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Trend Watch – Creativity Scores Headed Downward for U.S. #innovation

Have you ever thought about whether creativity could be measured?  It seems that in 1958 E. Paul Torrance designed a series of creativity tasks to measure creativity.  He administered his test to 400 children in Minneapolis. 

I would question how accurate this creativity index would be in predicting creativity for adults.  I read a recent Newsweek article, The Creativity Crisis, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.   Apparently, Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University, validated a more than three times correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment with Torrance’s creativity index as contrasted to childhood IQ.

This year, Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary did a follow up study where he analyzed almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults.  It appears that creativity scores steadily rose, just like IQ scores until 1990 and then creativity scores nosedived.  The decline is most significant from kindergarten through sixth grade.

In my prior blog post, I wrote about the CEO Survey of 1,500 CEOs who unequivocally identified creativity as the most important leadership competency for success in the future.  

What does this mean for the United States in terms of maintaining our leadership position in the world?  Our leaders understand that creativity is essential; yet at the same time our creativity scores are plummeting!

Stop and think about where we currently need creative solutions.  We are crying out for new ideas to solve our ongoing economic crisis.  We need new ideas to solve the issues of sustainability.  We need new ideas to support our changing demographics.

Creativity includes not only generating great ideas, but it also means being open to the ideas of others.  Through creative thinking we can generate solutions for a health care system as well as new thinking for moving towards a more peaceful world. We need new ideas to make our country more competitive and to identify new ways to measure success. 

Do you think creativity is important?

Millennials select creativity, globalization, and sustainability as future trends for CEO leadership.

Photo by Quang Minh (YILKA) used under a creative commons license. Thank you Quang.

How do millennials view leadership? Do they agree with the results of IBM’s CEO study that creativity should be the primary leadership attribute? How do they differ in their views? When you consider that in a few short years Generation Y will make up half the workforce, then it becomes very important to understand how they view leadership.

IBM conducted a Global Student Study of 3,600 students in college and graduate schools in conjunction with the Global CEO Study.

Gen Y grew up in a global, flat, digital and interconnected world. Most were born after 1980, and they grew up with digital games, music, mail and data. They did not do their homework in libraries with the help of a reference librarian. Instead they surfed the internet and clicked on links to fulfill their homework assignments. They stay connected with their friends on Facebook.

They rated creativity as one of the top three leadership qualities. This is in alignment with CEOs. The themes of globalization and sustainability differentiated them from the CEOs. When asked to select the most important force likely to impact organization over the next five years, twice as many students saw globalization and environmental issues as relevant in sharp contrast to the CEOs. The students showed a high level of concern around the scarcity of resources and global competition for these resources.

Millennials tend to view themselves as global citizens and they see the need to redefine value and the terms of success. They grew up in a flat and globalized world where everyone is interconnected by technology. Generation Y wants to create new relationships between societies, business, economies and governments since we all live on a shared planet.

These are the rankings of the nine leadership qualities by Generation Y: creativity (63%), global thinking (51%), integrity (37%), sustainability (35%), openness (29%), dedication (27%), influence (22%), fairness (15%), and humility (14%). Students and CEOs placed creativity in the top position as the leadership attribute needed to develop new strategies and business models.

What leadership qualities do you see as important for our future leaders?

Creativity is the new style of leadership!

Competency in creative leadership leads the list for standout CEOs according to the IBM 2010 Global CEO Study.  The survey included over 1,500 Chief Executive Officers from 60 countries and 33 industries.
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Creativity is more important than rigor, management discipline, integrity or vision.  Creativity is identified as the leading competency.  Our world is becoming incredibly complex and dealing with ambiguity in this complex world requires creativity.

I listened to a webinar sponsored by Harvard Business Review.  IBM’s Saul Berman and Peter J. Korsten shared some insights on standout companies in today’s ambiguous environment. 

As we come out of the worst recession in 50 years, the new economic environment is viewed as structurally different, with more complexity, more uncertainty, and more volatility.  However, standout companies (the top 25% ) are turning complexity to their advantage with creative leadership.

