Tag Archives: Learning

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of September 2024

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of September 2024Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are September’s ten most popular innovation posts:

  1. Three Reasons Nobody Cares About Your Ideas — by Greg Satell
  2. Six Key Habits of Great Leaders — by David Burkus
  3. Are You Leading in the Wrong Zone? — by Geoffrey A. Moore
  4. Projects Don’t Go All Right or All Wrong — by Howard Tiersky
  5. How to Cultivate Respect as a Leader — by David Burkus
  6. What is Your Mindset? Fixed, Growth or Hybrid? — by Stefan Lindegaard
  7. Embracing Failure is a Catalyst for Learning and Innovation — by Stefan Lindegaard
  8. ISO Innovation Standards — by Robyn Bolton
  9. The Hidden Cost of Waiting — by Mike Shipulski
  10. AI Requires Conversational Intelligence — by Greg Satell

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in August that continue to resonate with people:

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

SPECIAL BONUS – THREE DAYS ONLY: From now until 11:59PM ET you can get either the eBook or the hardcover version of the SECOND EDITION of my latest bestselling book Charting Change for 50% OFF using code FLSH50. This deal won’t last long, so grab your copy while supplies last!

Accelerate your change and transformation success

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last four years:

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Nine Actions for Building a Great Team

Which Resonates with You?

Nine Actions for Building a Great Team

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

Building a strong team is a multifaceted journey, and there are several key actions that can contribute to the growth and success of a team.

Reflecting on the nine actions for building a great team, which ones do you find your team focuses on the most?

Would you say it is:

1. Cultivating a growth mindset?

2. Enhancing psychological safety?

3. Mapping and engaging stakeholders?

4. Mastering difficult conversations?

5. Improving feedback processes?

6. Addressing individual motivations?

7. Injecting fun into your work environment?

8. Developing networking and learning opportunities?

9. Identifying trust drivers and barriers?

Share your experiences and let’s inspire each other on actions that can shape the dynamics and achievements of your team!

Team Building Stefan Lindegaard

Image Credit: Pexels, Stefan Lindegaard

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Smarter Risk Taking

Smarter Risk Taking

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

After founding ImagineNation™ in Israel, I invested a year of my time and considerable money in taking what I thought were smart risks to invent an experiential business game. This involved collaborating with one of the top game design companies to co-create a live business simulation incorporating innovative gamification elements intending to teach corporations how to be innovative.

To my shock and surprise at the time, my invention initially failed!

Despite being an adult and experiential learning specialist and having designed and facilitated hundreds of corporate learning games for some of Australia’s top 100 companies over twenty-five years. It felt really horrible, and it was a visceral, heartbreaking, shameful and ego-destroying experience that I would not want anyone, anywhere, ever to experience.

Deep Learning Experience

Yet, it became a profound learning experience, enabling me to understand how:

  • My imposter syndrome played a significant self-sabotaging role. It did not set me up for success, nor did it set me up for maximising the importance of self-efficacy and self-mastery when on an innovation roller-coaster ride.
  • I had not undertaken sufficient research studies to determine if users wanted and were ready to accept such a radical innovation. Nor had I noticed how much the corporate learning market was being disrupted by technology, causing significant time and budget constraints, that I had neglected to address.
  • I had not paused long enough to consider, anticipate, plan and mitigate the risks involved in prototyping a viable minimal product in a new market.
  • I had not considered the risks involved with collaborating with a new consulting partner and co-facilitator, as well as with a new client. Nor anticipated how to resolve the values conflict that erupted when the project failed.
  • I had not fully understood the process involved in iterating and pivoting a new invention and the time it would take to produce a commercially viable product that the market would understand, be ready for, and respond to.

Finally, it seems that I had unconsciously fallen victim to the innovative start-up entrepreneur’s curse – falling in love with my product!

This was generated by my excitement, enthusiasm and energy of the possibilities rather than balancing these courageously and compassionately with the:

  • Harsh realities to be innovative.
  • Vital role of smart risk-taking and experimentation.
  • What ‘fails fast, to learn quickly’ really means at the heart (emotional), head (cognitive) and gut (visceral) levels.

Value of Failing Fast

They say that people need to teach what they need to learn themselves.

