Lead innovative thinking and practice
Phaneendra
BSBINN801_LearnersGuide.pdf
BSBINN801 Australia institute of Business & Technology
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CONTENTS Techniques to stimulate innovative thinking……………………………………………2 Analyzing trends in thinking……………………………..……………………………………..5 Thinking Skills & Capabilities……………………………………………………………………6 Thinking outside the Box………………………………………………………………………..12 The benefits of a creative workplace…………………………………………….………..15 Leadership enabler of thinking and practice…………………………………………...21 Mechanisms and promoting to audience……………………………………………..…27 Personal Best Thinking………………………………………………………….……………..…33 Workplace thinking practices in an organization…………………..……………..…37 Characteristics of successful innovating organizations………………….……..…38 Study Case………………………………………………………………………………………………40 Barrier Risks to Innovation……………………………………………………………………..46 Lead Innovative Practice to promote knowledge transfer and monitoring processes…………………………………………………………………………………..……….....52 Critical Thinking………………………………………………………………………………………55 The Business case for Innovation…………………………………………………………….58
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Lead Innovative Thinking & Practice
Techniques to stimulate innovative thinking
The Success of most business has a reason behind called as Innovative and Creative
thinking. Preserving the ability to harvest innovative thinking is crucial if a business
plans to cultivate and expand.
Innovative thinking and ideas are the main fuel for any business and it is directly
responsible for most new products and services we see being rolled out on a
regular basis. Most undertaking result of successful organizations come from
ambitious entrepreneurs' creative idea that was put into action.
Techniques can be learned, but it’s hard for a person to evaluate himself, what is it
that prevents him from being creative and how to change the way of thinking. If
we manage to do that, techniques are easy work. To stimulate creativity, you must
change the way to create an atmosphere where they will not block innovation by
establishing control over the staff.
Creativity is needed in some form or method and technic for business success to be
achieved.
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Here are 5 technics and tools that approaches to stimulate your thinking and brain
storm of your industry
1- Write Notes
Get into the habit of taking notes of anything that may search you as interesting
as being an opportunity.
Noting existing problems.
By reviewing these notes, you can better focus on the ability to brain storm and
will therefore be greatly enhanced by the relative peacefulness of your
surroundings.
2- Reflect
Gain outlook on your day by reflecting on what went right and wrong according
to plan. The ability to learn from our mistakes is a point to make us better.
In looking back, we ask ourselves how a specific condition could have been
handled and improved.
3- SCAMPER
It is a checklist that helps in discovering the changes that can make to create a
new one.
Here is the meaning of all words:
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S – Substitute components, materials or people
C – Combine with other products or services, integrate
A – Adapt: change the function, use parts of another element
M – Modify: increase or decrease, change the format, change the characteristics
P – Put: set in a different use
E – Eliminate: remove some items to lower the basic functions
R – Reverse: turn upside down
4- Mind Mapping
Entering a central idea and inventing new and related ideas that spread from the
center is called Conceptual thinking. This conceptual thinking is a path of mind
mapping and It is a technique used to solve complex problems.
5- Brainstorming
This is a broadly used technique for generating ideas.
Some people do not connect directly with innovation and creativity, but one of its
goals is to create a good future thinking and practice and atmosphere that will
relieve of the pressure and give ideas.
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At the start, quantity of ideas is more important and after a time we should come
to the quality. The goal of brain storming is to encourage employees to think
alternative.
Analyzing trends in thinking
Analyzing trends means looking at how a potential driver of change has developed
over time, and how it is likely to develop in the future.
Trend analysis can be a powerful tool for developing strong content, that can erase
favoritisms and open minds by innovating far-reaching developments that might
affect the conditions in which education takes place. Analyzing trends is an
important strength in the workplace on how they can analytically refer to the
ability to collect and analyze information, solve problem and make decisions. These
strengths can help solve a company’s problems, and increase and benefit a
company’s productivity.
Leaders use thinking trends to understand and prepare for the future to:
1- Develop plans for long term strategy
2- Develop strategic plans and processes
3- Identify new business opportunities
4- Identify new products and markets
5- Help teams to recognize the need of change
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Thinking Skills & Capabilities
What is Metacognition?
It is generally: 1- Thinking about thinking 2- Knowing what we know and what we don’t know 3- Awareness of the process of learning 4- Managing learning
Metacognition refers to higher order thinking which involves active control over
the cognitive processes engaged in learning. Activities such as planning how to
approach a given learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating
progress toward the completion of a task are metacognitive in nature. Because
metacognition plays a critical role in successful learning, it is important to study
metacognitive activity and development to determine how students can be taught
to better apply their cognitive resources through metacognitive control.
know what is meant by ‘metacognition’
1
be aware of a range of strategies of metacognition
2
know how to plan and run an effective session
3
Plan Monitor Redirect Evaluate
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Metacognition consists of both metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive
experiences or regulation. Metacognitive knowledge refers to acquired knowledge
about cognitive processes, knowledge that can be used to control cognitive
processes. Flavell further divides metacognitive knowledge into three categories:
knowledge of person variables, task variables and strategy variables.
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Stated very briefly, knowledge of person variables refers to general knowledge
about how human beings learn and process information, as well as individual
knowledge of one's own learning processes. For example, you may be aware that
your study session will be more productive if you work in the quiet library rather
than at home where there are many distractions. Knowledge of task variables
include knowledge about the nature of the task as well as the type of processing
demands that it will place upon the individual. For example, you may be aware that
it will take more time for you to read and comprehend a science text than it would
for you to read and comprehend a novel.
Finally, knowledge about strategy variables include knowledge about both
cognitive and metacognitive strategies, as well as conditional knowledge about
when and where it is appropriate to use such strategies.
