Category

Leadership

Mar 03
0
Fix inefficiency at work

Fix Inefficiency at work in 5 Steps

By | Blog, Leadership | No Comments

To be efficient at work, you need many avenues for the various day-to-day operations and tasks that may be assigned to you. Here are some practical ways to stay on track:

1. Plan ahead
Are you and your team prepared for the day, week, and month? Is there clear guidance for what you will be taking care of? What about the projects and daily tasks that need to be handled? Don’t fret, there are some simple ways to stay on task and keep your team on task (without annoying everyone). Use a platform for open communication and establish guidelines upfront. No one wants to be surprised with something they didn’t know or weren’t aware of. By setting the expectations upfront and providing clear guidelines, you will prevent misunderstandings and mishandlings.
Allow the team to have a plan and ask your team how much time you need and they need to complete “X” tasks.

2. Ask questions
Always allow your team to have a voice. By asking questions and allowing the team to ask questions, you give way to open communication and set a tone of acceptance. Never scold or demean a team member, even if you are frustrated. It could be due to the lack of item #1 (above), wrong assumptions, or unclear expectations. By setting an example and making sure your team asks for assistance, you can alleviate any misunderstandings about how efficient you or your team are.

3. Set the tone for “open communication”
To fix efficiency at work, allow for open communication, and with that, make it manageable. No one wants to constantly be told what to do. By allowing open communication with clear expectations, you can fix many efficiency problems. To start, have an open communication channel and also allow your team to ask for help as needed. Sometimes, if you are not heading down the right path, this channel can steer you back to what is necessary to complete your company’s goals. For example, if you have an assistant who doesn’t seem to be working efficiently, have this person explain her plan to complete the tasks you need assistance with. Make sure this person knows that you are available for help, and when the item is due.

4. Update your technology
For some reason, we tend to think last of technology when considering efficiency. However, one cannot be more in a hurry when the tools are obsolete, overworked, and probably way past their reasonable use. When you have essential business processes that can benefit from newer technology, it’s time to do something about it. This can lead to huge time savings.
A couple of action points you could take: first, write down the technology you are currently using, review each component and check if they are working well for the intended business processes. Second, assess the time and cost savings that could result from upgrading each technology component, making a comparison with the cost of upgrading. And third, research new technologies with the highest potential to make a positive impact: are there any new hardware or software tools that could help you do things better, faster, or even automate things altogether?

5. Fix errors
Studies show that 37% of workers say their workday is wasted trying to fix other people’s mistakes. This not only wastes your employees’ time and productivity but can escalate and lead to unhappy customers. First things first: get to the bottom of it and identify the source of error. Then find out the most common reasons why this error happens. And the last step is to discuss with experts in your team the topic of how to reduce the number of errors and create action points to implement ideas they’ve suggested.
Let’s keep in mind that errors happen, however, we have to do our best to proactively prevent them in order to save time, money, and unnecessary stress.

As you think about these 5 areas, realize that communication is the best way to keep an engaged, efficient, and happy team.
What has been your experience with inefficiency at work and how did you approach the situation?

 

Dec 04
0
human resources

The Human in ”Human Resources”

By | Blog, Leadership, Recruiting | No Comments

Human resources are the most important of all the resources of a business. But is it easy to get the right people on-board?
83% of employers believe attracting and retaining talent is a growing challenge.

A people strategy as an integral part of the strategic business planning process can only be created by a forward-thinking leadership team. Functional organizations shape their plans to meet workforce needs, always keeping in mind that the most important competitive advantage is the ability to attract and retain the best professionals in the market.

“You don’t build a business. You build people, and people build the business.” -Zig Ziglar

Treat people like people

Though, in all this process, and with all this technology in use, how do you best treat people like people?
-> Make the environment more friendly.
Your employees aren’t just a number on the financial book or robots at the help desk. Maybe having a personalized desk, or create a personality badge based on assessments that might help each other know better among the team, or a coffee corner where they can socialize could make the place more welcoming.

