Innovation: Lessons to be learned from 3M

Who is the most Innovative company?  Likely that most people would say Apple.  Well, do you know that there is a $30 BB firm that has been historically "fostering organic growth  by inventing entirely new, market changing products?"   Yes that firm would be 3M.....the inventor of Post-It pads and Scotch Brands.

How do they do this?  Read more at:      click here   


Their time tested principles include:

      - Dedicated R&D, long-term development and separate from concept to launch efforts

      - Apply and use Open Innovation; host ideation sessions with members of all departments

      - Foster a culture of innovation by allowing team members to take risks in a protected environment

      - Reward and encourage creativity

How many of you use some of these concepts?  You might just want to study more about 3M to apply to your need for Innovation.  

10 Things Great Bosses Do !!

How do you compare?  I recently found this interesting article regarding the 10 Things that Great Bosses Do.  Most seem like common sense....however think about your firm.  How many of your managers would exhibit these traits?

Things like:

  - Entrust their employees with responsibility....and then hold them accountable

  - Behave like a mature adult......genuine and empathetic

  -  Promote a can do / customer service attitude

  -  Work their tail off.....and be hands on, when necessary

  etc. 

Read more at    click here.  

Compare yourself....you may just find some things that need to be changed. 

THE REAL LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM STEVE JOBS

Walter Isaacson, author of the book about Steve Jobs life recently captured the Key Leadership Lessons from Jobs in a recent Harvard Business Review article.  When he asked Jobs about what was he the most proud..... the answer was not any particular product.  It was Apple the Company!! 

Among the key principles were these items:

  Focus
  Simplify
  Take responsibility end to end
  When behind, leapfrog
  Put products before profits
  ..... plus several more

To read the article  click here  

So, do you focus and simplify the items to prioritize in your firm.   Or do you try to do too many things and lose focus? 

INNOVATION IS ABOUT ARGUING....NOT BRAINSTORMING!!

How to argue productively?  Conduct deliberative discourse. 

Interesting idea.  I noticed this concept in a recent article in Fast Company by Daniel Sobol. 

Here is an excerpt:  

we use deliberative discourse--or what we fondly call “Argue. Discuss. Argue. Discuss.” Deliberative discourse was originally articulated in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. It refers to participative and collaborative (but not critique-free) communication. Multiple positions and views are expressed with a shared understanding that everyone is focused on a common goal. There is no hierarchy. It’s not debate because there are no opposing sides trying to “win.” Rather, it’s about working together to solve a problem and create new ideas.
So we argue. And discuss. And argue. A lot. But our process is far from freeform yelling.

Here are five key rules of engagement that we’ve found to yield fruitful sessions and ultimately lead to meaningful ideas.

  1.  No Hierarchy

  2.  Say No,  because

  3.  Diverse perspectives

  4.  Focus on a common goal

  5.  Keep it fun

Read the full article   here   

CAPTAIN KIRK AT 80!!

 Can it be true?  Captain Kirk (William Shatner) is 80!  

Tomes have been written about StarTrek.  I just came across a recent Forbes article that looks at the leadership style of the legendary Captain James T. Kirk and distills five key lessons on leadership from this iconic TV series.  

StarTrek’s (and therefore Captain Kirk’s) creator, Gene Roddenberry, had a distinguished military career in World War II as a bomber pilot. He was no stranger to combat and understood well the nature of leadership and command which he brought to the series.

Here’s the five lessons on leadership from Captain Kirk…and you can learn more about each  by reading more here. 

Lesson 1: Never Stop Learning

Lesson 2: Have advisors with different world views (join a Vistage group,ok?)

Lesson 3: Be Part of the “Away” Team

Lesson 4:  Play Poker, Not Chess

Lesson 5:  Blow Up the Enterprise!

FEED FORWARD

TRY  FEED  FORWARD  VS  FEEDBACK


Have your or your people struggled with the evaluation or feedback or 360 process?  What do they normally say about it?    Typically the comments are negative and they don't like it.  Results are short lived.

