Category Archives: Innovation

Use the Power of the Collective in New Ways

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It’s become more and more evident that the old models we have for organizations are starting to fail us. We know how much more can be accomplished though the power of a collective effort, and many of us have left traditional corporations due to frustration with the rigid hierarchical model and its inherent inertia. Of course, traditional corporations were designed for shareholder profit as the central priority.

Yet, have you noticed that no matter how noble the goals might be of any other organization you join, sooner or later you find yourself back in the same frustrations you had with traditional corporations? Or, if you’ve decided to take a break from large organizations altogether, then you find yourself facing the isolation and limited impact of a solo entrepreneur.

Without any new models of how to work collectively, we tend to fall back on the familiar hierarchical models and rigid operating principles.

If we are to bring about the change we envision in the world, we must learn to harness the power of group effort without the old baggage. We cannot demand that the world change if we have not changed the way we operate!

Much has been said and done about the need to change our inner world in order to change the outer world, and the next stage of evolution in our society is to change the dynamics of the groups and organizations that we influence. Are you ready to take on that challenge?

Leadership and being an agent of change can take many forms. You might be explicitly directing the projects of others, or you may bring implicit leadership to a situation by proposing a better way to accomplish a shared goal.

One of the shifts that is needed is the shift from “me” to “we,” from competition to cooperation. This applies not only within organizations but between organizations (including solo entrepreneurships) which share a common goal. As we heal the part of ourselves that is still reactive and hungry to be recognized, we can begin operating from a genuine wish for mutual gain.

In the book Tribal Leadership (see Recommended Reading below), Dave Logan and others describe 5 stages which illustrate a natural progression towards a truly collaborative world. These stages can be described as follows:

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When You Are Most At Risk, You Need The Best Advice

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Times are tough! I’m sure there will be few that will argue with me on that score. The world recession fondly known as the credit crunch has changed the business landscape in which we operate and turned it on its head.

Banks used to be in the business of taking money on deposit and carefully lending it to sound business ventures with professional management at a profit. However somewhere along the line the respected cautious conservative banker turned into a reckless gambler investing huge amounts of our money in instruments they could neither understand and even less value in the forlorn hope if making a return by selling it to other bankers even more reckless and ignorant than themselves.

Out of this feeding frenzy was born the credit crunch. Now the very custodians of our life savings are themselves bankrupt, bailed out by taxpayer money. The banks still haven’t bottomed out their exposure to these toxic assets so are therefore reluctant to lend not only to new businesses but even to long-established clients.

The effect has been widespread recession. The American market, the powerhouse of consumer spending collapsed over night. Businesses were faced with over-supply and diminishing demand. There is doom and gloom everywhere; business confidence is at an all time low, the British economy in negative growth, inflation out of control and interest rates set to rise. Political change has brought with it a clinical assessment of the state of the nation’s economy, the realisation that we have been living way beyond our means for decades and that a period of belt-tightening bone crunching fiscal reform is unavoidable.

Is there any good news? Well every coin has two sides so there has to be. For every loser in a transaction there must by definition be a winner. Like on the African plains where the law of nature dictates that only the fittest survive the recession will weed out the weak, the unprepared, those unwilling to embrace the new order. Like the lion who stalks the wounded impala the new economic reality will eliminate those organisations too big, too proud, too slow or too stupid to adapt.

In times of rapid change it is neither the fittest nor the strongest of the species that survives, but those most adaptable to change.

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Two Essential Steps to Becoming a Thought Leader

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Every industry has them, and whether you like the term thought leader or not, they hold a wealth of power within culture and technology. Thought leaders possess a keen sense of creativity and vision. They’re always a step ahead.

We envy thought leaders, but the reality is that anyone can become one in two essential but very simple steps…

1. Think

It’s amazing to me how little of this we do for ourselves. We’re often content to allow others to do the thinking and creating while we sit and passively consume and pass along the ideas of others.

Being a thought leader requires thinking intentionally about the way things are and seeing the way things could be instead, even if the change is minute. It also requires the ability to get a little abstract and even eccentric. Thought leaders are capable of understanding the story of culture and making judgments about the future based on its flow.