This valuable failure enabled me to invest the next ten years in learning to make sense of innovation and what it means to be innovative, including:

  • Helped me develop self-efficacy, trust my inner knowing and judgement, and make a stand for myself in the face of opposition and criticism I often received when presenting at a global conference on the people side of innovation, especially by process engineers.
  • Investing more attention, time in iterating and pivoting, testing and validating the two-day business simulation MVP to make it more tangible, simpler and teachable. 
  • Acknowledging that technology had accelerated sufficiently to accept that the original creative idea of a simple hybrid board game was the most valuable commercial option that could make the difference I wanted to make in the world. 
  • Becoming more patient, self-compassionate, and courageous in smart risk-taking and leading, coaching, and engaging in team innovation and continuous learning through various innovation, entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial learning initiatives.

Iterating and Pivoting

I iterated, pivoted, and refined my intellectual property by presenting and bespoking the Coach for Innovators, Leaders and Teams Certified Program™ for over twelve years to global change-makers.

Most importantly, I reined in my competitive, risky and restless saboteur and focused on doing just one thing, which has finally morphed into a book, supported by a board game to teach people how to be innovative and develop an innovation mindset.

Taking Risks

In the fog of a globalised, disrupted, unpredictable and increasingly uncertain world, no innovation can progress, and no one can be innovative without smart risk-taking.

No innovation can improve without rigorous experimentation, where learning mainly happens by doing things to explore, discover, and know what not to do.  

Research has shown that most successful new business ventures abandoned their original business strategies when implementing their initial plans, learned what would and would not work in the market, and conserved sufficient resources to have a second or third stab at getting it right.

Trial and Error and Cause and Effect

Innovation is a never-ending, risky, adaptive process involving trial and error and understanding cause and effect.

Because people are fearful of making mistakes and the negative consequences of failure, innovation requires leadership to develop both foresight and prospection skills to:

  • Empower and enable them to paradoxically take both a strategic and systemic perspective and a human-centred approach. 
  • Equip them to be innovative when designing business ventures and transformation initiatives that deliver commercially viable outcomes to successfully improve the quality of people’s lives that are appreciated and cherished.

Risk-taking is a Choice

In most businesses and organizations, innovation involves taking considerable risks, especially if seeking to enter a new market with a new product. It is compounded and resisted by many people in organizations because they are too focused on personal survival, personal gain, short-term gain and shareholder return.

Unfortunately, many organizations end up, paradoxically, undermining their organization’s capacity to be innovative, adapt, innovate and grow. Mainly due to their people being disengaged, resistant to change, lacking agency and being held back by bureaucracy and hierarchy that is averse to smart risk-taking and experimentation.

The Future is Permissionless

Because most people generally do not have permission, and are not allowed to make mistakes. They are not encouraged to try new things, so they become risk-averse, avoidant, oppositional and conventional, and don’t feel safe in deviating from the accepted way of doing things.

This is commonly known as the ‘status quo’ and drives people to comply with ‘what is’ (even when it no longer matters) and not apply their human ingenuity, be innovative and create new inventions from ‘what could be’ possible and through smart risk-taking to partner with AI in delivering innovative solutions in a disruptive world of complexity and unknowns.

Image Credit: Unsplash

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Implementing Successful Transformation Initiatives for 2024

Implementing Successful Transformation Initiatives for 2024

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

Transformation and change initiatives are usually designed as strategic interventions, intending to advance an organization’s growth, deliver increased shareholder value, build competitive advantage, or improve speed and agility to respond to fast-changing industries.  These initiatives typically focus on improving efficiency, and productivity, resolving IT legacy and technological issues, encouraging innovation, or developing high-performance organizational cultures. Yet, according to research conducted over fifteen years by McKinsey & Co., shared in a recent article “Losing from day one: Why even successful transformations fall short” – Organizations have realized only 67 percent of the maximum financial benefits that their transformations could have achieved. By contrast, respondents at all other companies say they captured an average of only 37 percent of the potential benefit, and it’s all due to a lack of human skills, and their inability to adapt, innovate, and thrive in a decade of disruption.

Differences between success and failure

The survey results confirm that “there are no short­cuts to successful transformation and change initiatives. The main differentiator between success and failure was not whether an organization followed a specific subset of actions but rather how many actions it took throughout an organizational transformation’s life cycle” and actions taken by the people involved.