There are three different ways that standout companies achieve success and capitalize on complexity.  They embody creative leadership, they reinvent customer relationships, and they build operating dexterity. 

A speedy decision is valued over a correct decision.   There is a philosophy of correcting things as they move forward.

Creativity is the leading indicator of leadership quality.  Creative leadership drives the change needed in the organization to stay ahead of the market.  Creative leaders use different communication styles and tools.  

They are more open to experimentation with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media.  Standout companies break with the status quo of industry, enterprise, and revenue models.

Chief executives believe that to navigate an increasingly complex world will require creativity.  They will co-create with their clients.  They will globalize what is possible due to standardization and localize what is necessary and whatever needs local tuning.  Think “glocal.”

When creativity is implemented within an organization, then it is better prepared to deal with some of the massive shifts taking place such as new government regulations, changes in global economic power centers, accelerated industry transformation, growing volumes of data, and rapidly evolving customer preferences.

Clearly creativity is the new leadership differentiator for standout companies.   You must ask yourself, what tools are you providing to your organization to unleash the creativity of your employees?

Permission to use graphic granted by IBM.

Create Innovative Choices For Your Future with Divergent Thinking!

I am reading Tim Brown’s book, Change by Design, How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation.  IDEO is ranked among the ten most innovative companies in the world.  Tim is the CEO of IDEO. 

I was intrigued by the concepts of divergent and convergent thinking.  To experience design thinking, you must understand the difference between divergent and convergent thinking and how they can work together. 

With convergent thinking you are looking at a set of available choices in an existing world.  Divergent thinking is about creating new choices and seeing possibilities that no one else has seen.

When you begin with divergent thinking, you can maximize your choices.  As you increase the number of choices, your life will have become more complex.  However, as Tim Brown comments, “Divergent thinking is the route, not the obstacle, to innovation.”

With divergent thinking you multiply your options as you create choices.  You have more choices in regard to how you understand and apply consumer behavior in creating new products or new experiences. 

With convergent thinking, you head towards a solution.  In the convergent piece you eliminate options and focus on making the choices you wish to implement.

Why does understanding the difference between divergence and convergent thinking matter?  Westerners are taught to take inputs, analyze them against predefined criteria, and then converge upon a single answer.  Convergent thinking is not a good way to probe into the future and create new possibilities.  It is about finding the most expedient answer versus the right answer. 

Divergent thinking opens your mind to many possibilities.  These are two different phases that go together.  If you apply divergent thinking, you can create choices that have not existed before.  When you go into the convergent phase, you are well prepared to find the right answer.

I often use iMindMapping software and techniques to achieve divergent thinking.  What process or tools do you use to stimulate your mind to create new choices for your future?

Designing an Innovative Community Exclusively for OD Using Creativity and Imagination!

Imagine a world where organization development practitioners can access a global platform and find the tools they need to be effective and to maximize an organization’s performance. Imagine a place where you could develop your own creativity and leverage this new found knowledge with clients in your OD consulting practice. Imagine an innovative virtual community built exclusively for those in OD.

I recently spoke with the CEO of Susan T. Blake Consulting, who is also the United States Country Facilitator with Sedaa’s Global Brain Trust. I asked Susan about the value she has obtained working across borders with other country facilitators in a virtual environment. I was also curious about how she came to be selected as the U.S. Country Facilitator.

Susan responded, “I found Sedaa’s Global Brain Trust through two different friends, who each recommended that I join the group. I was pleased to be invited to join this exclusive community for senior practitioners of OD. I was selected to be the U.S. Country Facilitator because I was fully engaged within the community. It was a good fit because I had a background in OD, I had a little bit of a sales background, and a variety of skills – all of which I call upon in this role.”

When I asked her to outline some of the highlights of being a U.S. Country Facilitator, she mentioned several, “I have learned about OD in other countries and I am expanding my global network exponentially. This experience has given me the opportunity to use and develop a variety of skills including OD, team management, dealing with change, as well as sales and marketing. Being a country facilitator has given me an opportunity to use and develop every skill I possess.

