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The Jazz of Innovation Improvisation Within a Structure |
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By Vadim Kotelnikov, Inventor & Founder, Ten3 BUSINESS e-COACH – Innovation Unlimited, 1000ventures.com
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"Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will." – Jawaharlal Nehru |
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Innovation Management Team: "The ability to innovate is only as good as how one can accept changes and take risks." – Franco Paolo Liu Eisma... MoreBalanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements Empowered Employees (Metal):
The Jazz of Innovation To jazz up your ability to innovate, turn to jazz. The improvisation-driven model for innovation project management doesn’t discard structure, just as there is a clear structure to good jazz. In innovation, this structure is created through roadmaps, guiding principles, business processes, systems and organizational charts. Strategic-planning and road-mapping processes cannot guarantee brilliant flashes of creative insight, but they can prepare minds and increase the odds that such flashes occur in real time. Thus structure, as chords do in jazz, serves as a basis for improvisation, experimentations, discoveries and innovation.
Leaders: Lead improvisation. Managers: Provide structure. ► Resulting synergy: Jazz of innovation... More Finding the Right Balance Between Structure and Chaos You need a certain amount of chaos to be creative but not to the point that you feel overwhelmed by its amount. Too much uncertainty discourages people from mobilizing their best effort. Direction and purpose and a certain amount of structure create freedom. People feel liberated by goals and guidelines. 29 Obstacles To Innovation
Creating a Culture for Innovation Creating new strategic initiatives around organizational design and structure, innovation processes, innovation metrics, and other levers can make a significant difference in shaping the culture, and there are many practical approaches for manipulating each lever.... More
The Way Our Mind Works Our brain is divided into two hemispheres, the left and the right, and each hemisphere specializes in different functions, processes different kinds of information, and deals with different kinds of problems. The left brain works more with logic and analysis, the right works more with emotions and imagination. Intuitive, emotional, and creative work is performed by our right brain. You must divide time between the left-brain and right-brain activity to achieve better creativity results. If you keep bouncing back and forth between creative and analytical activities, you'll get a headache and won't produce your best results. Analysis, evaluation and judgment get in the way of creativity. That's why in brainstorming sessions we suspend judgment while we generate ideas. Similarly, radical innovation project managers apply the loose-tight leadership technique to divide time between divergent and convergent thinking by their team members at different project stages. Case in Point Aetna Insurance Many corporations are now working with the arts community. Aetna Insurance brought in jazz bassist Michael Gold and his ensemble to teach improvisation. The theory is that kind reactive thinking can help employees handle competition and conflict.7 Case in Point BP: Finding an Equilibrium Between Chaos and Order To evolve BP into an adaptive organization, one that would be better able to survive and prosper in today's uncertain and turbulent times, John Browne decided to raise the creative tension. He established the preconditions necessary for creating such tension and deliberately moved the organization to a situation that was at the edge of chaos. That is, the point at which a natural equilibrium is found between chaos and order, comparable to the conditions in the evolving natural world.
Accidental Discoveries... The Tao of Value Innovation... Providing Strategic Alignment... Establishing Guiding Principles... Establishing Innovation Management System and Structures... Cross-Pollination of Ideas... Creative Leadership... The Fun Factor... The Tao of Experimentation... Freedom To Fail... Keys To Successful Market Learning... Involving Customers as Co-Innovators... Leading Innovation: Turning Your Vision To Reality... Case in Point IDEO... Case in Point Silicon Valley Firms... Case in Point Google...
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