Well here is a refreshing alternative to that process from well known Executive Coach, Marshall Goldsmith.  Read more about it below and see what you think!! 

           Click here for more info


I have observed more than 50,000 leaders from around the world as they participated in a fascinating experiential exercise, in which I ask participants to play two roles.

In one role, they provide "FeedForward": They give another participant suggestions and as much as they can help with a specific issue. In the second role, they accept FeedForward: They listen to suggestions from another participant and learn as much as they can.

Step by Step

The exercise typically lasts 10 to 15 minutes, and the average participant has six or seven such sessions in that time. Participants are asked to:

- Pick one behavior they would like to change. Change in this behavior should make a significant, positive difference in their lives.

- Describe this behavior to randomly selected fellow participants in one-on-one dialogues. It can be done quite simply, e.g., "I want to be a better listener."

- Ask for FeedForward that might help them achieve a positive change in their behavior. If participants have worked together in the past, they are not allowed to give any feedback about the past. They are only allowed to give ideas for the future.

- Listen attentively to the suggestions and take notes. Participants are not allowed to comment on the suggestions in any way, nor are they allowed to critique the suggestions, even to make positive statements, such as, "That's a good idea."

- Thank the other participants for their suggestions.

- Ask fellow participants what they would like to change about themselves.

- Provide FeedForward - two suggestions for helping the other person change.

- Say "You are welcome," when thanked for the suggestions. (The entire process of both giving and receiving FeedForward usually takes about two minutes.)

- Find another participant and keep repeating the process until the exercise is stopped.

When the exercise is over, I ask the participants to complete a sentence - "This exercise was …" - with the one word that best describes their reaction to the experience. The words selected are almost always positive, such as "great," "energizing," "useful," or "helpful." One of the most common words used is "fun."

What is the last word most of us think of to describe the experience of receiving feedback, coaching, and developmental ideas? Fun!

Reasons to Try FeedForward

I ask participants why this exercise is fun and helpful as opposed to painful, embarrassing, or uncomfortable. Their answers offer a great explanation of why FeedForward can often be more useful than feedback as a developmental tool.

1. We can change the future. We can't change the past. FeedForward helps people envision and focus on a positive future, not a failed past. Race-car drivers are taught to look at the road ahead, not at the wall. By giving people ideas on how they can be even more successful, we can increase their chances of achieving this success in the future.

2. FeedForward can come from people we have never even met. It does not require personal experience. One very common positive reaction to the exercise is that participants are amazed by how much they can learn from people they don't know. For example, if you want to be a better listener, almost any fellow human can give you ideas. They don't have to know you.

3. Face it! Most of us hate getting negative feedback, and we don't like to give it. I have reviewed summary 360-degree feedback reports for more than 50 companies. The items "provides developmental feedback in a timely manner" and "encourages and accepts constructive criticism" almost always score near the bottom on co-worker satisfaction with leaders. Traditional training does not seem to make a great deal of difference. If leaders got better at providing feedback every time the performance appraisal forms were "improved," most would be perfect by now!

4. FeedForward can cover almost all of the same material feedback can. Imagine you have just made a terrible presentation in front of the executive committee. Your manager is in the room. Rather than make you relive this humiliating experience by detailing what went wrong, your manager might help you by offering suggestions for future presentations. These suggestions can be very specific and still delivered in a positive way - without making you feel even more humiliated.

5. FeedForward tends to be much faster and more efficient than feedback. An excellent technique for giving ideas to successful people is to say: "Here is an idea for the future. Please accept it in the positive spirit in which it is offered. If you can use it, great! If not, just ignore it." With this approach almost no time is wasted judging the quality of the ideas or trying to refute the suggestions. This kind of debate is usually negative, wastes time, and often counterproductive. By eliminating judgment of the ideas, the process becomes much more positive for the sender, as well as the receiver.

