Category Archives: Leadership

Five Must Reads for 2025

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

‘Tis the season for “year in review” and “top 10 lists.” As fun (and sometimes frightening) as it is to look back, it is just as fun (and sometimes frightening) to look ahead. After all, as innovators, that is what we naturally do. So, in anticipation of the year ahead, here are 5 Must Reads to make 2025 far more fun than frightening.

(listed in alphabetical order by author’s last name so I can’t be accused of playing favorites)

Pay Up! Unlocking Insider Secrets of Salary Negotiation by Kate Dixon

This book is for everyone, especially… people who want to earn what they deserve
This book solves the problem of…the black box that is compensation and the fear of negotiating for what you’re worth
This book creates value by… Outlining a step-by-step system to:
- Understand key terms and concepts and apply them to your situation
- Research the information you need to confidently and competently negotiate
- Know what to say and do (and NOT say or do) in the moment
Why I love this book: Full disclosure – Kate and I are friends, so I’ve had a front-row seat to her wisdom and humor (how many compensation books invoke Beyonce?) and the jaw-dropping impact she gets for her clients. I’ve even gifted this book to others because I know it works!

Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work by Whitney Johnson

This book is for everyone, especially… people who are rethinking their careers and are ready for change
This book solves the problem of… knowing how to start redefining your career (and yourself)
This book creates value by… Turning Clayton Christensen’s Theory of Disruption into four principles for self-disruption, including:
- Identifying your disruptive strengths
- Stepping backward or sideways to grow
- Patiently waiting for your career (and legacy) to emerge
Why I love this book: Two quotes: (1) “Disruption starts as an inside game” and (2) “Constraints can be the perfect remedy if you are having a difficult time.”

Live Big! A Manifesto for a Creative Life by Rochelle Seltzer

This book is for everyone, especially… people who want to experience daily joy and creativity
This book solves the problem of…feeling stuck in the day-to-day reality of life, uncertain whit how to begin, and afraid to make big, drastic changes
This book creates value by… Offering 20 tips for:
- Becoming a person who Lives Big, including slowing down, aligning to your purpose, and being patient
- Acting big, including listening to your intuition, embracing change, and carrying on
- Savoring the small joys of life, including the gorgeous design of the book
Why I love this book: Rochelle’s Discovery Dozen exercise is a game-changer. I learned this tool when she was my coach, and I have continued to use it for everything from naming my business, to deciding if/when/how to act on an opportunity, and writing articles.

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Steiner

This book is for everyone, especially... busy managers who want to be better people leaders
This book solves the problem of…balancing hands-on management with team empowerment and individual development
This book creates value by… Guiding you through seven questions that help you:
- Work less hard while having more impact
- Break cycles of team overdependence and workplace overwhelm
- Turn coaching and feedback from an occasional formal event into a daily habit
Why I love this book: A copy of the 7 questions sits just below my monitor, reminding me to be curious, dig deeper, and that every decision is a choice to do one thing and not another.

Readers Choice!

It’s audience participation time! In the comments below, drop YOUR recommendation for a 2025 Must Read.

Bonus points for telling us:

Who it’s for
Problem it solves
Value it creates
Why you love it

Image credit: MileZero, Misterinnovation.com

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Building Trust for High Performing Teams

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Building Trust for High Performing Teams

GUEST POST from David Burkus

Trust is the bedrock upon which successful teams are built. High-performing teams are characterized by an elevated level of trust. This trust in high performing teams manifests in four distinct ways: teams trust each other to deliver, they trust that they can share new ideas, they trust that they can disagree, and they trust that they can make mistakes. Each of these aspects of trust contributes to the overall success and productivity of the team.

As a leader, it is your responsibility to set the tone and model trust within your team. This involves creating an environment where team members feel safe to share their ideas, voice their disagreements, and admit their mistakes. By doing so, you can foster a culture of trust that drives your team towards high performance.

In this article, we’ll review each type of trust in high performing teams and offer ways leaders can build each.

Teams Trust Each Other To Deliver

Trust in a team begins with the belief that each member will deliver on their commitments. This trust is built on clarity and understanding of each person’s role within the team. When team members understand how their work contributes to the overall team goals, they are more likely to feel accountable and deliver on their commitments. Lack of trust can manifest when people don’t know how their work fits into the team. This can lead to confusion, miscommunication, and ultimately, a failure to meet team objectives.

