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Innovation and Organizational Learning

A Process for Continuous Innovation and Controlled Chaos
Continuous innovation comes mainly from implementing the four stages of controlled chaos — exploration, experimentation, development and integration — into the organization. More
Customer Intimacy and Empathy are Keys to Innovation
Through living in and empathizing with our customers' world, our innovation leaders focus the organization's development capabilities on solving problems or meeting needs that our customers may not realize could be done. More
Harnessing the Energy of Change Champions
When I look back at the hundreds of team or organization changes I've been involved in during the last three decades, most successful – and certainly all major ones – were driven by "monomaniacs with a mission." More
Improvement Planning Pathways and Pitfalls (Part One)
Discover the Improvement Planning approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your organization's pathway to success. More
Improvement Planning Pathways and Pitfalls (Part Two)
Discover the Improvement Planning approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your organization's pathway to success More
Innovation and Learning Through Successful Failures
When asked why he wasn't getting results with his countless tries to successfully develop the light bulb, Thomas Edison replied, "Results? Why, man, I've gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work." More
Innovation and Organizational Learning Pathways and Pitfalls (Part 1)
Discover the Innovation and Organizational Learning approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your organization's pathway to success. More
Innovation and Organizational Learning Pathways and Pitfalls (Part 2)
Discover the Innovation and Organizational Learning approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your organization's pathway to success. More
Innovation and Organizational Learning Pathways and Pitfalls (Part 3)
Discover the Innovation and Organizational Learning approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your organization's pathway to success. More
Innovation and the Law of Averages
To double our innovation success rate, we need to double our failure rate. Our goal is not failure; it's success, therefore, we must use the Law of Averages to "fail our way to success." More
Innovation Calls for Leadership
Seizing the opportunities of tomorrow calls for leadership. It means taking off the blinders of what is, in order to see what could be. More
Innovation Champions, Skunkworks, and Organization Learning
When innovations are in the exploration stage, they need a champion, or skunkworks, to take them through the rest of the developmental stages. What we know is less important than what we do with what we know. More
Innovation Means Looking Beyond What is to What Could Be
We need to manage the paradox of paying close attention to closing today's customer and partner performance gaps while we explore, search, and create tomorrow's new markets, customers, and partners. More
Innovation Needs a Culture of Trust and Openness
If we want more experimentation and learning on our teams or organizations, we must establish an atmosphere that builds self-confidence and trust. More
Innovation Through Accidents and "Controlled Chaos"
The innovation paradox: Random, chaotic, and unpredictable innovations need a stable management system and process to nurture the growth and development of "lucky breaks." More
Leaders Focus on Reflection and Renewal
Strong leaders who are effective coaches know the value of reflection and renewal. They periodically pull themselves and their teams back from daily work in operations to work on themselves. More
Nurturing Change Champions
A good change champion is passionate about their cause or change. We can't harness or manage champions. Often we're best to point them in the right direction and get out of the way. Then sponsor and protect them from the bureaucracy when they need it. More
Reflection and Renewal
A great fictional story, illustrating a major problem we encounter again and again in our work with individuals, teams, and organizations trying to move to higher levels of performance. It's the problem of balancing the speed and pace of daily life or operations, with periodically stepping back to make sure we're heading in the right direction. More
Stepping Back to Step Ahead Through Reviewing and Assessing
When we don't know how we're doing we can't improve. Failing to periodically review and assess is one of the major reasons so many improvement efforts lose their way. More
Strategic Planning Smothers Innovation
Strategy is an interactive process focusing on improvement and implementation, but beware of common strategic planning traps. More
Successful Failures
Key characteristic of learning leaders; they refuse to be trapped by "conventional wisdom" or what others say is or isn't possible. Highly effective leaders go against the odds – or just ignore them. More
The View from the Front Line
Customer focused organizations build internal communication processes around the valuable players that deal directly with the public. More
Tunnel Vision Will Get You Nowhere
Examples from history illustrate the importance of seeing the potential of new ideas. More

I Predict… More Unpredictability

It’s a crazy time of year . A time for futurists, forecasters, and analysts to line up with seers, fortune tellers, and prophets to gravely tell us what 2009 has in store. Instead of tea leaves, anima Read More...

Happy Holidays

Understanding that a large percentage of people subscribe to my blog via email, I'm going to take a break over the next few weeks. The purpose is twofold. Firstly it will allow me to get into the spir Read More...

Pay Attention: The Growing Scourge of Multi-Tasking

Awhile ago I was called for an interview by CKNW radio in Vancouver to talk about the growing Blackberry problem. The BC Legislature has just banned politicians from bringing their Blackberrys into se Read More...

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