-> Remember birthdays
Whether your employee enjoys gifts or not, a simple card with birthday wishes, shows you care. Why not pen something personalized? Remember that theater he/she mentioned last week he would love to attend to, but the working hours don’t allow it? It’s not difficult to recognize someone’s birthday, nevertheless, it makes all the difference.

-> Understand an employee’s job duties
Remember the Undercover boss TV series, where the employer puts himself in the employee’s shoes? Well, you can learn a lot from this kind of experience and surely gain a lot by understanding his day-to-day activities.

-> Keep their interests in mind
As we talk about being human, this means we have interests. Making a list with every person’s interests can help you know your employees better, and why not, to bring them up during their personal development sessions. Their abilities in a new or different direction than what they’re currently doing could very well tell you what they expect from their careers, and how they might fit in future upcoming projects, or to simply help in choosing a present for their birthday.

These are a few examples to inspire you and to help keep the human in “Human Resources”!

Reach out to us to learn more!

Mar 02
0
How can a manager best motivate his team

What Motivates Someone to do Their best, and how can a Manager best Motivate his team/ Employees?

By | Blog, Leadership | No Comments

Motivation has a lot to do with a few factors: source (why), time (when) & space (where), and outcomes (what). The first two are for context and in my view are important to get a deeper understanding of what motivates people, and if you’d like to have the “what can I use now “ part, you can just skip to “3. Outcomes”.

  1. Source

It would be superficial to assume motivation is just external – i.e. I give someone a bonus that will motivate them, if I create the right environment, everyone will be motivated to be productive, etc.

In our experience, intrinsic motivation comes prior to external motivation. Take for instance the case of a person going to work from 9 am–5 pm. Why do they do it? Is it the salary? Yes, and why are they motivated to have a/that salary? It’s the level of comfort given by an income, not having to worry about tomorrow. It might be that the person is motivated to start their own business and needs the assurance of a fixed income until the business is up and running. Yes, and why are they motivated to have their own business? It can very well be a sense of independence, fulfillment, and happiness.

That’s why before you can pinpoint someone’s motivation, think of what is their true (intrinsic) motivation. Most of us don’t go flaunting these hidden motivations around. Someone else (say a manager) will not have access to them unless you see in them a genuine interest in what motivates you. In essence, not unless they win your trust first, the basis of human relationships.

External motivation is typically tied to an action/outcome that can be more or less evident.

For instance, the less evident one is when you try to motivate children to walk and you applaud them at every step they take so that they feel the happiness of having progressed. Although they might not be aware of the connection between the applause and their increasing ability to walk, they instinctively pursue the external motivation by repeating what caused it. (I’m not a psychologist, we just have kids!)

The obvious one is clearly defined with cause and effect (finite as opposed to the intrinsic such as happiness). When our annual revenues reach a certain amount, you get a certain bonus. If your performance assessment indicates that you’ve reached all of your goals, you will be provided with an award and a cash bonus. You’ve done well in the past couple of years, and your manager tells you that you’re being promoted (recognized) for your hard work.

Understanding the source of motivation is pretty straightforward, and there are plenty of books and research done on this topic.

However, a simple strategy is to just ask “why” until you have a hard time providing an answer, or know that there’s no deeper level (i.e. like happiness).

  1. Time and Space

Throughout our career, motivation changes with each time period and place we are in. The first job after graduation might be all about making ourselves valuable, earn a good salary, building our knowledge and expertise beyond a piece of paper, and gather as many wins in a renowned organization. Once we go past our second or third role, we first start thinking about where we could have the most impact, how long it would take to grow enough to become the next best version of ourselves and finally it would be great if we could earn an even better compensation. You’ll notice people taking time periods of 3–5 years to plan their career.

