Tag Archives: organizational change

3 Ways to Make Smarter Decisions – Confidently

3 Ways to Make Smarter Decisions - Confidently

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

When my niece was 4 years old, she looked at her mom (my sister) and said, “I can’t wait until I’m an adult so I can be in charge and make all the decisions.” My sister laughed and laughed.

Being in charge looks glamorous from the outside, but it is challenging, painful, and sometimes soul-wrenching. Never is this truer than when you must make a tough decision and don’t have all the data you want or need.

But lately, I’ve noticed more and more executives defer making decisions. They’ll say they want more data, to hear what another executive thinks, or are nervous that we’re rushing to decide.

This deferral is a HUGE problem because making decisions is literally their job! After all, as Norman Schwarzkopf wrote in his autobiography, “When placed in command, take charge.”

When you decide, you lose

A decision is “a choice that you make about something after thinking about several possibilities.” Seems innocent enough, right? Coke or Pepsi. Paper or plastic. Ariana Madix or Raquel Leviss (if you don’t know about this one, consider yourself lucky. If you choose to know about it, click here).

The problem with making decisions is that loss is unavoidable. Heck, the word “decide” comes from the Latin roots “de,” meaning off, and “caedre,” meaning cut. When you choose Coke, paper bags, or Ariana, you are cutting off the opportunity to drink Pepsi with that meal, use a plastic bag to carry your purchases or support Rachel in a pointless pop culture debate.

Decisions get more challenging as the stakes get higher because the fear of loss skyrockets. Loss aversion, a cognitive bias describing why the psychological pain of loss is twice as acute as the pleasure of gain, is common in cognitive psychology, decision theory, and behavioral economics. You see this bias in action when someone refuses to ask questions or challenge the status quo, to take a good deal because it’s below their initial baseline, or to sell an asset (like a house) for less than they paid for it.

No decision is the worst decision

Deciding not to decide is often the worst decision of all. Because it feels like you’re avoiding loss and increasing your odds of making the right decision by gathering more data and input, it’s easy to forget that you’re losing time, employee engagement and morale, and potential revenue and profit.

When you decide not to decide, progress slows or even stops. No decision gives your competition time to catch up or even pass you. Your team gets frustrated, morale drops, and people search for other opportunities to progress and have an impact. The date of the first revenue slips further into the future, slowly becoming just a theoretical number in a spreadsheet.

Decide how to decide

In a VUCA world, a perfect, risk-free decision that offers only upside does not exist. If it did, the business wouldn’t need an executive with your experience, intellect, and courage. Yet here you are.

It’s your job to make decisions.

Make that job easier by deciding how to decide

1. Tell people what you need to see to say Yes. “I’ll know it when I see it” is one of the biggest management cop-outs ever. If you don’t know what you want, don’t waste money and time requiring your team to become mind readers. But you probably know what you want. You’re just afraid of being wrong. Instead of allowing your fear to fuel inefficiency, tell the team what you need or want to see and that, as they make progress, that request might change. Then set regular check-ins so that if/when it happens, it happens quickly and is communicated clearly.

2. Break big decisions down into little decisions. I once worked with a team that had an idea for a new product. They planned to pitch to the executive committee and request 3 million dollars to develop and launch the idea. After some coaxing, we decided to avoid that disaster and brainstormed everything that needed to be true to make the idea work. We devised a plan to test the three assumptions that, if we were wrong, would instantly kill the idea. When we pitched to the executive committee, we received an immediate Yes.

3. Present options and implications. As anyone with a toddler knows, you don’t ask yes or no questions. You give them options – do you want to wear the yellow or pink shirt? If they pick something else, like their Batman costume, you explain the implications of that decision and why the options previously presented are better. Sometimes they pick the yellow shirt. Sometimes they pick the Batman costume. You could force them to make the right decision, but no one wins. (Yes, I just compared managers to toddlers. Prove me wrong).

It’s your decision

Being in charge requires making decisions. When you decide, you lose the option (maybe temporarily, maybe forever) to pursue a different path. But you can’t be afraid to do it.

After all, “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.”

Image credit: Pixabay

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The Paradox of Innovation Leadership

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GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

Most of us are aware that both the organizational leadership and cultural paradigms have shifted, due to the accelerating demands of the current global VUCA/BANI operating environment. Requiring us to make sense of and navigate the paradoxical nature of innovation leadership. By developing multiple perspectives to re-think how to respond positively and creatively to the high levels of tension and range of massive disruptions we collectively face in our current high-speed, constantly changing, global operating environments.

According to Otto Scharmer in a recent article for Resilience Magazine, we are facing a looming paradox – “we know almost everything that is necessary to prevent civilizational collapse – we have most of the knowledge, most of the technologies, and all the financial means necessary to turn things around – and yet we are not doing it”.

To truly differentiate ourselves and do the “right things” as adaptive and agile 21st-century leaders, and coaches, it’s crucial to learn the “soft skills” required to cultivate true, and relevant multiple perspectives. To better serve people and unlock and mobilize their collective genius to co-create a future that is regenerative, peaceful, and just, for all of humanity.

What is a paradox?

In a White Paper – Managing Paradox, Blending East and West Philosophies to Unlock Its Advantages and Opportunities from the Center for Creative Leadership, authors Jean Brittain Leslie, Peter Ping Li, and Sophia Zhao, use the term “paradox as a general term to describe the tensions individuals face due to the coexistence of conflicting demands”.

That a paradox can also be described as tensions, dilemmas, conundrums, polarities, competing values, and contradictions, and have these principles in common:

It is often difficult to see the presence of paradoxes in organizational life and in a VUCA and BANI world.
They are not problems that can be solved, as they are often unsolvable.
They are of cyclical or recurring nature.
They can polarize individuals into groups.
They are potentially positive when managed.
Managing paradox involves developing a mindset (and perspective) beyond “either/or” logic (A is either B or not B).