Thinking is a discipline. Sometimes it requires a wealth of informational input, but our consumption must also be balanced with enough silence and solitude to give a certain concreteness to our thoughts.

Don’t just consume… think.

2. Lead

Profound, eh? Thinking is great, but it’s only step one. Acting on an idea and executing it are essential to the whole process of driving the culture and atmosphere around us. History probably knows its fair share of potential inventions and innovations that never came into being because of the reluctance of great thinkers.

Leading is risky. It means stepping out in front and challenging the status quo. Leading requires us to raise our voice and hope that someone listens and embraces our message.

Thought leaders are not only deep thinkers but effective communicators, connectors, and motivators.

3. Rinse and Repeat

I can’t fail to mention that the repetition of these two steps make all the difference between those who rise to the top over time and those who fade into the background. Thought leaders know when to move on to whatever is next.

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Innovation in the Informal Sector

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South Africa is a country where 49% of its population is unemployed. Although apartheid is over the spread of resources and income is still very unbalanced. Wealth lies with either the white middle to upper class or the new up and coming black elite – the Black Diamonds. Unfortunately the large majority of the country lives under the bread line and have to starve, sell drugs, steel, beg or use their innovation to survive. The later is what this article about.

The country is truly confused, it has a good currency that trades under R7 to the US dollar (1st January 2011), a first world infrastructure – yet as mentioned before the large majority is living in poverty. This has lead many a person, normally African to use their intuitive and become street entrepreneurs.

There are several different types of street businesses which make these innovative citizens money and take some strain off of our economy. This article will discuss some of the more prevalent ones.

The first is the street vendor, making on average between R50-R100 per day – they sell lose cigarettes colloquially known as ‘gwais’ either Mega or Stuyvesant which cost R1 and R2 respectively and sweets. After speaking one such vendor called Azor he informed me that he makes a profit of R8 of one sold box of mega and R30 of off Stuyvesant. He sells about 4 boxes of mega a day making a R48 profit, and about one box of Stuyvesant making R30. Furthermore he sells sweets and chips and makes about R20 profit on these a day. On top of this Azor also fixes shoes for R20 on average making about R40 extra in this venture. So from an initial outlay of about R100 he profits R190 on a good day on commodities alone. Azor is also getting his cordless pay phone working which will up his profit. Accommodation is about R800 a month, he works everyday so he makes about R3500-R4000 per month. Azor spends about R500 a month on food meaning he has at least R2200 to spend and buy more supplies clothes and electricity each month. What a wise businessman.

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Secrets to an Innovative Event

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Every year meeting planners try to create one of a kind events and every year it gets more and more difficult.

Here are some ways to be innovative…

Sell people on the dream, not the theme. Why should someone travel long and far to attend a meeting when their are so many other things competing for their time? Most people don’t know what to expect from an event to begin with. They attend for networking, learning and continuing education, or because they have to.

To create an innovative event, think outside of the box, give people something they hadn’t even thought of. Henry Ford once said, “If I’d have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me ‘A faster horse.’ Offer something that hasn’t been created yet. That’s innovation.

Don’t do the expected. Most conventions have conference speakers, an agenda, they happen in meeting rooms. What if you didn’t do any of this? What if people walked into the room and there were no chairs. It has been proven that people learn better by standing or moving around. Could you do a seminar where people stand or move around and interact?

At one conference I was the motivational keynote opening speaker, I walked into the room and there were no chairs. When people entered, they were told to take a chair from the stack at the side of the room and sit anywhere. This made me nervous, as I was about to give a motivational speech to a very disorganized looking room. People sat in pods, with 4 or 5 chairs together in different parts of the room. Some people sat on their own in the corner. It was one of the most lively conference speaking engagements and it was very memorable.

The most innovative things these days involves technology. It has literally shaped who we are as a society. We rely heavily on our gadgets and our values and preferences ( real time information, instant feedback, etc) have been altered by it. People now demand real time feedback and information- how can we give them this in a meeting space? They do have gadgets that allow people to vote in meetings and it quickly calculates results.

A few other ideas:

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