 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
WHAT WE MEAN BY: |
|
|
|
Creative License CEO's, teachers, moms, employees and entrepreneurs all have opportunities to activate their creativity everyday. Like the term "artistic license," creative license is about freedom - the freedom to imagine different possibilities, change the rules, think differently, and improvise in the face of new challenges. When you give yourself and others creative license, you encourage everyone to make suggestions, take risks, and experiment. You invite yourself and others to come up with new ideas and try those ideas out. And you increase the chances for extraordinary performance. Back to the top Back Home |
|
Building Innovation Capability When we talk about building innovation capability, we are talking about enhancing people's ability to envision, produce, test, and profit from new ideas and solutions. This implies more than just helping people come up with more quality ideas in a brainstorming session. It requires a deep and thorough look into the workings of a enterprise's creative process - including not only the generation of ideas but the processes for evaluating ideas and translating them into a portfolio of successful business ventures. And it involves a look at environmental and cultural conditions that restrict or liberate leverage points like empowerment, knowledge sharing, and conflict management. Back to the top |
|
a Learning Experience By a learning experience we mean a designed event (one moment, one day, three months, etc.) that engages people in an active process of learning. We are not talking about the passive transmission of static information from one person to another. In a learning experience, the participants do most of the work. Knowledge is constructed rather than received. And the situation is designed to require people to bring past experience to bear on new information - and emerge with a deeper and more adept level of skill and knowledge than was previously held. But not all experiences are educative. We believe that to be educative, a learning experience needs to connect with prior knowledge and optimize the quality of future behavior. It needs to lead to continuing growth - rather than impede growth. And it needs to improve people's power of judgment and their capacity to act intelligently in new situations. Back to the top |
|
a Knowledge Community We use the term knowledge community to mean a group of people who share a common body of information, skills, and practices to achieve their goals. Examples of such communities might include a group of high-tech software salespeople or all of the engineers within the aerospace industry. Although the goals and the ways that information is used by members in the community may be different, there is a common pool of valued, essential knowledge. Knowledge communities can be built, or they can form on their own. But not all knowledge communities are effective. We work with clients to assess the quality and effectiveness of both formal and informal knowledge communities. Back to the top |
|
Cultural Characteristics The culture of an organization - how things get done, what counts for success, and the shared beliefs and values that guide behavior - can be characterized by specific qualities and traits. For example, a company might be described as rigid or chaotic, as "close to the customer," or as "leading edge." People may be rewarded for things like consistency, ambition, or political acuity. And there may be underlying beliefs, like "I need to hide mistakes" that drive behavior. These kinds of factors contribute to the identity of any given culture. Sometimes the organization is aware of these characteristics, and sometimes they are invisible to members. And sometimes, underlying characteristics may thwart progress toward a new way of operating. Back to the top |
|
Creative Opportunism A colleague of ours often says "opportunity is not a lengthy visitor." In a future that demands more than just consistent or even excellent performance, creative opportunism ensures competitive advantage. When we say creative opportunism, we are talking about agility and adaptability in the creative process - the ability to turn on a dime to
Back to the top |
|
a Learning Product
We use the term learning product to mean the artifacts and tangible materials people have 'in hand' that stimulate learning. Examples of learning products might include a workbook, a website, an article or 'white paper', or a fun 'take-away' that somehow captures the essence of what has been learned. Learning products can be self-facilitated, or require the presence of an instructor. We believe that to be most effective, learning products should have value both in the present and in the future. Therefore, we strive to create tools and set of learning materials that help people learn now, remind them of what has been learned later, and help them share that learning with others. Back to the top |
|
Six Specific Conditions that enable individual change Based on research and on our experience working on organizational change efforts, we have identified six specific conditions that, if present, encourage people to make desired changes.
Back to the top |