Strategies for Developing Metacognition
Metacognitive strategies are sequential processes that one uses to control
cognitive activities, and to ensure that a cognitive goal (e.g., understanding a text)
has been met. These processes help to regulate and oversee learning, and consist
of planning and monitoring cognitive activities, as well as checking the outcomes
of those activities.
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Metacognitive strategies are what you design to monitor your progress related to
your learning and the tasks at hand. It is a mechanism for controlling your thinking
activities and to ensure you are meeting your goals. Metacognitive strategies for
learning a new language can include the following:
• monitoring whether you understand the language lessons;
• recognizing when you fail to comprehend information communicated to
you in the new language;
• identifying strategies that help you to improve your comprehension;
• adjusting your pace for learning the information (for example, studying for
2 hours, rather than 1 hour, every day);
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• maintaining the attitude necessary to ensure you complete the lessons in a
timely manner;
• creating a check-in system at the end of each week to make certain you
understand what you have learned.
Understanding cultural strategic thinking is like this: When I work with people of
different cultures, this is a framework and approach to help me understand how I
think when I work with them. It helps me to recognize the cultural experiences I’ve
had, and to identify preconceived notions I might have about their culture,
whether it’s race/ethnicity, social culture, age group—you name it. Cultural
strategic thinking forces me to create experiences and new learning that helps me
to accomplish my objectives as a global manager.
Individuals like this leader are good at applying strategies that focus their attention
on the goal at hand. They search for, and derive meaning from, cultural interactions
and situations, and they adapt themselves to the situation when things do not pan
out as they expected. Culturally intelligent leaders also monitor and direct their
own learning processes. They have established a high motivation for learning the
metacognitive process, either because they know it is a benefit or because others
tell them it is beneficial to them.
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Knowledge of information and basic skills provides a foundation for developing
metacognition. Metacognition enables leaders to master information and solve
problems more easily. When a leader has mastered the basic skills needed for
intercultural interactions, they can actively engage in the interaction because they
do not have to pay attention to the other dynamics and demands of the situation.
Culturally intelligent leaders can practice metacognition, and they are not afraid to
use it in their everyday life.
Key Points:
Promoting metacognition helps take more control on learning
There are a range of strategies that indorse metacognition
Planning sessions is a good starting point for developing metacognition
The techniques involved are a part of the learning process:
They occur at strategic moments in the teaching sequence
They help make the Thinking Skills & Personal Capabilities(TS&PC) explicit
They introduce and develop a common language to think and learn
They need to be planned and motivated
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Thinking outside the Box
Thinking outside the box is a skill highly advised in organizations.
The phrase “think outside the box “creates this vision of cutting edge thinking that
leads to innovation. It's a skill that provides real opportunities in both the Internal
and External Scopes. It's a skill that can create enormous competitive advantage –
personally and organizationally.
So, what are External and Internal Dimensions of thinking outside the box?
The Internal Dimension deals with the questions like:
1- How can I look at the world differently?
2- How can I be more creative and innovate?
3- How can I shift my thinking in providing perspectives, solutions,
presentations?
The operative word in the internal dimension is "I". It deals with internal self-
development to obtain greater skill and capacity in out of the box thinking. It
involves being able to challenge own behavior, attitudes and principles.
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As you take these kinds of actions, you are on your way to expanding your
thinking.
The External Dimension deals with questions like:
How can we access the thinking of other people to create new solutions and
innovative ways?
What are the different ways we can involve the organization?
What do others think about this problem and condition?
Who can we call on to help address this issue?
In the External Dimension the operative word is "We".
It starts with having the principals that you can develop this skill or enhance its development
Then it requires the thinking that gaining this skill has personal value
Then it requires a list of how you view yourself
At last it requires to change and challenge yourself and see things differently
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It is to look outside ourselves and think of the people resources of the
organization thinking.
The External Dimension can provide organizations their greatest opportunity for
growth, innovation, and competitive advantage.
This dimension counts on the certainty that each person has a unique viewpoint to
offer, and that the way to expanded thinking is through the shared thinking of
people with visions gained from education, experience, motivation, and a mass of
other sources.
The advantage of the External Dimension is:
1- more cost effective
2- innovative
3- creative solutions
The weakness is:
Many organizations aren't willing to change their performances
Top Five Analytical Skills
1- Communication
You need to be an effective communicator to explain the patterns in the data.
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2- Creativity
Creativity is to problem solving and should often think outside of the box to come
up with effective solutions to big problems.
3- Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is what helps to make decisions that help solve problems.
4- Data Analysis
It is being able to examine a large volume of data and find trends in that data.
5- Research
It is to first collect data or information before analyzing it. All in all, you must
acquire more about a problem before solving it.
The benefits of a creative workplace
It’s no secret that organizational leaders need to cope with and respond to
increasingly complex organizational issues. Sometimes, these issues and problems
can be solved by applying a standard formula or set of actions: thoroughly
analyzing the circumstances and drivers, applying logic to determine a course of
action or following what’s been done before. Other times, particularly when the
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issue is something the organization hasn’t faced before, genuine innovation is
needed to solve problems and satisfy stakeholders.
In most organizational settings, leaders are expected to be able to think creatively
and come up with innovative solutions to work-based problems. And they often
do. But fostering and harnessing the creative abilities of a whole team is likely to
produce an even richer selection of creative ideas and solutions to work tasks and
problems. This is because diverse group members collectively possess knowledge
and a variety of perspectives not found in just one person.
Specific benefits of creativity in the workplace include:
Better teamwork and team bonding;
Increased workplace engagement and interaction;
Improved ability to attract and retain quality employees;
Increased staff morale, fun and happiness; and
Increased workplace problem solving and productivity.
For more than two decades, Teresa Amabile (1998) and her associates investigated
the link between the work environment and creativity. She identified six leadership
and management practices that foster creativity in the workplace. These findings
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are consistent with the observations of many other researchers and creativity
consultants.
