Anatomy of Creative Leadership by Russ Schoen

Happy Thanksgiving! I am thrilled to announce that I will be teaching a 2 day introduction course to Creative Problem Solving at Northwestern University through their continuing studies department on January 28th & 29th, 2010. Know anyone who might be interested? Click here and/or Pass on the link! http://bit.ly/1PUhjQ

I am excited to announce that I will be moderating a free webinar on September 9th, 2009 with New and Improved, LLC called The Real Truth About Creating a Climate for Innovation. Won’t you join me as we learn:

What are the top mistakes people commonly make when they try to create more innovative organizations?

What specifically do successful leaders of innovation do?

How can you spark more innovation in your people immediately?

Successful organizations must find ways to sustain innovation over the long haul. Wise leaders see innovation not just as a new product or service, but as a way of working to find opportunities in every job in their organization

New & Improved is offering a rare opportunity to dig into the abilities necessary to bring more innovation to your enterprise by sharing insights that have emerged from over 15 years of creating sustainable innovation cultures for our clients.

Register for Free today here!

This webinar will be recorded and the audio will be made available after the call to all registrants to listen at their leisure. So if for some reason you can not make the call live, you can still learn! Look forward to seeing you at the webinar.

If you haven’t seen this video called the Philadelphia Field Project, worth a 7 minute watch. Notice how the professor challenged his students to think about poverty in a totally new way by asking new questions. Great stuff. Click here to watch!

Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation. Do rewards and incentives lead to more creative output? What do you think? Watch this video by Dan Pink and let me know your reactions.

 

Creativity in Business Conference in DC October 4th!

2 more weeks for Earlybird discount

Hi all!  I am excited to be a presenter at this groundbreaking conference! Join me and other entrepreneurs, innovators and applied-creativity thought leaders from around the country for a full-day event focused on individual, group & organizational creativity in business.

In my opinion, Howard Schultz of Starbucks fame embodies a creative leader, humble enough to know he doesn’t have all the great ideas. He believes that his employees have some pretty good ideas. Here’s an example of something he did recently: I quote directly from an article that can be found at msnbc.com by clicking here. 

From the msnbc article: "Earlier in the year he’d (Schultz) asked a select group of employees a question: If you were going to open a store to compete with Starbucks, how would you do it? Then Schultz gave them a small budget, told them they were on their own, and left.

In early June they emerged to present a design they called 15th Ave. Coffee & Tea. On the door it would say: "Inspired by Starbucks." (Schultz insisted the store have a different name because it offers beer and wine.) It would sell Starbucks coffee, but the company logo and graphics would be gone. So would the automated espresso machines that some Starbucks stores still use and Schultz has always hated. The food would be baked locally. There would be coffee and tea tastings in the mornings. In the evenings, music and poetry readings.

"We all said we’d invest in that company," recalls Schultz. "I said: ‘Go open it.’ " 

 

So the question for you is How are you tapping your people for their ideas?  And how are you demonstrating that you see value in new thinking? 

 

 

If you haven’t seen this 9 minute talk on how one person can make a difference, check it out. A fantastic example of an innovation that can make a difference for millions of people. Enjoy!

My 36th birthday is next Wednesday and for my birthday this year, I really wanted to do something that I believe will have a tangible and positive impact on the world quickly.  So drum roll please… This year’s Birthday 4 a cause is a two week fundraiser for one of my favorite humanitarian organizations - Doctors Without Borders. Won’t you join in celebrating my birthday this year by donating $18 to the cause (it’s tax deductible).  Why $18?  Click the link to find out. And thanks in advance for considering this..  Happy Almost August!

 If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings’.
– Dave Barry, “Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn”

I love the quote above!  Maybe because in our innovation workshops, I’ll often ask participants, "who has been in a meeting recently that you’d consider a total waste of time?" And the response? A majority of participants shake their heads yes or begin laughing.

Which set me off in search of a few statistics in terms of meetings and what attendees think of them? So here are two interesting statistics I found. See if you can guess the answers.

1) Approximately, how many meetings are held each day in the US?*

 

2) What % of those meetings are characterized as a waste of time by attendees?*

See answers below
*source: (MIT Sloan Management: The Science and Fiction of Meetings: Winter 2007) 

 

 

 

And now the ANSWERS… 

1) 11,000,000 (Yes millions)

2) Between 25 - 50% are considered a waste 

 

So my question is from your perspective, what separates great meetings from a waste of time?

Please comment. 

 

In collaboration with New & Improved, LLC, I am thrilled to announce that we have completed a series of 7 short videos that reinforce key principles of training in deliberate creativity. Each video is short and sweet (translation under 2 minutes). Take a view, and if you like it, pass along this blog address and while you are at it, leave a comment. Thanks and happy viewing!

In this month’s, Psychology Today, on page 30, there is a page of suggestions from readers on the type of advisors that should be on a Presidential Council of Psychological Advisors. One of the contributors, Art Markman submitted a suggestion that I think is worth repeating. Here’s Art’s suggestion, "The President needs an adviser in cognitive science who can advise him on harnessing innovation. At the heart of innovation are two ideas that draw on cognitive science: How can we spur the creation of new ideas? How can we create systems within organizations to ensure those ideas are implemented?"

I would add one additional thought. This advisor should also be able to help re-FRAME the challenges, or help redefine the actual questions we should be solving that we, as a country, face. For example, we hear all the time, we need to fix education! How to fix education? Maybe we need an advisor who helps challenge this question and reframe it to How might we get students excited about learning? or What might be all the ways we can get high school students to want to come to school? or some other novel and intriguing question?

New questions, yield new types of ideas, which then need to be implemented…  

 

Wouldn’t it be great if the White House had a director of innovative thinking? Ahh, now that’s a job, I’d be happy to serve!

your thoughts? 

In case you haven’t seen it, this almost 5 minute You Tube clip called DID YOU KNOW? is worth checking out! As you watch it, think about what it might mean for you? your work? your life? What might be all the opportunities that exist to share your talents with the world?  Please leave a comment if you enjoy the clip (or if you don’t!)

 

An amazing slide show from our photographer!  check it out..

 

Galleria Marchetti Wedding Photography by Heather Parker Photography from heather parker on Vimeo.

Want to enhance your meetings? improve idea generation? learn to facilitate innovation sessions? then you may want to check out the following two conferences.

 

1) Tribute to Sid Parnes, May 8th & 9th, Buffalo, New York, featuring workshops and presentations to honor Sid Parnes, one of the original pioneers in deliberate creativity and co-founder of the Creative Problem Solving Institute and the International Center for Studies in Creativity.

 

2) Revolution of Creativity - the annual Creative Problem Solving Institute, June 21st through June 24th, longest running creativity conference in the World. Check it out!

Yesterday afternoon, I was stuck trying to solve a problem. The more I thought about the issue, the more frustrated I was getting. I felt like I was banging my head against the wall. Ever experience this? Sound familiar?

So as the clock approached 5:30pm, I decided to head out of the house to exercise. And you know what? About 30 minutes into exercising, I finally felt myself relax and in an instant the answer to the problem I had previously been struggling with came to me. 

I was reminded of the power of stepping away from the problem, and the power of incubation. Sometimes the best way to solve a problem, is to NOT think about it deliberately. 

So the next time you are stuck on an issue, make a choice to leave the problem behind and go for a walk or exercise. See what happens… worse comes to worse, the problem will still be there when you return. But there is also a chance, that your decision to get away from the problem, may reveal the answer you are looking for.

Happy Exercising!