6. FeedForward can be a useful tool with managers, peers, and team members. Rightly or wrongly, feedback is associated with judgment. This can lead to very negative - even career-limiting - consequences when given to managers or peers. FeedForward does not imply superiority of judgment. It is more focused on being a helpful colleague than an expert. As such, it can be easier to hear from a person who isn't in a position of power or authority.

7. People tend to listen more attentively to FeedForward than feedback. One participant in the FeedForward exercise noted: "I think that I listened more effectively in this exercise than I ever have in my life!" When asked why, he said, "Normally, when others are speaking, I am so busy composing a reply that will make sure that I sound smart that I am not fully listening to what the other person is saying. In FeedForward, the only reply that I am allowed to make is 'thank you.' Since I don't have to worry about composing a clever reply, I can focus all of my energy on listening to the other person!"

When to Use FeedForward

The intent of this column is not to imply that leaders should never give feedback or that performance appraisals should be abandoned. The intent is to show how FeedForward can often be preferable to feedback in day-to-day interactions. Aside from its effectiveness and efficiency, FeedForward can make life a lot more enjoyable. When I ask manager how they felt the last time they received feedback, the most common responses are negative. When managers are asked how they felt after receiving FeedForward, they reply that FeedForward was not only useful, it was also fun.


    by Marshall Goldsmith

DIRTY, SEXY, MONEY !!

What does that mean?  All about money for your sales people.....right?  I have an upcoming speaker to my CEO Groups next month and was reading some of his material.  One of his blogs reminded me about the risks of compensating your people, the wrong way.  You might want to consider some of the insights presented below from Tom Searcy.


from  Tom Searcy, Hunt Big Sales        click here: for the website of Hunt Big Sales


In business, it’s all about the money.

Obvious, I know, but sometimes you’ve just got to seize the obvious, wrestle it to the ground and beat it senseless in order to make it work for you.

Companies get the money side of the deal—affectionately known as commission—wrong a lot of the time. If you want to land large deals, you have to change the money in a bunch of places if you want to make it work.

There are two simple ingredients that go into large accounts sales: time and people. Because it takes longer to land a large account than a small one, you have to hold the attention of sales people, who have the immediate gratification needs of a 3-year old, for a long time. The time-to-money ratio is not 1:1 for a sales person—the fact is that when you double the time it takes to land a deal you have to practically triple the money to keep them engaged.

Sure, part of that triple is built into the incremental commission of a bigger deal—and that can be a lot, depending on the size of the deal. But they’ll probably also need an extra something to keep them on task rather than getting distracted by little shiny objects, like deals that are small and fast to close. Stay with me.

So that’s the problem with time; you’ve also got to deal with people—not just sales people, ALL of your people. To land a whale, you’ve got to load up your boat with people of all skillsets (subject matter experts—or SMEs—who can speak the whale’s language), because one person (a sales guy) with a stick in the ocean is not going to cut it. How do you keep those people engaged as well? If they’re not seeing their efforts translate into money in a meaningful way (profit-sharing, bonus, spiff), they’ll too be distracted by the not-so-shiny-objects of their every day job.

To make this work, here are a couple of approaches:

1. Pay more for whales—spread it around. The sales representative is not the only person involved in the hunt. The fact is, after the initial interest is generated, the internal subject matter expert team does a lot of the heavy lifting.

2. Put a trophy-bonus on the wall. Don’t make it general, make it specific and personal. At one point in my career, I had a competitor for which I had a personal distaste. I wrote up on the wall that competitor’s top 10 clients and told my team, “I will pay a 20% premium on commissions for every deal we land from this list in the next 6 months.” We got 3 and it had a sweet taste.

3. Cut out the money on little deals. You can’t get people focused on bigger targets if they get similar ratios of money for smaller deals. Cut little deal commission in half. This is about changing behaviors and time investment.

Money is the driver and you have the gas pedal