I am learning to be creative while I build global relationships and put together the appropriate tools for each individual situation. We have a terrific bunch of creative people who are solving the challenges of building a new virtual organization specifically for those in OD.”

I wondered, “How can someone become a country facilitator?” Susan responded, “As we build our OD community, we are going to be adding country facilitators from every country. It is a tremendous opportunity!”

Susan then issued an invitation, “Just come visit our web site and let us know if you have an interest in becoming part of Sedaa’s Global Brain Trust.”

When you think about it, OD has the potential to be a hot-bed of creativity. OD practitioners are in a position to help their clients by developing their creativity and innovation. They also use their own creativity every day while selecting the right tools and taking the best approaches to finding solutions for their clients. Creativity is all about putting yourself in a place of maximum potential and then maximizing the potential of the organization.

Thank you Sabrina Gibson, Creative Connie Went From Novice to Professional Guest Blogger at Front End of Innovation Europe 2010 Within Six Months!

When I first began blogging I had no idea that my journey would take me to Amsterdam within six months as a guest blogger for the Front End of Innovation Europe 2010, an event sponsored by the (IIR) International Institute of Research.

Although I had vast experience selling emerging technologies and I represented internationally renowned thought leaders in the world of creative thinking and innovation, I was a novice at blogging. 

I had signed up for a social networking class with Sabrina Gibson.  We received our first assignment and we created a blogging strategy plan.

Now six months later, I responded to a bid to be a guest blogger for the Front End of Innovation Europe.  Imagine my delight and surprise when I was selected.  I was notified of my acceptance five days before the event would begin in Amsterdam. 

My assignment is to blog LIVE and post during the sessions while the speaker is actually speaking.  I also had to produce ten tweets each day of the conference and post on two websites, the website of Front End of Innovation Europe 2010 and my own website, Develop Your Creative Thinking.  I am up for the challenge.

Over the next three days, I worked 15 hours per day and generated 22 blogs within that time frame.  When I first arrived, I was asked if I had brought my camera.  I was taken by surprise.  I do not travel with my camera because I typically do not take photos.  Fortunately, I did have my iPhone with me and it has the ability to take photos.  Now, I realize not only am I to blog but I have to hop up and take photos as well.

When I returned home, I redid all of my blog posts.  Now they read much better and make more sense.  Despite many challenges, I am incredibly pleased with myself.  

Remember, it was only six months ago that I began blogging.  I am quite proud of what I have accomplished.  I assure you if I can learn to be this productive with social media and social networking due to the superb training from my incredible teacher, Sabrina Gibson, than you can also learn these same skills.  

I just want to express my deep gratitude to Sabrina Gibson for giving me the necessary skill set to prepare me to blog at a major international design thinking and innovation conference.  Thank you, Sabrina Gibson!

Balancing four portfolio elements produces successful product launch #FEIEUROPE

By Connie Harryman, Applied Concepts Creativity
Guest Blogger IIR USA

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic: Portfolio Planning Dos and Don’t: How to Launch a Successful Product

Speaker: Anthony Reese: Former Director, Mobile & Entertainment Portfolio Planning, PLANTRONICS

Launching a successful product depends on the way you structure your portfolio. Anthony Reese managed Plantronics with a framework and applied it to the development of Blue Tooth.

There are four portfolio elements:

1.) Customer Needs
2.) Organizational capabilities
3.) Channel and market cadence
4.) Organizational capacity

You add value by balancing each of these against the other. The way to choose to launch a product or not is by balancing these four elements.

Think about your customer needs:

1.) The core problem to see.
a. What the customer wants
b. Future needs
c. The 2 – 4 X factor list size
d. Mix of excites us or the WOW factor
2.) Identify and focus on the top priority.

Organizational Capabilities include:

• Strategize the vision
• Brand history
• Organizational structure
• Special knowledge and skills
-Core competencies vs. Differentiated competencies

Know your market channel and cadence.