The six practices are:
Intellectual challenge
Match people with the right problem-solving experiences, that is, experiences
that challenge or stretch them intellectually. This enhances creativity because it
supports expertise and intrinsic motivation. But, the amount of stretch is critical;
too little challenge leads to boredom, but too much challenge leads to feelings of
being overwhelmed.
Freedom to choose method
Employees tend to be the most creative when they are granted the freedom to
choose which method is best for attaining a particular work goal. Stable goals are
also important because it is difficult to work creatively towards a moving target.
Supplying the right resources
Time and money are important resources for enhancing creativity. Deciding how
much time and money to give to a team or project is a tough judgement call that
can either support or stifle creativity. Under some circumstances, setting a time
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deadline will trigger creative thinking because it represents a favorable challenge.
False deadlines or impossibly tight ones can create distrust and burnout. To be
creative, groups also need to be adequately funded.
Effective design of work groups
Work groups are the most likely to be creative when they are mutually supportive,
and when they have a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. Getting the mix
of team members ‘right’ does require experience and intuition on the leader’s part.
Supervisory encouragement
The most influential step a leader can take to bring about creative problem
solving is to develop a ‘safe’ atmosphere that encourages people to think freely.
This includes making it okay for people to challenge assumptions and disagree
with the leader. If people don’t feel safe, they will only parrot their leader’s
ideas. Creative ideas should also be evaluated quickly rather than put through a
painfully slow review process.
The entire organization as well as the immediate leader or manager should
support creative effort if creativity is to be enhanced on a large scale.
Organizational leaders should encourage information sharing and collaboration,
which lead to the development of expertise needed for creativity and to more
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opportunities for intrinsic motivation. Executives who combat excessive politics
can help creative people focus on work instead of fighting political battles. In a
highly political environment, an employee would be hesitant to suggest a creative
idea that was a political blunder.
Other tips and actions to model positive creative thinking at the individual level
and organization-wide is to:
Encourage a mindset of continuous learning. If you aren’t constantly refilling the
creative pool, it will eventually run dry.
Encourage staff to seek new information, new knowledge and new ways to do
things, constantly.
Support team members to attend conferences or other learning and development
events. Model habits of curiosity, observation, listening, reading and recording in
the workplace.
Seek multiple options. Don’t be satisfied with one solution, once the team has a
good idea, encourage them to look for another, and then another. Give yourself
and the team the opportunity to choose the best from several options.
Suspend judgment. To encourage new ideas, don’t evaluate them too early, relax
your guard and let the ideas flow.
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Lunchtime brainstorms. Encourage weekly, fortnightly or monthly lunchtime
meetings of a small group of staff to engage in creative thinking and share ideas for
how those ideas could be applied to the organization.
Engage fresh eyes. Provide opportunities for employees who do not normally
interact with one another to meet. Invite people from other departments or areas
to your brainstorming sessions, and ask them how they would solve your problems.
Take breaks. The human brain uses more energy than any other part of the body
and so needs constant replenishment. Rest is one of the key components to
increasing personal energy, productivity and creative thinking. Many people do not
take advantage of their breaks (lunch or other) during the day and, as such, are not
giving their mind a true break from the stresses of the day.
Encourage staff to use break time to walk around the building, sit outside or chat
to colleagues about non-work-related topics.
Get the culture right. Research suggests that the most effective group environment
for creativity is one in which there is fun, humor, spontaneity, and playfulness.
However, creating such a climate in a workplace setting isn’t easy. But, leaders can
support this by fostering a permissive atmosphere in which individuality and
humor are acceptable and mutual respect, trust, and commitment are the norm.
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Leadership enabler of thinking and practice
While various definitions of authentic leadership have been developed, Avolio, et
al, suggest there is general agreement that the following are key components of
authentic leadership:
• Balanced processing—that is, ‘objectively analyzing relevant data before
making a decision’.
• Internalized moral perspective— that is, ‘being guided by internal moral
standards, which are used to self-regulate one's behavior’.
• Relational transparency—that is, ‘presenting one's authentic self through
openly sharing information and feelings as appropriate for situations’.
• Self-awareness—that is, a ‘demonstrated understanding of one's strengths
and weaknesses, and the way one makes sense of the world’ (2009).
We can define the Leadership Enabler of thinking and practice to:
1- Permit
2- Attitude
3- Design
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4- Accountability
5- Support
6- Conversation
In general, leadership decision making (LDM) among other qualities and
functions of a leader offers an ongoing creativity and important new insights
into leadership and management activities in all organizational operations.
The purpose of this study is to identify the factors influencing success in
decision making among organizational executives, leaders, mangers, and
supervisors in organizations’ practices. Organization is undoubtedly a
systemic network that is both complex and dynamic in nature. In
organizations, tough quality and sound decision making are the major
element and essence of leadership. The other goal of this work is to discover
a scientific break-through which is based on the experience, knowledge, and
the skills of the selected participants of this study with the aim of improving
quality decision making among leaders and overall accomplishment of
organizational goals, objectives, and performance. In this regard and for
effectiveness, a leader must have self confidence to gather and process
information and solve problems. For them a person riddled with self-doubt
would never be able to take the necessary actions nor command the respect
of others. Leaders must know what decisions to make and keep the interest
of all stakeholders involved. Followers will be less committed to the team if
the leader doubts their decisions. They must show followers that they are
able to acknowledge when they are wrong and move forward to a better
solution. In discussing the statement of the problem; bad policy and
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inconsistence in decisions making are among the major challenges in
organizational systems and have created many unresolved problems among
leaders and their employees in our current workplace and entire society. The
inabilities of some leaders in developing good policy standards, knowledge,
basis, protocols, environments, and skill that incorporate support and
optimal decision design for their organizations is troubling and have caused
the closure of many business in the country due to either law suit or
mismanagement. Another significant problem that encouraged this work is
the lack of knowledge on how to design positive decision environment,
healthy communication skills, and essential tools for leadership decision
making in the entire organization. Many leadership practitioners and
scholars believed that any organization faced with negative policy and
decisions by its leadership and management will continue to fail, their
people will be often left to ponder the cause, and that organization would
be unproductive in their business while giving way to employees to break
the circle for both job performance and goal accomplishment. For instance
[1], said, “Authentic leaders exemplify high moral standards, integrity,
honesty, and authentic leaders acknowledge their personal limitations and
shortcomings, and are therefore less likely to adopt a defensive attitude
about organizational problems”. Furthermore, creative policy development
and decision making among organizational leaders and management are of
vital importance to the growth, development, and success of any business
establishments. For instance, choosing the best alternative from many
alternatives and making a good decision in critical matters and challenging
situations is always a good strategy of solving problems in most
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organizations. Thus, the problem in most organizations is that problems tend
to present themselves in non-associated symptoms. And the tendency of
organizational members and business executives is often to address
symptoms of the problem irrespective of the facts that members may
“know” that the problem they are addressing is just a mere symptom. This
point contributes among other factors, one of the major loopholes in
decision making by managements and organizational leaders. However,
being able to see problems from a variety of other perspectives from within
the organization allows for a better understanding of the problem.
