posted by Anna Fleet on October 15th, 2010
Many of us spend the majority of our waking lives at work, and gossip just naturally occurs in environments where human beings spend a lot of time together.
I’m not pointing fingers, but we’re all guilty of it…especially you unnamed ex-colleague, with that smirk on your mug, loitering at the coffee making, waiting to jump on anyone that will listen about you deluge dirt on the latest office romance…I’m simply demonstrating how damaging office gossip can be. The amount of energy that goes into people undermining others in the workplace, who supposedly work for the same company, with supposedly the same goals for business success—anyhow, you see what I’m getting at.
So, you bet when I read today’s Harvard Business Review, I paid special attention an article by Dan Pallotta on how office gossip kills productivity and possibility. Gossip kills the business by simply sucking attention and effort away from the greater goals of the company, or as Pallotta says, “or [the businesses] real potential, which is essentially the same thing. We end up working harder to undermine our fellow workers than we work to make the business work out in the market place. Competitors couldn’t possibly thwart the possibility of our success to the degree we thwart it ourselves. When we gossip about the leader of our enterprise, we create an organization more committed to her failure than her success…Honesty is the essence of leadership.”
We’re all aware how destructive gossip is. And Pallotta tells us to heed this advice: “Make ruthlessly honest communication, at all levels, priority number one.” Because otherwise, issues that are kept silent can grow to immeasurable offences in the eyes of the so-called victim—especially when they come to the surface with emotion.
Honest and healthy communication is powerful stuff, especially in the workplace, and you can create a culture of healthy communication in your organization by:
1. Getting everyone on board. You can’t simply outlaw gossip unilaterally—you have to get the whole organization to see it as a negative thing by nurturing a culture where gossip is unwelcome.
2. Helping staff see the unconstructive costs of gossip—on a personal and enterprise level—gossip can cost an organization happiness, harmony, success, fulfillment, teamwork and money.
3. Putting time, money and resources into healthy communication—hire experts to help develop a culture of healthy communication and allocate time for training on an ongoing basis.
Tags: creating health communication, creating sustainable culture, dan pallotta, design thinking strategy, gossip kills business possibility, harvard business review
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
posted by Anna Fleet on August 25th, 2010
The Harvard Business Review recently featured an interview with Kaiser Permanente, of Kaiser Pemanente Innovation Consultancy about how human-centered design is used to engage front line staff (nurses and even patients) to improve the quality of care in our hospitals.
“We find the few folks early on who want to share their dreams, their desires, their pain points with us,” says Permanente. “Then we observe them in their expertise areas…and take them through the ideation phase where front line staff are inspired to release all of the great ideas inside of them.”
Permanente says he sees the power of design thinking when those low fidelity prototypes (or ideas) are put into action in a hospital within few weeks. “It’s truly powerful stuff,” he says.
Watch the interview and find out how engagement with frontline staff has been responsible for creating solutions for universal problems in health care— medication administration error, nurse shift handoff and pain management.
Tags: design thinking in hospitals, design thinking process, design thinking strategy, harvard business review, human centered design, kaiser permanente innovation consultancy, the power of design thinking
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
posted by Anna Fleet on August 19th, 2010
An article in the Harvard Business Review by author Robert I. Sutton claims that,“there is no learning without failure.”
Sutton should know. He’s the co-author of five books on managerial audiences (including The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Firms Turn Knowledge Into Action) and he says that failure is widespread before innovation occurs. “The reality is that the typical successful innovator experiences the agony of defeat far more often than the thrill of victory.”
It’s true that failure happens to the best of us. But instead of giving up, Sutton says that we should embrace failure, learn from it, and put those lessons toward our future ideas. “The ability to capitalize on hard-won experience is a hallmark of the greatest organizations,” he says.
“The [people] who are most adept at turning knowledge into action…and those that are the most successful when it comes to developing and implementing creative ideas…[fail and often].”
Read the full article to find out why the most successful creators tend to be those with the most failures.
Tags: design thinking for small business, design thinking process, design thinking strategy, harvard business review, learning from our failures, stages of design thinking
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
posted by Anna Fleet on August 18th, 2010
A recent poll from IBM unveiled some interesting stats about the modern business landscape. When 1,500 CEOs were polled across 60 countries it was found that:
* Creativity was rated the most sought after leadership skill
* According to 80% business success demands new ways of thinking
* Less than 50% believe their companies can deal with this complex business environment
However, the Harvard Business Review shared six secrets to creating a culture of innovation that they believe businesses must make in order to deal with the shifting business landscape:
1. Meet needs
What do you employees need to perform at their very best? Are their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs being met at work? If staff is preoccupied by unsatisfied needs it should be no secret that they’ll bring less energy and drive to work. Why not let your employees design their days as they see fit? The nitty-gritty details shouldn’t matter if they are performing effectively and getting work done on time.
2. Teach the systematic approach to creativity
Betty Edward’s book Drawing on the Artist Within describes the five stages of creative thinking: first insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Understand this rough roadmap for engaging the entire brain in the thinking process—both the analytic left side and the big-picture right side—to effectively solve problems.
3. Nurture passion
When people are assigned tasks that they aren’t passionate about it kills their creativity. Those encouraged to follow their passion at an early age develop stronger discipline, deeper knowledge, and resilience to obstacles. If you find ways to let staff express their unique skills and passions at work—they will be more engaged and productive while at work.
4. Define purpose
Money pays the bills, but it (can’t buy you love) isn’t meaningful on it’s own. Human beings strive to make positive contributions to the world—even on small levels. That’s why the most successful business leaders can communicate a compelling mission and fuel employees forward.
5. Provide time
We live in a “more, bigger, faster” society, but ironically, creative thinking requires uninterrupted, pressure-free time on a regular basis or else we burn out.
6. Recovery
Human beings are not computers—although we’re often treated like machines. The average human can only expend energy for a short period of time (about 90 minutes), but then we need rest in order to recover—for example we go for a walk, go for a drive, excise at the gym, listen to music or even meditate to spur creative breakthroughs.
Tags: business culture of innovation, creating cultures of innovation, design thinking for small business, design thinking process, design thinking strategy, harvard business review
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
posted by Anna Fleet on August 10th, 2010
If you asked a designer at my agency, “How many designers does it take to change a light bulb?”, they would certainly answer: “Does it have to be a light bulb?”
Very funny I know, but seriously, the tendency to challenge the very essence of my question is innate in designers, or rather people engaged in design thinking. They tend to ask a lot of questions—especially those that challenge existing or stale assumptions.
And yes, these questions might be dubbed “stupid questions” by those married to a certain convention or strategy, but as author, Warren Berger, points out, asking those “stupid questions…is the starting point in the design process, and has a profound influence on everything that follows.”
If you don’t believe it, try and think of how many times you’ve been stalled over the same old issue at your business. The vintage FedEx commercial that shows how corporate insiders can get so stuck in a rut that they no longer think for themselves is a great visual explanation of what I’m talking about. Many times it does take an outsider (or someone willing to question those conventions) to see the situation clearly—while stating the obvious.
Berger found this out when he spent time studying the likes of Bruce Mau, Richard Saul Wurman and Paula Scher, the most respected designers in the biz, who constantly discussed the importance of asking “stupid questions”.
In his article this morning from the Harvard Business Review, Berger points to specific ways that people in business can learn from design thinkers by learning to question, care, connect and commit to a final idea.
Read Berger’s full article and find out why you should apply a little design thinking to your own small business problems.
Tags: design thinking for small business, design thinking process, design thinking strategy, glimmer book, graphic design thinking, harvard business review, warren berger
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
One Calendar with Social Networking Powers