Capacity, confidence, and competence – human skills

What stands out is that thirty-five percent of the value lost occurs in the implementation phase, which involves the unproductive actions taken by the people involved.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) supports this in a recent article “How to Create a Transformation That Lasts” – “Transformations are inherently difficult, filled with compressed deadlines and limited resources. Executing them typically requires big changes in processes, product offerings, governance, structure, the operating model itself, and human behavior.

Reinforcing the need for organizations to invest in developing the deep human skills that embed transformation disciplines into business-as-usual structures, processes, and systems, and help shift the culture. Which depends on enhancing people’s capacity, confidence, and competence to implement the “annual business-planning processes and review cycles, from executive-level weekly briefings and monthly or quarterly reviews to individual performance dialogue” that delivers and embeds the desired changes, especially the cultural enablers.

Complex and difficult to navigate – key challenges

As a result of the impact of our VUCA/BANI world, coupled with the global pandemic, current global instability, and geopolitics, many people have had their focus stolen, and are still experiencing dissonance cognitively, emotionally, and viscerally.

This impacts their ability to take intelligent actions and the range of symptoms includes emotional overwhelm, cognitive overload, and change fatigue.

It seems that many people lack the capacity, confidence, and competence, to underpin their balance, well-being, and resilience, which resources their ability and GRIT to engage fully in transformation and change initiatives.

The new normal – restoring our humanity

At ImagineNation™ for the past four years, in our coaching and mentoring practice, we have spent more than 1000 hours partnering with leaders and managers around the world to support them in recovering and re-emerging from a range of uncomfortable, disabling, and disempowering feelings.

Some of these unresourceful states include loneliness, disconnection, a lack of belonging, and varying degrees of burnout, and have caused them to withdraw and, in some cases, even resist returning to the office, or to work generally.

It appears that this is the new normal we all have to deal with, knowing there is no playbook, to take us there because it involves restoring the essence of our humanity and deepening our human skills.

Taking a whole-person approach – develop human skills

By embracing a whole-person approach, in all transformation and change initiatives, that focuses on building people’s capacity, confidence, and competence, and that cultivates their well-being and resilience to:

  • Engage, empower, and enable them to collaborate in setting the targets, business plans, implementation, and follow-up necessary to ensure a successful transformation and change initiative.
  • Safely partner with them through their discomfort, anxiety, fear, and reactive responses.
  • Learn resourceful emotional states, traits, mindsets, behaviors, and human skills to embody, enact and execute the desired changes strategically and systemically.

By then slowing down, to pause, retreat and reflect, and choose to operate systemically and holistically, and cultivate the “deliberate calm” required to operate at the three different human levels outlined in the illustration below:

The Neurological Level – which most transformation and change initiatives fail to comprehend, connect to, and work with. Because people lack the focus, intention, and skills to help people collapse any unconscious RIGIDITY existing in their emotional, cognitive, and visceral states, which means they may be frozen, distracted, withdrawn, or aggressive as a result of their fears and anxiety.

You can build your capacity, confidence, and competence to operate at this level by accepting “what is”:

  • Paying attention and being present with whatever people are experiencing neurologically by attending, allowing, accepting, naming, and acknowledging whatever is going on for them, and by supporting and enabling them to rest, revitalize and recover in their unique way.
  • Operating from an open mind and an open heart and by being empathic and compassionate, in line with their fragility and vulnerability, being kind, appreciative, and considerate of their individual needs.
  • Being intentional in enabling them to become grounded, mindful conscious, and truly connected to what is really going on for them, and rebuild their positivity, optimism, and hope for the future.
  • Creating a collective holding space or container that gives them permission, safety, and trust to pull them towards the benefits and rewards of not knowing, unlearning, and being open to relearning new mental models.
  • Evoking new and multiple perspectives that will help them navigate uncertainty and complexity.

The Emotional Cognition Levels – which most transformation and change initiatives fail to take into account because people need to develop their PLASTICITY and flexibility in regulating and focusing their thoughts, feelings, and actions to adapt and be agile in a world of unknowns, and deliver the outcomes and results they want to have.