Polarity is the preferred term used in long-time practitioner Barry Johnson’s work. Duality is also used, referring to the yin-yang perspective on a paradox – a pair of opposite elements that can be both partially conflicting and partially complementary.

Mastering the paradoxical nature of innovation leadership requires developing the soft skills to hold two trains of competing or complementary thoughts, or perspectives, simultaneously. This enables innovation leaders to connect to, explore, navigate, and discover new territories to sense possibilities, seize opportunities, and simultaneously solve complex systems and challenging problems differently – in ways that add value to the quality of people’s lives they appreciate and cherish.

Why is it important to navigate a paradox?

Innovation leadership involves cultivating a paradoxical mindset that enables us to work outside of the “either/or” binary and logical perspective and work within the “both/and” non-logical and multiple perspectives, by knowing how to see both the:

Perspectives clearly,
Positive and negative consequences of each perspective,
Interrelationship and interdependence between each perspective.

Shifting perspectives – Taking a skills-based approach

A recent MIT Sloane article “Taking a skills-based approach to culture change” reinforces how important it is to support digital, cultural, and other transformation initiatives by developing people’s “soft skills”, through innovation leadership learning initiatives, specifically to develop the thinking skills required to hold multiple perspectives:

“Unlike most types of culture initiatives, a skills-based approach can more effectively infuse new culture components into scale-ups and international incumbents alike. This approach is particularly effective for developing what many refer to as soft skills, such as perspective-taking. This ability to step outside one’s own perspective to understand another person’s point of view, motivations, and emotions helps build a psychologically safe environment in which people dare to share ideas and unfiltered information”.

Developing perspective-taking skills is fundamental to mastering the paradoxical nature of innovation leadership. It enables leaders and coaches to connect to, explore, navigate, and discover new territories to catalyze and harness people’s collective genius and shift perspectives differently.
Developing the 21st-century leadership superpowers necessary to reimagine, reinvent, design, and deliver innovative solutions to complex and challenging problems.

Making the shift – Taking the first steps

Barry Johnson’s work states that:

“Managing paradox involves moving from focusing on one pole as the problem and the other as the solution (either/or thinking) to valuing both poles (both/and thinking)”.

This is supported by a recent article “The Six Paradoxes of Leadership” by PWC:

“Paradoxes are not new to leaders, but they are becoming have become increasingly important for leaders to navigate”.

Drafting six key questions for leaders and coaches to consider by hitting their “pause buttons” and directing their focus and attention:

“The most urgent in today’s context and will remain important in the future. The paradoxes should be considered as a system; they impact each other and all need to be balanced simultaneously. To truly differentiate yourself as a leader, learning how to comfortably inhabit both elements of each paradox will be critical to your success.”

These multiple perspective-shifting questions include:

How might you, as both a leader (and coach) learn how to navigate a world that is increasingly both global and local?
How might you, as both a leader (and coach), learn how to navigate both the politics of getting things to happen and retain your character and integrity?
How might you, as both a leader (and coach) develop the confidence to act in an uncertain (and BANI) world and the humility and vulnerability to recognize when you are wrong?
How might you, as both a leader (and coach) learn how to execute effectively whilst also being both tactical and strategic?
How might you, as both a leader (and coach) become increasingly tech-savvy and remember that organizations are run by people, for people?
How might you, as both a leader (and coach) apply the learnings and successes of the past to help guide and direct you in the future?

Making the shift – Learning the innovation leadership fundamentals

At ImagineNation™ we have accredited more than 100 leaders and coaches globally as professionally certified coaches for innovation in our global bespoke online coaching and learning products and programs has validated three key poles innovation leadership requires.

Which is to know how to effectively move from focusing on one pole as the problem and the other as the solution (either/or thinking) to valuing both poles (both/and thinking) and developing multiple perspectives:

Both Push and Pull: noticing when people are neurologically stuck in a flight/fight/freeze mode and are reticent and unable to make the shift toward a desired future state. Leaders and coaches can safely push people towards what is urgent and “necessary” to change to survive, and simultaneously pull them towards both the benefits, rewards, and desirability of the future state and towards mobilizing them towards energetically engaging and enrolling in it.
Both Strategic and Tactical: noticing when people are so busy that they “can’t see the forest for the trees”, or are caught up and lost in tasks, and activities involved in getting things done, quickly, and often thoughtlessly. Leaders and coaches can focus on both what they are trying to achieve, and why they are trying to achieve, it whilst simultaneously engaging people in completing the task and observing and considering it strategically and systemically.
Both In the Box and Out of the Box: noticing what are peoples’ core operating systems, and being present to what is true and real for them, without judgment and with detachment. Leaders and coaches can focus both on “what is” the person’s perspective, situation, and current reality, whilst simultaneously evoking, provoking, and cultivating “what could be possible” and eliciting unconventional multiple perspectives that catalyze creative thinking differently strategies.

Grappling with the future is paradoxical

Today’s strategic landscape is like nothing we have ever seen before, which makes innovation leadership and innovation coaching skills more important than ever.

To re-think for a new age, how to courageously confront and solve serious dilemmas and complex problems, how to adapt to complex systems, be creative in transforming time, people, and financial investments in ways that drive out complacency and build change readiness.

To then deliver deep and continuous change and learning to equip and empower innovation leadership to develop the multiple perspectives required to deliver valuable and tangible results, whilst simultaneously opening new pathways to a future that is regenerative, peaceful, and just for all of humanity.

Image Credit: Pixabay

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Are You an Innovation Leader or Manager?

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Are You an Innovation Leader or Manager?

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

“Leader” is a word that gets thrown around A LOT.

Senior Management Teams are now Senior Leadership Teams.

Business schools no longer train managers. They “educate leaders.”

Training programs for specific skills are now “Leadership Development Programs”

If “innovation” is a buzzword (and it is), then “leadership” is the grand poo-bah of buzzwords.

