What are your Big Five For Life?

Have you ever had the experience of suddenly having a new insight into something?

It could be during a heated conversation when you suddenly understand where the other person is coming from (and why they’re mad…) or sometimes you can ‘have the lights turned on’ when you’re listening to a particularly talented speaker.

It only took 15 pages into The Big Five for Life by John Strelecky for me to hit on a new way of looking at something.  This is a book that’s billed as a story about the greatest business leader to ever live and the ’secret’ to his success.  It’s not a typical business book by any stretch, but there are a lot of ideas that a business owner could use to increase their success.

One of the things that I love about what I’m doing now is that I need to read a lot of books, specifically business books.

• Many of them are extremely insightful and about as much fun to read as a statistics textbook.
• Many of them are painful to read and not very insightful.
• A very few of them are both enjoyable to read and leave you with great ideas.

The Big Five For Life belongs in that last category – read on to find out why!

Leadership Versus Management

There are literally hundreds of books on leadership and on management and probably a few hundred more on either the combination of the two traits or the differences between them.

My definition:  Leadership is about the ability to inspire others towards a goal or a vision, while management is about the skills to make sure that goal or vision can be reached.

So with that in mind, a major part of leadership is being able to develop, communicate and inspire people with a vision – or a Purpose For Existence, which is one of the key points out of this book.

Every business should have a clearly defined, simple Purpose for Existence (PFE) and if that business wants to be successful, then it should ONLY employ people that share that Purpose for Existence in their own life.

It’s not a new or unique idea, but it’s also one that’s not commonly practiced.  The author makes a very compelling business case for why it’s important and how it can drive profits and growth up by 20% or more (statistics and good ideas…!).

Other key insights

There are probably a dozen key things I took away from this book – some of them reinforcing things that I already believed (but stating them in a new and different way) and some of them really challenging my experience with how things are done – especially in the corporate world.

As an example, you don’t have to look very hard to find someone that will agree that their company’s success is due to the people that work at that company, but how many business leaders actually develop a culture that rewards and enables those employees to achieve their own life goals?  (The Big Five for Life are the Five things that would make your life complete).

Imagine a company where:

• The employees love to work there
• They believe in what the company is doing and buy into the bigger picture (PFE)
• The company leadership incorporates the employees into solutions
• The company purposefully helps employees achieve their personal goals

What kind of productivity can you get from people that love what they’re doing and who they’re doing it with?  How much harder do you work on a pet project or hobby at home than you would for just a mundane work effort?  How much likely are you to stay on with that company in the long run?  It’s not about making people happy, but about the bottom line – about profits!

How would you go about creating that kind of company?

There are also some great ideas on increasing profitability, how to determine if it’s worthwhile to invest money in certain projects, ideas on how to grow your business beyond the initial business – the story narrative makes it easy to demonstrate a lot of these ideas in more of a real world setting.

Downside to the book?

As you can tell, I got a lot of positive things out of the book, but I did come away with sort of a wistful feeling that it wasn’t about the real world.  Although there obviously are excellent companies out there, there are unfortunately not very many of them that could really create what’s described here.  In other words, actually putting all of these ideas to work seems like it would require the World’s Greatest Business Leader to pull it off.

Having said that, if you could get inspired and use even a couple of these ideas, you would be well ahead of the majority of businesses out there.

What was the insight I had on page 15?

It’s an early discussion the primary character has with the business leader on why it’s important to not only do what you want to be doing, but to be doing it NOW (not some later point).

The average person lives 28,200 days (about 77 years).

Imagine a history museum of your life, your 28,200 days with a display for every day of your life.  Would your museum show you doing things that were meaningful to you, things that you enjoyed and loved…or would 80% of your museum show you being miserable at work, hitting your head against the wall, generally hating life?

Powerful thought – isn’t it?

It was that clarification of the sense of urgency that we all feel at some point that made me stop reading and go ‘whoa’…!

Check this book out and share your comments here – I’d love to hear your thoughts about this and have someone to discuss it with.

Shawn Kinkade  www.aspirekc.com

Innovation Management: The Time Factor

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.

There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Whilst there is no sure fire route to commercial success, these processes improve the probability that good ideas will be generated and selected and that investment in developing and commercialising those ideas will not be wasted.

However, no matter how good an idea, how good the selection process or how perfect the development and commercialisation of the product, sometimes all that is needed is time for the product to come into its own.

A good example is the electric car. In the early 20th century the electric car scored highly on measurements such technical superiority and environmental friendliness and in New York fleets of electric taxis carried passengers across the city. At the time the internal combustion engine was cranky and unreliable yet it eventually usurped it’s rival (Franklin, 2003). The prospect of diminishing and high oil prices and environmental concerns are resulting in the return of the electric car.