Regular team huddles can improve clarity and accountability, thereby fostering trust in the team’s ability to deliver. In huddles, the team meets at regular intervals to review progress, set new priorities, and discuss any potential roadblocks. Doing so as a team not only keeps everyone on the same page, over time it can instill a belief in each person that their teammates can deliver on their promises (assuming, of course, the teammates are actually delivering on their promises).

Teams Trust They Can Share New Ideas

High-performing teams are often characterized by their ability to generate and welcome new ideas. This requires a culture of trust where team members feel safe to share their out-of-the-box thinking. Diversity of experiences and perspectives can lead to innovative ideas that drive the team forward. But only if team members feel safe enough to share the innovative ideas that stem from their diverse perspectives.

Leaders play a crucial role in fostering this culture of trust. By modeling active listening and creating an environment where new ideas are considered and valued, leaders can encourage their team members to share their thoughts and contribute to the team’s innovation. When leaders demonstrate how to respect the new ideas of others, hearing them out fully, and discuss them, they not only teach the team how to do so but they send a message to everyone that “crazy” ideas are welcome here.

Teams Trust That They Can Disagree

Disagreements are a natural part of any team’s dynamics. As teammates from different backgrounds, perspectives or experiences discuss their problems or plan out critical tasks, they’re going to disagree on the best way forward. In low-performing teams, this conflict is often avoided, and ideas suppressed. However, in high-performing teams, disagreements are viewed as opportunities for growth and improvement. Team members trust that they can voice their disagreements and have their ideas challenged in a respectful and constructive manner.

Leaders can foster this trust by setting the tone for disagreements. When teammates speak up to disagree with a leader, it’s an opportunity to model respectful dissent and discussion. When teammates disagree with each other, it’s an opportunity for the leader to “referee” the conflict and establish ground rules for keeping conflict task focused. By welcoming disagreements and ensuring that everyone feels heard, leaders can create a safe space for constructive conflict and continuous improvement.

Teams Trust They Can Make Mistakes

Mistakes are inevitable in any team. Teams will make assumptions about the environment or get hit with unexpected changes. Failure on a team is unavoidable even on the highest-performing teams. In low-performing teams, failures quickly turn into blame sessions, which each member trying to save their own skin. However, in high-performing teams, mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities rather than failures. This requires a culture of trust where team members feel safe to admit their mistakes and learn from them.

In dysfunctional teams, people often hide their failures due to fear of judgment or exploitation. Leaders can counteract this by modeling vulnerability and admitting their own mistakes. This can help to build trust and create a safe environment for team members to learn and grow. When a team witnesses a leader taking responsibility for failure or admitting a shortcoming, they’re more likely to trust that leader in the future—and to trust each other.

Trust is the cornerstone of high-performing teams. It manifests in the team’s ability to deliver, share new ideas, disagree constructively, and admit mistakes. As a leader, it is your responsibility to foster this trust within your team. By setting the tone and modeling trust, you can create an environment where your team can thrive and do its best work ever.

Image credit: Pixabay

Originally published on DavidBurkus.com on October 30, 2023

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A Toolbox for High-Performance Teams

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Building, Leading and Scaling

A Toolbox for High-Performance Teams

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

Together with a client, we are developing a toolbox for building, leading, and scaling high-performance teams. We are about to begin the implementation phase and will share case stories in a few months, as there are valuable learnings in this process.

For now, you are welcome to use this toolbox. See the introduction and images below, and if you see a match, get in touch with your feedback and questions about utilization and implementation within your teams and organization.

Here’s a short overview of the toolbox. The attached images also provide a glimpse (let me know if I should send you an image deck with all of this combined):

Capability Gap Map

The Capability Gap Map tool helps identify and understand the current status, future desired position, and gaps that need to be filled across different focus areas. The key elements are 7-12 indicators that are prioritized, assessed today, and considered for the future position.

Steps for Using the Capability Gap Map:

Identify Indicators: Select 7-12 key indicators relevant to the focus area.
Prioritize Indicators: Rank the indicators based on their importance and impact.
Rate Current State: Assess the current state for each indicator.
Assess Future State: Define the desired future state for each indicator.
Develop Action Plans: Create a one-pager outlining short, mid, and long-term actions to bridge the gaps.

SEBL (Stop, Enhance, Borrow, Learn)

SEBL is a tool to help leaders and their teams understand what to Stop, Enhance, Borrow, and Learn based on the Capability Gap Map. This tool can spur reflections and help drive specific actions.

Steps for Using SEBL:

Stop: Identify and eliminate ineffective practices to free up resources and provide clarity.
Enhance: Improve what’s already working well, capitalizing on strengths.
Borrow: Look outward for inspiration and adapt successful practices from other sources.
Learn: Push boundaries, innovate, and introduce entirely new concepts or skills.

