Author Archives: Mitch Ditkoff

About Mitch Ditkoff

Mitch Ditkoff is the Co-Founder and President of Idea Champions, an innovation consulting and training company, headquartered in Woodstock NY. He is also a big believer in the inspired words of Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a handful of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, that’s all that ever has.” Follow him @mitchditkoff

36 Awesome Quotes on Time

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GUEST POST from Mitch Ditkoff

The biggest excuse people make about why they can’t innovate is the lack of time. Really?

  1. “Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is to say ‘I don’t want to.'” – Lao Tzu

  2. “To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.” – Leonard Bernstein

  3. “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” – H. Jackson Brown

  4. “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” – Albert Einstein

  5. “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”- Abraham Lincoln

  6. “Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

  7. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

  8. “Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion.” – Eckhart Tolle

  9. “Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.” – Jim Rohn

  10. “Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.” – William Shakespeare

  11. “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” – William Penn

  12. “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.” – Henry David Thoreau

  13. “Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” – Henry Van Dyke

  14. “You may delay, but time will not.” – Ben Franklin

  15. “If you want work well done, select a busy man — the other kind has no time.” – Elbert Hubbard

  16. “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.” – Saint Augustine

  17. “Pick my left pocket of its silver dime, but spare the right — it holds my golden time!” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

  18. “Both young children and old people have a lot of time on their hands. That’s probably why they get along so well.” – Jonathan Carroll

  19. “My time is now.” – John Turner

  20. “All my possessions for a moment of time.” – Queen Elizabeth

  21. “What may be done at any time will be done at no time.” – Scottish proverb

  22. “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.” – Will Rogers

  23. “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” – Groucho Marx

  24. “I’ve been on a calendar, but I have never been on time.” – Marilyn Monroe

  25. “The surest way to be late is to have plenty of time.” – Leo Kennedy

  26. “A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours.” – Milton Berle

  27. “The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” – William Gibson

  28. “The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.” – Stephen Covey

  29. “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” – Henry David Thoreau

  30. “Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.” – Lord Chesterfield

  31. “In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is lacking.” – Sir John Lubbock

  32. “I am definitely going to take a course on time management — just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.” – Louis Boone

  33. “You will never ‘find’ time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.” – Charles Bruxton

  34. “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Altshule

  35. “Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose.” – Thomas Edison

  36. “The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something.” – Carl Sandburg

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20 Awesome Quotes on Beginning

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GUEST POST from Mitch Ditkoff

1.”Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  1. “There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth — not going all the way, and not starting.” – Buddha
  2. “Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” – Meister Eckhart
  3. “All great ideas and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.” – Albert Camus
  4. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
  5. “Beginnings are always messy.” – John Galsworthy
  6. “When there is a start to be made, don’t step over! Start where you are.” – Edgar Cayce
  7. “So many fail because they don’t get started — they don’t go. They don’t overcome inertia. They don’t begin.” – W. Clement Stone
  8. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” – Seneca
  9. “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” – Plato
  10. “The beginnings of all things are small.” – Cicero
  11. “What’s well begun is half done.” – Horace
  12. “Every exit is an entry somewhere else.” – Tom Stoppard
  13. “The person who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” – Chinese Proverb
  14. “No good ending can be expected in the absence of the right beginning.” – I Ching

  15. “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King
  16. “Beginning is easy — continuing hard.” – Japanese Proverb
  17. “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” – Louis L’Amour
  18. “The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette.” – Henry Hoskins
  19. “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” – St. Francis of Assisi

Thanks to Val Vadeboncoeur for locating these quotes.

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When Innovation Best Practice is Worst Practice

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GUEST POST from Mitch Ditkoff

I’m a collector of best practices. I like to find out what forward thinking individuals and organizations have done to accomplish extraordinary results.

Sometimes I share these stories in my keynotes or workshops.

Invariably, my stock rises when I tell these stories. People think I know stuff. They get giddy. They take notes. They think about how to adapt these best practices to their organization.

But then things get weird.

People start becoming satisfied with emulating other people’s lives. Instead of thinking up their own best practices, they imitate. Ouch!

The spirit of innovation gets replaced by the religion of innovation.

Gone is reflection. Gone is the process of discovery. Gone is the ownership that comes with birthing new insights. In it’s place? Simulation. Imitation. And, all too often, the blind following of pre-packaged solutions.

