Creative Ideas Newsletter - Issue One, June 2002
From Sanguma at www.sanguma.com
Introduction
Welcome to the first issue of the Creative Ideas Newsletter. For a daily newsfeed
of creativity and innovation articles please go to www.sanguma.com/C_I_news.htm
and to www.sanguma.com/C_I_select.htm
for selected stories. You may also be interested in my free downloads at www.sanguma.com/downloads.htm.
Since starting the Creative Ideas website, over a year ago, I have left the
failing telecoms company that I used to work for and started my own business,
Sanguma Consultants Ltd. Please visit my website at www.sanguma.com
and contact me on brian@sanguma.com if
you think that I may be able to help your organisation improve its speed, simplicity
and creativity.
I have various business plans in development, one of which includes colloborative
working with people from the world of performing arts. With my engineering background,
the interaction of right and left brain approaches is going to be exciting -
more of this in a later newsletter.
The Newsletter
This is published in hypertext to ensure cross platform compatibility and to
include links to the articles commented on. I've included urls for anyone whose
reader does not support hypertext.
Anthony Jay remarked "Creative thinking is no excuse for sloppy thinking
and those that think it is should have their artistic licenses revoked".
The sloppy thinking behind failures of creative thinking demonstrated by the
missed opportunity of the Millennium
Dome (my opinion) were commented on by Jonathan Fenby in the article below.
(http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,669026,00.html)
This contained the lines ""Politicians live in a world of their
own. The people have lost the belief that things can be changed for the better,
that innovation means more than digital television"
(http://www.refresher.com/!innovationbarriers.html)
This is an excellent article from Keith Hopper & Karl Rexer, Ph.D. Selected
extracts from the article are below:
- It is not uncommon to see frantic energy at a failing business yield nothing
but continued layoffs. In a sluggish economy, even industry leaders can fail
to recognize the need for change. There is little surprise when these companies
fold or downsize. Many businesses recognize the need for innovation and embrace
the concept, but struggle to put it into practice.
- While many companies have responded adequately to overwhelming problems,
the real secret to handling these problems is to avoid them in the first place.
Organizations need a mechanism to anticipate real-world concerns that could
impact their business while maintaining the ability to proactively execute
a wide variety of options to address these concerns.
- It is important to recognize that the consulting world generates revenue
by spending time on a client's problems, so one can imagine the motivation
an advisor may have to "discover" concerns that need immediate attention.
There is a price tag to every problem, particularly if the consultant is uniquely
poised to solve particular types of problems. Due to this advisor bias, it
becomes difficult to trust the validity of presented business problems.
- To realize concerns and capture opportunities early, organizations need
to approach innovation using a team of diverse professionals with capabilities
across disciplines and with expertise in several industries. These professionals
need to focus primarily on generating creative insight and should strive to
expose potential bias in their problem identification and solution restrictions.
And finally, to capture the best opportunities for change, innovators need
to become problem seekers, hunting down difficult-to-recognize innovation
opportunities absent of specific problem solving requests.
Thumbs up for the messy desk:
An article "Portrait
of the artist as a young mess" (http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,673031,00.html)
by Euan Ferguson, commented on research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology
which concluded that "the tidier our lives the further we stray from creativity,
and thus the messier our desk the closer we come to genius".
(http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/thursday/news_c3badff8f2d5318c00dc.html)
Ellen Barry - Boston Globe Thursday, April 4, 2002
This is an interesting article on new research on the left brain / right brain
theory. Extract below:
'With about 30 percent of subjects, he reported instantaneous dramatic results:
With goggles blocking light on one side, and then flipped around to block
the other, the patient would report completely different emotions and perceptions.
Gradually Schiffer concluded that many of his patients had one underdeveloped
personality that resided in one hemisphere and could be treated intensively
when the subject was wearing the goggles. By stimulating the healthier half,
he thought, it would be possible to alleviate depression.'
(http://www.observer.co.uk/life/0,6903,156046,00.html)
100 items - too much to go into this newsletter!
(http://www.refresher.com/!lnaiman.html)
Good tips from Linda Naiman, whose website www.creativityatwork.com
is well worth visiting.
(http://www.refresher.com/!energy.html)
by Bob Nelson
Read the whole article - it's great! selected extracts follow:
- ...it's more important than ever to be creative in tapping the potential
energy of employees from all levels of the organization. Instead of using
the power of their positions to motivate workers, managers must use the power
of their ideas to inspire today's employees to be their best. Instead of using
threats and intimidation to get things done, managers must create environments
that support their employees and allow creativity to flourish.
- Are your employees as comfortable telling you the bad news as they are
telling you the good news? If the answer is no, you have not created a safe
environment for your employees. Everyone makes mistakes; that's how people
learn. If you want energized, involved employees, make it safe for them to
take chances and to fail on occasion. Telecommunications giant MCI encourages
its employees to thrive on action rather than focus on mistakes. According
to one executive, "We at MCI don't shoot people who make mistakes, we
shoot people who don't take risks."
President Tom McConnell of Boston's New England Securities Corporation urges
his employees to try to solve problems themselves when he sees them and to
take pride in and "ownership" of the solution. To inject a dose
of energy into his workforce, McConnell distributed customized T-shorts with
the slogan "See it, Do it, Own it" to employees.
- Employees at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, are given tremendous
latitude in deciding how to get their jobs done. Employees respond to this
freedom by working with an intensity that is hard to find elsewhere. According
to one employee, "You have everything you need to create just about anything,
and the independence to decide exactly what to build."
- CEO Hal Rosenbluth of Rosenbluth International, a chain of travel agencies
headquartered in Philadelphia, is accessible to all his employees through
an 800-number "voice-mail box." Employees are encouraged to call
in with suggestions, problems, or praise, and about seven employees do so
every day.