• Identify the major players
• Number of channels
• Reset /Planning Windows
• Competitive presence and movement
• Breadth of offering

Here is an example. Every two years is the renewal term of phone plans in the U.S. Bluetooth headsets are replaced every year because customers lose them. This determines when to enter the market with a new product.

What is the cadence for Apple? Each year new products are unveiled at MAC world. This sets the timing for the portfolio.

Breadth of offering means that their distribution channels only want to limit the number of headsets that they offer to their customers.

For organizational capacity, these are the areas to keep in mind:

• Development Methodology
• Development Capacity
• Development Cycle Time
• Functional Equivalence

You need to build alignments between the company and the customer. Sort the problems you want to solve. Find efficient solutions; look for the 80/20.

Synch the pace both in the development area and in the market area. Evaluate customer and channel cycles, development cycles, and their established cadence between capacity and the market. Ask yourself, “At what speed do we need to be running?”

Your must strike a balance between all four portfolio elements.

Anthony then presented us with a case study for the Voyager Pro headset. First they had to figure out the core problem to solve. What does the customer want now? They could only do 2 or 3 programs, but the roadmap showed too much and they needed to resize their portfolio. How do they select the 2 or 3 that they can only do?

They asked themselves, “What makes headsets successful?” One product sells lots of units. Perhaps they could suggest improvements to the best seller? Do they need to throw everything out and start from scratch?

They made their decision based on organizational capacity. A premium high performance headset makes sense. They bought the precursor. Now who are the heavy users of headsets? Heavy users are truck drivers, taxi drivers, and professionals who are on the phone over three hours per day.

In terms of market and channel cadence, it is a challenge to be in a consumer space with competitors such as: AT&T, Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, and Sprint.

AT&T almost killed the headset, said they did not like it. However, Plantronics still moved forward with the headset because they had alignment. AT&T said they would not buy the headset. Plantronics had to ask themselves, should we do this, even without AT&T? There was a 50:50 chance they would change their minds.

However, some carriers asked, “Can you deliver these three months earlier? Their reasoning was so it would fit their reset cycle/planning window

Now it is time to evaluate their organizational capacity. They can only do 2 or 3 development projects. They considered how well it fit and the balancing requirements among all four portfolio elements:

1.) Customer Needs
2.) Organizational capabilities
3.) Channel and market cadence
4.) Organizational capacity

The project stayed in the portfolio. There are lots of ways to fail, but they used these four elements for alignment and balancing. You must strike a balance.

Success was achieved and they received many awards.

Here is an IDEA! Inspire, discover, evaluate, and act to drive innovation #FEIEUROPE

By Connie Harryman, Applied Concepts Creativity
Guest Blogger IIR USA

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic:
Idea: A Framework for Driving Innovation Throughout Your Organization

Speaker:
Daryl Dunbar: SVP of Innovation, REED ELSEVIER

Daryl Dunbar built out an innovation team and created an IDEA methodology. His background includes experiences at British Telecom.

IDEA means: Inspire, Discover, Evaluate, and Act.

We need a common language. Innovation is about ideas that result in value creation. Value may not always be about economics. Value occurs at the intersection of capability, viability, and desirability.

Innovation can be of different types:

1.) Products/services
2.) Process
3.) Business models
4.) Management practices

Innovation comes in degrees:

1.) Sustain and grow.
2.) Build new revenue streams.
3.) Build new business.
4.) Creating strategic alternatives.

IDEA Framework was developed, not as a process, not as a procedure nor as a workshop. It is a loose framework.

There are 4 modules:

1.) From infinite possibilities to finite action.
2.) Need to frame the challenge.
3.) Pick your leaping off point
4.) Set boundaries, set goals.

Think about what you are trying to achieve. Assemble many different types of stimulus such as stakeholder interviews. In a cross-functional sharing session, you can ask “What are we doing now?”

Obtain agreement on the type of stimulus to be used. How can you inspire people to innovate, to think differently, and to engage the world in a different way.

For example he used IDEA to develop these customer propositions.