However, there is a gap in literature particularly on leadership decision
making and the variations that exist on the manner, perceptions, skills, and
processes used in making decisions.
This qualitative ethnography study was centered on identifying the factors
influencing success in decision making among organizational executives,
leaders, mangers, and supervisors in organizations’ practices and
effectiveness. This method allowed the researcher to see and work with the
participants from both their natural environment and cultural individual
settings. By using this method, the researcher did not seek to conduct full
contextual description but rather looked-for patterns in meaning as well as
similarities and differences that lead to contextualization, categorization and
eventual theoretical codes and relationship among concepts that explained
this variation. He also examined some leaders’ attributes while being
determined to provide a framework for helping organizational leaders and
executive managers the ability to think and to choose, who should make
diverse decisions in various critical and challenging situations. This work was
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designed to discover a concrete, effective, efficient, unambiguous, and
useful means to know and use to implement each leadership decision
processes that the situation deems fitting well in the company’s problems.
The best approach to lead, and manage an organization effectively is to
understand the organization in all its entity, and its growth, success, and goal
accomplishments will be based solely on the policy, mission, and vision of
the organization.
Leadership decision making (LDM) is defined as a dynamic process of
choosing from the best different alternatives and associated with the
systemic act of making a choice. In organizational worldview, decision
making has been a serious educational and organizational issue for many
years and had continued to baffle many researchers as they look for
creative and effective solution for this profound societal and organizational
challenge.
5 Different Types of Leadership Styles:
Diverse types of leadership styles exist. Advantages and disadvantages exist
within each leadership style. The culture and goals of an organization
determine which leadership style fits the firm best.
Laissez-Faire
A laissez-faire leader lacks direct supervision of employees and fails to
provide regular feedback to those under his supervision.
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Autocratic
The autocratic leadership style allows managers to make decisions alone
without the input of others.
Participative
Often called the democratic leadership style, participative leadership values
the input of team members and peers, but the responsibility of making the
final decision rests with the participative leader.
Transactional
Managers using the transactional leadership style receive certain tasks to
perform and provide rewards or punishments to team members based on
performance results.
Transformational
The transformational leadership style depends on high levels of
communication from management to meet goals.
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Mechanisms and promoting to audience
Innovation is often associated with the introduction of new products or services in
your business. But it can also be about changing the way you do business.
To be successful, innovation will need to be supported by you, your staff and all
other business partners.
Innovation embraces:
1- new uses of technologies
2- improved industry methods
3- meeting changing customer demands
4- better systems and processes
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The benefits of innovation
If you develop a focus on innovation in your business, you'll ensure everyone in the
business is working towards better business practices, and improving business
efficiency and performance.
Some of the other benefits include:
1- increased competitiveness
2- more efficient use of all resources
3- improved staff retention
4- proactive approach to business
5- greater attraction of new customers by improving existing, or offering new,
products or services or entering new markets.
Your approach to innovation will be driven by your business strategy, capability,
market understanding and commitment to the process. Often, these processes will
add capacity to your business with little or no additional costs. Your business
competitiveness and survival are directly linked to your ability to innovate.
Engage your employees in innovation
Your employees are one of your most productive assets in your business. By
creating an environment within your business that encourages innovative thinking
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and action, you'll inspire your employees to share their knowledge, experience,
skills, suggestions and recommendations.
Here are ten different ways you can look to create an innovative environment in
your business:
1. Encourage an innovation culture
There should be a recognition in your workplace that not trying anything new is
often the biggest risk. So, encourage your employees to:
• be honest and open
• share ideas
• explore initiatives without fear of retribution.
2. Hire people with different perspectives
Look for employees who:
• understand your vision
• come from diverse backgrounds
• may have different perspectives
• have passions
• you recognize as having capabilities.
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Having employees with an alternative set of ideas and problem-solving
approaches will easily generate an innovative approach.
3. Lead by example
Be open and approachable to new ideas. Many large companies often provided
allocated time for their employees to break from routine roles to inspire new
thoughts – this could be an employee retreat, allocated time each day or a day
out of the office.
Encourage every one of your employees to share new ideas, and provide support,
for example by setting up:
• meetings
• suggestion boxes
• suggestion area on the internal intranet
4. Have a process
Ensure there's a process which everyone understands for assessing each new idea.
Employees will be encouraged to make suggestions and recommendations if
they're confident the idea will be appropriately considered. This must be
supported by acknowledgement and feedback in a timely manner.
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5. Implement quickly
Where possible, implement employee’s ideas and suggestions quickly. When
employees see they're influencing the direction of the business, they'll be
extremely motivated to continue to share ideas, work towards the success of the
idea and encourage productivity of other employees.