Action Overviews

The Action Overview is a short document for leaders and their teams to create an overview of their upcoming actions. It can be used for individuals as well as teams and is useful for sharing the current focus with team members and stakeholders to get feedback and leverage networks.

Steps for Action Overviews:

Focus & Description: Define your key action and relate it to your team’s objectives.
Expected Outcomes & Metrics/KPIs: Detail what you aim to achieve and the metrics to measure these outcomes.
Resources & Team Collaboration: Identify needed resources and potential for cross-functional collaboration.
Stakeholders: Identify relevant internal and external stakeholders and their attitudes toward the action.
Milestones/Deadline: Break down the action into manageable milestones, each with its own deadline.

Additional Tools

This toolbox is still in the early phases, and we are starting to implement it while developing other tools. If you are curious, we can also develop tailored Team Dynamics Cards, exercises, assessments, and other insights to support the above actions. You can access my library with over 250 images, 50+ cards on Team Dynamics and Leadership Growth, and more than 30 exercises. Custom materials can also be created for your teams or organization.

Feel free to use and share these tools. I look forward to your feedback and questions on implementing them within your teams and organization. If you’d like a complete image deck or more details, just let me know!

Image Credits: Unsplash, Stefan Lindegaard

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The Twelve Killers of Innovation

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A Corporate Carol About Why You’re Not Getting Results

The Twelve Killers of Innovation

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Last week, InnoLead published a collection of eleven articles describing the root causes and remedies for killers of innovation in large organizations. Every single article is worth a read as they’re all written by experts and practitioners whose work I admire.

I was also inspired.

In the spirit of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I gave into temptation, added my own failure mode, and decided to have a bit of fun.

The Twelve Killers of Innovation

(Inspired by the Twelve Days of Christmas yet relevant year-round)

On the twelfth day of innovating, management gave to me:

Twelve leaders short-term planning

Eleven long projects dragging

Ten cultures resisting

Nine decisions made too quickly

Eight competing visions

Seven goals left unclear

Six startups mistrusted

Five poorly defined risks

Four rigid structures

Three funding black holes

Two teams under-staffed

And a bureaucracy too entrenched to change

Want to write a happier song?

Each of the innovation killers can be fended off with enough planning, collaboration, and commitment. To learn how, check out the articles:

Twelve leaders short-term planning – 3 Examples of Why Innovation is a Leadership Problem by Robyn Bolton, MileZero

Eleven long projects dragging – Failing Slow by Clay Maxwell, Peer Insight

Ten cultures resisting – How to Innovate When Resistance is Everywhere by Trevor Anulewicz, NTT DATA

Nine decisions made too quickly – Red Light, Green Light by Doug Williams, SmartOrg Inc.

Eight competing visions – The Five Most Common Innovation Failure Modes by Parker Lee, Territory Global

Seven goals left unclear – Mitigating Common Failure Modes by Jim Bodio, BRI Associates

Six startups mistrusted – Developing a New Corporate Innovation Model by Satish Rao, Newlab

Five poorly defined risks – Strategic Innovation is too Scary by Gina O’Connor, Babson College

Four rigid structures – Corporate Innovation is Dead by Ryan Larcom, High Alpha Innovation

Three funding black holes – Failure Modes by Jake Miller, The Engineered Innovation Group

Two teams under-staffed – Why Innovation Teams Fail by Jacob Dutton, Future Foundry

And a bureaucracy too entrenched to change – Building Resilient Teams by Frank Henningsen, HYPE Innovation

How are you going to make sure that you receive gifts and not coal this year for all your innovation work?

Image credit: Pexels

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Don’t Slow Roll Your Transformation

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Don't Slow Roll Your Transformation

GUEST POST from Geoffrey A. Moore

Business pundits love to talk about transformation, and consultants drool at the opportunity to tap into a limitless budget, but the truth is, transformations suck.

At minimum, transformation consists of re-engineering your operating model while continuing to operate, with even greater disruption involved if you are revamping your business model at the same time. Now, if you are a privately held enterprise, you might be able to sell this to your board as a “pivot,” and indeed, in the venture world, there is some accommodation built in for such moves. Not so, however, for companies whose shares are publicly held. If this describes you, fasten your seatbelt and read on.

Transformations come with “J curves”—financial projections that have you swimming underwater for some considerable period before you emerge reborn on the other side. Public investors hate J curves. They also worry prospective customers, as well as ecosystem partners, not to mention your own employees. Only a VC loves a J curve, but their attention is on a younger generation.