• Inspire: uncover themes, pain points, what people doing, follow customers around, themes generate trends, then pull out insights.
• Discover: divergent thinking wide leads to convergent thinking, develop blue print and road map, and see what execution could looks like.
• Evaluate: engage customers, get compelling business case, understanding of where it fits and how use it.
• Act: Launch a pilot. Oftentimes what happens in organizations is that there are plenty of ideation sessions, and then the ideas are cataloged, rolled up, and stuck in a cabinet and forgotten. You need to act on it.

Target 100 logged ideas. Combine ideas and stretch them, look at trends and themes and build things out to draw out large opportunities.

When you evaluate, build compelling propositions and business cases. It is very important to engage with customers and potential partners at this time.

Then Act to pilot, refine, and launch successful propositions. Be careful with measurement systems because you will get the behavior you incent. Stay away from ROI, it kills innovation. A payback in 12 months is unrealistic. Do a pain-gain matrix and consider the value of the opportunity to the degree of difficulty to execute. Create an opportunity map with timeframes labeled 3-5 years in the future.

HILTI passionately creates enthusiastic customers to build a better future! #FEIEUROPE

By Connie Harryman, Applied Concepts Creativity
Guest Blogger IIR USA

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Speaker: Dr. Andreas Bong, Senior Vice President, HILTI

Topic: Customer Orientation Throughout the Innovation Process

The focus is on the front end of innovation.

Agenda:

• HILTI
• Innovation management
• Customer integration
o Fuzzy front end
o Development

You cannot duplicate what they have done at HILTI. They use a direct sales model with only 30 people selling to their customers. HILTI is about cultural diversity and this fosters creativity and the outcome of innovation. Their employees include more than 50 nationalities.

HILTI has a worldwide presence for construction professionals worldwide, they increase productivity, and provide the benefits from innovation to generate significant added value. They are known for system solutions for professionals.

Sales development doubled the company in the last ten years. They invest 4% in R&D, 10% is done in applied research.

In the HILTI business model they have a common purpose and values. HILTI passionately creates enthusiastic customers to build a better future! The foundation of their culture is integrity, courage, teamwork and commitment. They put people first.

Business improvement, customer competence concentration, customer needs versus requirements, innovative and value adding solutions, management and support creates higher customer satisfaction and better bottom line results.

Innovation management at HILTI is integrated with a holistic view. They have normative innovation management, strategic innovation management, and operational innovation management.

The focus is on outside-in innovation. This is a contradiction as innovation. Horizon 2020 is the identification of future key technologies. They look in the crystal ball to determine global trends and predict construction trends. They generate various scenarios using “Construction 2020” to forecast HILTI relevant applications in 2020, and to create a HILTI relevant global technology roadmap.

They are driven by sustainability. HILTI identified trends by interviewing customers to come up with scenarios. This led to the creation of roadmaps. They learn to survive in each scenario, so they are prepared regardless of which trends or applications occur.

It is important to understand applications and customer needs. What is their value chain? What is their application chain? How do they operate?

HILTI uses science methodologies, work methods, work flow and task durations. There is cooperation and communication to review problems, errors, and identify opportunities for improvement.

By observing their customers at work, HILTI learns what their customers really need. They do this by using video. The customers who are observed forget they are being videotaped. They then behave normally in a brief amount of time. Think about this, 10% of total construction costs are caused by job site injuries. Return on sales of the average construction company is only 2-3%.

Dr. Bong then shows us several examples of innovation at HILTI. One involves the installation of cable trays. It is a solution that is low tech, with low competition, and with a high improvement potential that saves 15-20% of the total time needed. Another example is to replace a yardstick with a laser measurement.

Once you have an idea and a business plan, then go out to customers and ask for their acceptance of that solution.

Enthusiasm creates innovation! Innovation creates enthusiasm!

Key Points are:

1.) Employee satisfaction is the key driver for customer satisfaction.
2.) Understand your customer’s needs.
3.) Idea of scenarios, learn to survive in each scenario.
4.) Creating enthusiastic users is a very steep one.