6. Reward employees
Even if the idea is not implemented, the employees should be encouraged to
suggest all ideas. Rewards can be for individuals or even teams or for the whole
workforce – the important thing is that employees see that you appreciate their
efforts to improve the business.
7. Create opportunities
Create work practices to encourage new initiatives:
Have regular job swaps that foster new perspectives from different employees.
Develop cross functional teams (employees from different parts of the business)
to brainstorm improvements to processes and other areas of the business.
Introduce a new idea or "what if?" section to regular meetings.
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8. Create a collaboration space
Provide a dedicated area that will promote interaction with employees. Often
informal discussions lead to improved employee relationship and trust, which
embraces collaboration that can ultimately lead to innovation. Large companies
often have open spaces where employees can sit and chat in a relaxing
environment.
9. Offer training
Offer training to employees that will inspire new thoughts and approaches to the
business. They'll gain additional experience and the business will benefit from
possible new ideas and approaches your employee has learned.
10. Invest in resources
Innovation is an investment in the future of your business – not an everyday
expense – so allocate appropriate resources to innovation in your business, and
include:
• appropriate time
• finances
• employee support
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• leadership
• actions.
By implementing a culture of innovation in your business – supported by work
practices to encourage employee participation – your business will move forward
in line with customer demand, industry best practice and benefit from improved
profitability that's a result of considered growth.
Most importantly, your team will be highly motivated, dedicated and inspired to
contribute to the success of your business, as well as your vision.
Personal Best Thinking,
Develop Your innovative thinking and practice for maximum success
Those who develop best thinking become professionals in their fields. They
increase honor from their peers and a confidence level that places them at the top
of their profession. Best thinking develops an attitude of continuous discovery.
Best thinkers don’t segment their thinking into periodic events. They make
strategic thinking a regular process. We have all experienced the expression of
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“AHA”, it comes from the moment that we connected an idea we had struggled.
This experiential learning process is fundamental to best thinking.
People who take innovative thinking interact with others who have a mutual desire
to share knowledge, education and experience with one another. A creativity flows
from the collective energies and brainpowers of those who share experiences and
build from a combined base. When this happens, the created knowledge becomes
greater and everyone involved raises their personal effectiveness to a higher level
than they could achieve by themselves.
The innovative and best thinking will present ways you can develop to become a
top player with maximum success and sole executives can all benefit from personal
best thinking. To develop own capacity to lead innovative thinking, we should
identify what are critical thinking skills. Critical thinking skills are the habits of
thought that you encourage for better decisions on what to do. You may already
have enough knowledge to correct the error, but if not, a bit of critical thought
would at least point out the need to gather more information. There are some ways
to develop critical thinking skills and review innovation drivers.
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We can name three of them as:
1- Evidence
Make it a habit to ask for evidence by simply asking "where did you read that?" or
"Was that speculation, or did they actually do a test?"
2- Source
Conversations would be more like questionings, and probably very short, so we can
consider the sources of information and evidence. We can ask if this person usually
remembers the facts correctly. We can consider if the source they refer to is
reliable.
3- Motivations
What we all believe, and what evidence is considered by anyone, is in part a
function of motivations. A more important part of you critical thinking skills is to
ask why these certain facts may have been reported and what facts are being
ignored.
Innovative thinking is a core competency for evidence based general practice and
an essential pioneer to research. It is also essential for evaluating and
understanding the implications of research for clinical practice.
It involves a continual questioning of the assumptions underpinning all aspects of
a general practitioner’s professional life and consists of:
1- Appraisal — the process of assessing and interpreting evidence by
systematically considering its validity
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2- Evaluation of the context of general practice
The spectrum of research activities is wide and can include evaluation studies,
intervention studies. Research activities can use qualitative or quantitative
research methods, or a combination of both. However, each of these activities
must be conducted according to the established ‘rules’ of the research process to
be considered research. Innovative thinking and research are needed in
organizations to improve development and it is an evidence to fundamental way
in which routine industrial practice is improved. There are varying levels of
engagement in critical thinking and research:
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Workplace thinking practices in an organization
One difficulty that management faces is clarity. A good place to work in is one
whose mission, vision, and strategies are clearly stated. They are documented,
kept up to date, and are properly interconnected and supportive with innovative
thinking. Open communication is also practiced. Misunderstandings are lessened
because everyone is free to approach anyone to ask a question or to suggest. Thus,
responsibilities are clear and are thereby also clearly communicated. About
opportunities, many are created to motivate managers in doing their tasks.
Accordingly, ineffective leaders are relieved of their management functions.
However, there is more to ensuring a good workplace than having quality
workplace management. Everyone and everything should work together and all
links from the management, policies and systems, processes and plans of action ,
up to individual employees must all hold in a complete and reliable structure.
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CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL INNOVATING ORGANIZATIONS
There is not much agreement about what makes an idea innovative, and what
makes an innovative idea valuable.
For example, discussions on whether the internet is a better invention than the
wheel are more likely to reveal personal preferences than logical argumentation.
Likewise, experts disagree on the type and level of innovation that is most
beneficial for organizations. Some studies suggest that radical innovation confers
sustainable competitive advantages, but others show that “mild” innovation –
think iPhone 5 rather than the original iPhone – is generally more effective, not
least because it reduces market uncertainty. There is also inconclusive evidence on
whether we should pay attention to consumers’ views, with some studies showing
that a customer focus is detrimental for innovation because it equates to playing
catch-up, but others arguing for it.
We are also infamously bad at evaluating the merit of our own ideas. Most people
fall trap of an illusory superiority that causes them to overestimate their creative
talent, just as in other domains of competence. It is therefore clear that we cannot
rely on people’s self-evaluation to determine whether their ideas are creative or
not.
