What is it that you are not seeing?

Many of you will be familiar with Scott Adams’ naive and downtrodden cartoon character Dilbert who sits in a small cubicle all day working for a tyrannical boss. If you have not seen Dilbert before then take a look at www.dilbert.com. On last year’s calendar there was a scene where Dilbert and Dogbert were looking out over a panoramic scene. Dilbert said “wow look at that!” and Dogbert’s reply was “look at what?”.

There are times when we look at an issue with our colleagues and wonder why they cannot see the same things that we do. Have you ever been house hunting with someone who raves about the kitchen whilst you rave about the workshop or games room? This is much the same thing, we can all look at the same thing and see different facets or sometimes, like Dogbert, nothing at all.

Albert Einstein remarked that we are unable to solve problems in the same frame of reference in which they were created. So, to solve problems or make headway in a difficult business situation we need to re frame or change the way we look at things. These need not be dramatic changes. For instance:

• This piece will not fit – try turning it through 90 degrees or maybe upside down
• My customers are not buying the things I make – ask the question ‘Am I making the things that my customers want?’
• Traffic lights – are they designed to stop accidents or manage traffic flow
• I want to write upside down – do I need to design a pressurised pen or will a pencil do?

So try changing the way you look at the world and marvel at the increased opportunities.

Not creativity, but definitely creative

Those readers in the UK who have watched ITV's world cup coverage may have enjoyed the moving theme tune which is a special recording of When You Come Back by South African artist Vusi Mahlasela. Click below to see him play at the Live 8 concert or for a more powerful performance at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday.

Innovation – wrestling with Jelly

For those people who have yet to get to grips with using Creativity and Innovation to gain greater success in business here are a few things worth thinking about. For those of you that have, then you should look at these issues and feel proud that you have overcome them!

"Few great men would have got past personnel."  Paul Goodman

How true! Whether you think about one off characters such as Richard Branson and James Dyson or gangs of people that work for Google or Apple it is highly unlikely that your recruitment procedures would result in you recruiting these people. HR departments can get so fixated on employment law that they do not act to recruit and retain the best human capital for your business.

"Since we live in age of innovation, a practical education must prepare a man for work that does not yet exist and cannot yet be clearly defined."  Peter Drucker

Yet another issue to grapple with. We can have a stab at what the future holds (futures is a brilliant use for alternative thinking) but even without this, we do know the sorts of skills that our workers must have and the types of behaviours that they should exhibit. Our workforces should be matched to these criteria and be able to learn readily and tolerate a degree of ambiguity. But if things cannot be cast in stone, where does this leave unions and other representative bodies that might be resistant to change?

"The leaders say: "Let's be more innovative." The staff says: "Bravo. When do we start?" The mid-level managers say: "Wait a minute, let's think about that. What about… and …? Have you REALLY thought it through? Does this mean I have to change?""  Claude Legrand

This is where you will find either the greatest resistance or the greatest assistance. Sometimes layers of middle management are inserted for no good reason. They are dead wood and must be removed, but they can occupy a very important position. Whether your information tends to flow bottom up, top down or side to side this is where data, information and knowledge smash into each other and connections are made.

"People buy more weight loss books/diets (tools) than all other books, yet people are fatter than ever. Why? Most diets do not address the psychological reasons (mindset) for eating. The same holds true for innovation."  Stephen Shapiro

True again. Why do you or your business actually wish to innovate? Is it because it is the latest craze down at the Chamber of Commerce or are there good reasons for it such as flexibility sustainability, improved motivation etc. Are your aspirations as a management team aligned with those of your employees (and perhaps middle managers)?

Creativity – instructions not included

This article was inspired by a dialogue that I had with someone who commented on one of my blog posts. The post was about the resources that were required for Creativity. The person was looking for a definitive manual, a list of everything that they would need and the steps that they would need to go thorough. On reflection, my reply was probably less than helpful, but in a roundabout way I indicated that no such thing existed.

I still maintain that this is the case and if anyone tries to sell you such a manual then beware, however what they really needed was something to learn from, perhaps some case study material for a situation similar to theirs.

Putting together a creative system is a little like putting together flat pack furniture but without the instructions. If you have a reasonable skill level and knowledge of how such things are assembled then your furniture will grow out of the pile of pieces. If you are at the other end of the spectrum then you will be screaming for the instructions!

But what if the instructions do not exist, simply because every time the furniture is built by different people the result is different (but still a perfect piece of furniture)? What you need then are not instructions but an example of how the pieces fit together and a list of the tools required so that you can construct your unique item of furniture.

This is why we have components and tools to help you use creativity in business but the instructions are not included.

Keep Your Eyes Open

This is a story about a lady (lets call her Mary) who works in the First Class Lounge at Cardiff Central railway station. If you have visited the lounge you will know the lady in question.

On entering the lounge there is a comfortable, but not formal, atmosphere and your eye cannot help but see an enormous aerial photograph of the city. The caption at the bottom reads "Cardiff's best ambassador 2009". One often sees certificates and 'thank you' letters from charities mentioning sums of £100 or so, but those lining the walls here are for amounts in 4 figures. Clearly there is something going on here.

Regular customers are greeted by name and their favourite drink poured for them, with stories exchanged. Clearly this is no ordinary employee (have you travelled by First Great Western trains recently?).

With my freshly brewed coffee and neatly folded newspaper in my possession I sit back and eavesdrop on a number of conversations. It appears that the lounge is used as a waiting area for hotel guests who check out of their hotels early and still wish to browse the nearby shops. One passenger stays with the luggage and the rest shop. This obviously causes a problem.

