There is little debate that innovation is a good thing. But how often do we talk about innovation and fail to implement it? It’s certainly a bit of a business buzz word. Did you know that 2007 has been crowned ‘The Year of The Idea’? I heard the other day that if Australia took part in the Innovation Olympics (which don’t exist), we’d come in at around 15. That’s not too flash for a country known for its creativity and determination.

I love working with innovators. I consider all of our clients innovators because they have consciously decided to do things differently, to apply a new methodology in the quest for new results. Innovation to me means more than just coming up with insights. It is the application of those insights that represent innovation.

Brave and creative thinking is normally the starting point for innovation so this month I have included 10 tips to get your creative juices flowing.

Another source of insight is learning from people we consider role models. Read our article about making the brand called you shine and consider how you can continue to learn from your role models.

Are you happy with the culture in your office? Read Felicity Zadro’s article and learn how communication remains critical in building a great culture.

Wishing you a GIANT September!

Best of life,

 

 

P.S. Check out some great new additions to Websites We Love this month!

1. Think Like A Child. When you’re faced with a problem that seems a little complex, consider how you would describe the problem to a child in their own words and what their response might be.
2. Change The Landscape. There’s nothing like taking a walk, or booking some space away from your office to spark some new thinking. Putting yourself in a new environment can be a good signal to your brain that creative thinking is allowed!
3. Make Up Metaphors. Relate your challenge to something obscure like nature or a sporting team. The more obscure the link, the better. Consider how you would solve the challenge in a completely different context and then draw comparisons.
4. Stop Looking For The Perfect Idea. Look for many. Did you know that when Thomas Edison died he left 1,092 patents to his name because he set such high quotas for idea generation?
5. Learn To Be Creative. Creative thinking is a skill that can be practised and learned. Don’t confuse artistic creativity with creative thinking. Anyone can learn to do it and do it well.
6. Jot Ideas Down. When you’re at your creative best, jot your ideas down! If it tends to be just before you nod off to sleep or as you wake, keep a note pad by your bed to capture those little gems of inspiration.
7. Borrow And Steal. What other industry or product has faced a similar challenge? What principles or processes did they apply? Why re-invent the wheel when a creative solution could be to borrow an idea from a completely different industry.
8. Make The Time. Just as important as being in the right physical space is devoting the right ‘head space’ to creative thinking. This requires making the time to think differently. Consider when you have most of your flashes of genius and try and lock away time for thinking that coincides.
9. Ask The Least Likely Person. Asking the least likely expert on the topic can be a great way to get outside of the box thinking. Those who are not conditioned to thinking ‘the way it should be’ can offer some fresh perspectives that can lead to new insights.
10. Employ An Expert. An experienced facilitator can help you to generate creative solutions. There’s no need for you to play referee and be the star striker. Hand over the workshop design and facilitation to someone else! One of the Brave team would love to help with your next workshop.
    
    

““Imagination is more important than knowledge””
- Albert Einstein

By Felicity Zadro

If you held up a large lens that allowed you to look at your company’s organisational culture, what would you find? What would your colleagues’ behaviour, language and expectations say about your organisational culture? And if you found something you wanted to change, how you would go about it?

Culture is a word commonly thrown around however, when we talk about culture in relation to our workplaces, we are talking about a concept that is powerful, vitally important and something often taken for granted.

Culture is how we make sense of our lives. It is a complex concept because it is flexible, continually changing and usually not discussed openly. Just as we are constantly evolving, developing and adapting to the world around us, so does culture.

When we apply the concept of culture to our workplaces, we can say that organisational culture is a pattern of assumptions which often determine how staff members perceive, think and feel about their workplace, problems they encounter, events that occur and even each other. These assumptions have been discovered and developed through the staff members’ collective experience; therefore the group sees them as valid. This is why things keep getting done in the same way even though a newcomer might question the validity. However, if the culture is strong a new person will, after a time, accept how things are done [or give up trying to change things] and hence become acculturated.

It is vital to understand and manage organisational culture because it has the power to determine how a company reacts to new situations, learns from mistakes, if it perceives events as opportunities or threats and whether it is proactive or reactive. In an increasingly competitive environment a business needs a defined and strong culture that promotes innovation whilst maintaining a core identity. Most importantly, it needs sound, effective and measureable ways in which to communicate the desired culture internally and externally.

Communication is the way through which we learn our organisational culture; whether through verbal or non-verbal communication, through symbols i.e. your brand, how people socialise or modelled behaviour. We learn about what is acceptable behaviour by listening to people, reading the tone of emails from senior managers, seeing how people dress, absorbing the key messages of the company from communication products, witnessing how and why people are rewarded etc.

If culture is learnt, grown and adapted by communication, it can also be changed and managed by it.

Communication is the key to managing organisational culture for it is the medium of change and the pacifier to the anxiety of change. It is the way we know we need to change and the way we know we have.

