Strategy-Driven Innovation

Many world-class companies cannot survive without a great vision. Especially in the current climate, how can an organization survive without a well-defined vision? I don’t mean vision-statement alone, I mean a real vision – a vivid enough picture of the future that has no boundaries, it is larger then the organization itself, it is far enough in distance to want to work hard for. A great company vision, everyone can see a clear direction, not the exact path, but a focused path to the future.

Good organizations have a vision; Great organizations are living their vision. Any strategy guru will tell you, without a company vision, the company will fail.

Therefore, if company must have a good vision to be successful, why don’t every individuals have a vision? Do you? Do you have it written for your self?

I don’t think it is possible to be ‘tuned-in’ to our work without having our personal vision connected to our work. Is it? Without this connection, doesn’t it just feel like ‘work’?

Who loves to go to ‘work’ everyday? Not too many. Work can become our own worship only if is fun and exciting. How can we be creative in our work if we don’t have a vivid picture of our own future?

For innovation to work, I have already argued that employees must be fully engaged – more often, everyday, in every project they contributing to. ‘Engaged’ being - more creative in their work, more passionate, more meaningful, less stressful, collaborative etc.

Most people I know haven't thought to do a personal vision statement for themselves. The great athletes, as we watched Olympics in Beijing recently, all spoke about how they got there, how they envisioned their accomplishments, how they visualized their success, how they even ‘watched’ the medal ceremony and their dreams coming true years ago.

Aristotle observed that "the soul never thinks without a picture."

Creating a compelling vision for our lives -- one that includes not just a vision of our professional accomplishments but also a vision for family life, education, health, community engagements, travel, and adventures -- can point us in new directions and provide the drive we need to get there. A personal vision statement asks: what do I want to be, do, and contribute in life -- and who do I want to share it with?

Many people struggle with the concept of defining a vision of the good life because it sounds too abstract and distant. Fortunately, authors Richard Leider and David Shapiro have come to the rescue with an elegantly simple definition of the good life: "living in the place you belong, with the people you love, doing the right work -- on purpose."

It is important to realize that a vision is very different from purpose ("mission") and goals. Our purpose is our reason for being, and we should think of it as timeless. Our goals are the targets we want to accomplish, and they are best conceived in near term; usually within 1-3 years. By contrast, our life vision is a vivid description of what we will do with our lives. It’s best thought of over a decade, or even a lifetime. Our life vision should give goose-bumps, make us cry, and take our breath away with its boldness. It should roar with passion and set markers for what we plan to do with our days on the planet.

A personal vision for yourself, may take long time to arise in your consciousness. But, once you have it, it will become your ‘being’, the creative and catalyzing force in your life.

Carl Jung says that "Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." In essence, our vision statement is an authentic expression of how our purpose and values play out in the world.

C-Suite Bottom Line: To drive enterprise innovation, and create a remarkable living organization, one of the easiest action you take, is to help every employee craft their personal vision statement. This will allow every employee to put their dreams on the line of their own vision of the good life. Once they can see the line of sight between their purpose, values, and work, then let them go – see what happens to your culture for innovation. Creativity will overflow, ideas will come from everywhere, continuous innovation will become the food for sustainable growth, and therefore business strategies will become reality – faster.

-Jatin

Recently a friend asked me what is my definition of integrity. It was an exciting interchange because it helps me deepen my views and obstacles that I am working on within my inner world.

Here is what I said:

1) At the level of highest Universal Truth, it means tight alignment of my thoughts, words, and actions. What I think, must be what I say, and what I do. So, by definition it is Spiritual Integrity - within my self. Many people define integrity from the point of others and not first within themselves. That is fine, but lacks depth and meaning - for me. Integrity therefore is firm adherence to code of personal values - especially moral values. So depending on one's value, virtue and belief system (their level of consciousness), what they think, what they say and what they do, might be quiet different then for others. This does not mean they are not acting with integrity. As long as one is fully aligned from their own internal and higher self, they are acting with integrity. I have to be very careful that I do not judge others in their own integrity. They very well might be acting with full integrity. Does this makes sense?

So how do I know I and others around me are acting with full integrity? That is, how does it show up in my life?

Integrity is a result of three components - Honesty, Respect and Courage.

Acting with integrity means being honest, respectful, and courageous. If I do that correctly, it leads to Trust within myself and with others. Without Trust, we cannot maintain or build relationships with each other. Without relationships, life may have very little meaning - for us mortals that is. Without good relationships, we generally cannot bring our highest self in our work (no matter what we do or what part of our life) and serve others with meaning.

So, I know integrity exists, if my relationships with others have strong bond of Trust and that all three dimensions are active in that relationship. If I lack courage to say the truth to someone, or I have lost respect with someone or them in me, Trust dwindles in our relationship. If trust dwindles, I should feel lack of integrity and I should do something about it.

Integrity is cornerstone for personal creativity. When one is creative with integrity, they are filled with passion in their work and work-teams. There is enough evidence that shows that individuals and teams who act with full Trust (honesty, respect, and courage) with each other, consistently achieve breakthrough results.