Time and space influence what motivates us. As a manager, you must be aware of the kind of time period and space that each person in your team is in. Some might have just joined your team right out of school and some others might be experienced professionals that can already bring a certain set of knowledge and expertise. For instance, the recent graduate employees might be motivated by working with the more experienced professionals in your team. And the more experienced professionals might be motivated by the possibility to coach and mentor some of the young team members.

  1. Outcomes

Whether intrinsic or external, motivation always needs to be tied to outcomes.

However, understanding the time and space helps you correlate the right outcomes with the right motivation. When someone new comes in, be aware of the fact they are not going to be with you forever. They could be there for 2 years or 5 years. But for them to be motivated to give their best, you need to commit to helping them be their best, regardless of how long they’ll stick around.

  • Create a personal development path (i.e. not related directly to company performance requirements) for them with the sole purpose of enabling them to reach their potential and beyond. Make their job about them first, and your company second. It’s a counter-intuitive approach, but when your employees and teams are motivated by their own personal growth first, they will thrive in their jobs and bring results to the company. I like to call that “owning your job.” Even if they work for you today, when they walk out to take another job or open their own business, they leave with all of what they’ve learned, whether you like it or not. So better use that knowledge today to build a win-win situation. Meet regularly to review with the employee the progress of their personal development. This will help you discover the deeper way that feeds your employees’ motivation.

People are motivated to do their best when managers help them know what their best is.

  • Open up problem-solving and decision making to all of your team. Its double effect is a tremendous gold mine, that managers tap into so rarely. The first benefit is, of course, the potential of crowdsourcing ideas which can bring so much creativity to the table. Brainstorm, talk about them, turn problems around, and be ready to discuss any apparently crazy idea. The second benefit is the team’s motivation through empowerment. Your team will feel motivated because their manager acknowledges that everyone can contribute, can voice their ideas and be part of the solution. If you can, allow the winning idea to be implemented by the person in the team who came up with it!

People are motivated to do their best when managers give up on trying to be the best by themselves.

  • Set, measure and celebrate your team’s impact on your key indicators like client satisfaction, quality of service, a decrease in product returns, process improvement, and even your bottom line. Take time to quantify what performance impact looks like, and challenge them to get there. Start measuring and let them know when you see progress/milestones being achieved and where things didn’t go as expected. Recognize their effort, and challenge them to reach the next milestone. As you quantify the impact, people understand the connection between doing their best to the nitty-gritty details of an organization’s performance.

People are motivated to do their best when they can see or envision an outcome. It’s a manager’s responsibility to paint a vision of that outcome in as many details as possible, and let them know when they have gotten closer to it and by how much.

A motivation that isn’t aligned with your team members in mind is bound to be short-lived, and of little impact.

If you are already a manager or own a company, and have not considered motivating your team, switching to a culture of motivation might seem impossible.

The great news though is that you can tackle some of the possible and apparently impossible things in the real world. And we are advocates of starting small.

Start with building trust and transparency with your employees, without expecting anything in return. They will be skeptical at first. Repeat it every month, start writing down what you hear, holding them accountable to their own words (again, not performance items, but rather what they are good at, what they appreciate about the team, or environment or not, etc.) just by asking (not imposing). Then find out whether there’s anything you can help them with: to either help them grow or integrate some of their personal objectives in what they do at work (if possible). And finally, when you are able, help them see their potential when they can’t.

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”

― Theodore Roosevelt

Schedule a chat with us to start the conversation about your future employees.

Oct 05
0
Threat or opportunity

Skills gap | Threat or Opportunity?

By | Blog, Career, Future of work, Job, Leadership, Recruiting | No Comments

Even in a world flooded with information accessed at a distance of a “click” – one that fuels a competitive and constantly changing global economy – the workforce market is faced with a widespread challenge: the lack of skills required to tackle today’s business environment. How do we go about solving this issue?

