The Dynamics of Change and Fear

Carly Fiorina, Former CEO at HP, talks about the dynamics of change and fear. She notes that entrepreneurship is about risk-taking, and this is always associated with trying something new. Fiorina concludes by asserting that change involves gathering enough energy and force to overcome the power of status quo.

So what do I know about change? First thing I know is that everybody is afraid of something. Everybody is afraid of something. All of you are afraid of something. All of us are afraid of something. What distinguishes people who are successful in their life from those who are not is what do you do with your fear.

The essence of business is risk taking. Taking a risk is all about trying something new. And yet as people go on in their lives, they become afraid of trying something new. And so change is always resisted, always. Because people are afraid, even if what they have is not satisfying to them, a lot of people are afraid to venture into the unknown.

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9 Steps for Establishing Your Employee Engagement Plan

You've got the best employees on the planet, right? They work hard and are experts in their fields. But, somewhere there is a disconnect. The culture of your organization is not everything it could be, not everything you would like. Is there a way to ensure that your employees hold to the same values you do throughout your department, or the organization? How can you empower your employees, and foster trust, growth, and loyalty? Here are nine ways to fully engage your employees.

Inspiration From the Top

The most important thing that a leader can do to improve employee engagement is to lead by example. Employees must see the owners and executives demonstrating behaviors set forth in the company’s values. They are far more likely to emulate the respected leaders of the organization than live by a disregarded handbook. Managers and business owners should take advantage of collaboration tools such as HR Software when communicating with employees. Opening up communication channels helps employees to feel more valued and inspires better communication from the bottom up.

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Innovation Through Clean Sheet Redesign

Clean sheet redesign is the method of rethinking existing businesses from the ground up. For established companies, this is a way to innovate processes by asking the right questions about current practices. For start-ups working on a clean sheet, they can apply similar techniques to disrupt existing models, while taking inspiration from existing success stories from other industries.

The advantages of a clean sheet

Things change, both gradually and inexorably. When you want to change the world, you will have to take advantage of entrenched infrastructures and institutions.

The new breed of low-cost airlines work with a different business model: using one type of airplane and second-tier airports, flying only to profitable segments, and offering slashed prices and no-frills service.

How does clean sheet redesign work in practice?

The team found that they could replace large movers with smaller, niftier ones. Large movers were believed to move more at a time in a batch system.

Examine assumptions: keep asking “why?”

What does clean sheet redesign mean for innovation and innovative start-ups, and how can it play a role in their plans?

“Innovation is often best done with pen and paper, by making a tree diagram of the reasons why things are as they are.”

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Innovation Challenge Design and Management for the Crowd

In this Roundtable Discussion we explore the leading benefits, challenges and techniques for engaging public crowds. Using key success stories we examine the extent to which we can overcome key pain points and harness the general public to support innovation.

Truly reaching out to the public can prove an intimidating moment for any organization. Brand protection, possibility of negative press and time commitment of managing the crowd all provide significant points of fear for organization when contemplating undertaking a broad, public crowdsourcing project. These projects differ significantly from employee or partner-focused initiatives in the extent to which these fears can outweigh the perceived benefits.

Case studies

The presenters draw on direct experience with the following programs:

US Department of Energy – In 2014 The Department of Energy began running its Sunshot Catalyst Initiative to contribute to its goal of making solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of electricity.

Ushahidi – The Making All Voices Count initiative aims to engage the public in the creation of technology that is conceived and designed for the developing world.

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Getting From Ideas to Products

In a time when innovation and new product development are vital to remain competitive, large organizations are looking for ways to generate and execute new product ideas while mitigating risk. Increasingly, these companies seek to create a startup culture as a means to generate innovation.

Developing an efficient mechanism for getting products from the idea phase to initial prototype (and then to market) has significant benefits:

• Quicker idea validation.

• Cheaper and lower risk idea evaluation versus a full blown product launch .
• Management has the opportunity to be involved in product evaluation, rather than being removed from the product development and validation process.

Rapid prototyping

This involves instituting processes to quickly convert ideas, even if they are only 25-50% complete, into live products that can be placed the hands of potential users or testers.Rapid prototyping has several requirements and attributes, including:

• Robust and flexible product development expertise, as the ideas may be broad in nature.
• Expedited development capabilities, often executed without a complete set of user requirements.

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Communicate to Innovate: Tips from the World of Improvisation

Effective communication is at the heart of innovation: harnessing insights from customers, partners and co-workers, sharing ideas, building upon points of view, advocating and gaining support for one’s innovations all require razor sharp communication. Interestingly enough, communicating effectively is a two-way street.

Listening and declaring are the building blocks of any communication exchange; however, if executed poorly, they can make an exchange fall apart. Whether in an improv scene or in a boardroom, the sender and receiver in a conversation must cooperate fully and whole-heartedly. Here are a few tips to help you communicate clearly and effectively as you embark on your innovation journey.

Make a statement

Great listening is not enough to make communication successful: you also need to practice the behavior of declaring, i.e. sending your messages skillfully. By introducing clear information from the very start, you will set your team up for success. For an improviser or a business person, a declaration signals the start of an idea exchange, a collaboration, the creation of something new. It’s a clear, concise way of letting your colleagues know your point of view and what you want to accomplish. A good declaration can be built upon, adapted and used as a springboard for more ideas.

“You would be surprised at how often making assumptions and failing to clarify can put us in a mindset of fear.”

To read more about “Communicate to Innovate:Tips from the worls of improvisation” visit Innovation Management. Also read our latest articles and our various programs of Online Learning Innovation Programs and Innovation Process.

Challenging a Vision by Reframing

An insignificant island in the Indian Ocean can turn out to be the world’s largest ocean economy. It’s all a matter of perspective, depending on the frame with which we look at the world. The assumptions on which this frame is based are usually unexamined and often wrong. They aren’t the only truth out there. Take the Mauritius, a small island with a tiny GDP and little economic potential, facing rising sea levels. But it’s also in a huge ocean area with sustainable ocean mining opportunities, and a potential high leverage economy. By challenging our initial assumptions, we can reframe that first belief towards a whole new perspective.

Overcoming toxic assumptions

The business world is full of toxic assumptions that have been unchallenged for years and stand in the way of progress and innovation.

The approach of reframing is a four-step process:

1. Determine what your current position is. This is your core belief.
2. Analyze this core belief: what are the reasons you think that? Come up with ‘supporting beliefs’, and pick the four most important ones.
3. Force yourself to construct the opposite of these supporting beliefs by finding antonyms and grammatical opposites......

Here is not the end..to view full blog about Challenging A vision By Reframing visit Innovation Management. Also have a look on our latest articles and our various programs of Online Learning Innovation Programs and Innovation Process.