One of the biggest challenges we have as leaders is to create a culture where innovation flourishes. The counterintuitive thing about innovation is in seeing it as something that is a natural human trait.  Many times innovation is “killed” by the culture of an organization rather than not existing in the first place.

Healthy things grow. As leaders, we want to make sure we aren’t getting in the way of our organization’s ability to do so.

Watch this video and think of what you might see if your data now had time, location, duration, volume and whatever other variable you can think of represented in a dynamic graphical way.

I don’t know about you but I find conformity tedious. It only leads to boredom, dissatisfaction and a complacent state of mind. None of these things are good for business in the long run; they’re not good for us personally or professionally and they’re not good for our staff.

While most of us get excited by the dialogue of revolution, in our day-to-day worlds it is difficult to translate that passion.  To stop doing by rote.  To engage the input of those who don’t see the world the way we do.  To ask ourselves if we are asking the right questions.

But if we really want to help our companies, communities, churches and universities navigate the world shift, we must allow ourselves to shift as well.  We aren’t there yet.  We haven’t arrived.  And we most definitely aren’t going to get there by doing what has already been done.

He describes why its so hard to get work done at work – and ways to improve that.

This presentation is a great companion to Daniel Pink’s book, Drive, The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us.

Our work increasingly requires thought, discretion and creativity. As Jason Fried says, our work is a series of work moments with interruptions in between.

Daniel Pink makes the point that the new nature of work is less “algorithmic” (simple and pre-determined) and more “heuristic” (exploratory and experimental). The motivation that works best for one becomes counter-productive for the other.

According to Pink, extrinsic motivation works okay for straight forward tasks. Intrinsic motivation (autonomy, mastery and purpose) are required the more the work is around thinking, decision making and creativity.

When we align Fried’s and Pink’s ideas we find that most organizations are out of sync with both the environment and reward structures for productivity in the 21st century.

This also fits with my early research on the nature of Print based organizations that use extrinsic rewards and punishments assuming that workers need to be monitored. Broadcast based organizations that use extrinsic rewards as incentives to tap into human potential and emerging Digitally oriented organizations that focus on the intrinsic value of the work as motivation.

Our work at TAG Consulting helps organization’s migrate toward intrinsic alignment with mission and work.

What kind of incentive structure does your organization offer: rewards and punishments, incentives for achievement or meaningful work?

How many undistracted hours of work a day to you get, on average?

I would love to see your answers to these questions.

If you want to understand the formula behind successful movies, Dr. Baehr lays this out very clearly.

Aristotles Elements of a Great Story (in this order)

1. Plot
2. Character
3. Dialogue
4. Idea
5. Music
6. Spectacle

The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri – considered one of the best.

What movies have you recently seen that follow his formula?

Youngme Moon is the Donald K. David Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.

1. Project Initiation
2. Wild Enthusiasm
3. Disillusionment
4. Chaos
5. Search for the Guilty
6. Punishment of the Innocent
7. Promotion of Non-Participants
8. Definition of Requirements

Its the 40th anniversary of the book The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong.

The premise goes something like this:

Employees who do well get promoted until they finally reach a level outside their competency. Once reached – they stay put. That leaves companies filled with people who have reached their level of incompetency.

Over the last few years we have plenty of examples of failed plans, policy, corporations and our entire financial system. The Peter Principle offers an easy explanation. However, something more profound may be taking place.

When the mindshift consortium looked at the frequent failure of late construction projects we ran into a brick wall with this line of assessment. As hard as we tried to find a clear culprit – architect, contractor, sub-trade or owner – it was never that simple.

Then the light bulb turned on – the system for design and construction has reached its level of incompetency. We took a system that was clearly successful 50+ years ago and kept promoting it to more complex challenges. Eventually the complexity of the challenges outstripped the system’s ability to cope.

One member said, “The current system causes good people to do bad things.”

It is time to revise The Peter Principle so that it addresses the deeper source of incompetency – systemic dysfunction.

Unfortunately, we’re trained like heat seeking missiles to find culprits.

Dysfunctional systems AND getting the right people in the right chair require NEW leadership skills.

I worked with an organization this week dealing with both issues. Two years ago they went through their near-death experience and brought in a new leader. After stabilizing they have been able to get back on track with most of the same leadership core using the existing structure. With 33% growth and a major expansion planned for 2010 the organization’s leader was feeling the stress of an organization bogging down but without insight as to why.

Over two days we looked at the talent configuration of each leader, their current role, the logic of that role and the aggregate talent configuration of the team. We then plotted these against the anticipated needs of a larger and more complex organization. Using tools developed by CoreClarity we were able to see clearly that the organization had moved into a new phase requiring greater Strategic and Execution capacity. The current leadership core had been performing at a very high level as specialists for their area.

We were able to avoid a common and often tragic error of pushing these leaders higher into Strategic and Executive requirements that they had previously not functioned in. We also had a tool that showed us exactly how to prepare these leaders to make the move if that is where they thought they could perform at their best.

Organizations confronting strong challenges in today’s economy will need to do more than wait this one out or work harder with what they have. It will require a dispassionate look at whether the system that got you here is suited to take you forward. It will take tools to provide an evidenced based understanding of what your organization is naturally good at. It will take coaching and training to reconfigure and better align with current realities.

If you would like to find out more about this alignment process let me know and I’ll send a sample executive summary adapted from one of the organizations I’ve recently worked with.

This video from Jim Rohn provides a key to adding value – to yourself, to your organization.

In one of his sessions and in the book “Think Outside the Box” he describes 4 paths to creativity:

• Invention/Invention: the thing(s) before the thing is invented – i.e. silicon chips (with integrated circuits) before portable computers.
• Invention/Extension: plusing or enhancing the original concept – i.e. laptop computers.
• Invention/Devention: an invention that “uninvents” another – i.e. cloud computing may one day make accessing information in a dedicated hard drive obsolete
• Functional Substitution: an invention that replaces another with a better application – i.e. texting as a preferred means of communication over email for those under 30.

I like to listen to musicians because the good ones embody all 4 of these paths. The video below presents two artists, Rodrigo y Gabriela. Their new album Eleven Eleven is a tribute to 11 different heavy metal artists. If you are a fan of Hendrix, Santana, Pink Floyd or Shakti – this is a variation on a theme worth listening too. And if you’re not a fan – all the better – you’ll enjoy it.

Each paths brings a fresh new experience to a product, service or idea. Those new riffs create high returns; enjoyment, results, revenue!

This video is a great example of Invention/Extension – extending heavy metal creativity to new domains. It is also a great example of Functional Substitution – classical Spanish guitar fusion.