Everyone is creative: we can all innovate given time, freedom, autonomy, experience to draw on, perhaps a role model to emulate and the motivation to get on with it.
But there are times when even the most creative person gets bored, starts going round in circles, or hits a cul-de-sac. So here are 7 unusual creativity boosters that research has shown will increase creativity.
Whether you know it or not, you are already doing driver-based budgeting and forecasting with your spreadsheets today, but in a very restricted fashion, with only one primary driver, typcially ‘headcount’ for most line items, and defaulting to a weighting of 100%. Not terribly sophisticated, not at all transformative, but ever since VisiCalc it’s been all we’ve had to work with.
Those days are now over.
Mike Tyson probably said it best: “Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.”
The future of business is the martial arts CEO, the jujitsu strategist. Far too many organizations approach business with an American football mentality, complete with scripted plays, huddles and time outs, but the real world isn’t quite so convenient and accommodating.
Put on your thick skin, your Kevlar vest — this blog post is not for the faint of heart.
The problem is not just that consumers find marketers unsavory, it is also that even within the company marketers get no respect.
The CEO wonders how you spend your time, the CFO wonders how you spend the company’s money, the sales folks think you’re too conceptual, too abstract, and not sufficiently focused on the immediate business, and the production and supply chain guys just think you’re full of hot air. So, we have a slight image problem. And where there is smoke…
… there must be mirrors.Let’s peer into one, and see what gives.
John D. Rockefeller modeled the organization of Standard Oil on the two models he knew to work: The United States Army and the Catholic Church. These are traditional hierarchical models, and hierarchy became the norm for company organizations for most of the 20th century. In this model, authority and accountability are everything. Ultimately, the chief executive has authority over all the employees of the company, and is accountable for all aspects of its performance.
The model sets aspiration for the individual. Having authority over a larger number of people is better than over a smaller number. Having a bigger budget is better than having a smaller one.
Dare we challenge this model?
Americans and Europeans don’t have a lock-up on gender equality issues, and work-life balance.
Women and men across Asia have a common focus: to climb up the corporate ladder.
In a study of 1,834 so-called “high-potential” employees at multinational firms across Asia, Catalyst, a nonprofit research firm that focuses on women in the work place, found that furthering their career is a top priority for both men and women – even as they want to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Differentiation has always been important, but what matters more over the long term is your company’s diligence—and creativity—in seeking it.
You can’t prevent your business model from eroding. But you can build a company that’s capable of managing business-model transitions. One way to do that, says Columbia Business School professor Rita Gunther McGrath, is to develop the habit of thinking creatively about differentiation. Here’s how.
Publicly traded companies issue annual reports that increasingly look like magazines. Almost all organizations publish a brochure with glossy pictures that describe what their organizations do. In either case they are very traditional, and many look the same. What is needed is a new idea – a better way to communicate their branding and positioning message in a similar way that international countries’ government tourist agencies promote their nations to attract tourists.
Follow us on a chronological “tour” with our “tour guide” Gary Cokins, who will explain how this fictional company, Mesdup (get it? as in Messed Up) relaunched itself into a successful brand by incorporating EPM measures.
What distinguishes strong from weak leaders?
Having all the knowledge means nothing without the right types of people. One person can make a big difference. They can be someone who somehow gets it altogether and changes the fabric of an organization’s culture not through mandating change but by engaging and motivating others.
[But] for some leaders irritating people is not only a sport but it is their personal entertainment.
Emerging markets are shifting the balance of economic power, and for multinationals, a “business as usual” approach will no longer suffice.
How can companies balance local autonomy with the need to achieve global scale and standardization? Does it even make sense to have a headquarters anymore? And where should the talent that runs the company come from? Such questions are critical, because they ultimately determine a company’s long-term viability. The answers, of course, are not universal, but in our work with multinationals, three key themes consistently emerge as enablers of success: a rebalanced organizational structure and operating model, more dispersed decision rights mechanisms, and an approach to leadership and people management that emphasizes diversity and local talent.