Let’s get one thing straight.

“Leadership,” as it is commonly used, is the “extra-ordinarization of the mundane.”

But it’s not meant to be.

If you are a leader, you use your personal qualities and behaviors to influence and inspire others to follow you because they choose to (not because the org chart requires them to). Any person, anywhere in the org chart, can be a leader because leadership has nothing to do with your position, responsibilities, or resources.

If you are a manager, executive, or senior executive, you have positional power, usually earned. These terms put you in a particular place in the org chart, define your scope of responsibility, and set guardrails around the human and financial resources you control.

There is nothing wrong with being a manager (or executive or senior executive). Those positions are earned through hard work and steady results. They are titles to aspire to, be proud of, and use in a professional setting.

But if you run around telling people you’re a leader, well, to misquote Margaret Thatcher, “Being a leader is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”

Are you a leader?

There are thousands of books on leadership, millions of articles, and hundreds of experts. I am not a leadership expert, but I know a leader when I meet one. The same is true for the people around you.

What do we see that helps us know whether or not you are a leader?

If the dozen articles I skimmed for this post are any indication, everyone has their own list, but there are some common items. To find the most frequently mentioned, I asked ChatGPT to list the qualities and behavior distinguishing leaders from managers and executives.

Here’s what I got:

Here are my reactions:

Uh, ok. This leadership list feels like what an executive should do, but I guess the difference between the two (executives focus on strategy, and leaders inspire and connect) proves my point (which is a bit discouraging)
It feels like some leadership qualities are missing (e.g., empathy, fostering psychological safety, inspiring trust)
Kinda surprised to see other leadership qualities (do you need to “foster creativity and innovation” to be a leader?)

That 3^rd thought led to a fourth – if “fostering creativity and innovation” is a quality shared amongst all leaders, then is there a difference between business, operational, and innovation leaders?

Are you an innovation leader?

I’ve worked for and with leaders, and I can say with absolute confidence that while each of them was a great leader, few were great leaders of innovation.

Why? What made them great leaders in business and operations but not in innovation?

Do you even need to be good at leading innovation if you’re good at managing it?

What does it even mean to be an “innovation leader?”

What do you think?

Off the top of my head, qualities specific to innovation leaders are:

Patient for revenue, impatient for learning and insights
Oriented to action, not evaluation (judging)
Curious and questioning, not arrogant and answering

What am I missing (because I know I’m missing a lot)?

What characteristics have you experienced with innovation leaders that make them unique from other types of leaders?

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Women Start-up Entrepreneurs Battle Against Gender Stereotypes and Ageism

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Women Start-up Entrepreneurs Battle Against Gender Stereotypes and Ageism

GUEST POST from Janet Sernack

It’s been thirty-five years since I exited my life as a top retail corporate executive, and become a serial female entrepreneur. It’s been an awesome roller-coaster ride, which includes ten years as one of many adventurous, brave, global women start-up entrepreneurs. Its also been a very challenging, rewarding, and fulfilling learning journey, where I have been both privileged and humbled to have impacted thousands of men and women positively, and globally through my consulting, learning, mentoring, and coaching practice.

Yet, I can’t help wondering how my journey could have been significantly less challenging, and possibly even more profoundly impactful, had gender stereotypes and later, ageism not been so pervasive. Where the “Gender Stereotypes and Their Impact on Women Entrepreneurs” by the Cherie Blair Foundation qualify this further by providing evidence of gender stereotyping impacting women’s journeys to and through entrepreneurship. Which then affects their “aspirations, sources of support, opportunities, access to resources, perceptions, and the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem”.

What is the impact of gender stereotypes on women start-up entrepreneurs?

Some of the key findings revealed by this report include:

70% of women entrepreneurs surveyed said that gender stereotypes have negatively affected their work as an entrepreneur.
More than six in ten of those surveyed (61%) believe that gender stereotypes impact their business growth and almost half (49%) say they affect profitability.
Stereotypes start early, shape women’s journeys to entrepreneurship, and can have a lasting impact on aspirations, confidence, and behavior.
Over half of the women entrepreneurs surveyed (56%) said that social approval or disapproval of different careers played a role in their choice of career.
The majority of women entrepreneurs surveyed (70%) also reported knowing a woman entrepreneur when they were children, suggesting the powerful influence of role models on children and young women.

What is the impact of gender stereotyping on women start-up entrepreneurs raising venture capital?

When I attended a recent webinar “Coaching for Success – How Can Investors Support Start-up Founders” held by EMCC Asia Pacific I checked out the percentage of women start-up entrepreneurs who had actually received venture capitalist’s funds. I was shocked, yet not surprised to see TechCrunch report that in the US “women-founded start-ups raised 1.9% of all VC funds in 2022, a drop from 2021.”

Here in Australia, as reported by the Women’s Agenda just 3% of total VC capital went to all-women-founded start-ups in 2022, while just 10 percent went to those with at least one woman in their co-founding teams. This report also reveals that “83 percent of women believe their gender has impacted their ability to raise external capital, compared with 14 percent of men”.

What is the impact of gender stereotyping on women start-up entrepreneurs’ ability to impact globally?

The new Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2021/2022 Women’s Entrepreneurship Report showed that “start-up rates for women dropped by 15% from 2019 to 2020, and held constant in 2021. Women also experienced sharper declines than men in their intentions to start a business within three years and overall start-up rates in 2020, but not in upper-middle income countries”. Where “Women represent two out of every five early-stage entrepreneurs”.

This means that almost half of the world’s potential entrepreneurs have been handicapped, and are still being restrained and held back from adding value to the quality of people’s lives and making the difference they want to, and can make in the world.

What are some of the key challenges women start-up entrepreneurs face?

Referring to my own personal experience with founding ImagineNation™ as an Israeli Australian start-up 10 years ago, I am able to share a range of key frustrations and challenges which confronted me. This was catalyzed by a recent article featured in Business News Daily which shares the range of core challenges and how other women start-up entrepreneurs might possibly choose to deal with, resolve and overcome them.