Managing organisational culture is not easy or instant or something you do once. It is a constant process of development and the best investment you will ever make to your company. Companies with positive cultures are lead by people who understand the value of it and can communicate clearly what they want their culture to be.

Here are some ways to manage your organisational culture through communication:

• New staff members are a great way to find out about your culture. After their first week, take them out to lunch and quiz them on what they have noticed about staff behaviour, how problems are resolved and how they describe the workplace environment.
• Ask your staff to describe the company’s core values. See if this matches up to your stated values in your mission / vision statements. Ask them whether they agree or disagree to the stated values and whether they see them as for the staff or for the clients or both.
• Examine your brand; its colours, font, symbols and style to determine what message you are giving about your company to everyone who sees it. Ask your customers what they think of when they see the brand and see if this matches up to what you want people to think.
• Look at your reporting strategies. Do staff report on how they find better ways of doing things? Simplify a process? Find a solution? Or do your staff members only report on financial targets achieved?
• Spend some time listening to staff talk about the company and the clients. Do they talk about the company favourably, the client’s with respect etc?
• Continuity between espoused values and the actual experience of a client is vital. Examine if the things you say about your company in marketing material – i.e. provide excellent customer service - is actually true. Don’t know? Ask your customers and staff in a survey.
• Measure your progress. Do annual staff and client surveys asking them to rate their perception on the core values of your company. Repeat the exercise after a year of actively addressing the issue to discover your impact.

Felicity Zadro is the Director of Zadro Communications. Felicity specialises in organisation change and strategic communication management in small to medium enterprises. For more information visit www.zadrocommunications.com.au or check out Felicity’s bio.

By Belinda Cordina

Do you remember any of your primary school teaches? I still remember most of them and, if I thought about them long enough, I could probably remember all of their names. I haven’t seen many of these people in over twenty years, but I remember them, and a number of the things they said to me much more clearly than the names of people I was introduced to yesterday.

This is because of the important role these people played in shaping who I am today, the brand known as me. Many of our teachers were role models to us and the lessons we learned and beliefs we formed while we were very young are likely to play a large role in many of the decisions we still make today.

We’ve been modeling ourselves on those we admire since we were born. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we do model the values and behaviours of influential individuals around us. During what is known as ‘the imprint period’ – age 0-7, our brains are like sponges, and we suck in so much information from our parents, teachers and older siblings. As we grow, we continue to form and evolve our own unique beliefs and ways of doing things as we have new experiences of the world. We become less ‘malleable’ but there is still a great opportunity to model ourselves and our behaviours based on role models we choose to adopt.

They say that the person you become is a result of the company you keep and the books you read. When I was young, there was a multitude of choice when it came to choosing role models and it’s likely I had several. As I’ve grown and my path has taken on a more focused direction, it seems that the list becomes harder to easily populate. There are less people that have done exactly what I’d like to do with my life. People who really inspire me are harder to find and I’m often found turning to books, DVD’s and seminars to find that inspiration and learning.

But just because it’s not as easy it doesn’t mean that we should stop looking!

By seeking to be inspired we can awaken ourselves to new growth opportunities we may otherwise not have even been aware of. By deciphering or learning the specific strategies of those we admire we can replicate their behaviours and to a large extent, their results.

Some people choose to do it the hard way. They believe that no-one could possibly have ever faced the same challenges they are facing. They do things their own way and don’t choose to benefit from the learning’s of those who have already walked, slipped or sprinted down the path they want to go down.

Sir Isaac Newton wasn’t one of those people - "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Why not choose to model yourself on the best? Benefit from the groundwork that someone else has done, the mistakes they have made and the lessons they have learned and are willing to share. It’s a great practice to regularly choose a few role models that you’d like to model your personal brand on and learn as much as you can about them. Read their books, watch interviews about them, read articles about them, call them up and talk to them if you have the access. Absorb as much as you can about how they do what they do.

The critical thing is to never stop at 1. You may choose one role model for her ability to balance a successful career and a family, another for the way he inspires his staff and another for the way she handles her money. Through observation and application of the knowledge we have from role models we can design our own path - one that remains unique to us, but leverages the learning’s of the many giants that have walked before us. If you stop and look hard enough, there are many inspirational people with big shoulders, it just comes down to whether you are ready to invest the energy to climb on up and enjoy the view.

Seems easier said than done? Working with an experienced coach can help you to make it happen. Contact Us today to learn more about how working with a coach can help you to achieve more of what you want!

Are you feeling stuck on a challenge facing your business or brand? Sick of your meetings going off track and not achieving the objectives you've set?
Contact us for a strategic, objective and challenging facilitator whenever you need one. Our experienced facilitators can help you create clarity out of clutter, a project plan out of panic and achieve clear communication out of confusion. Find out more today

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