You can build your capacity, confidence, and competence to operate at this level by supporting them to open their hearts and minds:

  • Igniting their curiosity, imagination, and playfulness, introducing novel ideas, and allowing play and improvisation into their thinking processes, to allow time out to mind wander and wonder into new and unexplored territories.
  • Exposing, disrupting, and re-framing negative beliefs, ruminations, overthinking and catastrophizing patterns, imposter syndromes, fears of failure, and feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.
  • Evoking mindset shifts, embracing positivity and an optimistic focus on what might be a future possibility and opportunity.
  • Being empathic, compassionate, and appreciative, and engaging in self-care activities and well-being practices.

The Generative Level – which most transformation and change initiatives ignore, because they fail to develop the critical and creative thinking, and problem sensing and solving skills that are required to GENERATE the crucial elastic thinking and human skills that result in change, and innovation.

You can build your capacity, confidence, and competence to operate at this level by:

  • Creating a safe space to help people reason and make sense of the things occurring within, around, and outside of them.
  • Cultivating their emotional and cognitive agility, creative, critical, and associative thinking skills to challenge the status quo and think differently.
  • Developing behavioral flexibility to collaborate, being inclusive to maximize differences and diversity, and safe experimentation to close their knowing-doing gaps.
  • Taking small bets, giving people permission and safety to fail fast to learn quickly, be courageous, be both strategic and systemic in taking smart risks and intelligent actions.

Reigniting our humanity – unlocking human potential  

At the end of the day, we all know that we can’t solve the problem with the same thinking that created it. Yet, so many of us keep on trying to do that, by unconsciously defaulting into a business-as-usual linear thinking process when involved in setting up and implementing a transformation or change initiative.

Ai can only take us so far, because the defining trait of our species, is our human creativity, which is at the heart of all creative problem-solving endeavors, where innovation can be the engine of change, transformation, and growth, no matter what the context. According to Fei-Fei Li, Sequoia Professor of Computer Science at Stanford, and co-director of AI4All, a non-profit organization promoting diversity and inclusion in the field of AI.

“There’s nothing artificial about AI. It’s inspired by people, created by people, and most importantly it has an impact on people”.

  • Develop the human skills

When we have the capacity, confidence, and competence to reignite our humanity, we will unlock human potential, and stop producing results no one wants. By developing human skills that enable people to adapt, be resilient, agile, creative, and innovate, they will grow through disruption in ways that add value to the quality of people’s lives, that are appreciated and cherished, we can truly serve people, deliver profits and perhaps save the planet.

Find out more about our work at ImagineNation™

Find out about our collective, learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators, Leaders, and Teams Certified Program, presented by Janet Sernack, is a collaborative, intimate, and deeply personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 9-weeks, and can be customized as a bespoke corporate learning and coaching program for leadership and team development and change and culture transformation initiatives.

Image Credit: Pixabay

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“I don’t know,” is a clue you’re doing it right

“I don’t know,” is a clue you’re doing it right

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

If you know how to do it, it’s because you’ve done it before. You may feel comfortable with your knowledge, but you shouldn’t. You should feel deeply uncomfortable with your comfort. You’re not trying hard enough, and your learning rate is zero.

Seek out “don’t know.”

If you don’t know how to do it, acknowledge you don’t know, and then go figure it out. Be afraid, but go figure it out. You’ll make mistakes, but without mistakes, there can be no learning.

No mistakes, no learning. That’s a rule.

If you’re getting pressure to do what you did last time because you’re good at it, well, you’re your own worst enemy. There may be good profits from a repeat performance, but there is no personal growth.

Why not find someone with “don’t know” mind and teach them?

Find someone worthy of your time and attention and teach them how. The company gets the profits, an important person gets a new skill, and you get the satisfaction of helping someone grow.

No learning, no growth. That’s a rule.

No teaching, no learning. That’s a rule, too.

If you know what to do, it’s because you have a static mindset. The world has changed, but you haven’t. You’re walking an old cowpath. It’s time to try something new.

Seek out “don’t know” mind.

If you don’t know what to do, it’s because you recognize that the old way won’t cut it. You know have a forcing function to follow. Follow your fear.

No fear, no growth. That’s a rule.