The global competition demands a different skill set

Technology has changed the way the world is connected. Competition is global and it doesn’t matter where you are located on the map: Romania, India, US, etc. because you have lots of competitors for the same market share and talent. As a result, there is a constant need for skills in the market. Employers have high expectations and want to see a strong mix of a positive attitude towards work, technical knowledge, proactivity, solving issues in a timely manner, entrepreneurial skills, and social skills. Young graduates have fewer chances to get hired, as their current skills (or lack of them) don’t fit employers’ reality.

Studies show that around 80% of graduates work in a different field than the one they have graduated from. Still, they invest energy, time and money to graduate from a University and obtain a degree that they thought would be key to enter the marketplace.

And that raises the question: “Where is the disconnect?”

How do young graduates get a dream job when organizations don’t give them a chance?

The idea is simple – employers don’t want to invest in graduates if they don’t have the required experience. The reason? The risk for new hires changing their jobs right after having been trained is significant, especially with so many available jobs on the market. This pushes employers right back to square one.

Why not change the Educational System?

Young people go to universities with the hope that after getting their degree they can enter the workforce right away and bring value to it with their fresh enthusiasm. Disappointment sets in quite rapidly when they face reality: the market does not accept them unless they are properly prepared. All starts from the ground-up: the Education System, which offers too much theory and insufficient practice.

Now what?

To begin thinking about a solution there are 3 key matters that need our attention:

(1) restoring communication between universities and organizations in the marketplace, thus offering students the chance to get prepared for what the marketplace actually needs;

(2) keeping the information always accurate and in accordance with the demand;

(3) offering them practical training while still in school, by implementing a strategy in which internships are a significant part of the grading system, right from their first year of studies.

Both companies and young graduates would benefit from this.

There is a significant amount of change that needs to be done if we want to see graduates find jobs that they can bring value to from day one. It boils down to teaching students what they really need to thrive in a global market, and focus their educational process on pragmatic skills (i.e. problem-solving, creative collaboration, effective communication, thinking out of the box), not just theory. That can only be achieved with the help of organizations that need to transfer back into education the very skills that they wish to see in graduates.

Let’s get to work!

Oct 05
0

Will Talent make or Break the Future of your Organization?

By | Blog, Future of work, Leadership, Recruiting | No Comments

The concept of Talentism has been coined down by Charles Schwab (founder of the World Economic Forum) back in 2012 as being the only logical era to replace capitalism. Capital has been one of the key drivers for the industrial era, fueling technology innovations as well as the development of private companies to carry out the entire process from product creation to market delivery as opposed to being state-owned and state-driven. This improved productivity and enabled consequent competitive advantages that stood for a few decades.

The New Economy is not fueled by capital, but rather by talent.

Whereas capital is important, it is no longer the presence of it that significantly influences the potential to succeed of an organization. It was capital that made it possible for the main technologies to taken certain industries from zero to one: i.e. the steam engine which multiplied the potential of many industries tenfold. Information technology plays a significant role as well being among the revolutionary advances (i.e. 3D printing – which leads the democratization and digitization of manufacturing), being considered by some economists as one of the general purpose technologies along the telegraph and the steam engine.

In the era of Talentism, talent becomes the driver for many of the advances that revolutionize industries (i.e. Uber, Airbnb, Tesla). We can see its impact when creativity, combined with the proper skills, tools, and information technology creates tremendous organizations (i.e. see Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc.) These no longer find themselves in the areas of activity that they initially started but have become organizations with a mission to change the world (see Google that started as a search engine trying to take the lead on autonomous cars, or Facebook – a social media platform – trying to take the Internet to everyone on the planet, just to mention a few).

None of these companies lack the capital. In fact, they have a significant amount of cash available on their hands. However, by far, they are in a group for themselves (although some consider them to be monopolies), which exist by the sheer advantage that their talent has given them. A competitive advantage that took them by an order of magnitude in technology beyond their competitors.