- When chairman Rafael Rubio drops in on workers at the various locations
of his San Diego based Rubio's Home of the Fish Taco fast-food chain, he pumps
them for ideas on how to improve the business. "You can have the best
product in the world," says Rubio, "but you have nothing if you
don't have the right people."
- When asked how his company was able to increase earnings by 246 percent
- to $3.7 billion - Chrysler's chief executive officer, Robert Eaton had this
to say: "If I had to use one word, it's empowerment."
This excellent article ends thus:
'Your path is clear. You can continue to manage your employees in the same
old way, and you will be assured of getting the same old results. However,
you have an alternative. Creating energized employees demands a new set of
leadership priorities. By adopting the methods of energizing employees and
organizations as outlined above, you can dramatically improve the performance
of your employees, and the results of your organization. It's up to you -
you're the one who holds the key to unlocking this vast well of energy.'
(http://hbsworkingknowledge.hbs.edu/pubitem.jhtml?id=2869&sid=0&pid=0&t=organizations)
by Christopher A. Bartlett & Sumantra Ghoshal
A long article but worth reading. Some extracts below:
- A decade of organizational restructuring has produced employees "who
are more exhausted than empowered, more cynical than self-renewing,"
says Harvard Business School professor Christopher Bartlett. CEOs must rethink
how they use their people.
- Hierarchy has to be replaced by networks, bureaucratic systems transformed
into flexible processes, and control-based management roles must evolve into
relationships featuring empowerment and coaching.
- The hardest mind-set to alter is the longstanding, deeply embedded belief
that capital is the critical strategic resource to be managed and that senior
managers' key responsibilities should center around its acquisition, allocation,
and effective use.
- There is a surplus of capital chasing a scarcity of talented people and
the knowledge they possess.
- Recognizing that the company's scarce resource is knowledgeable people means
a shift in the whole concept of value management within the corporation.
- Top management must begin renegotiating both implicit and explicit contracts
with key stakeholders, particularly with employees. Unless those who contribute
their human and intellectual capital are given the opportunity to enjoy the
fruits of the value creation they are driving, they will go where they have
that opportunity—typically to newer, less tradition-bound companies.
- Unlike capital, scarce knowledge and expertise cannot be accumulated at
the top of the company and distributed to those projects or programs in which
it will yield the greatest strategic advantage. It resides in the heads of
individuals at all levels and is embedded in the relationships of work groups—those
closest to the customers, the competitors and the technology.
- But senior managers also must rethink their role in shaping strategic direction.
Their main contribution has shifted from deciding the strategic content to
framing the organizational context. That means creating a sense of purpose
that not only provides an integrating framework for bottom-up strategic initiatives,
but also injects meaning into individual effort. It means articulating company
values that not only align organizational effort with the overall enterprise
objectives, but also define a community to which individuals want to belong.
And it means developing organizational processes that not only get work done
effectively, but also ensure the empowerment, development, and commitment
of all members of the organization. The philosophical shift requires executives
to expand beyond strategy, structure, and systems to a simultaneous focus
on the company's purpose, process, and people.
(http://inc.com/incmagazine)
Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham
This a brilliant article. Do take the time to read it - it's a case study of
innovation and leadership. There's too much good stuff in it to take highlight
a few extracts -but this will give you a flavour:
- 'Then there was the oven needed to dry the rebuilt coolers before checking
them for leaks. Industrial drying equipment could cost as much as $10,000.
But Paulsen had worked in restaurants as a kid. He decided to look up a company
that sold used restaurant supplies. There he found a pizza oven with just
the right specifications. He bought the oven for $200.
- That's what innovation is all about. It isn't glamorous, and it doesn't
take place in corporate offices. It happens in cellars and garages and makeshift
workrooms, and it mainly involves a lot of hard work. But the results can
change lives.
- Bit by bit, the pieces came together. It happened so fast we could hardly
believe it. In February 1988, its third month in existence, Engines Plus shipped
350 to 400 rebuilt oil coolers to SRC. I'd spent two years trying to get our
people at SRC to focus on developing a process for remanufacturing oil coolers.
Paulsen and his people had come up with one in a matter of months. By the
time the bugs had been worked out, moreover, they were able to remanufacture
those oil coolers for a small fraction of what we'd been paying. SRC took
them all -- and saved a lot of money.'
(from the article: 'About the authors
Jack Stack is the president and CEO of SRC Holdings Corp., formerly Springfield
Remanufacturing Corp., based in Springfield, Mo. Bo Burlingham is the editor
at large of Inc. They are coauthors of the best-seller The Great Game of Business
(Doubleday/Currency, 1992), which is about the revolutionary system of open-book
management developed at SRC. This article is adapted from their next book, A
Stake in the Outcome: Building a Culture of Ownership for the Long-Term Success
of Your Business, which will be published by Doubleday/Currency this month.')
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4398235,00.html)
This is a sad story.
Here's an extract:
'Others will see the axing of Europe's leading communications research laboratory
as an act of mindless corporate vandalism.
Both interpretations are wrong. The truth is that Intel wanted to buy the
lab and was on the brink of closing a deal. Although nobody in AT&T will
talk openly about it, the word on the street is that negotiations foundered
because the lawyers on both sides couldn't agree about intellectual property
issues.
This eleventh-hour failure is a disaster because it shatters something magical.
A great research laboratory is a very delicate organism - rather like a great
symphony orchestra. It takes years to create, and very skilled management
to keep it vibrant. Once broken up, it is impossible to put it back together
again.'
This article is a good illustration of what can happen when the ideas of 'creative,
innovative, imaginative' people are not balanced by 'conformist, cynical, realistic'
people. They need each other! See also Kirton
Adaption-Innovation Inventory (http://www.kaicentre.com/)
End of Newsletter