Nonetheless, everyone understands there are situations where transformation is warranted. For public companies, the most common cause is when the entire franchise is under existential threat. A new technology paradigm is going to categorically obsolete the core franchise, as digital photography did to Kodak, as digital media did to BusinessWeek, as wireless telephony is doing to wireline. It was an existential threat that caused Microsoft to displace its back office software business with Azure’s cloud services, even though the gross margins of the latter were negative while the net margins of the former were stupendous. It was an existential threat that drove Lou Gerstner to reengineer IBM’s hardware-centric business model to focus on services and software. Failure to transform means dissolution of the enterprise. If you are to survive, there are times when you simply have to bite the bullet.

That said, you still have to confront the issue of time. Everyone understands that a transformation will take more than one year, but no one is willing to tolerate it taking three. That is, by the end of the second year you have to be verifiably emerging from the J curve, head out of water, able to breathe positive cash flow, or else you are likely to be written off. That means transformational initiatives should be planned to complete in seven quarters, plus or minus one. That’s the amount of time you can be in the ICU before you risk getting transferred to hospice care.

So, if a transformation is in your future, and you really cannot work around it, then start your planning with the end in mind and calendar that end for seven quarters out. Now, work backward to determine where you will have to be by each of the intervening quarters in order to meet your completion date. When you get back to the current quarter, expect to see you are already two or three quarters behind schedule (not fair, I know, but I already told you that transformations suck). Suppress panic, conduct triage, and start both your engines and the clock.

Final point: given the lack of time and the amount of risk involved, there is only one sensible way to approach a transformation. Prioritize it above everything else, and keep everyone focused on making the intermediate milestones until you are well and truly out of danger. Transformations are no joking matter. Most companies lose their way. Don’t let that be true of you and yours.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

Image Credit: Pixabay

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Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2024

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After a week of torrid voting and much passionate support, along with a lot of gut-wrenching consideration and jostling during the judging round, I am proud to announce your Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2024:

Greg Satell
Greg Satell is a popular speaker and consultant. His first book, Mapping Innovation: A Playbook for Navigating a Disruptive Age, was selected as one of the best business books in 2017. Follow his blog at Digital Tonto or on Twitter @Digital Tonto.

Janet Sernack
Janet Sernack is the Founder and CEO of ImagineNation™ which provides innovation consulting services to help organizations adapt, innovate and grow through disruption by challenging businesses to be, think and act differently to co-create a world where people matter & innovation is the norm.

Mike Shipulski
Mike Shipulski brings together people, culture, and tools to change engineering behavior. He writes daily on Twitter as @MikeShipulski and weekly on his blog Shipulski On Design.

Robyn Bolton
Robyn M. Bolton works with leaders of mid and large sized companies to use innovation to repeatably and sustainably grow their businesses.
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Pete Foley
A twenty-five year Procter & Gamble veteran, Pete has spent the last 8+ years applying insights from psychology and behavioral science to innovation, product design, and brand communication. He spent 17 years as a serial innovator, creating novel products, perfume delivery systems, cleaning technologies, devices and many other consumer-centric innovations, resulting in well over 100 granted or published patents. Find him at pete.mindmatters@gmail.com

Geoffrey A. Moore
Geoffrey A. Moore is an author, speaker and business advisor to many of the leading companies in the high-tech sector, including Cisco, Cognizant, Compuware, HP, Microsoft, SAP, and Yahoo! Best known for Crossing the Chasm and Zone to Win with the latest book being The Infinite Staircase. Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners. Chairman Emeritus Chasm Group & Chasm Institute

Shep Hyken
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times, bestselling business author. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs, go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

David Burkus
Dr. David Burkus is an organizational psychologist and best-selling author. Recognized as one of the world’s leading business thinkers, his forward-thinking ideas and books are helping leaders and teams do their best work ever. David is the author of five books about business and leadership and he’s been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and more. A former business school professor turned sought-after international speaker, he’s worked with organizations of all sizes and across all industries.