Hopefully, other women start-up entrepreneurs might find some inspiration, motivation, and encouragement to be steadfast in pursuing their dreams courageously, with a bit of healthy self-compassion to creatively execute their vision for a better world, from my story.

Defying social expectations

As a relatively new arrival to the Israeli start-up scene, I was repeatedly told that as an “outsider” I could not know “how we do things around here” despite my 25 years of culture and change management consulting experience. I attended weekly start-up events in Tel Aviv, and often stood, as a lone woman, alongside diverse groups of young men, usually drinking beer and dressed in black. I also found that being older than the average start-up entrepreneur, despite my 25 years of experience in mentoring women in business, I also faced the dreaded “ageism bias” and as a result, I was largely ignored at many of these crucial networking events. Because in Israel “if you don’t network, you don’t work!”

I chose to detach from this, by refusing to conform to what appeared to be men’s ideas of what a start-up entrepreneur should look, be and act like. Instead, I chose to learn as much as I could from my range of experiences, enabling me to adapt, innovate and grow, as do many other women start-up entrepreneurs when faced with these challenges, to accelerate my innovation solution.

Accessing funding

With no family or relatives locally, or the ability to get a financial guarantor, I had no access to source funds externally, despite meeting a number of local venture capitalists. Who, I noticed, tended to focus mostly on investing in a “quick win” or in growth-stage start-ups. When attending a government-sponsored meeting in Sydney, to qualify for an Australian Government Entrepreneurship Grant, I was confronted by a panel of three aggressive and oppositional male VC consultants who mercilessly tore my start-up invention and myself apart. Telling me it was not worth investing in and would be replicated by others within six months. To date, it still hasn’t been copied.

I eventually recovered my composure, confidence, and courage and made the decision to bootstrap, self-fund, and pay my own way forwards, which took longer, and yet was the best decision.

Struggling to be taken seriously

Even when I applied my then 25 years of consulting, learning, and development knowledge, skills, and corporate experience to research, model, and replicate the “secret sauce” behind the Israeli start-up system, it was hard for me to be taken seriously. Finding that some people, in both Israel and Australia, found defensive ways to negate and minimize my 10-year immersion in an innovation culture when I was designing, iterating, pivoting, and marketing my unique innovation learning and coaching curriculum.

I focused on continuing to develop my self-efficacy, on finding my tribe, and on researching, and building a global reputation as a thought leader on the people side of innovation, by experimenting with blogging and presenting webinars.

Owning your accomplishments

In the first 9 years, I presented more than 6 free innovation webinars, and 10 blog posts a year, generously sharing my IP and knowledge, without really recognizing and acknowledging the value of my own creative ideas and inventions. Whilst this helped me find my collaborators, build an ecosystem, and added to my reputation-building efforts, I gave away far too much without getting sound financial commitments from potential clients.

I now truly value and esteem my knowledge and IP at a deeper, and still share free webinars and 10 blog posts a year. I now focus on only presenting 2 learning and coaching programs a year where I charge participants more than double, compared to what I initially charged.

Building a support network

Interestingly, this has been very challenging, due to having lived in a patriarchal culture in Israel and a “boys club” and the “old boys’ network” here in Australia which permeates every level of our organizational culture and civil society. In my experience, I have also sadly discovered that the majority of women in the consulting, learning, and development sectors prefer to compete, rather than collaborate.

I find that I am still constantly challenged by people’s ageism bias, and manage this by mostly working globally, and online, mentoring and coaching both men and women who are seeking to fulfill their potential, adapt, innovate, and grow to effect positive change in their worlds.

I also focused on developing the “friendlies” included in my global Coach for Innovators, Leaders, and Teams alumni and network, my Linked In tribe, and my International Coaching Federation (ICF) colleagues to draw upon, and support when needed.

Balancing business and family life

Having recovered from a significant burnout experience more than 25 years ago, I have been able to achieve and sustain a reasonable work-life balance. By managing, developing, and leading my business effectively, being both self-disciplined, and methodical, and being curious and creative, even when my old habitual task holism threatens to take over.

It takes focused attention and deep intention, being passionately purposeful to ensure that I stay on track with doing the “one thing” I am creating, inventing, and innovating whilst on the roller-coaster ride.

Coping with fear of failure

Self-doubt, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, risk adversity, and rejection are the key neurological perils confronting many women (and men) start-up entrepreneurs. This creates opportunities for women start-up entrepreneurs to learn how to bravely and boldly be, think and act differently in articulating their passionate purpose and achieving their vision in an uncertain and constantly changing world.

I experienced a number of significant failures, which deeply hurt me viscerally, emotionally, and cognitively, as well as resulted in serious financial losses.

I focussed on using these as “teachable moments” to learn how to take smart risks, manage my self-talk and not self-depreciate my inherent self-worth. To seek feedback and help when I froze as a result of my mistakes, losses, and failure, which ultimately enabled me to develop the deep courage, healthy self-compassion, and GRIT to stay in the start-up entrepreneurship game.

This enables me to role model, mentor, teach and coach other women start-up entrepreneurs, develop embodied presence, and be congruent in walking my talk.

How can you take action to eliminate gender (and age) stereotypes as a women start-up entrepreneur?

If we want to ensure that almost half of the world’s potential women start-up entrepreneurs are empowered, and enabled to add value to the quality of people’s lives and make the difference they want to, and can make in the world, make sure to take personal responsibility in:

Supporting women in their efforts to make a difference and contribute to the common good, despite age or gender differences, gives women start-up entrepreneurs greater chances of long-term growth and impactful success.
Eliminating from your locus of control and influence, any gender stereotyping and ageism biases.

We can then maximize the benefits gender and age differences and diversity bring, and collectively make the world a fairer, more inclusive, equitable, and balanced place in all domains that contribute to the common good, and a planet that balances and includes all people equally, with profits.

