The Innovator’s DNA

To think differently successful innovators act differently. 

This was revealed in a long term, global research project called The Innovator's DNA.  The researchers studied the leaders of successful innovative companies to find out what they did differently than leaders of less innovative companies.  Their findings included:  

• The ability to generate creative ideas is as much a function of behavior as thinking.
• And there are specific behaviors the most successful business innovators practice more often than less innovative leaders.

Each of these behaviors, individually and in combination, increase the ability to make creative new connections: 

Questioning:  asking more questions more often, to better understand what is and what could be.

Observing:  engaging your senses to take in what's working and what isn't, across many different environments.

Networking:  frequently meeting people who are different from you, to learn more about what they know, do and think.

Experimenting:  creating pilot tests and prototypes, to test ideas, develop new insights and share ideas with others.    

The ability to make creative new connections, associating, is a cognitive skill that can be increased by practicing the four behavior skills.

Innovative entrepreneurs who are CEOs spent 50% more time questioning, observing, networking, experimenting and associating than CEOs with no innovation track record.  

Another interesting result?  If you want to increase your ability to think creatively, and encourage creative thinking in others, you only need to practice two or more of these skills more often.  

"Innovation is a habit," the researchers said. "And for these innovative entrepreneurs it's a way of life. It's the fabric of who they are. And for others who aren't that way, they could be: if they choose to act different to think different."

How to Get Unstuck with "Catalytic Questioning"

Ever have one of those challenges you're just sick of thinking about?  Where it seems that you're working too hard, and going nowhere fast?

Catalytic Questioning can help you get unstuck. There's a smart article on it in July's HBR that defines a process you can use individually and with teams. 

In a nutshell, here are the steps:

• Check to make sure all involved are intellectually and emotionally connected to the challenge, and truly don't know how to answer it.
• Sit or (better yet) stand in front of a whiteboard or several sheets of flip chart paper. Pick a scribe.  Before starting, take a breath, relax and set aside any mental distractions.
• One at a time, state a question related to the challenge.  The scribe simply writes each question.  At this stage, only questions are allowed - no explanations, comments or answers.  Each person works to provide interesting, provocative and/or important questions.  At times, the well will run dry.  Stick with it for 10-20 minutes, or until you have 50 - 100 questions.  Find the questions no one's asking ... yet.
• When you've exhausted your ability to define questions, take a quick break or stretch.  Come back and identify the most "catalytic" ones - the ones with the potential to disrupt the status quo, or provide entirely different perspectives or solutions. Narrow it down to the 3-4 that matter most.
• Now that you have 3-4 fresh lines of inquiry, go find some answers!  You can use Catalytic Questioning as often as needed to get unstuck and develop deeper insights and better solutions.

As an executive coach, I've seen over and over again how the right question can unlock new thinking, energy and solutions.  This question storming process can help you do the same.

Stress, Mindfulness and the Executive Brain

Stop for just a moment and take everything in, within and around you, noticing without judging. This is mindfulness.   

The NeuroLeadership Institute refers to mindfulness as "direct experience," focusing on the brain circuitry activated when you're being mindful.  Think of it as being a video recorder or a sensory satellite receiving dish.

So why is mindfulness important to leaders?   

Well, many workplaces create high levels of stress. Stress can trigger our "threat" circuitry ... quickly ramping up our "fight or flight" response ... simultaneously shutting down our prefrontal cortex (PFC), or executive brain. 

The PFC is where higher ordered thinking, like judgement, creativity and complex decision-making, occur.  Best to avoid shutting it down when possible. 

For most of us, our opportunity to "hit the brakes" as we experience a threat is fleeting.  Why?  Because these brakes are located IN the PFC! 

This is where mindfulness comes in.  Research has shown that those with a strong "direct experience" network have stronger braking systems and are better able to manage a "threat" state.  This translates into better access to the executive brain functions located in your PFC.  

"But I don't have time to meditate," you exclaim.  

That's OK. 

You can strengthen your direct experience network just about anywhere, any time: walking to a meeting, on a train, at a traffic light, during lunch, upon waking....  

Simply spend a few minutes noticing everything you're sensing, internally and externally, without judging.   

You can start small (a daily minute or two) and build from there. One study showed a dramatic improvement after practicing mindfulness for 20 minutes a day for only FIVE days. 

So if you want to work at your highest cognitive levels, take advantage of those fleeting moments and turn them into mindfulness moments.

[With thanks to this post's guest author, Paul McGinniss of the NeuroLeadership Group] 

Regifting for Leaders

Regifting is an enduring leadership practice that resonates as the holidays approach.  It involves two simple steps:

    

• Recognize when someone does something that inspires you do do your best.
• Find a way to apply that approach with someone else.