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SUCCESSFUL INNOVATING ORGANIZATIONS CAN BE DEFINED AS:
Systematic collection of all impulses that could lead to innovation
Creativity of employees
Ability to evaluate the possibility of the innovation idea
Good team work
Project-based approach and ability to manage projects
GENERAL FOCUS:
Use the limited resources in the most effective manner; focus on one of the
following:
Operational output
Top-quality products
Perfect knowledge of customers
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CASE STUDY
The case study presented in this section were chosen to help provide an
understanding of the motivations of two creative inventor/designers; their sources
of ideas; their different approaches to developing those ideas; their use of drawing
and modelling at different stages of product development; their need for specific
knowledge and expertise and their use of tools such as creative thinking
techniques.
Mark Sanders - the Strida
The Strida is an innovative design of folding bicycle intended for short distance use
and to link with other modes of transport. Mark Sanders designed the Strida while
he was a mature postgraduate student on the joint Royal College of Art/Imperial
College Industrial Design Engineering course (although he had been thinking about
folding bicycles while working as a mechanical engineer before joining the course).
Specification
Having decided on a folding bike, the starting point - as in most well-managed
design projects - was a specification. The main points of the specification drawn up
by Sanders, after reviewing the current state of the art in folding bicycle design, a
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folding bicycle for short journeys with emphasis on low cost, simplicity and ease of
use.
Draft Specification
1 Cost - low pricing essential i.e retail about £100 [...]
2 Foldability - must be very simple and obvious, ideally taking less than 10
seconds.
3 Appearance - must look simple (most folding bicycles look complex - a mass of
tubes, spokes and cables); must look ‘modern’ and fashionable.
4 Original - ideally a new configuration rather than a folding version of an existing
configuration - patentable.
5 Ease of handling when folded - must be easy to handle on public transport,
without any sharp bits sticking out, and must fit in most car boots.
6 Weight - must be light enough to be carried i.e less than 25 pounds.
7 Cleanliness - must be clean and require minimum maintenance.
8 Additional features - to appeal to both non-cyclists and cyclists for short
suburban journeys, possibly in conjunction with other forms of transport i.e
commuting.
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Basic concept
Sanders did this by spending a long time thinking about folding bicycles and jotting
down ideas as they occurred. Realizing that none of the existing types of folding
bike were satisfactory, he turned for inspiration to other folding devices.
Conceptual design
The next step was to find a configuration that would fold into the desired form. For
this conceptual design stage Sanders again ‘immersed himself in the problem’ by
making sketches of as many designs of folding bicycle as he could find in the
literature and elsewhere and sketching new ideas as they occurred. Two basic
configurations - an X-shaped and a triangular frame - emerged after two months
researching, thinking and sketching.
Detail design
Having established the basic configuration, more detailed aspects of the design had
to be tackled. The bottom joint design arose from thinking of other objects that
easily disconnect.
So, he turned to an approach of thinking visually - ‘what would look good at the
top of the triangle’ - from the viewpoint of the rider. This provided the inspiration
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which lead to the design of a ball and socket top joint. As before Sanders used
sketching extensively to ‘clarify and develop the ideas I was having in my head’.
COMPARISONS
From these case studies of innovative product development, it is possible to
identify many similarities in and differences between: the product development
process; the sources of creative ideas; the personal qualities of the individuals who
produced the innovations; and the way in which the products were introduced to
the market.
In all cases there was a ‘primary generator’, or essential generating idea, behind
the invention or new design - a ball-shaped wheel, the cyclone principle, a ‘wheels
on a stick’ folded form. This arose at the beginning, or at an early stage, in the
project and provided the guiding concept for all the design and development work
that followed.
Sources of creative ideas
As these cases clearly show, creative ideas are needed not only to provide the basic
concept for an innovative product but also to solve the many development and
detail design problems involved in converting the basic concept into a commercial
innovation. These creative ideas can come from many sources. The basic concept
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for both of Dyson’s innovations arose from a mental transfer of technology from
one application to another. Sanders, on the other hand, tended to seek analogies
between the problem he was trying to solve and products or components with
similar functions.
Although Sanders occasionally uses ‘brainstorming with other people he knows
well’ when stuck for ideas, in general such inventor/designers rarely employ formal
creativity techniques.
It is not surprising therefore that in searching for ideas individuals draw upon their
prior knowledge and accumulated experience. However, both also recognize that
it is almost always necessary to obtain further information from any accessible
source. Where they may differ is in the timing and in their preferred method of
thinking.
Dyson moves forward by working with physical models, mockups and prototypes
and relatively little drawing, whereas Sanders uses sketching as his main means of
problem exploration. What is clear from these cases is that innovative design is
never an easy matter; it requires knowledge and expertise plus sustained and
dedicated effort over a long period.
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CONCLUSIONS
Innovative products typically arise from personal need or direct experience of the
individual inventor/designer, often because of using existing products and finding
them unsatisfactory. A desire to improve upon existing artefacts is an aspect of the
‘constructive discontent’ displayed by creative individuals. Such individuals tend
not to employ market research to identify customer needs in advance of the
product development process, typically due to the view that a demand for radical
new products cannot be properly assessed by conventional market research.
Translating an innovative idea into a product ready for manufacture, is a difficult
process involving long periods of dedicated work, the solution of many sub-
problems in component design, and often several setbacks. Creativity is required
throughout product development, not just at the early concept stage.
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Questions:
Q1. How was innovation defined?
Q2. Was the text focused more on “innovative thinking” or creating an innovative
culture?
Q3. How was Mark Sanders encouraged or incented to be creative and
innovative?
Q4. What kind of thinking does this routine encourage?
Q5. What was the thinking approach towards the innovation?
Barrier Risks to Innovation
Specific risk and Market Risk
Specific risk, or diversifiable risk, is the risk of losing an investment due to company
or industry-specific hazard. Unlike systematic risk, an investor can only mitigate
against unsystematic risk through diversification.