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, starts October 3, 2023. It can be customised as a bespoke corporate learning program.

It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of an ecosystem focus, human-centric approach, and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, and upskill people and teams and develop their future fitness, within your unique innovation context. Find out more about our products and tools.

Image Credit: Pixabay

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Why You Must Define Innovation

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(Hint: It’s All About Efficiency)

Why You Must Define Innovation

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

As the world around you becomes more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA), you know that you need to build skills to navigate it and inspire others to follow your path.

But what if you are the source of ambiguity?

Because you are. Every time you speak.

The words we use always have clear meaning and intent to us but may not (and often don’t) have the same meaning and intent to others.

That’s why one of the first and most essential things a company can do when starting its innovation journey is to decide what “innovation” means. It may seem like an academic exercise, but it becomes very practical when you discover that one person thinks it means something new to the world, another thinks it’s a new product, and a third thinks it means anything commercialized.

Ambiguity = Efficiency?

“Innovation” isn’t the only word that is distractingly ambiguous. Language, in general, evolved to be ambiguous because ambiguity makes it more efficient. In 2012, cognitive scientists at MIT found the ambiguity–efficiency link, noting “words with fewer syllables and easier pronunciation can be ‘reused,’ avoiding the need for a vast and increasingly complex vocabulary.”

You read that right. In language, ambiguity leads to efficiency.

Every time you speak, you’re ambiguous. You’re also efficient.

The RIGHT level of Ambiguity = Efficiency!

In 2014, researchers at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona found that language’s ambiguity is critical to communicating complex ideas,

“the researchers argue that the level of ambiguity we have in language is at just the right level to make it easy to speak and be understood. If every single object and concept had its own unique word, then language is completely unambiguous – but the vocabulary is huge. The listener doesn’t have to do any guessing about what the speaker is saying, but the speaker has to say a lot. For example, “Come here” might have to be something like “I want you to come to where I am standing.” At the other extreme, if the same word is used for everything, that makes it easy for the speaker, but the listener can’t tell if she is being told about the weather or a rampaging bear.”

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Either way, communication is hard. But Sole and Seoane argue that with just the right amount of ambiguity, the two can find a good trade-off.”

A certain level of ambiguity is efficient. Too much or too little is inefficient.

How to find the RIGHT level of Ambiguity for “Innovation”

In everyday life, it’s ok for everyone to have a slightly different definition of innovation because we all generally agree it means “something new.” Sure, there will be differences of opinion on some things (is a new car an “innovation” if it just improved on the previous model?). Still, overall, we can exist in this world and interact with each other despite, or maybe because of, the ambiguity.

Work is a different story. If you are responsible for, working on, or even associated with innovation, you better be very clear on what “innovation” means because its definition determines expectations and success for what you do. If it means one thing to you and a different thing to your boss, and a third thing to her boss, you’re in for a world of disappointment and pain.

Let’s avoid that. Instead:

Define the word
Get everyone to agree on the definition
Use the word and immediately follow it with, “And by that, I mean (definition)”

Gently correct people when they use the word to mean something other than the agreed-upon definition. Once everyone uses the word correctly, you can stop defining it every time because its meaning has taken root.

So, the next time someone rolls their eyes and comments on the “theoretical” or “academic” (i.e., not at all practical, useful, or actionable) exercise of defining innovation, smile and explain that this is an exercise in efficiency.

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How to Make Navigating Ambiguity a Super Power

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GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

You are a leader. The boss. The person in charge.

That means you know the answer to every question, make the right decision when faced with every choice, and act confidently when others are uncertain. Right?

(Insert uproarious laughter here).

Of course not. But you act like you do because you’re the leader, the boss, the person in charge.

You are not alone. We’re all doing it.

We act like we have the answers because we’ve been told that’s what leaders do. We act like we made the right decision because that’s what leaders do in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world where we must work quickly and flexibly while doing more with less.

But what if we didn’t?

What if we stopped pretending to have the answer or know the right choice? What if we acknowledged the ambiguity of a situation, explored its options and interpretations for just a short while, and then decided?

We’d make more informed choices. We’d be more creative and innovative. We’d inspire others.

So why do we keep pretending?

Ambiguity: Yea! Meh. Have you lost your mind?!?

Stanford’s d.School calls the ability to navigate ambiguity “the super ability” because it’s necessary for problem-finding and problem-solving. Ambiguity “involves recognizing and stewing in the discomfort of not knowing, leveraging and embracing parallel possibilities, and resolving or emerging from ambiguity as needed.”

Navigating ambiguity is essential in a VUCA world, but not all want to. They found that people tend to do one of three things when faced with ambiguity:

Endure ambiguity as “a moment of time that comes before a solution and is antagonistic to the objective – it must be conquered to reach the goal.”
Engage ambiguity as “an off-road adventure; an alternate path to a goal. It might be rewarding and helpful or dangerous and detrimental. Its value is a chosen gamble. Exhilaration and exhaustion are equally expected.”
Embrace ambiguity as “oceanic and ever-present. Exploration is a challenge and an opportunity. The longer you spend in it, the more likely you are to discover something new. Every direction is a possibility. Navigation isn’t simple. It requires practice and patience.

Students tend to enter the program with a resignation that ambiguity must be endured. They leave embracing it because they learn how to navigate it.

You can too.

In fact, as a leader in a VUCA world, you and your team need to.

How to Embrace (or at least Engage) Ambiguity

When you want to learn something new, the library is one of the best places to start. In this case, the Library of Ambiguity – an incredible collection of the resources, tools, and activities that professors at Stanford’s d.School use to help their students build this super ability.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the number of resources, so here are three that I recommend:

Design Project Scoping Guide

What it is: A guide for selecting, framing, and communicating the intentions of a design project
When to use it: When you are defining an innovation project and need to align on scope, goals, and priorities
Why I like it: The guide offers excellent examples of helpful and unhelpful scoping documents.