I’m not saying there isn’t value in paying attention to other people’s best practices. There is.

But when when imitation replaces creation, something invariably gets lost — and innovation eventually goes down the drain.

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12 Ways to Make Bad Decisions

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GUEST POST from Mitch Ditkoff

There are three things that continue to astound me about most organizations: The cro-magnon way performance reviews are done; the pitiful way brainstorm sessions are run and; the voodoo way decisions are made. What follows is an elaboration of the third — twelve all-too-common phenomena that contribute to funky decision making. (As you read, think about the teams you work most closely with — and which of these behaviors describes them).

  1. Selective Search for Evidence: Gathering facts that support pre-determined conclusions, but disregard other facts that support different conclusions.

  2. Premature Termination of Search for Evidence: Accepting the first alternative that looks like it might work.

  3. Inertia: Being unwilling to change old thought patterns.

  4. Selective Perception: Prematurely screening out information not assumed to be useful.

  5. Wishful Thinking: Wanting to see things in a positive light.

  6. Recency Effect: Putting undue attention on recent information and experience while minimizing the value of information collected in the past.

  7. Repetition Bias: Believing what’s been stated the most often and by the greatest number of sources.

  8. Anchoring and Adjustment: Being unduly influenced by initial information that shapes your view of subsequent information.

  9. Group Think: Conforming to peer pressure or the opinions of the majority.

  10. Source Credibility: Rejecting input from sources prematurely judged to not be credible (or not “cool” or “in sync with the way you do business.”)

  11. Attribution Asymmetry: Attributing success to your team’s abilities and talents, but attributing failures to bad luck and external factors.

  12. Role Fulfillment: Conforming to the decision making expectations others have of someone in your position.

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The Good Thing About Bad Ideas

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GUEST POST from Mitch Ditkoff

One of the inevitable things you will hear at a brainstorming session is “there are no bad ideas.” Well, guess what? There are plenty of bad ideas. Nazism, for instance. Arena football. Bow ties.

What well-meaning “keep hope alive” brainstorming lovers really mean is this: Even bad ideas can lead to good ideas if the idea originators are committed enough to extract the meaning from the “bad”.

Do you think that War and Peace was written in one sitting? No way. There were plenty of earlier drafts that were horrid, but eventually led to the final outcome.

The key? To find the value in what seems to be a “bad idea” and then use that extracted value as a catalyst for further exploration. The following technique, excerpted from Awake at the Wheel, shows you how…

HOW IT WORKS:

  1. Bring a challenge, question, or problem to mind.
  2. Conjure up a really bad idea in response to it.
  3. Tell another person about your bad idea.
  4. The other person thinks of something redeemable about your bad idea — and tells you what it is.
  5. Using this redeemable essence as a catalyst, the two of you brainstorm new possibilities.

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Top 10 Reasons Why Some CEOs Sabotage Innovation

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GUEST POST from Mitch Ditkoff

There’s a huge gap between CEOs saying they want their companies to innovate and actually acting in a way consistent with what they say.

This lack of congruence drives internal change agents crazy, catatonic, or out the door. At the very least, it makes them cranky and unwilling to go the extra yard required to turn their inspired ideas into reality.

And so, as a public service to all of you out there whose CEOs are not walking the talk, here’s my TOP TEN reasons why not.

Choose one, align with some fellow change agents, and kick start the process of actually doing something about it.

  1. Innovation sparks dissonance and discomfort.

  2. Innovation is all about increasing variability. Most CEOs want to decrease variability and increase predictability.

  3. Results only show up long-term — not next quarter.

  4. CEOs conserve resources. Innovation requires more resources.

  5. Innovation flies in the face of analysis.

  6. Imbalance of right-brain and left-brain thinking.

  7. It’s not in the job description.

  8. Over-reliance on cost-cutting and incremental improvement.

  9. Inability to enroll a committed team of champions.

  10. Insufficient conviction that innovation will really make a difference.

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Christmas 2.0

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GUEST POST from Mitch Ditkoff

A fun peek into how the news would have gotten out differently 2,010 years ago if social media tools had been around. (Click full screen).

Thanks to David Passes for the heads up.