The interesting thing about this practice is that it benefits you as much as others.

• Recognizing when someone treats you in a way that brings out your best means that you're paying attention to leadership style - therefore increasing the odds that you continuously develop yours.
• Finding ways to apply that positive approach with someone else increases your track record of, and reputation for, positive leadership practices.

If you like this form of regifting, you can also apply it on an annual basis:

  

• Each December, make a point of recalling high-points from the prior eleven months, and who helped to make them happen.
• Share these recollections with those that come to mind, and thank them.  

This appreciative tradition extends the impact of the high-points, creating a positive ripple effect. 

Speaking of high points, thank you continuing to find ways to be a more innovative and effective leader throughout 2013 -


Here's to all you'll do and be in 2014!

Straight Talk from Singular Stars

Working as a coach at a conference on "Mentors, Sponsors and Breaking the Glass Ceiling Through Our Allies," I met a lively group of smart trailblazers.  

  

Reginald Van Lee, EVP at Booz Allen Hamilton, was a memorable one.  Warm and witty in person, he accomplished what many struggle with once they reach the podium:  making his points in a concise, consumable way. 

  

He recommended that ground breaking leaders of all types cultivate their 

"4 Cs":

COURAGE:  to excel, to be different.

  

COMPETENCE:  you need to be exceptionally competent when you're trying to accomplish what few that look, act or think like you do.  Accept this and press on.

  

CONFIDENCE:  to attend excellent schools, vie for new roles, pursue powerful relationships.  Don't wait for permission - show up and lead.

  

COLLABORATION:  you can't do it alone - consciously create alliances.  Talk to someone new often.  Your network expands your value.

  

Paula Madison, CEO of the Los Angeles Sparks, was equally forthright and compelling.  Some of her comments echoed similar themes:

• Be bold.  "Courage and comfort are not in the same room." 
• Be an expert, and claim your accomplishments. "I'm proud to be a different kind of leader, a different kind of woman."
• Advocate for yourself.  No one will care more about your career than you do - you can't expect others to do more for you than you do for yourself. 
• Attend carefully to feedback.  Feedback tells you how you're showing up.

The audience was energized by these kinds of unvarnished, hard-earned perspectives. If you were to give your own "straight talk" on pointers for pioneering leaders, what would you include?

Step It Up By Stepping Back

I have a great feeling about this particular team.  The demands of working for the second largest bank in the world can be relentless, but they leverage strengths like:  

-  working with very bright people

-  a palpable commitment to high quality work

-  deep technical expertise

-  and being extremely capable of delivering.

  

They also face challenges faced by many executive teams in large companies, like: 

-  sustaining a shared clarity about the big picture

-  culling myopic or reactive execution practices

-  navigating the growing size and complexity of their organization

-  and working smarter rather than harder.

So why am I so optimistic about their ability to excel? 

Because in the midst of yet another hard charging week, they exercised a discipline that helps Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and other business notables out-lead, out-innovate and out-sustain the competition.  They took time out to think together.  

As Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, wrote:  "...if you don't take the time to think proactively you will increasingly find yourself reacting to your environment rather than influencing it. The resulting situation will inevitably require far more time (and meetings) than thinking strategically would have to begin with."

Regularly carving out time to think is an essential but often elusive practice.  So how can you turn this good intention into a sustainable habit?  

Here are three approaches to consider:

Recognize the stigma of the alternative

"Uber-busy" used to infer "uber-important."  Increasingly, too busy is viewed as the new lazy.  Double parking appointments and running flat out through limitless days can make others question your commitment to high quality work.  As one 360 feedback source asked, "If he can't manage his schedule, how is he managing our function?"  

Curate your commitments

In other words, find ways to say no so that you can say yes.  What is it time for you to let go of, so that you have the bandwidth to do something better? Spending more of your day doing what only you can do increases the odds that you're utilizing your teams well. 

Design your time

Think about what doing your best work looks like.  Then find ways to link elements of the approach in this video to creating a habit of working that way:

Here's to You!

I get a kick out of being around people who are smart in different ways than I am - who have different kinds of interests and ambitions and impacts.  

It's invigorating to be around this capacity and learn from these mindsets and skills.

Which means that I'm very lucky - because as an executive coach I work daily with accomplished learners and leaders who like to work as hard as I do.  

They keep me constantly aware of how much more is possible.
  
Many times my work feels like a celebration:  of what my clients have learned and achieved and given to others - and how much more they will going forward.  

So this Quick Note will be my toast to them and to you:

Here's to the game changers

• the ones who persist in finding a better way
• and engaging others in making it happen.

Here's to the connectors

• who build networks that go up, down, sideways, and diagonally;
• who network to learn new perspectives and make new connections
• and who make sure that they give more than take along the way.