Learning Zone Reflection Tool

What it is: A tool to help individuals better understand the tolerance of ambiguity, especially their comfort, learning, and panic zones
When to use it: Stanford used this as a reflection tool at the end of an introductory course, BUT I would use it at the start of the project as a leadership alignment and team-building tool:
- Leadership alignment – Ask individual decision-makers to identify their comfort, learning, and panic zones for each element of the Project Scoping Guide (problem to be solved, target customer, context, goals, and priorities), then synthesize the results. As a group, highlight areas of agreement and resolve areas of difference.
- Team-building – At the start of the project, ask individual team members to complete the worksheet as it applies to both the project scope and the process. Individuals share their worksheets and, as a group, identify areas of shared comfort and develop ways to help each other through areas of learning or panic.
Why I like it: Very similar to the Project Playground concept I use with project teams to define the scope and set constraints, it can be used individually to build empathy and support amongst team members.

Team Dashboards

What it is: A tool to build trust and confidence amongst a team working through an ambiguous effort
When to use it: At regular pre-defined intervals during a project (e.g., every team check-in, at the end of each Sprint, once a month)
What I like about it:
- Individuals complete it BEFORE the meeting, so the session focuses on discussing the dashboard, not completing it
- The dashboard focuses on the usual business things (progress against responsibilities, the biggest challenge, next steps) and the “softer” elements that tend to have the most significant impact on team experience and productivity (mood, biggest accomplishment, team balance between talking and doing)

Learn It. Do It.

The world isn’t going to get simpler, clearer, or slower. It’s on you as a leader to learn how to deal with it. When to slow it down and explore and when to speed it up and act. No one is born knowing. We all learn along the way. The Library will help. No ambiguity about that!

Image credit: Pexels

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Are You Creative or Reactive?

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Are You Creative or Reactive?

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Creative and reactive both contain the same letters.

Different order.

Very different results.

These are strange times.

A relentless stream of news and updates are coming at us, warning us about COVID-19, a declining stock market, rising unemployment, and the financial crunch facing millions and millions of individuals and families.

On the other hand, we’re also getting daily notifications from companies about what they’re doing in the face of all of this news, tips for working from home and maintaining our mental health, and encouragement to support our friends, families, neighbors, and strangers in new ways.

Should we be scared or stoic? Isolated or connected? Hoarding or sharing?

Whatever you choose (and it is your choice), I encourage you to also be creative.

I’m not talking about being creative in the capital C way and take up painting, sculpting, composing, or any of the other activities we typically associate with the fine arts.

I’m talking about calmly assessing your situation, clearly acknowledging the constraints that are requiring change, and then exploring the “new normal” you can create.

This is what innovators do and you, yes YOU, are an innovator.

Innovators know that creativity thrives within constraints. If anything is possible and everything is permissible, you can do whatever you want! But that’s not how the world is. Not now and not before COVID-19.

We, people and businesses, have always faced constraints because we’ve never had infinite resources, money, or time. But we acknowledged the constraints and created within them. That’s what we have to do now.

Here’s some inspiration from the business world:

1. Devil’s Food Catering: From event caterer to consortium offering takeout meals

Caterers have to order food well before events take place so when events are cancelled, caterers are left with a lot of food that they’ve already paid for and without the event income that was going to cover their costs.

Devil’s Food Catering in Portland OR faced exactly this situation. Instead of letting the food go to waste or trying to become a take-out shop on their own, they created Handbasket by teaming with other with other Portland area restaurants, breweries, distilleries, bakeries, and other providers to create “handmade menus for quality in-home dining experiences during this of social distancing.”

2. Gyms, Fitness Studios, and Personal Trainers: From in-person to on-line communities

Some people are gifted with the motivation to workout and some of us, well… aren’t.

In-person classes and personal training are often the solutions we rely on because we feel a sense of connection with our instructors, trainers, and classmates. As gyms close and social distancing becomes a way of life, the loss of live workouts can deepen our sense of isolation.

Recognizing this, local gyms, studios, and personal trainers in cities across the country are offering livestream classes so that we can continue to feel connected AND healthy AND active from the comfort of our own homes.

p.s. the link above is for the Boston area but I found similar articles for Philly, Washington, Houston, and even Wyoming

3. Speakers Who Dare: From Broadway event to Livestream to Movie

Spears Who Dare bills itself as TED meets Broadway, “a groundbreaking speaker series produced like a Broadway show, featuring speakers from around the world who want to ignite change and inspire new ways of thinking.”

Scheduled to take place on March 24, the organizers recognized that, like many other live events, their original plans for a live Broadway event needed to change. Last week, they shifted from live to livestream, planning a 6-camera shoot of each speaker and performer sharing their messages and art in an empty theater.

Then NYC closed the theaters. Within hours the organizers shifted again and asked each speaker to record a “mini-movie” that could be edited together to create “a full-blown Speakers Who Dare Film” to be shared with a global audience, viewing together on the original event date.

How and what will YOU create today?

Just in case you need a nudge … find the perfect gif starring the perfect celebrity expressing the perfect emotion and send it to someone who needs it.

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10 Military Innovation Moments

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GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

Innovation is something different that creates value. Sometimes it’s big, new to the world, world-changing things. Sometimes it’s a slight tweak to make things easier, faster, cheaper or better.

Sometimes, it’s both.

It’s no secret that the military and NASA are birthplaces of incredible inventions (something new) and innovations (something different that creates value). Most people know that Velcro, nylon, and powdered drinks (Tang!) originated at Nasa, and that Jeep, GPS, and the internet come to us from the military.

But did you know that these 10 everyday innovations have their origin in the military?

1. Duct Tape

Invented in 1942 to seal ammo boxes with something that could resist water and dirt while also being fast and easy to remove so soldiers could quickly access ammunition when they needed it. Originally, it was made by applying a rubber-based adhesive to duck cloth, a plain and tightly woven cotton fabric, and has evolved over the years to be used for everything from repairing equipment on the moon to purses.