Bottom Line for C-Suite and HR: To drive innovation in your organization, simply create an environment of Highest Integrity. Don’t just declare it and talk about it, teach people how to integrate the three components of Honesty, Respect, and Courage in to their work, in to their teams, and with customers. Offer a class on "Integrity 101" and maybe another class on "How to bring Courage in your work 101"?

It depends on your definition of leadership.

In my experience with building leadership capacity for an organization and coach C-level executives, I would highly suggest you first distinguish between what is Leadership and what is Management for your organization – at the top.

Once you have this definition then look for following traits to build via experiential learning(you can't teach leadership in classroom alone). In my opinion most of leadership education in Corporate America is Management Training. Leadership is a form of art. Management is a form of science. You cannot teach leadership in a scientific manner. You can create leadership literacy in class – but that is all. Real leadership skills are built by helping a person, based on their role, to:

1) New leaders: learn to TRUST THEMSELVES - a leader's capacity for trusting others is bounded by their trust for themselves.

2) Experienced leaders: learn to PREPARE TO MAKE MISTAKES... One cannot lead unless they are willing to be wrong... the handmaiden of original thinking are mistakes.

3) For senior leaders: learn that they WILL NEVER HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION TO MAKE THE DECISIONS THEIR JOB CALLS FOR... By definition, the decisions leaders make involve creating... bringing new things into existence, dealing with matters that are unique. While history will inform a leader, a leader’s decisions involve maters for which they must write the history.

4) Finally for the top level executives: they need to learn to BE A "LEADER EDUCATOR"... the source of growth and innovation in your organization will come from those you educate, develop and mentor as leaders. Be "the coach" and clear the field of play for your "experienced leaders."

If you look at the list above, the question you asked no longer matters. The answer becomes - all human beings have the capacity to be a leader. The difference is, what in the ‘context of leadership’, the ‘play arena for leadership’ are you talking about and what needs to be developed between where they are now and what level of leadership they need to practice. As a side note, most organizational cultures are not tolerant enough for the craft of leadership to be learned fast and safely – en entirely different issue, but an important one.

It is very unfortunate that, many “Leadership Programs” are just that – one brush fits all. Total waste of time and money – most of this stuff does not work.

Cheers,

-Jatin

If you want to see a real disruptive innovation since the Internet, get ready for Social Networking and Web 2.0

If you are completely new to Social Networking , go check it out now. If you are a visual learner like me, then you can watch this simple video on YouTube as well:

For example Linked-In is one of my favorite Social Networking sites. There are plenty of others such as FaceBook, MySpace, etc. You will be surprised how many Fortune 1000 companies have pages on these sites. These trends are currently turning the industrial marketing complex upside down. If you have not figured out a way to leverage these new innovations to grow your business, to find talent, to generate leads, your business is about to hit the wall in a very near future.

For example Linked-In is one of my favorite Social Network. I spend hours and hours on it every week. Here is a post from a great Blogger Mickael Nadeau who has summarized the benefits of LinkedIn on his Blog:

• LinkedIn is a social network where you can interact freely with millions of people;
• Like other social networks, it relies on viral marketing to grow: you basically invite your contacts to join your network and are, in return, granted to contact theirs;
• What differentiates LinkedIn from other platforms is that it is primarily intended for businessmen and professionals, recruiters and job seekers… So, you won’t be able to post a picture of your dog there;
• You can think of it as a virtual board of commerce;
• It is very straightforward and easy to use.

And some advantages…

o It’s quicker. You don’t have to travel the country to attend conferences, lunches and never ending meetings to get acquainted with people. It is there and full of activity 24/7, no matter why you need it.

o It’s international. Want to speak with a decision maker in India, China or London? No problem: it’s just a matter of a few clicks. A lot of people around the world will learn about you and what you do without ever spending a dime.

o It’s useful. On LinkedIn, you have access to many of the best experts on any given subject. I have had some of my questions answered very intelligently within 2 minutes. In fact, that is how I came to use WordPress for this Blog.

o It’s profitable. There are a lot of leads and opportunities to be discovered on this network. Build your business and your connections at the same time!

o It’s free. Most of us wouldn’t invest in our own personal branding. Because of its scale and because its free, this tool could give you a real competitive advantage when branding your name and accomplishments.

Once you create a LinkedIn account, the best way of grow it is to leverage your current network (which should be growing everyday if you are looking at your new connections everyday already) with the capacity of time and resources you have to devote to growing it. If you are a recruiter for a firm, it might be ok to grow it for the sake of growing it. But if you are like me, using LinkedIn to find leads or find knowledge, quality of contacts are much more important.

So, I suggest you declare your ‘network growth strategy’ first. Once you know this, do everything possible to find update your profile to support that strategy, then answer every questions and pose every question that supports that strategy, and then to open meaningful conversations using external tools (your CRM system, Outlook, Blogs, Company Website, etc.). More qualitative conversations you are having in Linked-In and outside of Linked-In, you will grow your network and achieve your ‘network growth strategy’.