John Bessant
John Bessant has been active in research, teaching, and consulting in technology and innovation management for over 25 years. Today, he is Chair in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Research Director, at Exeter University. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship with the Advanced Institute for Management Research and was also elected a Fellow of the British Academy of Management. He has acted as advisor to various national governments and international bodies including the United Nations, The World Bank, and the OECD. John has authored many books including Managing innovation and High Involvement Innovation (Wiley). Follow @johnbessant

Braden Kelley
Braden Kelley is a Human-Centered Experience, Innovation and Transformation consultant at HCL Technologies, a popular innovation speaker, workshop leader, and creator of the Human-Centered Change™ methodology. He is the author of Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire from John Wiley & Sons and Charting Change from Palgrave Macmillan. Follow him on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Howard Tiersky
Howard Tiersky is an inspiring and passionate speaker, the Founder and CEO of FROM, The Digital Transformation Agency, innovation consultant, serial entrepreneur, and the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance. IDG named him one of the “10 Digital Transformation Influencers to Follow Today”, and Enterprise Management 360 named Howard “One of the Top 10 Digital Transformation Influencers That Will Change Your World.”

Stefan Lindegaard
Stefan Lindegaard is an author, speaker and strategic advisor. His work focuses on corporate transformation based on disruption, digitalization and innovation in large corporations, government organizations and smaller companies. Stefan believes that business today requires an open and global perspective, and his work takes him to Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia.

Dainora Jociute
Dainora (a.k.a. Dee) creates customer-centric content at Viima. Viima is the most widely used and highest rated innovation management software in the world. Passionate about environmental issues, Dee writes about sustainable innovation hoping to save the world – one article at the time.

Teresa Spangler
Teresa Spangler is the CEO of PlazaBridge Group has been a driving force behind innovation and growth for more than 30 years. Today, she wears multiple hats as a social entrepreneur, innovation expert, growth strategist, author and speaker (not to mention mother, wife, band-leader and so much more). She is especially passionate about helping CEOs understand and value the role human capital plays in innovation, and the impact that innovation has on humanity; in our ever-increasing artificial/cyber world.

Soren Kaplan
Soren Kaplan is the bestselling and award-winning author of Leapfrogging and The Invisible Advantage, an affiliated professor at USC’s Center for Effective Organizations, a former corporate executive, and a co-founder of UpBOARD. He has been recognized by the Thinkers50 as one of the world’s top keynote speakers and thought leaders in business strategy and innovation.

Diana Porumboiu
Diana heads marketing at Viima, the most widely used and highest rated innovation management software in the world, and has a passion for innovation, and for genuine, valuable content that creates long-lasting impact. Her combination of creativity, strategic thinking and curiosity has helped organisations grow their online presence through strategic campaigns, community management and engaging content.

Steve Blank
Steve Blank is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford and Senior Fellow for Innovation at Columbia University. He has been described as the Father of Modern Entrepreneurship, credited with launching the Lean Startup movement that changed how startups are built; how entrepreneurship is taught; how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate.

Jesse Nieminen
Jesse Nieminen is the Co-founder and Chairman at Viima, the best way to collect and develop ideas. Viima’s innovation management software is already loved by thousands of organizations all the way to the Global Fortune 500. He’s passionate about helping leaders drive innovation in their organizations and frequently writes on the topic, usually in Viima’s blog.

Robert B Tucker
Robert B. Tucker is the President of The Innovation Resource Consulting Group. He is a speaker, seminar leader and an expert in the management of innovation and assisting companies in accelerating ideas to market.

Dennis Stauffer
Dennis Stauffer is an author, independent researcher, and expert on personal innovativeness. He is the founder of Innovator Mindset LLC which helps individuals, teams, and organizations enhance and accelerate innovation success. by shifting mindset. Follow @DennisStauffer

Arlen Meyers
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is an emeritus professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, an instructor at the University of Colorado-Denver Business School and cofounding President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs at www.sopenet.org. Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameyers/

Ayelet Baron
Ayelet Baron is a pioneering futurist reminding us we are powerful creators through award winning books, daily blog and thinking of what is possible. Former global tech executive who sees trust, relationships and community as our building blocks to a healthy world.

Leo Chan
Leo is the founder of Abound Innovation Inc. He’s a people and heart-first entrepreneur who believes everyone can be an innovator. An innovator himself, with 55 US patents and over 20 years of experience, Leo has come alongside organizations like Chick-fil-A and guided them to unleash the innovative potential of their employees by transforming them into confident innovators.

Rachel Audige
Rachel Audige is an Innovation Architect who helps organisations embed inventive thinking as well as a certified Systematic Inventive Thinking Facilitator, based in Melbourne.

Art Inteligencia
Art Inteligencia is the lead futurist at Inteligencia Ltd. He is passionate about content creation and thinks about it as more science than art. Art travels the world at the speed of light, over mountains and under oceans. His favorite numbers are one and zero.