Embrace the “don’t know” mind. It will help you find and follow your fear. And don’t shun your fear because it’s a leading indicator of novelty, learning, and growth.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of August 2022

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of August 2022Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are August’s ten most popular innovation posts:

  1. Why Amazon Wants to Sell You Robots — by Shep Hyken
  2. Now is the Time to Design Cost Out of Our Products — by Mike Shipulski
  3. How Consensus Kills Innovation — by Greg Satell
  4. The Four Secrets of Innovation Implementation — by Shilpi Kumar
  5. Reset and Reconnect in a Chaotic World — by Janet Sernack
  6. This 9-Box Grid Can Help Grow Your Best Future Talent — by Soren Kaplan
  7. ‘Fail Fast’ is BS. Do This Instead — by Robyn Bolton
  8. The Power of Stopping — by Mike Shipulski
  9. The Battle Against the Half-Life of Learning — by Douglas Ferguson
  10. The Phoenix Checklist – Strategies for Innovation and Regeneration — by Teresa Spangler

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in July that continue to resonate with people:

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last two years:

Subscribe to Human-Centered Change & Innovation WeeklySign up here to get Human-Centered Change & Innovation Weekly delivered to your inbox every week.






Innovating Through Adversity and Constraints

Innovating Through Adversity and Constraints

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

It’s been almost two and a half years since most of us shifted to working virtually and remotely, which, in turn, seriously disrupted most of our business-as-usual behaviors and learning habits. Interestingly, this also disrupted our habitual unconscious safety and comfort zones, and, in many cases, disconnected our overall sense of security. For some of us, our ability to make sense of ourselves and our futures, has been impacted, impacting our abilities to find new ways of being creative and innovating through the range of constraints and adverse situations.

Looking inward

Some of us have also had our confidence to survive and thrive in a world severely impacted, and many of us have felt exploited, exhausted, and depleted by our employers. According to Lynda Gratton, in a recent article in MIT Sloane Magazine “Making Sense of the Future” many of us are looking inward — working through the impact of our changing habits, networks, and skills, and begin to imagine other life trajectories and possible selves.

Looking outward

Again, according to Lynda Gratton, some of us are now also looking outward to analyze how talent markets are changing and what competitors are doing, which is creating momentum and a force for change, but also frustration and anxiety, given institutional lag and inertia.

The larger-than-life, terrible, and confronting conflict in Ukraine has also inflated, for some of us, a deeper sense of helplessness and exhaustion, and amplified our concerns and fears for a sustainable future.

The momentum for change is growing 

Yet some people have successfully responded to worries and concerns about the inertia holding our companies back, and have adapted to working, learning, and coaching online. Using this moment in time to help de-escalate our reactivity to what’s been going on to deeply connect, explore, discover, listen, and respond creatively to what is really important, to ourselves, our people, teams and our organizations.

To help shift the tension between today and tomorrow, through regenerating and replenishing ourselves and our teams, by shifting the dialogue towards renewing and innovating through constraints and adversity in uncertain and unstable times.

Innovating through constraints at ImagineNation™

Innovating through constraints enabled the collective at ImagineNation™ to design and deliver a bespoke, intense, and immersive learning journey for an executive team aiming at igniting and mobilizing their collective genius to step up to face their fears, adapt, take smart risks and innovate in uncertain and disruptive times!

Some of the constraints we collaboratively and creatively mastered included adapting to differing:

  • Geographies, we are based in Melbourne, Australia, and our client was based in Canada, which made managing time zone schedules challenging, including some very early 4.30 am starts for us –  Making flexibility and adaptiveness crucial to our success.  
  • Technologies, balancing Zoom-based online webinars and workshops, with Google chat rooms and jamboards, completing one on one coaching sessions, and assigning, completing, and presenting group action learning assignments – Reinforcing the need for constant iteration and pivoting to ensure the delivery of outcomes, as promised.
  • Communicating, including air freighting hard copy reflection packs, scheduling, and partnering virtually, all within a remote and fractured working environment –Ensuring that clarity and consistency would lead to the successful delivery of the outcomes, as promised.

Shifting the dialogue

Demonstrating that we can all be resilient and creative when we live in times of great uncertainty and instability through investing in reskilling people and teams to become more purposeful, human, and customer-centric.

