I spend a lot of time helping clients both formally and informally come up with new and "creative" ideas. There are a variety of techniques that I employ that I have learned or adapted over the years. While idea creation is only part of the creative process , it is a place where many people get stuck. That is why people come to me for help in generating ideas, why we teach workshops on it and why I've written a free mini course on creativity designed to help people get going.

Until recently though, I've never seen a collection of techniques as extensive as the one I found at: http://www.ideaflow.com/ideagen.htm. The author claims it to be the largest collection of idea generation techniques in existence, and I believe it! The alphabetical listing still needs descriptions of some of the techniques, but it it is well worth a click.

Check out this site to find ways to generate ideas individually or in groups when you are tired of basic brainstorming.

Post Category: Creativity

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I have subscribed to the Word of the Day service via email from Wordsmith.org for many years. Some time ago the word was "sangfroid or sang-froid" (san-FRWA). It is a noun defined as "calmness, especially under stress." I like the word, but I love the concept. As leaders we may find ourselves in stress, and we will almost certainly have people we lead be stressed. As a leader if we can model sanfroid, we will be helping our team, and moving us ever closer to our goals.

Post Category: Leadership

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Feedforward is a phrase coined by Marshall Goldsmith and Jon Katzenbach (author of The Wisdom of Teams). I was reminded of this phrase in reading Goldsmith's column in the May 2004 issue of Fast Company. Feedforward focuses on creating a future, as opposed to feedback, which is often focused on past behaviors.

Good feedback really is feedforward - looking at what we can do better, focusing on future results, and encourging people to repeat things that are going well. The fact that Katzenbach and Goldsmith felt they had to coin a new phrase says much about how poorly many people use feedback. As a leader we are trying to lead people towards something. This requires that we encourage and inspire.

Think about it in these simple terms. Compare hearing these two things from someone: "Here are the mistakes I saw you make." or "Here are some things that will make you more successful in the future." Which of these statements will inspire you more? Which statement would lead you to want to follow a person more?

Feedback sometimes does require looking at what went wrong. But it can't stop there. It must move to a future focus. The next time you have feedback to give, think feedforward too.

Post Category: Leadership

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I learned of a site this week that wowed me - http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_vbm.html. This page lists over 100 different models, from finanical to management to strategy and much more. While the site itself is very interesting, the reason I write about it today is that it got me thinking about models.


Models aren't always perfect, but they always help us look at the world in new ways. Because of the way are brains are wired, we look for ways to cateogrize and simplify all of the data we have coming in. Models help us with the categorization. If you know the DiSC system or Myers Briggs personality profiling tools, they help you make sense of the behaviors of others - the large part of their value is in the model.

I encourage you to check out this site. You will find many things here that may help you in your work or just for yourself.


Post Category: Training

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The May 2004 issue of Fast Company (fastcompany.com) has an article about Jet Blue the new airline with great results and success so far. The article talks about the challenges they face and ahead talks a great deal about the culture they created at the start and are working hard to foster now. One of the many things that sets Jet Blue apart is their focus on teamwork. Here's one example. They have no cleaning crews - every employee on the flight (including pilots and those not working but on the flight) clean up the plane. This saves time and money - both things very important to any business.

When I say everyone helps clean, I mean everyone - including the CEO, David Neeleman. Neeleman helps the flight attendants hand out snacks and helps clean up. This takes Neeleman's words about teamwork and turns them into action. He is quoted as saying, "You can't ask employees to do something you aren't willing to do yourself."

I learned this lesson from my father growing up on a farm. There were many tasks I was asked to do - some of them much more unpleasant than picking up newspaper and snack wrappers on a plane - but all of them were done knowing that my Dad had done them and was willing to do them still, even if he had higher priority work to do.

This is an extremely important lesson for us as leaders. Being willing to do the grunt work, the dirty work (call it whatever you want - on the farm there was some VERY dirty work) builds commitment and shows that all of the work in the organization is important.

As a leader, please don't push this off saying you want to delegate and make people responsible for their own work. Delegation and ownership is important to be sure. If you always delegate the unpleasant stuff, but always want to help with the more glamorous tasks, your comments of delegation will fall on deaf ears.

Help. Show up for clean up. Be a part of the team. These actions will make you a better leader.

Post Category: Leadership

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Yesterday's Wall Street Journal (April 13, 2004) had a headline "The Best Innovations Are Those That Come From Smart Questions." The article talks about Dr. William Hunter, President and CEO of Angiotech Pharmaceuticals (angiotech.com) and how the questions he asked both to start his business and now to grow it very rapidly are literally the core of the business.

Angiotech's business is to add drugs to medical devices to increase their effectiveness. Hunter is quoted as saying, "Medical equipment makers typically ask surgeons, 'How can we build a better stent?' and then you get the answer, 'You should make it more flexible, easier to see and stronger.' But we've been asking 'What does the body do to these stents and why do they fail?'"

Without reading the rest of the article you get the major point. The better questions get us more valuable answers.

So the next time you are trying to solve a vexing problem, satisfy a customer, create a new marketing strategy, or coach an employee, start by crafting the questions you want to ask of this situation. Then craft a few more, coming at the situation from a fresh perspective. The time spent in this sort of planning is well worth it.

Post Category: Customer Service

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