Talent and the future of work

Now that organizations have understood the importance of talent they are faced with the challenge of the skills gap. It has pushed them to find new ways to source talent, primarily by giving up on geographical limitations, switching to a remote work relationship (either from home or through outsourcing to vendors operating in nearshore or offshore models). That opens up a whole new way of working, bringing up other quasi-challenges such as finding the right communication means (i.e. phone, text chat, conference meetings), switching to cloud software platforms, adjusting for cultural variations, or time-zone differences. Other solutions may be found through freelancers or collaborative workspaces/hubs.

Never before was the future of work so interconnected with the past. Social media platforms provide a network of information, organizations, and individuals who can easily be accessed to locate the right talent, vet them through references and even carry out background checks.

The future of work also calls for professionals to consider that an education is not an insurance that guarantees a successful career throughout their lives. On the contrary, professionals need to be open to life-long learning alternatives (i.e. certifications or online course platforms) and developing an alternate primary skill. This gives way to varied work opportunities and increases their flexibility to switch from one project to another.

Talentism is changing the face of businesses around the world as they strive to become and stay competitive in the New Economy. How will you take advantage of the vast array of talent available across the world?

I would love to hear your experience about capital versus talent. How have both shaped your strategy in the past 5 years? How about the next 5-10 years?

Leave your comments below, and don’t hesitate to contact SourceMatch about how we can help you leverage talent for your organization.

Oct 05
0

Why Should any Service Provider care About your Business?

By | Blog, Future of work, Leadership, Recruiting | No Comments

1. You don’t like outsourcing providers, here’s why

In today’s marketplace outsourcing has lost its attractiveness and benefits as a strategic decision. That is mainly due to a lack of business fit between the client and the provider of services. Not only those expectations are rarely met, but apathy becomes the status quo throughout the delivery of each process. Providers are merely fulfilling a job description which significantly shakes the client’s interest in a long terms relationship.

2. They’re missing the point

The key to this uncomfortable and unfortunately costly situation is neither a tighter legal framework, tighter control, more experts on the provider’s side, or revamped performance metrics. It all comes down to the provider’s understanding of the client’s vision, mission, objectives, values, and organizational culture. This can only occur when both the client and provider invest effort into more than a buy-sell relationship: a partnership.

3. Walking the extra mile is not old-fashioned

In such a context, the provider steps into a role of responsibility focused on acting as an extension of the client’s team. This role requires to care for more than what’s agreed within the service level agreement: walking the extra mile. That means taking initiative in building the success of the client’s activities, collaborating with genuine interest, and consistently delivering quality and performance despite business complexities.

4. Seeing the big picture without leaving the premises

At the same time, the provider ought to carefully and objectively analyze the client’s processes, as a result of their constant focus on added value. Within the lifetime of such a partnership, changes will occur in the client’s processes and tools with results such as increased standardization, automation of certain service stages, higher autonomy on non-recurrent projects, and deeper knowledge of products/services.

5. Start with the right tactical steps

Either you are already scaling up or just beginning to think about growth, outsourcing is a strategic decision that can give you the required boost, and doesn’t need to be a nightmare. Clear cut expectations, strategies, and degree of communication will help you lay out the essential platform to a successful outsourcing partnership.

What are your thoughts about outsourcing? What has been your experience? What was it that made your outsourcing relationship work?

Oct 05
0

Do you Consider Intellectual Capital an Asset for your Company?

By | Blog, Leadership, Recruiting | No Comments

What does intellectual capital actually represent?

Intellectual capital can be defined as all the knowledge in the company owned by employees. In other words, intellectual capital is the collective knowledge that can give your business a competitive advantage.

So why should you invest in your people?

You always have to remember that people represent the most important asset in your company emphasizing the fact that if your company is a services company people represent the most powerful tool that your company has. You have to be aware that trainings and continuous investment in your people grows your overall company knowledge. People are the ones who create the intellectual capital of your company. Intellectual capital is knowledge, and knowledge will produce innovation, improvements and eventually profit.