We can all break the inertia by challenging our business-as-usual thinking and shifting the dialogue towards exploring our inner challenges and navigating the outer challenges of our current environment.

If we commit to doing this with more consciousness, hope, optimism, and control, to follow a direction rather than a specific destination by:

  • Perceiving this moment in time as an “unfreezing opportunity” and an opening to shift out of inertia and complacency, to re-generate and re-invent ourselves and our teams?
  • Knowing how to connect, explore, discover, generate and catalyze creative ideas to rapidly and safely unlearn, relearn, collaborate and innovate through constraints and adversity?
  • Committing to letting go of our “old baggage” and ways of making sense of our new reality, by experimenting with smart risk-taking, and making gamification accessible in an environment that is unpredictable?

Re-generating and re-inventing in uncertain and unstable times

In fact, many of us successfully adapted to online working, learning, and coaching environments by de-escalating any feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.

To bravely focus on regenerating and reinventing ourselves and our teams and using this moment in time to be curious, shift the dialogue, explore possibilities, harness collective intelligence and ask some catalytic questions:

  • What if we intentionally disrupted our current way of thinking?
  • How might we think differently to shift our perception and perceive our worlds with “fresh eyes”? What might be possible?
  • What if we shift the dialogue to engage people in innovating through constraints?
  • How might we shift the dialogue to activate and mobilize people towards taking intelligent risks through constraints?
  • How might thinking differently empower, enable and equip ourselves and our teams to navigate the current environment with more hope and optimism?
  • What if re-consider and perceive these constraints differently?
  • How might we support people to ignite their creativity?
  • How might we equip people to be creative and develop better ideas?
  • How might we resource people to force more change and innovation?
  • How might we discover new ways of creating value for people in ways that they appreciate and cherish?

Grappling with the future is paradoxical

Finally, Lynda Gratton suggests that we need to:

“Acknowledge that this is not straightforward. Right now, many leaders are stuck between two sources of tension: the tension of enlightenment, where they can begin to imagine what is possible, and the tension of denial, where they are concerned that more flexible working arrangements will negatively affect performance. They grapple with whether the change will be necessary or possible. These are legitimate tensions that are only exacerbated by the sense of exhaustion many people feel”.

If we perceive these constraints as catalysts for setting a clear focus and direction, it might force us to experiment with creative ways of acting and doing things differently.

It might also force us to make tougher decisions around our inner and outer priorities, by exploring and discovering more balanced, creative, and inventive ways of constantly iterating and pivoting whatever resources are available to get the important jobs done.

An opportunity to learn more

Find out about our learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 9-weeks, starting Tuesday, May 4, 2022.

Image Credit: Unsplash

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Revolutionizing Education with Augmented Reality

Unlocking New Learning Experiences

Revolutionizing Education with Augmented Reality

GUEST POST from Chateau G Pato

Education has always been a key driver of progress, equipping individuals with knowledge and skills to thrive in a rapidly evolving world. Traditional methods of teaching are now being challenged by new technologies that have the potential to transform education as we know it. One such powerful tool is Augmented Reality (AR). By merging digital content with real-world environments, AR creates immersive learning experiences that captivate students’ attention and enhance their understanding. This article explores the remarkable potential of AR in revolutionizing education, with two compelling case studies that demonstrate its transformative impact.

Case Study 1: Anatomy lessons come to life with AR

One of the most challenging subjects for students to grasp is human anatomy. With its complex structures and interconnections, textbooks and diagrams often fall short in truly conveying the intricacies of the human body. However, AR has the ability to bridge this gap by enabling students to visualize and interact with detailed 3D models.

In a recent study conducted in a medical school, students were provided with AR-enabled devices to study human anatomy. By simply pointing their devices at a person, a virtual overlay of the body’s internal systems appeared before their eyes. Students were able to explore the skeletal, muscular, and circulatory systems in real-time, zoom in to examine specific organs, and even observe the effects of diseases on the body. This interactive and hands-on approach not only deepened their understanding but also made learning anatomy an engaging and memorable experience.

The use of AR in anatomy education has shown tremendous potential to revolutionize the field. Students can now have access to 3D models and virtual dissection tools, enabling them to learn at their own pace and explore topics in greater detail. Additionally, AR encourages collaboration and peer-to-peer learning as students can interact with the same virtual models simultaneously, fostering a more dynamic and enriching learning environment.