The time factor is one of the elements of the S-curve – a model for determining the impediments that a product may face on its route to commercial success.

These topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com.

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Author : Kal Bishop
Site : ezinearticles.com

Project Management – I Want It ALL

The knee-jerk response to prioritizing requirements is to mark everything as a must-have . “I need everything before the product becomes generally available. I want it ALL!” Give me a break.

Granted, if a requirement is written in the SRS, then it must be because you want it. But the reality is some features are more important than others and a good product manager can tell them apart.

If everything is high priority, then there are no priorities. Let me repeat that statement once more. If everything is high priority, then there are no priorities.

Unless this is your very first software project, you know that time is always a constraint. Combine an overly optimistic project schedule with a list of requirements that aren’t prioritized, and what do you get? A team of developers that implement what they want, when they want.

You have a choice. You can (a) leave it up to the development team to pick and choose their favorite features to implement, or (b) give them a clear sense of direction by prioritizing the requirements. Have them start with the must-haves, followed by the nice-to-haves. When the project deadline comes up, you can decide to extend the project schedule to add a few more nice-to-haves, but you won’t be forced to because your product will already include all of the must-have requirements that would make or break your sales. In other words, you’re managing the schedule instead of letting the schedule manage you.

Wondering how to best prioritize requirements? Check out First Things First in The Project Mangler’s archives.

Luc Richard is professional speaker and author with over 10 years of experience managing the development of software applications. He can be reached via The Project Mangler (http://www.projectmangler.com).

Author : Luc Richard
Site : ezinearticles.com

Business Innovation – Improvisation

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.

There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas.

There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Whilst there is no sure fire route to commercial success, these processes improve the probability that good ideas will be generated and selected and that investment in developing and commercialising those ideas will not be wasted.

Improvisation

One of the most valuable fields of experience and one that creativity and innovation leaders should engage in – especially business leaders – is improvisation. Many of the skills of improvisation apply directly to idea generation:

a) Acceptance – learning to say YES as opposed to NO.

b) Accepting the unoriginal as valid.

c) Accepting that the first idea – that is, without critical evaluation, is usually a good idea. Not concealing inappropriate ideas.

d) Accepting that the innermost self will be revealed.

e) Understanding the difference between real self and that self which is presented to the world. Through masks, role play and trance.

These and other topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Author : Kal Bishop
Site : ezinearticles.com

Involving People Gave Us the Improvements We Needed

We had a problem with handling materials in a production department. Our process required raw materials to enter the department, be processed, and leave the department. The raw material was placed on pods, delivered for production, removed from the pods, placed on a staging fixture, removed from the fixture and process materials were then placed on another pod and delivered to an internal customer. Internal customer had to place on still another pod.

Someone suggested placing the material from the fixture onto the customer’s internal pod to reduce handling, errors, etc. Room was tight (because two different style pods were used, one for raw material and one for processing) and someone long ago suggested moving a wall to create more space for easier movement of the pods.

After we realized that involving people would give us the improvements we wanted, someone suggested modifying the pods into a cart that could hold more material and reduce our need for more space. Others became involved; Martin developed possible designs for the cart while speaking with his coworkers to find out their ideas.

A cross-functional team designed and built a new cart. It held more raw materials, eliminated the need for the staging fixture, and allowed raw material and processed material to be transported on the same cart, eliminating the need for the second pod. The cart was built by reusing materials from the old pods.

Immediate benefits included less movement and less contamination of materials, also the new cart was more ergonomically friendly. After using the new cart, others came up with more ideas. All together 20 people contributed improvements to eliminate unnecessary equipment, combine processes, and reduce cost. Fourteen process steps were reduced to seven, operator motion was reduced, material was moved less, quality improved, and the job of the operator was made easier.

Recently someone had the idea of using the cart in a different area, so more improvements are to come.

Copyright © 2005 Chuck Yorke – All Rights Reserved

Author : Chuck Yorke
Site : ezinearticles.com

Business Innovation – Ignoring Content

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.

There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas.

There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Whilst there is no sure fire route to commercial success, these processes improve the probability that good ideas will be generated and selected and that investment in developing and commercialising those ideas will not be wasted.

Ignoring Content

A useful approach when generating ideas is simply to ignore content. Evaluating content is a hindrance rather than an enhancer. If the people who wrote Red Riding Hood had realised the number of interpretations and analysis it was going to receive, they may have given up on the project.

Ignoring content allows a number of processes to occur, including:

a) Isolates creative from critical thinking. The two should be separate and distinct. Writing and rewriting are two different processes. Critical thinking is best done in the presence of and utilising the competencies of other people.

b) Allows disparate, novel, diverse, nonsensical, non-related and irrelevant ideas to thrive. The basis of lateral thinking.

c) Helps to abandon defences, reveal the innermost self, treat all ideas as ‘normal,’ reduces evaluation apprehension etc.