Editor’s Note: And for those of you who have already celebrated Hanukkah, here is a fun video – and if you celebrate Kwanza or any other winter holiday during this season, may the season be merry for you and yours! 🙂

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Who's Really Innovative?

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GUEST POST from Mitch Ditkoff

Here’s a real treat: Gary Hamel’s Who’s Really Innovative? article recently published on (in?) the Wall Street Journal blog.

Once again, the lucid, straight shooting, and refreshing Hamel, hits a home run — taking on the phenomenon of annual “most innovative companies” lists.

Hamel makes some very useful distinctions between the four different kinds of innovative companies: Tyros, Nobel Laureates, Artistes, and Cyborgs. Lots to learn here, including:

“If you want a measure of just how difficult it is to stay innovative, consider this: Two-thirds of the businesses on Fast Company’s 2009 list of the 50 most innovative companies didn’t make into the 2010 edition. When it comes to innovation, few companies stand on the winner’s podium for long.”

The paradox? By the time you finish reading Hamel’s article, at least three more publications will come out with yet another list of the most innovative companies of 2010.

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34 Awesome Quotes on Leadership

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GUEST POST from Mitch Ditkoff

  1. “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” – Peter F. Drucker
  2. “If you don’t understand that you work for your mislabeled ‘subordinates,’ then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.” – Dee Hock
  3. “A leader is best when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say ‘we did it ourselves.'” – Lao Tzu
  4. “The led must not be compelled; they must be able to choose their own leader.” – Albert Einstein
  5. “The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.” – Warren Bennis
  6. “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.” – Max DePree
  7. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams
  8. “The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.” – Eric Hoffer
  9. “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln
  10. “Lead and inspire people. Don’t try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead.” – Ross Perot
  11. “Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob.” – Oscar Wilde
  12. “All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” – John Kenneth Galbraith
  13. “Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.” – Harold S. Geneen
  14. “Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them.” – John Maxwell
  15. “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision.” – Theodore Hesburgh
  16. “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.” – Kenneth Blanchard
  17. “Leaders conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their petty preoccupations and unite them in pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts.” – John Gardner
  18. “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  19. “The ability to summon positive emotions during periods of intense
    stress lies at the heart of effective leadership.” – Jim Loehr
  20. “Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they
    will surprise you with their ingenuity.” – General George Patton
  21. As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” – Bill Gates
  22. “Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.” – Norman Schwarzkopf
  23. “I’m sad to report that in the past few years, ever since uncertainty became our insistent 21st century companion, leadership has taken a great leap backwards to the familiar territory of command and control.” – Margaret Wheatley
  24. “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” – Harvey S. Firestone
  25. “One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.” – Arnold Glasow
  26. “The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nader
  27. “You don’t lead by hitting people over the head. That’s assault, not leadership.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
  28. “Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.” – Stephen Covey
  29. “No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.” – Peter Drucker
  30. “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt
  31. “A leader is a dealer in hope.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
  32. “To be able to lead others, a man must be willing to go forward alone.” – Harry Truman
  33. “Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing.” – Albert Schweitzer
  34. “People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Big thanks to Val Vadeboncoeur for locating most of these quotes.

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Wake Up the Passion to Innovate

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GUEST POST from Mitch Ditkoff

Innovation is a big fat generic concept in most corporations — like life on other planets or ending the war in Iraq.

Unless the individuals within an organization have a genuine sense of urgency, personal ownership, and an authentic passion for innovation, nothing much will happen.

Innovation begins within the mind of each person. Corporate initiatives that fail to awaken the human instinct to innovate are doomed, no matter how many pep talks, tote bags, or t-shirts proliferate.

For me, as an innovation consultant, it is clear that the short amount of time I have with my clients needs to be devoted to awakening the passion to innovate.

Tools, techniques, theory, data, models, bibliographies, business cases, best practices, and the fabulous muffins served on breaks are all fine, but it is the passion to innovate that is the real driver of success.

No passion, no innovation. Plain and simple.

Unfortunately, most organizations squash passion. This is why start-ups have a much easier time innovating than Fortune 500 companies. And that’s why savvy Fortune 500 companies recreate the feeling of start-uppiness whenever they can.

The best thing any consultant can do when working with an organization is to hold up a mirror and ask their clients what they see.

Are they modeling what it means to be innovative? Or are they asking other people to do what they themselves have not done?

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