your market?

Flexible Leadership Driven by the 3C's

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 16:37:00 +0000

It's often not what a leader does but rather how they do it that makes the most impact. While some are, take charge in your face and others are content to play an off-stage role and work behind the scenes, all 21st Century Leaders should be driven by the 3Cs: context, circumstance and consequence. Leaders need to be flexible and apply a leadership style that fits the situation. Considering context, circumstance and consequence is a good way for a leader to determine how involved to be and what style to employ. Here are some guidelines:

1. Figure out the context. Leaders need to the know the back story, that is, what happened before they arrived on the scene. Sometimes it requires digging and asking lots of questions. For leaders of long tenure, knowing the context is second-nature. They live it every day. Knowledge of the situation and its context sets the stage for what the leader does next.

2. Circumstance – the current situation–determines your degree of involvement. Crisis calls for bold actions. For example, if a new marketing program fails to generate sufficient awareness, the chief marketing officer should handle the situation. If multiple marketing initiatives fails, the Leader needs to find a solution quickly. He or she should take charge and find a new senior marketing executive.

3. Consequence is what happens when a leader acts. With apologies to Sir Isaac Newton, every leadership action does not have an equal and opposite reaction. Very often a Leader's decision is designed to turn the enterprise around or keep it on course; a front-line manager’s decisions are the equivalent of trimming the sails. A Leader who makes too many decisions not only creates lots of activity, specifically churn, they can also undermines the authority of other senior leaders.

Employing a style or knowing how and when to get involved comes with experience. New leaders are eager to put their stamp on their tenure and often unloose a bundle of initiatives. Too often many fail because the organization was unprepared, or more precisely the context and circumstance were not right. Getting the balance – hands on versus hands off – right does not come overnight but by paying attention to context, circumstance and consequence a leader can learn to get it right.

How have you found the right balance? Have you successfully used the 3C's in attaining flexible leadership?

Myths That Inhibit Innovation

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:45:00 +0000

The first step on the way to inspiring innovation is to ruthlessly expunge the romantic myths that surround it — they often stop us from seeing the fresh ideas that are right in front of us. Here are four of the biggest myths about innovation, along with tips for seeing your way around them:

Myth #1: Innovation Involves Quantum Leaps. According to this myth, innovation must be transformative. The PC was a quantum leap innovation, as were the printing press and the automobile. But there aren’t many of these. Furthermore, quantum leaps typically involve high costs and huge risks. The better alternative? Think constant, incremental improvement.

Myth #2: Only Geeks May Apply. We’re constantly told that engineers are the only people who make important innovations. But there are many other sources of ideas. Be open to all these sources. Innovators are people who pay attention, not just geeks cooped up in cubicles.

Myth #3: Innovation Requires Off-Sites with Geniuses. Much has been written about Nathan Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures, the company he started after retiring from Microsoft. He gets all his super-smart pals to read scientific papers and then convene to solve Big Problems. So far, they’ve filed over 500 patents — but where are the businesses? Ideas are cheap, functional companies and real products are hard. Or, as Steve Jobs said, “real artists ship.” Forget the geniuses; give thinking time to your staff instead.

Myth #4: Innovators Are a Special Breed. According to this myth, to be innovative, you need to hire an innovator with a track record. But beware: just like stocks, past performance is no guarantee for the future. Even Steven Spielberg has made flops. The romantic belief in the power of individual creative geniuses won’t make you smart, it will make you dependent. You’ll do better to cultivate creativity as a process. Oh and by the way: your customers are fantastic sources of ideas, if you know how to talk to them.

If you work from the assumption that every person in your organization is capable of having a good idea, then you have to ask yourself a serious question: What is stopping that idea from contributing to your organization? It may be mythology. It may be processes. It may be individuals. It might even be you. What are you going to do about that? Where are your next innovations going to come from?

Leading via Innovative Risk Management

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 11:40:00 +0000

Leading via innovative risk management does not mean closing your eyes and taking a leap. Bravery (or stupidity) has nothing to do with it. It means taking steps to heighten your sense of control, and reduce the “unknowns”, then risk is no longer even a consideration. When you are in control and unafraid you don’t have to take risks. You get to make decisions instead.