2. Synthetic Rubber Tires

Speaking of rubber, prior to WWII, most rubber was harvested from trees in South America and shipped to southern Asia where the majority of rubber products were produced. When the Axis powers cut-off access to Asia, the US military turned to Firestone, Goodyear, and Standard Oil to create a replacement substance. The recipe they created is still used today.

3. Silly Putty

Like most inventions, there were a lot of failed experiments before the right synthetic rubber recipe was found. Silly Putty is the result of one of those experiments. A scientist at GE developed the strange substance but quickly shelved it after it became clear that it had no useful military application. Years later, GER execs started showing off the novelty item at cocktail parties, an advertising exec in attendance saw its commercial potential and bought the manufacturing rights, packaged it into eggs and sold it as a toy. 350 million eggs later, we’re still playing with it.

4. Superglue

The result of another failed experiment, Superglue came onto the market in 1958 and has stuck around ever since (sorry, that pun was intended). Military scientists were testing materials to use as clear plastic rifle sights and created an incredibly durable but impossibly sticky substance called cyanoacrylate. Nine years later it was being sold commercially as Superglue and eventually did make its way into military use during the Vietnam War as a way to immediately stop bleeding from wounds.

5. Feminine Hygiene Pads

Image Credit: Museum of American History

Before Superglue was used to stop bleeding, bandages woven with cellulose were used on the battlefields and hospitals. Seeing how effective the bandages were at holding blood and the convenience of having so many on hand, US and British WW1 nurses began using them as sanitary napkins and bandage makers adapted and expanded their post-War product lines to accommodate.

6. Undershirts

Image Credit: Foto-ianniello/Getty Images

While people have been wearing undergarments for centuries, the undershirt as we know it — a t-shaped, cotton, crewneck — didn’t come into being until the early twentieth century. Manufactured and sold by the Cooper Underwear Co., it caught the Navy’s eye as a more convenient and practical option than the current button-up shirts. In 1905, it became part of the official Navy uniform and the origin of the term “crewneck.”

7. Aerosol Big Spray

Soldiers fighting in the Pacific theater of WWII had a lot to worry about, so they were eager to cross mosquitos and malaria off that list. In response, the Department of Defense teamed up with the Department of Agriculture to find a way to deliver insecticide as a fine mist. The first aerosol “bug bomb” was patented in 1941 and, thanks to the development of a cheaper plastic aerosol valve, became commercially available to civilians in 1949.

8. Canned Food

Image Credit: Pacific Paratrooper — WordPress.com

While it’s not surprising that canned foods were originally created for the military, it may surprise you to learn that it was Napoleon’s armies that first used the concept. In response to the French Government’s offer of a large cash reward for anyone who could find a way to preserve large quantities of food, an inventor discovered that food cooked inside a jar wouldn’t spoil unless the seal leaked, or the container was broken. But glass jars are heavy and fragile, so innovation continued until WW1 when metal cans replaced the glass jars.

9. Microwave

RadaRange on the Nuclear Ship NS Savannah

This is another one that you probably would have guessed has its origins in the military but may be surprised by its actual origin story. The term “microwave” refers to an adaptation of radar technology that creates electromagnetic waves on a tiny scale and passes those micro-waves through food, vibrating it, and heating it quickly. The original microwaves made their debut in 1946 on ships but it took another 20 years to get the small and affordable enough to be commercially viable.

10. Wristwatches

Watches first appeared on the scene in the 15th century but they didn’t become reliable or accurate until the late 1700s. However, up until the early 20th century, wristwatches were primarily worn as jewelry by women and men used pocket watches. During its military campaigns in the late 1880s, the British Army began using wristwatches as a way to synchronize maneuvers without alerting the enemy to their plans. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So, there you have it. 10 everyday innovations brought to us civilians by the military. Some, like synthetic rubber, started as intentional inventions (something new) and quickly became innovations (something new that creates value). Some, like superglue and silly putty, are “failed” experiments that became innovations. And some, like undershorts and feminine products, are pure innovations (value-creating adaptations of pre-existing products to serve different users and users).

Sources: USA Today, Pocket-lint.com, and Mic.com

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Want to Innovate like Google?

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Be Careful What You Wish For

Want to Innovate like Google?

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

A few weeks ago, a Google researcher leaked an internal document asserting that Google (and open AI) will lose the AI “arms race” to Open Source AI.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t understand much of the tech speak – LLM, LLaMA, RLHF, and LoRA are just letters to me. But I understood why the memo’s writer believed that Google was about to lose out on a promising new technology to a non-traditional competitor.

They’re the same reasons EVERY large established company loses to startups.

Congratulations, big, established industry incumbents, you’re finally innovating like Google!

(Please note the heavy dose of sarcasm intended).

Innovation at Google Today

The document’s author lists several reasons why “the gap is closing astonishingly quickly” in terms of Google’s edge in AI, including:

“Retraining models from scratch is the hard path” – the tendency to want to re-use (re-train) old models because of all the time and effort spent building them, rather than start from scratch using newer and more flexible tools
“Large models aren’t more capable in the long run if we can iterate faster on small models” – the tendency to want to test on a grand scale, believing the results are more reliable than small tests and drive rapid improvements.
“Directly competing with open source is a losing proposition” – most people aren’t willing to pay for perfect when “good enough” is free.
“We need them more than they need us” – When talent leaves, they take knowledge and experience with them. Sometimes the competitors you don’t see coming.
“Individuals are not constrained by licenses to the same degree as corporations” – Different customers operate by different rules, and you need to adjust and reflect that.
“Being your own customer means you understand the use case” – There’s a huge difference between designing a solution because it’s your job and designing it because you are in pain and need a solution.