An investor uses diversification to manage risk by investing in a variety of assets.
Market risk and specific risk are two different forms of risk that affect assets.
Market risk, affects many asset classes, whereas specific risk, only affects an
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industry or company.
The development of commercially viable new products involves technological and
market possibilities that are linked effectively in the product's design. Innovators
in large firms have persistent problems with such linking. The main implication is
that to improve innovation in large firms to deal explicitly with the interpretive
barriers.
Common Workplace Barriers:
Immovable Forces
Cause: Resistance to new ideas and processes happens because it’s human nature
to become uncomfortable when confronting potential change agents.
Management and leadership tend to resist because creativity often means
embracing uncertainty and may pose possible difficulties in measuring returns on
investment.
Effect: Old habits, beliefs, and assumptions cloud openness to new ideas and
overpower creative and innovative initiatives. The status quo remains in place and
nothing changes.
Strategy: Share stories about creativity and innovation in a workplace setting
through all available channels to put creativity into context and to dispel
preconceived notions about creativity and innovation. Build an Idea Library to
provide resources that make creativity more familiar. Pinpoint and communicate
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the benefits of adopting new ideas, for both the organization as well as for the
employees, to help gain acceptance.
Judgment
Cause: Fear of a new idea is often manifested as criticism and sometimes harsh
judgment. People mock and ridicule what they don’t understand.
Effect: Employees who have ideas are reluctant to share because they worry that
no one will like the idea. They are afraid of ridicule or the implications of possible
failure.
Strategy: Adopt a no-ridicule ideology within the organization. Invite and
encourage all employees, from all levels and departments, to become involved
with innovative initiatives. Communicate failure and missteps as a necessary
stepping stone to new approaches, products, and services.
Playing by the Rules
Cause: Policies and procedures, inflexible and rigid organizational structures,
traditions, and a culture of playing by the rules, are keeping employees from
participating, stifling any innovative or creative processes.
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Effect: An oppressive environment tends to force employees to conform to
accepted patterns, rules, and inherent limitations of the status quo. This hampers
creative thinking and new ideas.
Strategy: Although some rules are necessary, many can suppress innovation and
ideas. Consider if some of the rules can be relaxed, changed, updated, or
eliminated to make allowances for the idea process to flourish.
Hard Work
Cause: Bringing ideas from development to implementation often takes a lot of
effort or time to produce results. Most organizations and employees don’t want to
devote the necessary time or effort to complete a creative project.
Effect: Negativity takes hold even before beginning a project or a project is
eliminated before it even gets up and running. Lack of faith in the possible payoffs
of a creative process can easily stymie or eliminate what might have been the next
big idea.
Strategy: Going beyond the known, stock answers and allowing some time to
discover more than one answer takes effort. Encourage employees by making it a
competition or breaking larger initiatives into smaller, more manageable pieces.
No process
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Cause: Employees have ideas and want to share them but all they see is a dusty
suggestion box. No other channels to input ideas are known by members to exist.
Effect: Past organizational experience shows employees that ideas put in the
suggestion box disappear into a black hole, so employees don’t bother to submit
anything. They may feel there is no reason to get involved.
Strategy: Make it easy for employees to input ideas through a variety of different
channels and technologies to encourage inputs. Have leadership acknowledge and
celebrate the value of ideas even if they can’t be utilized. If an idea works, develop
it.
Misunderstanding
Cause: Within an organization, creativity can be misunderstood by employees who
are not creative in their work processes. Sometimes management will have little
knowledge of the type of work it takes to produce creative projects.
Effect: An inaccurate impression of what is creative can result in workplace
conflicts that hinder productivity and creativity, or even create an unpleasant or
impractical work environment for some employees.
Strategy: Supply opportunities for all employees to use their creative side. Provide
a context for ideas and innovation within the organization with creative examples.
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Offer training opportunities for employees to become more comfortable with their
creative side.
The effects of barriers within an organization can range from the understated and
undermining of possible changes to out-and-out misinterpretation of creativity.
Whatever the barrier, it can cripple idea and innovation processes. Not only can
barriers stop employees from becoming involved, but they can keep the
organization from moving forward.
For those reasons, it’s crucial to identify creative barriers with the understanding
it’s natural for organizations and employees to resist change. Through a conscious
effort to move past creative roadblocks, an organization can embrace new depths
of creativity and overcome these barriers. The result is an organization that is more
innovative, creative, and idea-oriented.
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Lead Innovative Practice to promote knowledge transfer
And monitoring processes
The observation of the recent practices of companies in terms of competitive
strategies shows that all options of implementation contain an immaterial
dimension: reconfiguration of tasks and processes, research for mechanisms to
create competitive knowledge, trying to define a tool to memorize the created
knowledge… more generally essay of reconfiguration of the nature of the
competitive advantages on the market. In their approach to knowledge
management, the authors touch different topics such as the importance to
measure the value of intangible assets or to look at the creation of new knowledge.
The amount of literature reflecting on research concerning the transfer of
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knowledge is numerous especially in the field of education, psychology and
training. It is possible to find information about studies dealing with transferring
learning from previous experiences with focus on an individual level.
It will be interesting to analyze and point at the challenges that underline the
knowledge area. This affirmation takes all its sense in the view of the future of a
company, in the view of the impact on the relationship between employees and in
the view of the individual expectations. It directly impulses the dynamic of the
company, its value, its performances, its efficiency, its internal atmosphere and
finally the way to achieve the short and the long-term goals.
The new challenge of the board and of the managers will be to conserve, transfer,
create and in the time, generate new key workers through this mission. In our work
we will find the input and the output of knowledge transfer and we will understand
what this topic highlights for the company, the manager and, of course, the
working force.