Here’s the leading via innovative risk management process:

1. Play worst first. I know it’s a cliche, but always start with, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Most of our risk based fears are groundless.

Say you leave your job and start a restaurant. What’s the worst that can happen? Your family could wind up homeless, destitute, and scattered? Not likely. You’ll work hard and adapt and adjust and if necessary close the restaurant and get another job before you let that happen. Failing is not an ideal outcome, but it is a manageable outcome. (Besides, since the shelf life of the average executive is a handful of years, you’ll probably lose your job soon anyway so what are you really risking?) Decide the most likely “worst” things that can happen and create a plan to deal with those outcomes before you start your new venture. Then you gain even more control and face even fewer unknowns.

2. Start really small. Think the odds of creating a menu, finding a location, hiring and managing staff — all the stuff involved in running a successful restaurant — seem like too much of a risk to take on? No problem. Create a few dishes and try them out on friends. Get a part-time job as a server, a cook, or a host. Follow around a friend who runs her own business so you can learn what owners do behind the scenes. Each learning experience eliminates another unknown and builds greater confidence.

3. Take a small plunge. Eventually practice is not enough to make perfect. Still, you don’t need to go all in — in fact you shouldn’t. Taking a small plunge is not only safer in terms of risk, it helps you avoid entering the freak-out, brain freeze, oh-my-gosh-what-have-I-done snap decision zone. Cater a small event. Cater a picnic. Provide food for a fundraiser. Do it at cost. What’s the worst that can happen? The event will be a disaster. Fine. You’ll still learn something… and what harm was really done?

4. Then get a friend. While by now you’ll feel ready — and you will be — you can take one more step to reduce any lingering risk based fears: Get some backup. Ask a friend to participate. Reel in a relative. Finding a willing helper is easy; everyone wants to try new things. You get a sounding board, an extra pair of hands if a “worst” does pop up, and most importantly the reassurance of knowing you are not alone.

5. Decide. Can you do it? Should you do it? Do you have the skills and willingness and motivation? By this stage you will know.

What process do you use to manage risk? What lessons have you learned about turning risk into reward?

Most Innovative Companies

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:18:00 +0000

For over a decade, FORTUNE magazine has published its listing of the World’s Most Admired Companies, surveying 15,0000 executives and financial analysts on their perceptions of Fortune 1000 and Global 500 companies across more than two dozen industries. Companies are ranked across nine attributes including: their ability to attract/retain talented people, quality of their management teams, social responsibility, how well they leverage corporate assets, their financial soundness and long-term investment value, their ability to compete globally, their innovativeness, and the quality of their products and services.

Here is the list:

Focus on Innovation: The list recognizes those companies that continuously develop new products and services, effectively reach new and emerging markets, and those organizations that are driving new efficiencies throughout their business processes.

Key Statistic: 88% of World’s Most Admired Companies prioritize innovation versus 79% of peers.

2011 Best in Innovation

1 Apple
2 Google
3 Nike
4 Amazon.com
5 Charles Schwab
6 3M
7 Statoil
8 Exxon Mobil
9 Walt Disney
10 Whole Foods Market

Business Outcome: Per FORTUNE, World’s Most Admired Companies significantly outpace their peers in total shareholder returns - for example, World’s Most Admired Companies demonstrated 18.9 per cent growth, on average, in 2009 compared to just 1.4 percent for the S&P 500, on average.

Do you agree with this ranking? Are there any companies you thought might make the Top 10 and didn't? What would your top innovation list look like?

Innovation Requires Embracing a Risk Mentality

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 11:57:00 +0000

Who are the leaders that drive innovation? It’s not the ones that sit back and takes no chances. A lot of us have tendencies that incline us to avoid risk. It’s much easier to take the safe path. And, honestly, there’s nothing wrong with being safe. But just as being safe reduces your risk of failure, it also reduces your risk of success. Innovation requires the ability to embrace risks where there is potential for payoff. Who are the leaders that drive innovation by embracing risk? They include people like:

Business owners cannot build innovative businesses by being risk averse. They take financial and personal risks.