Case Study 2: Historical landmarks are brought to life

History has long been regarded as a subject that relies heavily on imagination and interpretation. Students often struggle to truly grasp the significance and historical context of landmarks and artifacts. AR has emerged as a game-changer in this regard, enabling students to travel back in time and witness historical events in a way that traditional textbooks cannot.

In a high school history class, students were introduced to AR experiences that brought famous historical landmarks to life. By using AR-enabled smartphones or tablets, students could explore ancient ruins, walk through virtual reconstructions of historical sites, and interact with virtual historical figures. For instance, standing in front of the ancient pyramids of Egypt, students could witness the construction process and visualize the grandeur of these ancient wonders. By immersing themselves in historical environments, students developed a deeper connection with the subject matter and a heightened sense of empathy towards the people who lived in those times.

The implementation of AR in history classes holds immense potential. Not only does it make learning engaging and captivating, but it also encourages critical thinking, analysis, and contextual understanding. Moreover, the use of AR can democratize access to historical sites, providing students with the opportunity to experience distant landmarks that may be inaccessible to them.

Conclusion

As education evolves to meet the needs of the digital age, Augmented Reality has emerged as a powerful tool in revolutionizing learning experiences. Through the integration of AR in subjects like anatomy and history, students can explore and understand complex concepts in a more engaging and immersive manner. These case studies demonstrate how AR can deepen students’ knowledge, stimulate their curiosity, and foster collaboration.

While AR undoubtedly holds great promise, its successful implementation in education requires careful consideration. Human-centered design principles should guide its development and implementation, ensuring that AR enhances the learning process, rather than becoming a mere novelty. By embracing AR’s potential, we have the opportunity to unlock a new era of education where students can engage, explore, and learn in ways that were once unimaginable. Let us seize this opportunity to revolutionize education and equip the next generation with the tools they need to thrive in an ever-evolving world.

SPECIAL BONUS: The very best change planners use a visual, collaborative approach to create their deliverables. A methodology and tools like those in Change Planning Toolkit™ can empower anyone to become great change planners themselves.

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How to Foster an Innovation Mindset Within Your Team

How to Foster an Innovation Mindset Within Your Team

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In today’s rapidly evolving world, businesses thrive when they foster a culture of innovation. Without an innovation mindset within your team, it becomes challenging to adapt to market changes, efficiently solve complex problems, and stay ahead of the competition. This article explores strategies for nurturing a mindset that embraces innovation. By encouraging curiosity, embracing failure as a learning opportunity, and fostering a sense of ownership, leaders can unlock their team’s full creative potential.

1. Encouraging Curiosity:

One essential element in fostering an innovation mindset is to encourage curiosity among team members. By nurturing a natural and inquisitive mindset, individuals become more open to exploring new ideas and challenging the status quo. Google, an industry leader renowned for its innovative culture, dedicates approximately 20% of employees’ time towards pursuing their own passion projects. This approach not only empowers individuals but also allows them to uncover breakthrough solutions that benefit the company as a whole.

2. Embracing Failure as a Learning Opportunity:

Innovation requires taking risks, which inevitably leads to failures along the way. However, instead of viewing failures negatively, teams must embrace them as valuable learning opportunities. Chobani, the popular yogurt brand, had their innovation team launch a new product that failed to perform optimally. Rather than abandoning the concept, Chobani saw it as a stepping stone to success. By analyzing the failures and making necessary adjustments, they refined their product, resulting in a game-changing success. Encouraging a culture that celebrates learning from mistakes is crucial in shaping an innovation-driven mindset.

3. Fostering a Sense of Ownership:

To foster an innovation mindset, team members must feel a sense of ownership over their work. This ownership allows individuals to fully invest their creativity and passion into their projects, driving them to go above and beyond. At 3M, employees are encouraged to spend 15% of their work time on projects of their own choice. This approach not only gives employees autonomy but also empowers them to take responsibility for the outcomes. By fostering a sense of ownership, leaders create an environment where employees are motivated to think outside the box, leading to breakthrough innovations.