As we can see current companies have different points of enter to act on their
knowledge transfer. In another hand, the new goals and challenges for companies,
in terms of transferring knowledge are the following:
1- To become aware of the role of each within the company,
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2- To define competence in terms of their activity,
3- To program the transfer of knowledge and the methodology which will be
the most adapted,
4- To analyze the work situations in which this operation will take place,
5- To develop a repository of expertise in the view of the activities,
6- To define an action plan and define the main actors,
7- To finalize the form and content repositories of knowledge,
8- To plan management tools, monitoring, improvement, and result
measurement.
The challenge for the upcoming years is to implement a system to transfer the
knowledge from the experienced to the less experienced employees. The use of a
coaching system could be one way to achieve this goal.
The successful exploitation of new ideas is crucial to a business being able to
improve its processes, bring new and improved products and services to market,
increase its efficiency and, most importantly, improve its profitability.
Marketplaces - whether local, regional, national or global - are becoming highly
competitive. Competition has increased because of wider access to new
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technologies and the increased trading and knowledge-sharing opportunities
offered by the Internet.
This guide explains how you can make innovation a key business process and
outlines the different approaches you can take. It gives you advice on planning for
innovation and creating the right business environment to develop your ideas. It
also outlines the help and support available to innovative businesses.
CRITICAL THINKING
Why Critical Thinking?
The Problem
Everyone thinks. It is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself,
is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or downright prejudiced.
Yet, the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends
precisely on the quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money
and in quality of life.
Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated.
A Definition
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking about any subject, content, or
problem in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by
skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it.
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Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective
thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful
command of their use.
To Analyze Thinking
Identify its purpose, and question at issue, as well as its information, inferences,
assumptions, implications, main concept(s), and point of view.
To Assess Thinking
Check it for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance,
logic, and fairness.
The Result
A well-cultivated critical thinker:
• Raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely
• Gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret
it effectively
• Comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against
relevant criteria and standards
• Thinks open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing
and assessing, as needs be, their assumptions, implications, and practical
consequences
• Communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex
problems
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THE BUSINESS CASE FOR INNOVATION
It is important to be clear about the difference between invention and innovation.
Invention is a new idea. Innovation is the commercial application and successful
exploitation of the idea. Fundamentally, innovation means introducing something
new into your business.
This could be:
improving or replacing business processes to increase efficiency and productivity,
or to enable the business to extend the range or quality of existing products and/or
services developing entirely new and improved products and services - often to
meet rapidly changing customer or consumer demands or needs adding value to
existing products, services or markets to differentiate the business from its
competitors and increase the perceived value to the customers and markets
Innovation can mean a single breakthrough – e.g. a totally new product or service.
However, it can also be a series of small, incremental changes. Whatever form it
takes, innovation is a creative process.
The ideas may come from:
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inside the business, e.g. from employees, managers or in-house research and
development work outside the business, e.g. suppliers, customers, media reports,
market research published by another organization, or universities and other
sources of new technologies Success comes from filtering those ideas, identifying
those that the business will focus on and applying resources to exploit them.
Introducing innovation can help you to:
1- improve productivity
2- reduce costs
3- be more competitive
4- build the value of your brand
5- establish new partnerships and relationships
6- increase turnover and improve profitability
7- Businesses that fail to innovate run the risk of:
8- losing market share to competitors
9- falling productivity and efficiency
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PLANNING INNOVATION
Some innovative ideas may just come to you out of the blue. However, you should
ideally have:
1- innovation as part of your business strategy
2- a strategic vision of how you want your business to develop
3- your time to monitoring trends in your business sector
4- your innovative efforts on the most important areas.
Innovation will not only improve the chances of your business surviving, but also
help it to thrive and drive increased profits. There are lots of practical ways of
assessing whether your ideas have profit potential:
Assess the competition
Find out who your competitors are and where they operate. Use the Internet and
advertising sources such as the Yellow Pages to find out about their products,
prices and operating culture. This can give you an overview and monitoring of their
selling points, as well as any areas you might be able to exploit.
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For example, if the competition is focused on value for money, you might want to
emphasize the quality of your product or service. Search for business listings
nationwide or websites.
Study market or industry trends
Awareness of the climate in which your business is operating will help you to plan.
You can find a lot of information about your industry on the Internet. Business and
trade magazines will also feature useful articles.
Build a relationship with your customers
It's not enough simply to know who your customer base is. You need to
communicate effectively with them as well.
Communication involves not only listening to their needs but also actively
observing their behavior around current products and services and generating
ideas on how you can make improvements.
Involve your suppliers and other business partners
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Pooling your resources with your suppliers or other business partners will help to
produce and develop creative ideas. Potential partnerships can also be developed
through business networking opportunities.
Next, consider what taking a innovative step could mean for your business.
Ask yourself:
1- what impact it will have on your business processes and practices
2- what extra training your staff may require
3- what extra resources you may need
4- how you'll finance the work
5- whether you'll be creating any intellectual property that will need protecting
Finally, you should include your vision in your business plan by:
putting down your goals, both long and short term and detailing how you intend
to achieve them and linking goals to financial targets, such as achieving a specific
turnover by a set date.
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Steps to promote innovation
Make sure you have processes and events to capture ideas. For example, you could
set up suggestion boxes around the workplace or hold regular workshops or
occasional company away days to brainstorm ideas.
Create a supportive atmosphere in which people feel free to express their ideas
without the risk of criticism or ridicule. Encourage risk taking and experimentation
don't penalize people who try new ideas that fail.
Promote openness between individuals and teams. Good ideas and knowledge in
one part of your business should be shared with others. Teamwork, newsletters
and intranets can all help your people share information and encourage
innovation.
Stress that people at all levels of the business share responsibility for innovation,
so everybody feels involved in taking the business forward. The fewer the layers of
management or decision making in your organization, the more people feel their
ideas matter.
Reward innovation and celebrate success. Appropriate incentives can play a
significant role in encouraging staff to think creatively.
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