Innovative sales people have to go out every day and risk rejection in order to sell their products. You cannot sit at home (or at your desk) and expect customers to call. If you are easily upset at being told no, you won’t be innovative in this area.

Corporate leaders didn’t get there by keeping their head down and doing precisely what their bosses asked of them. They looked for new opportunities. They suggested new paths for the business. They made decisions that perhaps the rest of us wouldn’t make, because others might think they are stupid. They didn’t go home at night and complain that they weren’t being promoted. They asked for promotions, spoke up in meetings, and put themselves in the path of rejection every day.

Innovators didn’t achieve genius status just by drawing one picture, designing one ad campaign or auditioning for one play. They succeed because they recognize that they have something to offer and they do not give up. They show their portfolios. They play their violins for audition after audition. They seek out feedback, teachers and mentors to show them where their mistakes are and what they can do better.

How do you embrace risk? Have you achieved innovation by understand risk potential?

Developing an "Innovation Co-Creation" Mindset

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:07:00 +0000

Next-generation innovations will predominantly emerge at the intersection of disciplines, technologies, domains, markets, and people. 21st Century Leaders need to leverage diverse competencies across the ecosystem developed by opening up innovation within the organization and taking innovation beyond its boundaries - to all stakeholders. Innovation Co-creation is the way forward.

Innovation Co-creation is a new innovation model for tomorrow's enterprises. Innovation, the world over, is moving from being a firm-centric (all innovations come from ones own own resources) endeavor to the one centered on co-creation (leverage innovations and resources from across the ecosystem). There are a number of crucial aspects of co-creation that can accelerate innovation and generate sustainable growth.

Innovation Co-creation is the practice of developing systems, products, or services that enhance strategic capital, increase returns, and expand market opportunities by drawing upon innovative ideas from stakeholder experiences.

Innovation Co-creation is manifest in multiple ways such as joint research, joint innovation center, joint product development, joint IP licensing and early adopter program.

Co-creation requires platforms that enable individuals and enterprises to engage with each other in a creative and generative manner while expanding platform linkages. It involves enabling network relationships and enhancing network economics, while expanding the roles of stakeholders in creating mutual value.

A crucial aspect of co-creation involves cultivating a mindset that seeks to innovate and deliver value through experiences and expanding the space of new experiences. Co-creation expands value and generates more sustainable growth through stakeholder experiences and their power to lower risks and costs for themselves. It expands value through the power of innovative leaders ability to increase returns and strategic capital while lowering enterprise risks and costs.

Co-creative enterprises are innovation and productivity engines that can pay for themselves many times over. They enhance strategic capital, increase returns, and expand market opportunities.

Are you accelerating innovation via co-creation? What successes have you achieved and lessons learned?

Innovation Using The “Freemium” Business Model

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:05:00 +0000

A recent study by Flurry Analytics found that mobile phone games that are free to download, are actually making more money than those that charge. Rather than asking $0.99 to download a game you have never tried, these companies let you download the app for free, then entice their most avid players into paying quite a bit more than $0.99 for in-game virtual goodies like farm crops or power boosters. In June 2011, among the top 100 games in the iTunes store, free games generated almost twice as much revenue as games that charged to download.

Offering your innovative products and services for free, and charging your more committed customers for premium services, is actually a common strategy. This business model is often called “freemium,” a term coined by Jarid Lukin and popularized by venture capitalist Fred Wilson.

The freemium business model works like this: Everyone gets your product or service for free, forever. But those customers who really like it, and find most value in it, will have a strong temptation to upgrade to a “premium” (paid) service which has lots of additional goodies. It is, at heart, a strategy of pricing by customer segmentation. I've developed some key considerations in developing and benefiting from the freemium model.