Paul Sloane
Paul Sloane writes, speaks and leads workshops on creativity, innovation and leadership. He is the author of The Innovative Leader and editor of A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing, both published by Kogan-Page.

Phil McKinney
Phil McKinney is the Author of “Beyond The Obvious”, Host of the Killer Innovations Podcast and Syndicated Radio Show, a Keynote Speaker, President & CEO CableLabs and an Innovation Mentor and Coach.

Ralph Christian Ohr
Dr. Ralph-Christian Ohr has extensive experience in product/innovation management for international technology-based companies. His particular interest is targeted at the intersection of organizational and human innovation capabilities. You can follow him on Twitter @Ralph_Ohr.

Jeffrey Phillips
Jeffrey Phillips has over 15 years of experience leading innovation in Fortune 500 companies, federal government agencies and non-profits. He is experienced in innovation strategy, defining and implementing front end processes, tools and teams and leading innovation projects. He is the author of Relentless Innovation and OutManeuver. Jeffrey writes the popular Innovate on Purpose blog. Follow him @ovoinnovation

Dean and Linda Anderson
Dr. Dean Anderson and Dr. Linda Ackerman Anderson lead BeingFirst, a consultancy focused on educating the marketplace about what’s possible in personal, organizational and community transformation and how to achieve them. Each has been advising clients and training professionals for more than 40 years.

Shilpi Kumar
Shilpi Kumar an inquisitive researcher, designer, strategist and an educator with over 15 years of experience, who truly believes that we can design a better world by understanding human behavior. I work with organizations to identify strategic opportunities and offer user-centric solutions.

Scott Anthony
Scott Anthony is a strategic advisor, writer and speaker on topics of growth and innovation. He has been based in Singapore since 2010, and currently serves at the Managing Director of Innosight’s Asia-Pacific operations.

Anthony Mills
Anthony Mills is the Founder & CEO of Legacy Innovation Group (www.legacyinnova.com), a world-leading strategic innovation consulting firm working with organizations all over the world. Anthony is also the Executive Director of GInI – Global Innovation Institute (www.gini.org), the world’s foremost certification, accreditation, and membership organization in the field of innovation. Anthony has advised leaders from around the world on how to successfully drive long-term growth and resilience through new innovation. Learn more at www.anthonymills.com. Anthony can be reached directly at anthony@anthonymills.com.

Paul Hobcraft
Paul Hobcraft runs Agility Innovation, an advisory business that stimulates sound innovation practice, researches topics that relate to innovation for the future, as well as aligning innovation to organizations core capabilities. Follow @paul4innovating

Jorge Barba
Jorge Barba is a strategist and entrepreneur, who helps companies build new puzzles using human skills. He is a global Innovation Insurgent and author of the innovation blog www.Game-Changer.net

Chateau G Pato
Chateau G Pato is a senior futurist at Inteligencia Ltd. She is passionate about content creation and thinks about it as more science than art. Chateau travels the world at the speed of light, over mountains and under oceans. Her favorite numbers are one and zero.

Douglas Ferguson
Douglas Ferguson is an entrepreneur and human-centered technologist. He is the founder and president of Voltage Control, an Austin-based change agency that helps enterprises spark, accelerate, and sustain innovation. He specializes in helping teams work better together through participatory decision making and design inspired facilitation techniques.

Alain Thys
As an experience architect, Alain helps leaders craft customer, employee and shareholder experiences for profit, reinvention and transformation. He does this through his personal consultancy Alain Thys & Co as well as the transformative venture studio Agents of A.W.E. Together with his teams, Alain has influenced the experience of over 500 million customers and 350,000 employees. Follow his blog or connect on Linkedin.

Bruce Fairley
Bruce Fairley is the CEO and Founder of The Narrative Group, a firm dedicated to helping C-Suite executives build enterprise value. Through smart, human-powered digital transformation, Bruce optimizes the business-technology relationship. His innovative profit over pitfalls approach and customized programs are part of Bruce’s mission to build sustainable ‘best-future’ outcomes for visionary leaders. Having spearheaded large scale change initiatives across four continents, he and his skilled, diverse team elevate process, culture, and the bottom line for medium to large firms worldwide.

Tom Stafford
Tom Stafford studies learning and decision making. His main focus is the movement system – the idea being that if we can understand the intelligence of simple actions we will have an excellent handle on intelligence more generally. His research looks at simple decision making, and simple skill learning, using measures of behaviour informed by the computational, robotics and neuroscience work done in the wider group.