It`s the people who can drive your business towards profit or loss, they have the power to gain new customers, create new products and improve your business. Intellectual capital is the combined value of one company’s people.

Why should you protect your work?

Intellectual capital is becoming a critical part in many companies today in order to obtain an economic growth and innovation, as the different types of intangible assets of a business are often more important and valuable than its tangible assets.

One of the main things regarding intellectual capital is to decide whether you want to protect it or make it “open source” so anyone can have access to it. There are several ways to protect your company’s work depending on the type of protection your company needs.

Which are some reasons you should do this?

** You can protect the way in which a particular idea is expressed
** You can prevent illegal transmission of your work
** You are able to decide how your protected work can be used
** When you protect your work you are making a public claim or record that you have the sole authority over a particular work
** If you protect a work you can sell it
** You will have the power to sell or transfer your creative work and make it available to people who wish to reproduce it for some purpose

Another aspect to be taken into consideration is Intellectual Property (IP) as intellectual capital is a superset of IP, meaning that a company may be able to obtain competitive advantage without IP, but it cannot obtain competitive advantage without intellectual capital.

What are the reasons in your business to use Intellectual Property rights?

** Offers protection over your IP against a competitor that could copy your products or use your innovations;
** Helps to differentiate your brands through highlighting the peculiarity of each of them – creating a strong brand identity;
** The commercial value of your company is increased;
** Through IP transactions, like licensing and franchising, a company can gain revenues and ensures that entrepreneurs get all the financial benefit from their ideas;
** New markets become available as IP rights provide a basis for business partnerships, like outsourcing, open innovation, marketing, research etc.;
** IP assets that have legal protection can be valued and leveraged to obtain financing or venture capital, enabling more money to be raised for development;
** Geographical markets are divided as in some countries IP owners can restrict goods from being transferred into another country in which they were also given IP right protection;
** Provides consumers the confidence that products are authentic and have the high-quality that they would expect;
** Encourage innovation and reward entrepreneurs for taking risks in developing new innovations.

Statistically speaking, in countries with a high-income level, intangible investments exceed tangible investments meaning that IP is important to enable a company drive economic growth and competitiveness. Innovation is one of the key driving forces, followed by economic competencies and computerized information.

stark-wipo-report

Source: WIPO – World Intellectual Property Report, 2013

Economical growth of a society is determined by the sum of values that compose it, including the human resources, through their most important asset, original creation – original output.

Intellectual capital can be compared with the roots of a tree, it is a hidden value that cannot be easily visible, although it is of vital importance. According to recent financial statistics, approximately 80% of the value of a company is made up of intangible assets and only 20% being made up of tangible assets.

How important is intellectual capital for your organization? How do you deal with it? Share your thoughts and comments!

Oct 05
0

Creativity and your Bottom line

By | Blog, Career, Future of work, Job, Leadership, Recruiting | No Comments

You need creativity more than you think

In our last post we looked at two important concepts: the New Economy and Talentism. Both of them have a lot to do with Creativity, which is as we’ll see “a catalyst for” and “a result of” innovation.

With every advancement, technology has reached into almost all areas of life, starting from communication, to cooking and driving. And as we’re well accustomed, iterations of each product amplify the pressure over the consumer to comprehend all its new features and how to use them. We’re bombarded with so many new things that reach out into our brain for our attention as well as our capacity to learn and adapt. Such complexity is what pushes us to transition towards new technologies and the realities that ensue (i.e. 3D printing, hyper-connectedness, robotics and automation, the new paradigms of work). The paradox is how the same innovators strive to showcase all of these complexities in a light of simplicity and thus alleviate any resistance, enhance the product’s market acceptance and rate of adoption.

stark-innovationThus, creativity acts as a catalyst for innovation through its sheer usefulness in the problem-solving process (i.e. answering a need in the market). Simultaneously, it succeeds innovation by demystifying new technologies for their intended audience.
This is why organizations that want to stay on top of their game in the New Economy need to breathe creativity. But how does that relate to Talent(ism)?