The freemium model requires that innovators rethink their customer equation. Acquisition (attracting customers) comes first, and monetization (turning them into revenue) is second.
A freemium model adds value to your customer, by demonstrating the benefits of your service before they are expected to pay for it (a powerful incentive in this lean economy). It also adds value to your business in two ways:

1) Acquiring customers incredibly rapidly, with much less marketing spend
2) Monetizing your customers based on their price sensitivity, and the value they derive from your business. (Even your free customers may generate revenue via advertising)

Most importantly, a freemium model requires deep customer insight. It hinges on uncovering the key shift in behavior between your casual users, and those customers who truly value your service. What happens when customer love you? Do they use your service more hours each month? Use more data storage? Go on to advanced game levels? Use your product for work and not just personal use?

If you can find that customer insight, and if you can offer at least a basic version of your service at minimal cost to your firm, then you may be able to follow the freemium model, and make much more money by letting your customers in for free.

Leadership, It's About How you Say It

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 09:54:00 +0000

Communication is about content and delivery, fifty-fifty. But when it comes to leadership, it’s all about the delivery. Of course what you say matters, but how you say it, how you relate to folks, is what differentiates great leaders from the pack.

That means you can have innovative ideas, indeed you must, but if you can’t deliver them in a way that connects with people and relates to them in a meaningful way, you won’t get results. I've identified five things everyone can do to improve delivery so that innovative leadership becomes a reality. So, wherever you are in your journey to the top, I’m sure these 5 tips will help to improve your delivery so folks will want to be a part of whatever it is you’re doing.

Look people straight in the eye and really “see” them. If you take one thing away from this post, this is the one. It’s huge. I can’t say exactly why, but when you look someone straight in the eye, you’re initiating a potentially deep connection that can’t be achieved any other way. It also shows respect, i.e. there’s nothing more dismissive and demeaning than not “recognizing” someone by looking directly at them.

Be direct and genuine. It can be hard to be straightforward and direct with people. Absent it adds layers of complexity that make it so much harder to establish transparency. Actually, the more direct and genuine you are with people, the greater their sense of trust and the more respect they’ll have.

Executive presence isn’t about power and domination. This is perhaps the biggest misconception about executive presence. It doesn’t come from command and control, it comes from connecting and relating, from sharing your passion in a way that’s meaningful to others. It breaks down barriers.

Learn to be a storyteller. People relate to stories and storytellers. People don’t remember facts and figures or even logical arguments as well as they remember stories. They also find it easier to connect with storytellers. If you really want to relate to people in a deep way, tell them stories they can relate to.

Increase your self-awareness. How you say things is more about how you feel than what you think. If people have trouble relating to you or respecting you, chances are you’re not as self-aware as you think you are. The only way to change that is to find out what employees, peers, and your boss like and don’t like about how you communicate. Being open to feedback is the only place to start.

Have you identified innovative leadership communication styles that work? What ways are you connecting with people and relating to them in a meaningful way?

Innovative Thinking- The Process and Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:23:00 +0000

To reap the benefits of innovative thinking and apply it to a business problem, start by asking four strategic questions, What is, what if, what wows, and what works? Essentially, these are translated as:

Assess the marketplace, get close to consumers to understand their behavior, talk to users;
Brainstorm and write down hypotheses; dream up your optimal, best-case-ever outcomes to a challenge; set aside constraints and fears to loosen up creativity;
Cull options down to a manageable number that will “wow” the customer, combining upside value while presenting profit potential;
Go into the marketplace with options and test the solution, product, or service with consumers, invite customers to co-create, and integrate feedback.

I've developed a number of tools to flesh out the answers to these four key process questions. Try using these four tools as part of your innovation process:

Visualization: Use sketches, photographs, and other images to visualize a problem. Other techniques are storyboards that lay out a sequence of events with simple pictures, and creating fictional persona's that visualize and represent typical customers.

Customer journey mapping: A customer journey map means you “staple yourself to a customer” to empathize with a customer’s experience from beginning to end with your brand. A book publisher could map a reader’s journey, beginning with reading about a book online and in a review, through further research, deciding whether to purchase a print or ebook, where to purchase it, the reading experience, and what happened when they finished the book (email the author, post Amazon review).

Assumption testing: Isolate and test key assumptions that will determine success or failure using thought experiments and simulations as you prepare to launch your solution or product. What assumptions are you making about your customers that need to be examined? Assumptions about operational capacity of your firm? Assumptions about how your competitors will react?