If your favorite didn’t make the list, then next year try to rally more votes for them or convince them to increase the quality and quantity of their contributions.

Our lists from the ten previous years have been tremendously popular, including:

Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2015
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2016
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2017
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2018
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2019
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2022
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2023

Download PDF versions of the Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 lists here:

. . .

. . .

Happy New Year everyone!

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The Fears of Your Colleagues

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The Fears of Your Colleagues

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

“We identified four opportunities for market expansion, all adjacent to our current business, and entry into any one of them is almost guaranteed to materially grow our business. But no one is doing anything.”

I wanted to be surprised. Instead, I sighed and asked the question I knew he couldn’t answer.

“What are your colleagues afraid of?”

The Four Horsemen of the Innovation Apocalypse

Most of the time, when opportunities are clear, but action is absent, it’s because one of the first three horsemen of the innovation apocalypse appeared:

Short-termism: “The CFO is worried we may miss the quarter, so we’re starting to make cuts.”
Size: “We have a new President coming in who wants to put his stamp on things, so he’s cutting anything that won’t double our business in three years.”
Scarcity: “We’re implementing a new process, and this would just be one thing too many for people to handle.”

The business my client described has doubled in the past five years. After fifty years of steady, reliable, and predictable revenue, its top line suddenly became the mythical “hockey stick of growth.” The technological driver of this change is more likely to be the “new normal” than a fad, so the business is expected to double again in the next five years.

Leadership isn’t worried about delivering the next quarter, year, or five years. They know that they have the resources they need and can access more when the time is right. They’re confident that the opportunities identified are feasible and meaningful.

Yet, they will not act.

I’m not afraid. I’m biased!

Behavioral economists, psychologists, and sociologists explain situations like the above by pointing out our “cognitive biases”—the “irrational errors that are programmed into our brains.” For example, the first three horsemen could be known as Present Bias, the hard-easy effect, and Loss Aversion.

As of 2024, over 150 cognitive biases have been identified.

While it’s comforting to blame programming bugs beyond our awareness and control for our “irrational errors,” this approach lets us off the hook a bit too easily.

I’m not biased. I’m afraid!

Fear is at the root of most, if not all, of these biases because emotions, not programming bugs in our brains, drive our decisions.

The study of how our emotions impact decision-making didn’t take off until the early 2000s. It really accelerated in 2015 when professors from Harvard, UC Riverside, Claremont McKenna College, and Carnegie Mellon published a meta-study on the topic and declared:

The research reveals that emotions constitute potent, pervasive, predictable, sometimes harmful and sometimes beneficial drivers of decision making. Across different domains, important regularities appear in the mechanisms through which emotions influence judgments and choices.

Bottom line – we decide with our hearts and justify with our heads.

Our hearts are afraid that we’ll lose the respect of our peers and loved ones, the reputations we’ve worked decades to build, the physical goods and intangible experiences that project our societal status, or the financial safety of a regular paycheck.

And, as my brilliant and kind sister told me, “These feelings we feel, these feelings are real.”

I’m afraid and biased and brave!

Next time you see someone (maybe you?) do something “irrational,” get curious and ask:

What cognitive bias are they falling prey to?
What is the fear that’s driving that bias?
How can you help them to be brave, live with the fear, and move forward?

I’m curious…when was the last time you were afraid, biased, and brave?

Image credit: Pixabay

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Overcoming Team Conflict

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Overcoming Team Conflict

GUEST POST from David Burkus

Conflict on a team is inevitable. On diverse teams, where individuals come from varying backgrounds and possess differing opinions, those opinions will clash often in the form of disagreements and conflicts. Understanding the types of team conflict that can arise in a team setting is crucial for effective management and resolution.

In this article, we will delve into the four types of team conflict: relationship conflict, task conflict, status conflict, and process conflict.

Each type of conflict has its unique characteristics, causes, and potential solutions. By understanding these conflicts, leaders can respond appropriately in the moment, setting the team up to harness the benefits of conflict rather than letting it become a destructive force.

1. Relationship Conflict

The first type of team conflict is relationship conflict. This is a type of conflict that arises from differing personalities, experiences, and identities. This type of conflict can undermine trust and belonging on the team, creating a negative atmosphere. It’s crucial for leaders to address relationship conflicts promptly and effectively to prevent them from escalating.

Resolving relationship conflict requires empathy and understanding. Private discussions between conflicting individuals can help identify triggers and allow for open communication. It’s important to focus on specific behaviors and their impact, rather than making accusations or assuming motives. By addressing the behavior rather than the person, leaders can help individuals understand how their actions affect the team and encourage them to adjust their behavior accordingly.

