Here is an article by one of the speakers that we’ll feature at our 2006 Soar Higher Leadership Conference on November 2 at Embassy Suites in Rogers, Arkansas. Click here for more details on the conference.

To read the first article by Kyle Eastham titled “Be A Rock Climber — Succeed One Step at a Time,” click here.

To read the first article by Vicki Anderson titled “Feedback: The Fuel for Great Performance,” click here.

Visit our 2005 Soar Higher Leadership Conference highlights page by clicking here.

John Storm

John is known as The BrainStorm Expert™ whose mission is to bring your ideas to LIFE! His expertise focuses on helping people discover, evaluate, and implement their ideas. He speaks, writes, and consults on the topics of change, innovation, and business development — areas he mastered during his former career as Marketing Director at Storm Lures.

See John live at the 2006 Soar Higher Leadership Conference. Click here for more details.

Contact Soar with Eagles for more information on John at 479.903.0208 or carrie@soarhigher.com

 

Seven Deadly Innovation Mistakes Many Executives Make

Are you and your executive team truly open to innovation? Most executives would strongly, even persuasively, tell you that their organizations are not only innovative, but aggressively open to innovation. Yet, their actions often betray the truth since few companies are truly innovative. Over the years, I have discovered Seven Deadly Innovation Mistakes executives make, which keep their teams from being “NOV8ive.”

1. Treasure-Phobia. Every organization is full of buried treasure. There are thousands of ideas hidden inside the minds of customers, employees, vendors, community leaders, and the families of each group. Each person offers a unique perspective and ideas, which can help the organization, be more innovative. Yet, many executives are strangely afraid of or negligent in finding them. Golden treasure is waiting to be discovered, usually for the low cost of simply ASKING for ideas.

2. Risk Resistance. It’s human nature to resist pain. Yet in business (and in life), there’s a BIG difference between Avoiding risk and Engaging risk. Sitting in the comfort of a corner office is safe only as long as the layoffs stay away. Innovation happens when people engage risk, brainstorm ideas, make their best calculations, hash it out, take action, step back, re-group, make adjustments and FORGE AHEAD! When failures happen, they embrace the pain, learn from their mistakes, climb out of the ditch, clean up, and get back to work! Innovation is MESSY, but the end result produces tangible treasure.

3. Thin Thinking. The ‘buzz’ over operating in a lean environment (lean manufacturing, lean office) is interesting. Lean Schmean. Oh, certainly there’s value in looking for ways to minimize costs and reduce inefficiencies. Yet a cut, cut, cut focus can lead to thin thinking. BIG ideas drive industry revolutions. FAT is where it’s at! FAT Innovation is what ultimately makes your company’s offerings not just palatable, but delectable! Fat ideas = Fat bottom lines.

4. Innovation Dehydration. Innovative executives are always on the lookout for resources to pour into their organizations. Yet many companies are thirsty for new ideas, methods, input, and training. Look at what bottled water companies have done when creating a phenomenally profitable industry selling water! Take a swig of insight into how they’ve successfully differentiated bottled from tap water. If they can generate creative ideas about this basic liquid, think about what you can do!

5. Stellar Expectations on Bottle Rocket Budgets. Most executives expect their people to reach the stars of profitability and success. Nevertheless, some only allocate a “pop-bottle rocket budget” for training in strategic thinking and creative problem-solving or investing in innovation resources. Nearly everyone wants to succeed at work, yet many team members don’t have the critical thinking skills to generate new revenue streams, identify cost-saving breakthroughs, or create ideas that are beyond the box of industry paradigms. Where will they acquire the necessary skills without a serious investment in “human” R&D budgets?

6. Sand-Head Syndrome. Many executives still live by the “if it isn’t thought of here, it doesn’t exist” mentality (or “I don’t want to hear other people’s ideas”). They are closed up like a turtle in its shell — trapped in their paradigm “boxes” and unwilling to engage with resource people who have a win/win mindset. Often, their mental orifices are clogged with sand from too many years in their industry’s private beach. That’s why outsiders with fresh perspective provide a return on investment that quickly pays for itself. There are other resources who can help harvest your sand-induced pearls of wisdom AND profits.

7. Pseudo-Systems. With such a plethora of ideas, you’d think there would be cutting-edge systems for capturing these money-making, budget-saving ideas. Yet, most organizations make pitiful attempts to harvest the ideas of their interested parties. They not only forget to ASK, they lack easy-to-access, easy-to-evaluate infrastructures that allow for critical evaluation and action. Millions of dollars in profit are left untapped and all for the lack of “idea-harvesting” events and systems.

So, what’s your plan to escape these Seven Deadly Innovation Mistakes?

 

   

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