leadership
The Importance of Leadership in Fostering Organizational Innovation
Any expert on the driving forces behind organizational innovation will tell you that leadership is one of the most important. In fact, I’ve discovered it to be one of the 7 Immutable Laws of Innovation, and a necessity for any institution looking to prioritize leadership. Over the next few weeks, I
Six Strategies to Lead Innovation from the Top
What is Oscar Munoz doing walking airline fields in a safety vest? As the new CEO of United Airlines, you may expect him to hole up in a cozy office somewhere, directing the company from behind closed doors. How he’ll perform as a CEO for one of the more troubled airlines in operation today is […]
Does being like Steve Jobs and being harsh with your staff get you better performance?
The late Steve Jobs was the visionary who took Apple from the office desktop to the user’s back pocket. His reputation on stage was as a hard-charging, success-driven leader, and his audience responded with cheers and fist pumps as customers flocked to buy his latest brainchild. What was his secret
Having Engaged Employees is an Essential Part of Innovation
It is hard to imagine that a company can be truly successful if its employees are not adequately motivated and engaged. When you have engaged employees, they take a personal interest in the success of their company. Otherwise, they are likely to do what is expected but lack the motivation to go much
Innovation Leadership Is Not For The Faint Of Heart
When considering innovation in your business or creative life, it’s easy to get so caught up in the fuzzy, catch-phrase-laden mentality that you forget the nuts and bolts of bringing true change to your work. But innovation leadership is more than just feel-good slogans and extra meetings with focus
Why do organizations create mediocre mission statements? Where is the innovation?
Over the years, I’ve seen my fair share of poorly written mission statements. The steps to creating them, in my opinion accurately represented by the cartoon, quickly become one more activity that is turned into a repeatable process my some well-meaning consultant. Have you noticed what’s missing f
There’s no such thing as constructive criticism
It is that time of year again when managers deliver annual performance reviews. Over my career, I’ve been shocked at how few managers have the leadership skill to properly deliver constructive criticism. This morning, I came across an interesting column by Tony Schwartz on hbr.org about mistakes we
What is your innovation legacy?
One thing that I’ve been thinking about lately, especially given my recent announcement, is what will be my innovation legacy. Another person who pondered this question was Alfred Nobel. Alfred teamed up with his brother and father and opened a lab in Stockholm to study nitroglycerine. In 1866, he
There is nothing better than having a BHAG
Great leaders understand that one of their key responsibilities is to set the goals for innovation. Most leaders don’t take this effort seriously and as a result their organizations suffer. They violate the Law of BHAG in the 7 Immutable Laws of Innovation. A key component of setting the innovatio
We have a failure to execute … again!
One of the more common excuses used by management for innovations not making it in the market is a “failure to execute”. Is it really a failure to execute or a failure to give innovations enough execution focus compared to the core business? In the 7 Immutable Laws of Innovation, the Law of Executi