2. Task Conflict

The second type of team conflict is task conflict. This is a positive type of conflict that arises from differing opinions on how to complete tasks. This type of conflict can be harnessed to encourage discussion and find the best plan of action. It indicates that the team is leveraging diversity for better performance.

When dealing with task conflict, it’s important to avoid personal attacks and assumptions. Instead, leaders should encourage team members to ask intelligent questions about the assumptions behind ideas. By discussing different perspectives openly, the team can increase the chances of finding the best way to achieve tasks. This type of conflict, when managed properly, can lead to innovative solutions and improved team performance.

3. Status Conflict

The third type of team conflict is status conflict. This involves power struggles and hierarchy within the team. Unlike task conflict, status conflict has no positive outcome and can create a toxic work environment. It’s crucial for leaders to address status conflicts promptly and effectively to prevent them from escalating.

Status conflict is about people’s opinions of their position in an invisible hierarchy within the team. To address this type of conflict, leaders can create rituals and experiences that signal equality and discourage status games. It’s also important for leaders to lead by example and send the message that everyone’s opinion is valued equally, regardless of their position in the team.

4. Process Conflict

The final type of team conflict is process conflict. This conflict arises from disagreements about how tasks are delegated and the best process for achieving them. This type of conflict can be resolved by getting to know team members’ strengths and weaknesses and explaining decisions that may go against their preferences.

Process conflict can occur when there are differing opinions on who should do a task or when someone tries to avoid responsibility. By understanding team members’ strengths and weaknesses, leaders can delegate tasks more effectively and prevent process conflicts. It’s also important to explain decisions that may go against team members’ preferences to prevent process conflict from turning into status conflict.

As a leader, understanding the different types of team conflict is crucial for effective conflict management. By responding to each type of conflict in the moment and setting the team up to harness the benefits of conflict, leaders can foster a positive and productive work environment. Remember, conflict isn’t necessarily a bad thing. When managed properly, it can lead to team’s having their best ideas and individuals doing their best work ever.

Image credit: Pixabay

Originally published on DavidBurkus.com on October 23, 2023

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Are You Time Affluent?

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Are You Time Affluent?

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When you have more than enough money, you have money affluence. With it, you can buy what you want, eat what you want, drive what you want, and travel where you want. But to have this unallocated money, or discretionary money, you probably need to spend a heck of a lot of time working. Climbing the ladder takes a lot of time. And once you’re at the top, you probably have a lot of commitments that pull hard on your calendar. Odds are, if you have unallocated or discretionary money (money affluence), you likely don’t have unallocated or discretionary time (time affluence).

If you have money affluence, but no time affluence, what do you really have?

To understand how much unallocated time you have, here’s an example day. You get up at 6:00 am, leave for work at 6:30, commute for an hour to arrive at work at 7:30, eat at your desk, leave work at 5:00 pm, arrive home at 6:00 and go to bed at 10:00. If this is your day, you have four hours of unallocated time per workday. I know this doesn’t include the realities of cleaning, cooking, yard work, paying bills, running errands, kids’ sporting events, and a number of other commitments, but makes the upcoming math work well and doesn’t demand we acknowledge we have little to no unallocated time.

In the contrived day described above, you’re getting enough sleep but not much else – no exercise, no time to relax during lunch. And, it’s likely you’re trading sleep for the time needed to accomplish the practical realities of daily life. But, let’s just say you have four hours of unallocated time. If you have four hours of unallocated time per day, do you think you have time affluence?

If you reduce your commute to thirty minutes, you have an extra hour of unallocated time (five). That doesn’t sound much, but you increased your unallocated time by 25%. And if you add thirty minutes of unallocated time for lunch and thirty minutes of exercise during the workday, you add another hour of unallocated time, increasing your unallocated time to six hours, or a 50% increase over the four hours of the baseline. But, to be clear, when you assign an activity of your choosing to unallocated time, it’s still unallocated time, but it may be helpful to think of it as discretionary time.

And if you tell your boss that for your first hour of work (from 7:30 to 8:30 am) there will be no meetings, no email, no phone calls, no Skype, no Slack, you increase your unallocated time by another hour, bringing your total up to seven hours, or a 75% increase in unallocated time.

As it stands, the world will take your unallocated time unless you protect it. And you won’t free up more unallocated time unless you grab your calendar and proactively squeeze out some time for yourself.

If you have money affluence, but no time affluence, you don’t have all that much.

Image credits: Pixabay

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