Customer co-creation: Engage the customer in the development of new business offerings. By putting prototypes in front of customers, you observe how they react, and integrate their responses to improve and change your offering. Often we get anxious about showing customers unfinished, unpolished stuff. Get over it. Innovation is about learning, and customers have the most to teach you.

Other tools include value chain analysis, mind mapping, brainstorming, rapid prototyping, and the learning launch.

Have you used visualization and other forms of innovative thinking to solve problems at work? What works for you and what doesn't?

Leadership Styles, Which One Are You?

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:10:00 +0000

Understanding leadership styles requires more than knowing leadership personality traits, achievements, or whether they are ‘transformational’. Modesto Maidique, a visiting professor at Harvard Business School defines a six-level typology of leadership. A review of her work provides an explanation of what organizations and employees can expect from each type of leader.

Here are her six main leadership styles:
Level One: Sociopath

The first level of leader is the one who literally serves no one: the sociopath. This is the person who eventually destroys pretty much everything: value, those who surround him, and himself. Luckily, these are few and far between. Adolf Hitler is the classic example.

Level Two: Opportunist

This is the person who serves only him or herself, often at the expense of others. They’re generally after wealth and power, and don’t care about much else. Bernie Madoff provides a good example.

Level Three: Chameleon

These are the so-called leaders who try to please everyone, all the time. Needless to say, it doesn’t work out too well. It’s hard to find well-known corporate examples of this type, because they don’t tend to rise too far in organizations.

Level Four: Achiever

At level four, we start to find people whom we can at least refer to as ‘leaders’ with a straight face. Executive ranks are filled with Achievers: These folks are goal-oriented, motivated, good at beating sales quotas and earning their accolades at merit-award dinners. Their focus on corporate goals, however, can mean that they fail to see the larger picture. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd may be in this category: Sure, HP’s stock price more than doubled during his tenure, but he did it by slashing research and development.

Level Five: Builder

The Builder serves not a goal but an institution. These are the leaders with a grand vision that doesn’t get derailed by fluctuations in short-term profit or stock market valuations. These are leaders that infect others with their enthusiasm, energy and integrity.

Level Six: Transcendent

There aren’t many of these. These are the leaders who look to benefit all of society: thank Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King, Jr.

What type of leader are you, and what type of leader do you strive to be? How about your boss?

Innovation powered by Entrepreneurship

noreply@blogger.com (Melvin Greer) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:20:00 +0000

Innovation is powered by entrepreneurial thinkers. The number of entrepreneurship courses nationally has grown from 250 in 1985 to more than 5,000. This is now the hottest degree for the ambitious with dreams of becoming billionaires before age 29. At the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour, a series of conferences for aspiring young entrepreneurs, hundreds of high school and college kids were feverishly taking notes. The tour, which is only five years old, will attract an estimated 20,000 students this year. All this activity is in response to a critical innovation gap. What is the innovation gap and how can the risks associated with it be mitigated?

Innovation Gap
Reviewing sources of innovation in 25 consumer product categories over 50 years reveals a growing innovation gap. From the 1960s to the 1980s, 64 percent of all major new innovations came from large corporations (more than $1 billion in revenue). During the past two decades, only 16 percent of innovations came from large companies, while 84 percent of them came from startups or small companies.

In corporations, disruptive innovation has always been somewhat serendipitous. Great corporate innovations are rarely planned by senior managers or chief executive officers. To have any chance of finding that next "New Thing," you need entrepreneurial-minded people in the lower- to middle-management ranks pushing the boundaries and challenging the organization. Only now those people are opting out of the corporate experience altogether and getting venture capital funding to compete with the large firms they shun. The resources available to budding entrepreneurs are growing each day. Twenty years ago, there were few role models and fewer resources. Today there is a growing ecosystem of support.

The true benefit of entrepreneurs is that they think in terms of business models and can provide strategic and business planning solutions in addition to clever ideas. Organizations are in critical need of people who have an innovative entrepreneurial spirit and who can contribute a risk taking and failure forward culture.

Are you developing an innovative entrepreneurial spirit inside a large corporation? What success are you having in closing the innovation gap?