By John Ryan, Center for Creative Leadership

Globalization, talent shortages and roller coaster market dynamics are just a few of the complex challenges facing today’s businesses. So how do you lead effectively in this turbulent environment?
“Complex challenges — ranging from expanding into overseas markets to dealing with the fallout of natural disasters — often don’t respond to conventional approaches and knowledge. Instead, they require innovative thought and action,” says John Ryan, President and CEO of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL).

Six important things you can do to become a more effective leader include:

Collaborate. Collaborative leaders can get tremendous results. Research shows that the ability to collaborate is a skill that top executives believe their men and women should have. In fact, 97 percent of the executives we surveyed identified collaboration as a key to their organization’s success. And yet, just 47 percent of those same executives believe the leaders in their organizations are skilled collaborators.

Act authentically. Executives we talk to frequently emphasize the importance of authentic leadership: doing your job without compromising your values, beliefs or personality. But leading authentically is not easy. Executives in CCL’s survey acknowledged that trying to keep up an executive image of being decisive and all-knowing can compromise their authenticity.

Sustain talent. It can take years to groom effective senior leaders — and organizations will need to develop new generations of leaders who will be able to succeed amid the complex challenges. Organizations will need to create pools of candidates with high leadership potential and then put our talent where it can excel.

Develop judgment. In their 2007 book Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls, Noel M. Tichy and Warren G. Bennis argue that leaders need to develop three kinds of judgment:
• People judgment: the ability to get the right talent on the team;
• Strategy judgment: the ability to frame the right questions; and
• Crisis judgment: knowing your values and goals.

Value learning agility. Work challenges are constantly changing and the flow of information is nonstop. Effective leaders, then, have the ability to learn on the fly and to act on the spur of the moment.

Manage your health. CCL research involving senior executives shows that effective leadership and regular exercise are strongly linked. Executives who exercise are rated significantly higher by their co-workers on their leadership effectiveness than non-exercisers. In fact, exercisers score better than non-exercisers in all leadership categories, including organization, credibility, leading others and authenticity. And, of course, regular exercise improves your energy, stamina and overall health.

Reprinted with permission from the Center for Creative Leadership, www.ccl.org

Need Help in this Area?  Try: Everest Think your latest workplace challenge is tough? Try scaling Mount Everest – as a blind mountain climber. This inspirational program shows how to dream big and work together as a team.

Assumptions: A major roadblock to innovation
By Mitchell Ditkoff

Thomas Edison had a very simple way of conducting job interviews. He’d invite prospective employees to join him for soup in the company cafeteria. If they salted their soup before tasting it, the interview was over. Plain and simple. Given the nature of his work – where even a single stone unturned could mean the difference between the failure or success of a costly product – Edison could not afford to surround himself with people ruled by faulty assumptions.

Of all the roadblocks to innovation, assumptions are the worst. Invisible, insidious and habitual, they stop us before we even start – the default position for those of us too consumed by our past to consider the future the way it really is: pure potentiality.

Definition of an assumption
What is an assumption? Simply put, it’s “taking something for granted”. A “supposition.” We do it all the time – although not always to our detriment. For example, if you leave your toothbrush in the bathroom at night, it’s safe to assume that it will be there in the morning. Your assumption saves you lots of time searching for it in the kitchen or garage. Other assumptions, however, don’t work out quite as well – despite the seeming evidence for their veracity. Many of our ancestors, for example, assumed the earth was flat. They had “proof.” They saw it with their own eyes. But their so-called proof – their inaccurate interpretation of existing phenomena – was a far cry from reality. And it was precisely because of their faulty assumptions, that many of our ancestors missed out on the New World and all the fabulous beachfront property that came with it.

Think about it. If every ten years half of what scientists believe to be true is proven to be false, how much of what your decisions are based on is anything more than just a temporary – and not very elegant – arrangement of half-baked perceptions, flaky factoids, and loosely interpreted statistics?
Take a minute now to consider what you may be assuming falsely. What conclusions have you drawn that prevent you from sailing new oceans? What beliefs are you bound by that are likely to be laughable three years from now? Are you absolutely sure you know what your customers want? Are you positive your manager won’t free up the money to fund your latest idea? Can you say, without a shadow of a doubt, that your current strategy to accomplish your “stretch goal” is based on anything more than hearsay and hot talk?