These and other topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Author : Kal Bishop
Site : ezinearticles.com

Employee Orientation: The 90 Day Difference

Why do some new managers succeed while others fail? It all depends on the first three months – the critical time when the new hire is learning the ropes. The new manager’s boss plays a vital role in the orientation process. Here are four strategies to quickly get the new hire up to speed and working productively

Clarify goals and priorities.

What are the performance expectations and deliverables for you and your team? How is performance going to be measured/success evaluated? What are the key business issues that you need to focus on?

Define responsibility and accountability.

How much operational freedom/autonomy is there? What types of decisions require approval, consulting, or advising, and/or are subject to veto? Who else is significantly involved in any decision-making? On what basis?

Agree on communication.

What is the frequency and type of preferred communications? Is it regular meetings? Written, e-mail reports? Event-based communications?

Identify current ‘hot issues’.

What do you need to watch out for? For example: Relationships among team members; client histories and experiences with the company; operating and performance problems.

The good news is that orientation offers an opportunity to build a lasting impression of the new company. The bad news is that that is going to happen whether you plan it or not.

Make sure you get your new managers off to a great start. Employee orientation, whether it takes one hour or one day, is a critical opportunity – don’t waste it. What’s your orientation program like? Do you even have one?

Author : Marcia Zidle
Site : ezinearticles.com

Innovation Management – Time to Market or Time to Success?

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.

There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas.

There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Whilst there is no sure fire route to commercial success, these processes improve the probability that good ideas will be generated and selected and that investment in developing and commercialising those ideas will not be wasted.

Time to market or time to success?

Even today Innovation Consultancies trumpet their ability to increase time to market as opposed to time to success:

a) It is always possible to increase time to market – one way is by not carrying out proper due diligence and thus increasing the likelihood of failure.

b) Whilst there is never enough time available before pushing a product onto the market, there is always enough time to revisit what went wrong and fix problems. The cost of reengineering runs into the billions.

c) Speed and cost are considerations but good decision-making should be priorities.

d) Quick time to market does not guarantee profit. A strategy of time to profit makes more business sense.

These and other topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

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You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on http://www.managing-creativity.com/

Author : Kal Bishop
Site : ezinearticles.com

Innovation Management – Measuring Failure!

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.

There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Whilst there is no sure fire route to commercial success, these processes improve the probability that good ideas will be generated and selected and that investment in developing and commercialising those ideas will not be wasted.

However, one of the most important aspects of the above process is dealing with failure. This is important as most innovation attempts result in failure and many, many more ideas require reengineering, remodelling or rethinking before they can tread the path to success.

There are a number of benefits of failure, including:

a) Valuable competencies are learned. Ridley Scott had a commercial failure with Blade Runner but went on to make some of the most successful films of all time.

b) Valuable customer needs are established. Often user needs are inadequately analysed but come into sharp focus when a product is in market and not selling.

c) Technical competencies are established. A firm may learn exactly what technical deficiencies it has when a product fails to materialise in the desired form.

d) Cultural or emotional obstacles may come into sharp focus. The metric system is not used in the USA but dominates throughout the rest of the world.

These topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com.

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Author : Kal Bishop
Site : ezinearticles.com

Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Project Management Skills

Solving a big problem is a project: you’re far more likely to solve it successfully if you treat it like one. That means you’ll need to identify tasks, make and adjust assignments, and keep track of what is due when.

Get on the right track immediately by starting a task list as soon as you start working on the problem. Every time you think of something that needs to be done, put it on your task list along with the owner, due date and completion criteria (how you’re going to know the task is successfully completed). That way, you won’t have to worry about forgetting important details, or waste time constantly reconstructing the list in your mind.

Once the problem is defined, you can lay out a project schedule and estimate the resources you’ll need. At the very least, you’ll need access to key people who have knowledge of the problem. Some of them may need to be released from other responsibilities to work on your problem-solving team. You may also need money for travel, special equipment, exclusive use of a conference room, etc. Figuring this out in advance and making sure it is allocated will help you run your project smoothly.

In addition to the tasks to analyze and solve the problem itself, you’ll also need a communication plan and a contingency plan. The communication plan will identify who needs what information about your problem solving effort, when they need it and how you are going to provide it. The contingency plan identifies the things that could stop you from solving the problem and specifies what you are going to do about it. Add the appropriate tasks to implement your communication and contingency plans to your task list.

HINT: Orient tasks to deliverables. Each task should result in something tangible, which will help you make sure the tasks actually accomplish something.

copyright 2005. Jeanne Sawyer. All Rights Reserved.

Author : Jeanne Sawyer
Site : ezinearticles.com