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Category Archives: Strategic Fire

Too often strategy comes out as bland, far reaching statements that any group could write down. Simply filling in the blanks, so to speak. Bring your strategic though to fire and let it drive change throughout your life and organization.

Strategic Fire

  By Fred H. Schlegel | May 5, 2007 - 3:06 pm |
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What is fueling your company’s desire for innovation? Is there anything even smoldering? Great inspiration for most companies can come from within. The ideas tend to be lying around all over the place, little different from deadwood waiting for someone to light a match. So who lights the fires of change in your organization? Are they rewarded for their efforts even if the fire doesn’t catch just right? Do you limit your creative fires to small, safe rings surrounded by hundreds of buckets of water? As a boy I loved anything to do with fire. Burning leaves, campfires, fireworks, even special effects when my old plastic models looked a bit sad on the shelf. Over time I was taught over and over how dangerous fire can be. Can’t burn leaves. Can’t blow up models. Can’t have fireworks. To often that is the way people who spark are treated in any … Continue reading →

Throw Off The Covers

  By Fred H. Schlegel | April 25, 2007 - 3:03 pm | ,
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Have you identified the project in your organization that will shift the ground all your competitors compete on? Have you protected it from suffocation under layers of corporate security blankets? No matter what kind of organization you work at, there is a good chance the idea is there — In a business plan, maybe in development. And, more than likely covered in security blankets. Alice Rawsthorn identified corporate security blankets as a prime culprit in a recent article, Why The Overwhelming Number Of Design Flops? (April 8, International Herald Tribune). Included in her list of blankets was ‘My Competitor Did It’ and ‘Design by Committee.’ Ground shifting innovation is moved by two key forces within any organization: Vision and Fear. When conceptualized, vision drives truly innovative ideas. It attracts key talent in your organization. It drives energy and excitement that something astounding is working its way through the pipeline. But then the … Continue reading →