Famous assumptions
But hey, you’re not alone in your tendency to jump to conclusions. Join the club as you consider some of these (now famous) limiting assumptions throughout history:

“I think there is a world market for about five computers.” (Thomas Watson, founder of IBM)

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” (Charles Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899)

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” (Albert Einstein)

“The phonograph is not of any commercial value.” ( Thomas Edison)

“I don’t need body guards.” (Jimmy Hoffa)

“Man will not fly for 50 years.” (Wilbur Wright, 1903)

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” (Bill Gates)

“With over 50 foreign cars on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market for itself.” (Business Week, 1968)

Conclusion
What is your biggest assumption about your hottest new idea? What is your company’s most pervasive, collective assumption? What can you do today to identify the one assumption most likely to sabotage your future success? What can you do to go beyond it?

Mitchell Ditkoff is president of Idea Champions, www.ideachampions.com
Reprinted from innovationtools.com

Training Solution: Pigeonholed in The Land of Penguins This video shows your employees how to see their co-workers in a new and different way; and helps them tap into the creativity of every team member.

By Kevin Eikenberry

The scene is repeated in meeting rooms around the world every day. A problem has been identified and a group has gathered to solve the problem. When ideas are needed, the group decides to brainstorm. And all too often this exercise leads to a short list of not-that-creative ideas.

We know that if we generate more ideas we have a better chance of finding better ideas. This leads us to the logical conclusion that if we can find techniques to create more ideas, we will find better ones. No one technique however will guarantee the perfect solution. Instead your goals should be to have a variety of approaches to help stimulate idea creation in your repertoire. By doing this you will improve the overall quality of ideas by virtue of having more to choose from.

Whether you are unhappy with the current creativity of your group or are having good success with brainstorming sessions, but would like them to be even better, any of the eight suggestions below can help.

Look at problems in different ways. Get the group to change their perspective on the problem. Once people “lock into” one way of looking at things the idea flow will slow to a trickle. Have people take a new persona. Ask them to look at the issue from the perspective of another group – accounting, HR, or sales for example. Ask them to think about how their grandmother or an 8 year old would solve the problem. These are simple ways to force people into a new perspective and the new perspectives will generate more ideas.

Make novel combinations. The ideas that land on the flip chart or whiteboard in a brainstorming session are typically considered individually. Have the group look at the initial list and look for ways to combine the ideas into new ones.

Force relationships. Once a group is finished with their initial list, provide them with words, pictures or objects. The objects can be random items, the words can come from a randomly generated list or from pictures in magazines or newspapers. When people have their random word, picture or item, have them create connections between the problem and their item. Use questions like, “How could this item solve our problem?” What attributes of this item could help us solve our problem?”

Make their thoughts visible. Have people draw! Too often the brainstorming session has everyone sitting except the person capturing the ideas. Let people doodle and draw and you never know what ideas may be spurred.

Think in opposites. Rather than asking your direct problem question, ask the opposite. “How could we ensure no one bought this new product?” could be one example. Capturing the ideas on “the opposite,” will illuminate ideas for solving the actual problem.

Think metaphorically. This approach is similar to forcing relationships (and is another way to use your words, pictures or items). Pick a random idea/item and ask the group, “How is this item like our problem?” Metaphors can be a very powerful way to create new ideas where none existed before.

Prepare. Too often people are asked to brainstorm a problem with no previous thinking time. If people have time to think about a topic, and let their brains work on it for awhile, they will create more and better ideas. Allow people to be better prepared mentally by sharing the challenges you will be brainstorming some time before the meeting whenever possible.

Set a Goal. Research shows and my experience definitely confirms that the simple act of giving people a quantity goal before starting the brainstorming session will lead to a longer list of ideas to consider. Set your goal at least a little higher than you think you can get – and higher than this group typically achieves. Set the goal and watch the group reach it!

While these suggestions have all been written from the perspective of a group generating ideas, they all work very well for individuals too. The next time you need to solve a problem by yourself, use these techniques and you will be astounded by the quantity of ideas you will generate!

Kevin Eikenberry is a leadership expert and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a learning consulting company that helps clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services. www.kevineikenberry.com Reprinted from innovationtools.com

Training Solution: Free Radicals of Innovation: Everyone wants to be creative, but most people fear change. This program shows the nine principles of innovation and how to make them work for your team.