What it sounds like at other companies

Even the statements above are a bit tech industry-centric, so let me translate them into industry-agnostic phrases, all of which have been said in actual client engagements.

Just use what we have. We already paid to make it.
Lots of little experiments will take too long, and the dataset is too small to be trusted. Just test everything all at once in a test market, like Canada or Belgium.
We make the best . If customers aren’t willing to pay for it because they don’t understand how good it is, they’re idiots.
It’s a three-person startup. Why are we wasting time talking about them?
Aren’t we supposed to move fast and test cheaply? Just throw it in Google Translate, and we’ll be done.
Urban Millennials are entitled and want a reward. They’ll love this! (60-year-old Midwesterner)

How You (and Google) can get back to the Innovative Old Days

The remedy isn’t rocket (or computer) science. You’ve probably heard (and even advocated for) some of the practices that help you avoid the above mistakes:

Call out the “sunk cost fallacy,” clarify priorities, and be transparent about trade-offs. Even if minimizing costs is the highest priority, is it worth it at the expense of good or even accurate data?
Define what you need to learn before you decide how to learn it. Apply the scientific method to the business by stating your hypothesis and determining multiple ways to prove or disprove it. Once that’s done, ask decision-makers what they need to see to agree with the test’s result (the burden of proof you need to meet).
Talk. To. Your. Customers. Don’t run a survey. Don’t hire a research firm. Stand up from your desk, walk out of your office, go to your customers, and ask them open-ended questions (Why, how, when, what).
Constantly scan the horizon and seek out the small players. Sure, most of them won’t be anything to worry about, but some will be on to something. Pay attention to them.
See #3
See #3

Big companies don’t struggle with innovation because the leaders aren’t innovative (Google’s founders are still at the helm), the employees aren’t smart (Google’s engineers are amongst the smartest in the world), or the industry is stagnating (the Tech industry has been accused of a lot, but never that).

Big companies struggle to innovate because operating requires incredible time, money, and energy. Adding innovation, something utterly different, to the mix feels impossible. But employees and execs know it’s essential. So they try to make innovation easier by using the tools, processes, and practices they already have.

It makes sense.

Until you wake up and realize you’re Google.

Image credit: Unsplash

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5 Tips for Leaders Navigating Uncertainty

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From Executives at P&G, CVS, Hannaford, and Intel

5 Tips for Leaders Navigating Uncertainty

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

“We have successfully retained the opportunity for improvement.”

When the CEO said this to kick off a meeting, I knew we were in for an adventure. He smirked at the corporate double-speak, paused for the laughter, then outlined all the headwinds facing the business. But the only thing I remember from that meeting was his opening line.

I think about it all the time. Because it seems to apply all the time.

And despite the turmoil brought on by a pandemic, a war, and an economic slowdown, we have successfully retained the opportunity to improve how we deal with uncertainty.

That isn’t to say we haven’t improved over the past three years. In fact, at an event sponsored by NextUp, four executives from P&G, CVS, Hannaford, and Intel shared what they learned and how they changed while navigating uncertainty.

Listen more

Dave DeJohn, Director of Operations for Hannaford, talked about the importance of listening deeply and constantly to employees, especially those on the front lines. Consistent with its core values of family, community, quality, and value, store associates are trained that the customer is always right. However, as incidents of verbal abuse increased during the lockdowns, employee satisfaction and mental health declined. By closely listening and observing what was happening in stores, Hannaford’s leadership modified their customer service approach to “the customer is always right, within reason” and empowered employees to stand up for themselves and each other when faced with hostile shoppers.

Stronger relationships lead to stronger results

Every executive shared stories from the early days of working from home – technical glitches, kids invading calls, and even cats positioning themselves awkwardly in front of cameras when the human stepped away. Far from being signals of a lack of commitment or professionalism, these moments transformed roles and titles into human beings, juggling all the things humans must juggle. Once people started seeing others as fellow humans versus bosses, peers, or subordinates, they connected on a human level and formed genuine and trusting relationships. Those relationships led to better collaboration, more effective troubleshooting, and better business results.

Concise concrete communication is critical

In periods of uncertainty, information is power. But it’s also constantly changing. For that reason, constant communication is a must. But in a large organization, communication often comes from multiple departments – employee relations, HR, health and safety, operations, and marketing, to name a few – and that can be overwhelming. For this reason, DeJohn learned that keeping every message concise (ideally the length of a tweet but no more than a short paragraph) and concrete (specific, tangible, tactical rather than high-level platitudes) proved critical to keeping people aligned and moving forward.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you need to

Keris Clark, VP of Sales at P&G, spoke about the drastic shift in her work/life balance when she could no longer travel to see customers or attend meetings. Instead of taking the first flight from Boston to Seattle for a meeting and then a red-eye back home, she suddenly had time to work out, cook, and spend time with family. As travel became safer and invitations to far-away meetings came in, she thought more critically about whether or not to book the tickets. Like most of us, she still travels for some things, but it’s no longer the default option now that more people are used to video calls and other ways of working.

We can do things differently and still deliver

COVID’s effect on the supply chain is well documented, and Tiffiny Fisher, Chief of Staff and Technical Assistant for Intel’s America region, gave us a view into Intel’s situation in the earliest days of the pandemic. With fabrication, assembly, and testing sites throughout Asia, Intel had to work quickly to figure out how to continue operating while staying with government lockdown guidelines. Ultimately, hundreds of employees volunteered to leave their families and live in hotels near Intel facilities so that they could continue operating. It was a huge sacrifice by employees and probably not one that anyone would want to make again. Still, it proved that Intel, with the support of its employees, could quickly make massive changes to its operations while continuing to deliver results.

Uncertainty can be deeply uncomfortable, even frightening, even though we face it every day. Building the skills to navigate it and learning lessons about what works and doesn’t can make it easier. But if you still struggle, don’t worry. It just means you’ve successfully retained the opportunity for improvement.

Image credit: Pixabay

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