Here's to the long gamers

• who've learned that you can often get what you want - but maybe not quite in the way you thought you would;
• who know that if it's a worthwhile goal you persevere until you make it happen.
• Because living other people's goals doesn't work, but joining forces to meet a common goal does.

Here's to the listeners

• who understand how much more there is to really hear,
• who know how to draw out what others have to offer,
• and who make make time to listen for their own wisdom.

Here's to those that surprise themselves

• with what they realize they've accomplished;
• and then get curious, and then determined
• and ready to find out what they'll learn as they take on their next challenge.

Here's to you!

The Little Secret Good Coaches Know

Good executive coaches know a little secret about the goals you focus on during your work together:  it's not about the goals.  Accomplishing the goals you set is important, but the goals are achieved in service of a more valuable and enduring outcome.  It's really about what you learn about yourself as a leader, and the new habits you build, as you pursue the goals.

Strategists in the workplace see this dynamic playing out often:

• It's not just about the promotion; it's about the leadership skills, relationships, and experience you develop to become promotable.
• It's not just about your team's performance targets; it's about how they have to learn to collaborate, communicate and be accountable to each other to achieve them.
• It's not even about increasing your sales;  it's about learning to hear your market's voice, recognize emerging needs and build the kind of reputation that produces strong sales.

So the next time you're confronted with an over-stuffed calendar, deciding what to tackle first, look for the bigger impact. Assess each item, asking 

• "What will accomplishing this help me learn, or do better?" or
• "How could I approach this in a way that helps me achieve a bigger goal?"  

And then, after considering your answers, go for the bigger win.

Earning Optimism

There's a distinctive form of optimism shaping the mindsets of successful innovators.

  

It's more of a "follow your learning" than "follow your bliss" expectation.  This form of optimism is earned.  It's a by-product of taking on the big goals, managing through ambiguous situations and living by your results.  Knowing that you'll incorporate successes and failures and keep pressing forward fuels a grounded confidence.

Earned optimism is shaped by curiosity.  The kind of curiosity that compels you to keep asking questions, to find and learn from people who are different from you, to tinker and experiment until you get it right, and to commit to success.  Even if you're not 100% sure of what the success will look like ... yet.

In an interview in the Paris Review, Ray Bradbury said:

"I don't believe in optimism. I believe in optimal behavior. That's a different thing.... Test it. Find out. You don't know - you haven't done it yet. You must live life at the top of your voice!  At the top of your lungs shout and listen to the echoes....

Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you've done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I'll be damned, I did this today. It doesn't matter how good it is, or how bad - you did it. At the end of the week you'll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I'll be damned, it's been a good year."

What will strengthen your optimism today?

Innovation Leadership, With A Twist

You've learned core practices that build strong leadership, like setting the stage for your team's success, concentrating on what matters most, and leading by example.

  

Innovation leaders have the same kinds of practices, but they use them with a twist.

Innovation leaders set the stage for their teams by 

• consistently exposing them to new ideas and experiences
• protecting time to think
• building networks that include many different points of view
• and creating other interesting intersections, because that's where creativity occurs.

Innovation leaders pay particular attention to

• finding and spotlighting good questions
• looking for something they hadn't picked up on before
• seeing ways to create new combinations
• and highlighting the potential within fledgling ideas.

Innovation leaders set a distinctive personal example, of

• commitment to and passion for their work
• active experimentation, and effective uses of failure
• combining, building and improving upon ideas
• and celebrating once again finding an even better way.

If you want to build a stronger culture of innovation, start by noticing which of these practices come most naturally to you and then find ways to do them more, better or in combination with something new. 

  

Many innovation leadership practices are already in your grasp, you just have to use them with a twist.

In-the-Moment Strategic Thinking

What's your first response in situations like  -  when an employee suggests a new, and somewhat risky, approach -  or a colleague is late with materials you need  -  or a customer requests a cut in rates? To stack the odds in your favor, don't respond to the situation.   Instead, think about the impact you want to create with your response,  and then choose your response. To paraphrase Peter Bregman, this means moving from the typical pattern of:        situation > response > outcome to:        situation > outcome > response. For example, when that employee suggests the new and risky approach (situation) if you want more of the status quo (outcome),  shoot the idea down (response). But if you want to encourage new and better ideas (outcome), have a PPCO conversation (response):             Plusses:  note what you like about the idea,             Potentials:  find ways to extend or build upon the idea,             Concerns:  only then - identify the drawbacks,             Opportunities:  and discuss ways they might be overcome. Responding to the outcome you want, rather than the situation itself, can help you amplify positive events and redirect less positive ones.        The more you practice a situation > outcome > response approach,  the more natural this in-the-moment strategic thinking will become, and the more time you'll spend on creating the outcomes that matter most.