Developing Vision 2050, Front End of Innovation forms Innovative Think Tank #FEIEUROPE

By Connie Harryman, Applied Concepts Creativity
Guest Blogger IIR USA

LIVE Front End of Innovation Europe 2010

Topic:
Part 2: Innovation Think Tank – Develop a Vision for the year 2050

Led by: Per Sandberg, Managing Director, WORLD BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

After listening to Part 1: Using WBCSD’s Vision2050 of a Sustainable World to Drive Corporate Innovation, attendees at the Front End of Innovation 2010 conference were invited to generate ideas for Vision 2050.

These are their ideas:

• With open innovation you lose control.
• The biggest challenges are the names: the toothbrush example, protecting the market brand and existing business structure. It is hard to create partnerships.
• The big companies and brands have resources and money.
• How can we convince them to abandon existing business challenges?
• Here is a different opinion. How could the future look like? Make it transparent; current business models are an inhibitor. Business models are preventing new types of partnerships.
• Low hanging fruit represents a large win referring to the McKinsey chart in Vision 2050.
• Recognize that in IT and the building industry, the way you purchase influences things.
• There is a lot of stuff you can do now; it does not take fancy things.
• In large organizations, there is a lot of inertia.
• Different viewpoint is that scale increases consumption in oil energy, 1% change. They used the same data set from McKinsey.
• Trying to stimulate grassroots for sustainability, the way forward is to do public-private funding.
• Needs to be focused and fast.
• Large corporations think long term very well. P&G began with candles.
• How do we finance, if the speed is too slow?
• It is unrealistic to rely on big corporations.
• Must have the politics of public-private partnerships.
• The average person will not be making the decisions.
• Create fast change by industry solutions.
• The internal organization is not conducive to innovation. Usually innovation occurs in R&D, or specialized departments.
• Innovation leads to financial performance.
• In bakeries the unsold buns are thrown away. This is not public knowledge. Public image was the driver that led to these results:

1.) Reduce by half in 10 years.
2.) Increase the value of the bread left.
3.) New products developed in 2 month, is multiplier by 100.
4.) Use bread as fuel.
5.) Lot of packaging is needed, use in biochemical or bio plastics.

• Smaller scale needed for innovation, important to parcel out the problem to small issues that can be solved. It is better to work in small teams.
• Megatrends: Intra entrepreneurship will play a big role.
• Can be accelerated, entrepreneurs can be glue for systemic change to occur. We need to incentivize entrepreneurs. Embrace entrepreneurs from all angles. They are driving change.
• We not want to waste bread but want to make money.
• Companies should not pretend to be something and do something else.
• FEI conference focuses on sustainable innovation with cases, etc.
• With a background in a chemical company, the challenge in the fashion or cosmetic industry is that as a supplier we have difficulties communicating with R&D, marketing, and not being able to talk to the right people. We need to remove the walls between different organizations.
• From organizational development, if you do not have a leader like Richard Branson, then your organization needs urgency. She had a prior experience in Shell. They had to work on composition on their oil. You can create a sense of urgency from the outside.
• In the U.S. nothing was learned from the banking crisis.
• Need a burning platform; this is needed to drive change. Ask yourself, what if tomorrow there is no more water? As a company we must question ourselves, and then we will innovate. What as a person what would you do?
• In the brewery industry, cans are recycled. They learned:

1.) Be on consumer top of mind. You need meaningful communication with the consumer.
2. ) Renovation reuses the bottle. Now label bottle, “Hello this is the 4th, 5th time you have seen me.” This changed the consumer mindset.

• Will not get big companies to agree at high altitude. Small companies are good at speed and entrepreneurial. Bring together small companies with funding provided by large companies. Use the leverage of both small and big companies.
• Lots of large companies have huge foundations, like the United Nation’s foundation. Address them and can make big changes occur.

• Summary of key points :

1.) Create sense of urgency
2.) Small bits of a problem
3.) Tools
4.) Project oriented approach, small teams
5.) Create Partnerships

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