Innovation Beyond Boundaries: Expanding Your Mindset

To learn more about expanding your innovation mindset beyond your team, check out this insightful article by Dennis Stauffer: Mastering Your Innovation Mindset. In his piece, Stauffer delves into strategies for driving innovation at the organizational level, providing useful insights into leveraging diverse perspectives, cross-functional collaboration, and disruptive thinking.

Conclusion

Creating an innovation mindset within your team is vital for driving continuous growth and staying competitive in today’s dynamic business landscape. By encouraging curiosity, embracing failures as learning opportunities, and fostering a sense of ownership, leaders can unlock their team’s full creative potential. These strategies, backed up by real-life case studies from industry leaders, demonstrate how nurturing an innovation mindset leads to transformative outcomes. Embrace the power of innovation and unlock your team’s potential today!

Bottom line: Futurology is not fortune telling. Futurists use a scientific approach to create their deliverables, but a methodology and tools like those in FutureHacking™ can empower anyone to engage in futurology themselves.

Image credit: Pexels

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Five Lessons I Learned as an Accidental Entrepreneur

Five Lessons I Learned as an Accidental Entrepreneur

You don’t have to start a business to learn from my journey.

I like think of myself as an accidental entrepreneur. I originally set out to make innovation insights accessible for the greater good. But, nearly 15 years after publishing my first article, I sold a site that had more than 8,000 articles from around 400 contributing authors.

Along the way I learned a great deal of things, some the easy way and some the hard way. Here are the five key lessons I learned from my 15-year journey as a webpreneur:

1. Before turning a passion into a business, nail the business model

My website, Innovation Excellence, started as a passion project that shared my own thoughts about innovation. The site didn’t begin with a business model and sort of evolved as my project grew. Even after bringing in partners to transform my project, everyone had a day job and didn’t have time to develop the most viable revenue streams. I began to experiment with advertising and sponsorships, but everything was difficult and quite manual. From this inability to invest, I learned that you shouldn’t start commercializing a passion project before nailing the business model. If you can’t, leave it as a small, manageable hobby.

2. Don’t give up too much equity too soon

I eventually brought on three partners, but ended up owning less than a third of my creation. I now see that I placed too little value on all of the work that I had done to that point.

Don’t give away half the commercial potential of your passion project to the first person offering you money to grow it. You always have the option of not growing it or growing it more slowly with more control. Make these choices carefully and err on the side of only giving up small amounts of equity for investment. I brought on some great people as partners, but the painful reality is that I gave up equity to fund a redesign that we ended up throwing away for another redesign that I did myself.

3. In any partnership, make sure ownership percentages match contributions

It takes work to run a website. If someone owns a third of your business, they should be doing a third of the day-to-day work involved. Even financial investors should be getting their hands dirty. Refuse purely financial investors unless their money funds the successful launching of a profitable business model.

4. Create as many win-wins as possible

My team was able to build Innovation Excellence into a saleable asset because it was a purpose-driven business focused on creating as many win-wins as possible. Every decision was measured against the mission to make innovation insights accessible, and we were focused on creating value for our global innovation community and value for our contributing authors. We turned down advertising dollars we didn’t think would be a win for our community and our authors.

If I start a new site, it will definitely follow this paradigm of creating value for as many stakeholders as possible. Win-win relationships create value over time, while win-lose relationships destroy value until it reaches zero.

5. When it’s time to sell, make sure the buyers share your vision

I’m proud of what I built with Innovation Excellence and grateful for my partners. Sadly, Innovation Excellence has disappeared. The buyers said they shared our vision, wanted to do no harm, respected what we had built and only wanted to make it better, but they completely replaced the brand nonetheless.

The buyer had every right to do this in pursuit of leveraging the assets they purchased, but it’s still painful as a founder to not be able to point people to the thing that you built. This should be a consideration when you sell something you’ve poured your heart and soul into.

Building and selling the Innovation Excellence was a wild ride, and I definitely learned a lot along the way. But you don’t have to build a company to gain insights. You can learn so much about how investors think by watching Shark Tank or reading articles. Talk to other entrepreneurs so you can learn without going through the hard part. Always look to grow and keep innovating, so you’re prepared when entrepreneurship comes knocking.

This article originally appeared on Entrepreneur.com

Image credit: Pixabay


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