Rules For Corporate Risk Takers
If innovation is the new game of business for the 21st Century, what are the rules? Some of you are being asked to voluntarily join innovation design teams. Others are being asked to leave the relative security of your overworked position to go work on something that is unstructured, unfamiliar, and, well, risky. It’s your company’s innovation initiative. Should you…
Are You Indispensable at Work? Seven Workplace Skills to Master
In economic instability, advice on professional survival always seems to convey the same message: Be visible. Suck up to the boss. And work even harder. In reality, you are already working hard. Simply working harder will not be enough. But there is something you can do to take charge of your career if you’re willing to consider it.
Unconventional Listening Techniques
Some firms are beginning to experiment with unconventional listening techniques. And the results, thus far, have been impressive. For example: Intuit Corporation, makers of Quicken and Quickbooks software, devised “follow-them-home research” to gauge how easily customers install and learn to use new versions of their products, and to identify problems. Apple, Motorola, Intel and other companies are adding anthropologists to…
The Creative Power of Leisure
If you’re looking for a good book to take on vacation this summer, consider David Nasaw’s biography Andrew Carnegie. This is the story of an impoverished immigrant kid from Scotland who transformed himself into an American steel tycoon, philanthropist and social philosopher. Once you read about Carnegie’s work habits, you may question your own. Carnegie’s approach was to delegate the…
How Crowdsourcing Can Enhance Innovation Performance
Article first published as How Crowdsourcing Can Enhance Innovation Performance on Forbes.com. Disruption and digitization are changing the game for more and more industries, and more and more companies. As a result, traditional ways of approaching innovation are coming up short. What I’m beginning to see is that there’s a new way of practicing innovation being embraced by a growing…