Mary has already sorted this one out! What is needed is a left luggage office, perhaps something can be arranged together with the hotels? After all, luggage cannot be left without security scans and a scanner would be expensive. It appears that Mary is a very able intelligence gathering machine and this is not the only suggestion that she has.What happens next? To be honest I do not know but let us consider two possibilities:

1. The lounge is frequented by managers who like to wait for their trains in comfort. They listen to Mary who is closer to the customers than they are and go away to work out the potential benefits/impact.
2. The lounge is frequented by managers who know everything about running a company. They do not need information from employees at the bottom of the company in order to make good business decisions.

Which of the above is closest to your situation? Which is the best for the company?

Any employee at any level might be in a position to gather information whether they are a receptionist or a delivery driver. You might need to filter large amounts of data but you must keep your eyes open or risk missing potential opportunities or even threats to your business.

Innovation 2010

Innovation 2010 is the title of a report published by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in April regarding the state of Innovation globally. There are a number of conclusions that can be drawn, but it is heartening to see that after a cautious 2009, companies are committing once more to pursuing Innovation during 2010.

Innovation is now a top three priority for 72% of respondents to the BCG survey, the highest figure since the survey was first introduced seven years ago. In addition, 84% of respondents consider Innovation an important or extremely important lever for reaping the benefits of an economic recovery. Companies are backing up their statements with hard cash too as 61% of companies plan to boost spending on Innovation and 26% plan to increase spending by more than 10%.

Executives cite the following as the major factors that are reducing the return on their Innovation spend:

• Risk averse corporate culture
• Lengthy product development cycles
• Poor Innovation measurement

For a while we have been saying that there is the possibility of a new world order in Innovation and survey respondents also echoed this. Although Apple and Google top the list of most innovative companies less than half of those surveyed believe that US companies will remain the most innovative over the next 5 years.

If we look at the first-time entrants to the most innovative list, all but one come from outside the US. One topical observation relates to the energy sector. Here BP rank number one and Exxon Mobil rank number four!

So what are the implications for senior executives this year?  

• Improving your innovation efforts this year are key. You have survived the recession, you must now beat the others that have done so.
• If you don't show a decent return on your innovation programme then someone will cut back on your funding eventually or find someone who can improve return.
• Your top team needs to be more 'holistic', embracing rather than merely supporting Innovation.
• You must keep looking over your shoulder. You might have a head start if you are based in a developing country but there are others who can run faster.

If you would like to find more about how to improve your Innovation prospects please get in touch.

Psst - wanna avoid being creative?

There are many lists of how to do this and that,  but what if you want to avoid doing something? What if you wanted to avoid being creative? If this is you, then follow these tips and you are well down the path to being as intellectually dull as ditch water!

1. Follow the same  routine every day, for everything.
2. You will not see this because you have read item number one and think you know it all!
3. Assume that your way of thinking is always right and your ideas are the best.
4. Only pretend to listen to other people’s ideas, they know nothing.
5. Play it safe, avoid taking chances. Never have a different sauce on your burger.
6. Copy everyone else.
7. Plan everything to the last detail BEFORE you start doing it.
8. Pretend not to care and not to be inspired.
9. Never take time to chill out and rest your brain.
10. Believe that alternative modes of thinking are for actors and artists.

Finally, if you recognise any of the above traits in your work colleagues then please get in touch. There is a chance that they can be saved.

Applied creativity - reframing

Since we have seen political and economic upheaval recently in the UK, Spain, Portugal and Greece, this quote seems topical. It is also a good example of re framing in order to sell a concept or to obtain good PR as opposed to actually solving a problem. Enjoy!

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers. Richard Feynman

Creativity - is nothing changing?

For the past few years I have had a survey on the front page of my website. I ask one simple question 'What is the MAJOR factor that hinders creativity within your organisation? The options available are strategic barriers, organisational culture, corporate culture, process/structure, learning capacity, leadership/management.

Apart from the early days when the sample size was not large enough, the results have changed very little. At the time of writing the results are as follows:

• Strategic barriers 6.36%
• Organisational culture 28.18%
• Corporate culture 13.64%
• Process/structure 12.73%
• Learning capacity 4.55%
• Leadership/management 34.55%

In my view, the two interesting points are the extremes. Very few people were highlighting strategic barriers (filtering, mindsets, risk profile etc) or the ability for their organisations to learn when these are potentially huge issues for an organisation embracing Creativity and/or Innovation. Also, since we have seen a global recession and financial crises, I would have expected these percentage figures to change as a result of 'digging in' during a crisis or through loss of capacity due to downsizing.

It is not a surprise that over 34% of respondents blame Leadership and Management. Whether or not senior figures really are to blame, they are always likely to be a scapegoat. Once again I would have expected the results to change in troubled times. The biggest surprise of all is the number of people who selected organisational culture as the major factor that hinders creativity.

Organisational culture is organic and is largely down to the employees. Even when a company is strict rather than benevolent, organisational culture tends to triumph. Have we not all heard of people banding together in the face of adversity? People are not saying that the culture is bad, just that it hinders creativity! Puzzling, so what does this mean? Without asking more searching questions (find out about our Innovation toolkit to get this information) we can't really say why these results are not changing when we expect them to, although one possibility is that the reasons behind the figures have changed.

Finally, as well as being blamed directly, senior managers are also indirectly responsible for culture and structure. If your company had figures such as this and had troubles with creativity and innovation related issues then I would definitely want to do some digging. The chances are, a change of personnel is required somewhere!!

Creativity in Business from GuruView.tv

At the end of last year I was interviewed by Dave Harries for GuruView.tv. You can see the result below. Visit GuruView.tv for other interesting and useful video interviews.