Category: Innovation
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Analysis Paralysis and The Threat To Innovation
A much delayed first post of 2023, which has been for a couple of reasons. Firstly I’ve taken a super relaxing break and switched off completely rather than my usual rambling around. I’ve been staying in one of those Caribbean mega hotels beloved by East Coast Americans looking to escape the winter freeze – and […]
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Turning Constraints Into Innovation Opportunities
As we enter a further period of economic uncertainty we will undoubtedly see a slash and burn approach to cost reduction in many of our organisation’s. An impending crisis often triggers suboptimal decision making that tends to focus on survival and forgets about investing in the future. Talent is lost only to be re-recruited again […]
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Few People Get Promoted For Asking Difficult Questions
Research indicates that even when everyone within a group recognizes who the subject matter expert is, they defer to that member just 62% of the time; when they don’t, they listen to the most extroverted person Khalil Smith Innovation must be founded on a deep understanding of the problem we are seeking to solve. It takes a […]
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When Leaders Talk About Innovation, Always Be Sceptical
Declare yourself an innovation company and celebrate creativity, by all means. Then treat your employees to a little seminar in business history that emphasizes real-life time frames and the numbing necessity of trial and error, trial and error, trial and error. Sir Harold Evans In turbulent times beware the leader touting innovation myths. Myths like: […]
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When Everything Is A Crisis, Nothing Is
Who would win in a fight between the housing crisis in one corner and monkeypox in another? We live in a world that now has competing, intersecting, and sometimes conflicting crises. There are the old standards like the climate crisis, and the health crisis (now inflated to a national emergency by Rishi Sunak). The long […]
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Society Has Digital Transformed, But It Isn’t Evenly Distributed
We often blame innovations for the way they make our lives faster, busier, more intrusive, but in reality our core human behaviours and beliefs are slow to change. Marchetti’s constant, named after Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti, is the principle that humans settled on a 30 minute commute time to work long ago, and no matter […]
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Built Not To Last: Could Planned Obsolescence Be Good For The Social Sector?
Planned obsolescence is the practice of deliberately creating consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete (or out of date) and therefore need to be frequently replaced. If we designed our organisations to have an expiry date would we get better social outcomes?
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The Anatomy of a Great Idea
Ideas are not invented equally. I’d suggest that anyone who repeats the adage that ‘no idea is a bad idea’ has never attended a management away day. So what makes a great idea?
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What Effect Does Environment Have On Our Ability To Think Creatively?
When you think of the “space to innovate” what immediately springs to mind? Is it the physical space , the mental space, the calendar space? All three? I’ve been thinking a lot about spaces and environments this week: specifically what are the best creative spaces to boost collaboration? Few companies measure whether the design of […]
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Why We Fail To Predict The Future
rns out very different than we imagine. The more our organisations actively think about the future the easier it becomes to close the future gap and put yourself into that future.
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Innovating Against All Odds: The Endlessly Adaptable Future of Work
Received wisdom isn’t what it used to be. The future will be made up of shades of grey where few things are certain and the best you can do to prepare is to be endlessly adaptable.
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How To Kill Ideas (Part 53)
Many organisations act as inhibitors of innovation. Rules and protocols are put in place, often for very good reasons, that preserve the status quo. Over time, organisations develop a set of social norms – ‘the way we do things around here’ – that can quell any creativity or dissent. Organisations can quickly develop an autonomic immune response […]
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Why The Employee Idea Scheme Doesn’t Work
The concept of asking employees to share their ideas to drive innovation is always a good one. Unfortunately, the traditional suggestion scheme is, in my opinion, not the way to go about it.
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Why Do We Believe In Silver Bullet Solutions?
In folklore, a bullet cast from silver is often one of the few weapons that are effective against a werewolf or witch. In business, the “silver bullet” is a simple, but sure-fire solution to a complex and/or chronic problem. Once you use it, the problem goes away completely. Why do we believe in silver bullets?
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Community Is The Most Powerful Unit Of Change
We are less pessimistic about our own lives than we are about larger units. We’re not very pessimistic about our village, we are not pessimistic about our town – but we are very pessimistic about our country, and even more pessimistic about the future of our planet. The bigger the unit you look at the […]
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Three Reasons Why We Fail To Solve Problems
Why do some problems get solved whilst others stick around? Here are three examples of why we sometimes fail and what we could do differently.
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Can The Pandemic Usher In An Era of Creative Disruption?
If we’d followed a conventional big transformation/ big consultancy approach to vaccine development and deployment we’d be getting our jabs sometime around the middle of 2033. The question is, can your organisation draw on the lessons of the pandemic to forge a more effective partnership with your customers and stakeholders?
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Three Innovation Aspirations For 2021
In 2021 perhaps the bravest and most radical thing you could do is to change your mind.
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A Relentless Focus On Efficiency Can Kill Innovation
Why do organisations who say they are innovative fail to put their money where their mouth is and invest in innovation in the same way Amazon do?
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How To Make Decisions In A World Of Uncertainty When Not Knowing Or Being Sure Of Anything Is The Only Answer We Have (TLDR: Get comfortable with failure..)
In a high stakes environment , where people will die whatever you do next, nobody wants to talk about failure. For companies large and small, to make progress in complex situations means re-evaluating our relationship with the F Word.
Paul Taylor 