What drives creativity?

Access to resources – take for instance artists that have created art as they had access to various tools, materials, fine wood, paint, silver, gold, etc. The same principle applies today when you consider easy access to information, software, hardware, knowledge, training, and continuous education. How would high-end engineers be capable to innovate without a proper workbench, laboratory and state-of-the-art technology at their fingertips? How do you expect your teams to improve your business processes without the proper understanding of the principles of quality management methodologies such as Six Sigma and Lean?

Thinking outside the box or allowing yourself to be disrupted from your standard line of thought – we all like status quo, who doesn’t? It’s comfortable and cozy. If we want to create, we should put ourselves out there where we’re being challenged to think differently. Read books that are out of your usual knowledge areas, take on projects that just seem like you’re taking a big leap of faith and work towards shortening the gap of knowledge/experience, meet with people that do things differently or are labeled as outliers in your industry and learn from them what it takes to go through uncharted paths, or in two words: Be curious!

An environment that encourages ideas out of the ordinary and idiosyncrasies – this asks for high tolerance to failure and a quasi-safety net (note: not risk aversion) in the form of preventive actions for new and unconventional initiatives. Nowadays, especially with the tech startup scene the later seems to be rarer (to my surprise) since all of the great innovations had strong prior planning. What would change your organization, product, service or whatever you’re involved in by a few orders of magnitude?

stark-math

Exposure to as many interactions in the work environment as possible (open to listening, helping, being empathetic) is quintessential to creativity. The advantage of collaborative teams, spaces, organizations is by far their diversity giving way to creative problem-solving. This is also an indication for organizations to focus on socio-cultural diversity that enables divergent thoughts and decision processes. Take the classic example of coffee shops – why are they such a great place to come up with ideas? They encourage bohemian interaction and collaboration, as well as the allure of frugal creativity. Basically, it gives anyone the liberty to dream at no additional cost – everything is possible! Are our organizations creating this kind of environments?

The pivotal factor

Beyond a much longer list of drivers for creativity, people have a critical role, and especially decision makers in organizations who need to be responsible for facilitating creativity. Although the traditional model of a boss-run organization is extremely spread, it has become clear that it’s not a sustainable one. And seriously, who wants to rely on just one person to grow and develop an organization? It’s about time that leaders and managers would stand behind their teams encouraging them to think for themselves and to switch from an employee mindset towards an owner mindset. A reversed model of tapping into everyone’s talent, skills and experience so as to stir a sense of ownership for breakthrough ideas and initiatives, taking them from “aha” moments, to debates, to chiseled project plans, and down to bottom line impact.

Practical ideas

  1. Leaders educating their organizations about the cause-effect relationship between creativity and financial bottom line using concrete examples, and how that can contribute to their own well-being. Leaders and key decision makers need to realize that growing profits without a direct benefit to those who drive them isn’t sustainable (Dare I say: it’s even destructive?).
  2. An informal team commitment to personal development, while members hold each other accountable (i.e. reading books, listening to podcasts). Same as organizations, people need to “upgrade” themselves and to continuously learn. Does it help the organization? Probably it does, but in the end, it’s an investment in themselves, which they take further wherever they go (Disclaimer: I’m not saying that people should not stay with your organization forever)
  3. An informal coaching environment in which people will teach one another using a quasi-structure of information and knowledge, starting from their own expertise. This process may appear to be simple – it’s not. It puts people in a position in which they need to find the best means to transfer their knowledge onto others who might not interact with it on a regular basis. And it boils down to one question: how do you take your knowledge and reduce it down to an essence that your teammates can gather in max 30 minutes?

I’m convinced that this post just scratches the surface about the subject of creativity, and you’re encouraged to contribute with your own experience, observations and questions.