And Innovation and Creativity Will Follow…

 stopped by Dr. Ellen Weber’s blog yesterday (www.brainbasedbusiness.com) and joined her discussion on “rewarding the high-performance mind.” A quote from her blog caught my attention as I realized she nailed one of the key challenges of today’s business world: “Most organizations knock out exuberance and annihilate curiosity, which is the heartbeat of talent.” (Dr. Ellen Weber, www.brainbasedbusiness.com) Innovation and creativity follow from “exuberance and…curiosity.” You cannot create new revenue streams, new products, new businesses, new processes (you get the idea) from the same old, same old. And, if the company culture (also known as senior management) is not willing to reward high-performance thinking, eventually mediocrity takes over. I know that it is easier to not upset the apple cart by encouraging employees to be innovative. I have actually had managers say to me that the cost of a bad idea is too high to encourage “out of the box” thinking. … Continue reading

Critical Thinking or “As Time Goes By”

I have come to the conclusion that one of the biggest challenges for today’s businesses is the lack of critical thinking time. No more do we have time to “chew” on a problem or “mull over” an idea. Words like cogitate and ruminate are almost extinct. Instead we are driven by a pace measured in nano-seconds and kilobytes. We are reachable everywhere — if you don’t believe me count the number of times you hear a phone conversation in the stall next to you — all the time. The expectation of receiving an instant answer, or decision is bolstered by our ability to text message, email, IM or track down our colleagues on any vacation. I’m not a neophyte that believes we need to abandon our technical progress of the past 20 years. Nor do I advocate abandoning the countless benefits the business world has experienced with the removal of … Continue reading