Management Innovation: Yes, your employees have brains!

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Management, SANE Innovation

Henry Ford was once quoted to have asked the question: “Why is it that whenever I ask for a pair of hands, a brain comes attached?”

Too many companies ask this same question everyday. They may not verbalize it, but they ask it day in and day out by NOT asking the people that comprise their organizations questions like: “What do you think? Do you agree? How could we do this better?”

Ask is the second step in the SANE approach to innovation. Once you’ve set expectations that you want everyone to be involved in innovation, you have to start asking. Ask your team members to think outside the box. Ask them for their opinions. Ask them if they argee with you, rather than just telling them what YOU think.

Ask, Ask, Ask. “You have not, because you ask not.”

There are far to many mediocre “me too” companies out there playing catch up, with nothing innovative to show for themselves.

If you want innovation to become part of your organization’s culture, it has to start with YOU (the CEO, manager, team leader, etc). It starts with management innovation. It starts with humbleness, and waking up to the fact that you aren’t better than anyone else. By hiring other people, you’ve already admitted you can’t do everything by yourself, so why shoot yourself in the foot by insisting that you always know best?

Ford was an innovative man in his time, but the kind of thinking reflected in his quote above will only get you where Ford Motor Company is today – struggling and chasing a competitor that “gets it” (Toyota), because their competitor believes in the value of every individual employee.

Yes, your employees have brains! Why not encourage them to use them, rather than stifle innovation by reducing them to a role or a cog? Treat your team members/employees with the respect they deserve, ask them for their opinions and ideas, and start creating a culture of innovation today.

The best “APP” for getting things done

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Collaboration, Entrepreneurship, Leadership

APP = Accountability, Purpose, Priority

These are three things that I’ve found critical to have when trying to get things done. Really, this goes for personal productivity and team productivity.

Accountability – You need to have someone that holds you accountable to doing the things you commit to doing. This could be your spouse, a business partner, a friend, a co-worker, etc. Find someone that will hold you accountable.

Purpose – You have to have a purpose for doing things, and that purpose should be clearly defined and stated/published somewhere. Being reminded often of the purpose for doing something helps to keep you focused.

Priority – How important is something compared to other things you want to do? Without priorities, you’ll flounder and jump from half finished item, to half finished item.

Purpose and Priority are also good ways to evaluate whether or not you should work on something at a given time. It’s easy to let “something cool” or “something new” steal your attention. If the purpose for you doing something is not clear and it doesn’t take priority over other items, don’t work on it.

In trying to really stay focused and get more things done, these are a few of the things I’ve realized I need. I also have a new filing system I’ll share soon, that some of you may find useful as well.

My Leadership Quote of the Day

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Management

“Remember, being a leader doesn’t mean that you’re better than everyone else.  It just means that you have the privilege of helping to better everyone else.”

- Me

Creating a Culture of Innovation: Setting Expectations

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, SANE Innovation

As a leader, setting the expectations of your team/employees is YOUR responsibility, and is the first step in creating a culture of innovation within your organization.

So, how do you set expectations? Communicate them!

It’s important to communicate your expectations clearly. These expectations should be both what YOU expect from your team/employees, but more importantly, what THEY should expect from you. People need to know that you are serious about working WITH them, NOT just serious about them working FOR you.

Let your team know that you want each and every one of them to know that their ideas and input are as valuable as anyone else’s – including your own. (Stress that last point.)

You should then clearly define how you plan to manage innovation and creative ideas within your organization. Do you have a formal process? (I’ll talk more about this in a future post.)

You then need to lead by example by you yourself meeting and exceeding the expectations that you have set for your organization. This once again means NOT bypassing the system or process you have put in place for managing ideas and creativity. If you set specific guidelines, adhere to them. If you set goals, exceed them. (or at least meet them)

Personal Branding Summit Recordings Available for Download

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Entrepreneurship, Marketing

For those of you that missed it, the recordings from the Personal Branding Summit are now available for download.

I just downloaded this one, which I’m really looking forward to listening to:

Evangelizing Evangelists to Build a Business and Build your Brand – Guy Kawasaki with Krishna De, Tim DeMello, John Jantsch, Andy Sernovitz.

Innovative Management: A conversation with Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan

Posted by Jesse Kliza in Business, Collaboration, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Management

I read an amazing interview with Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan yesterday. It was one of those articles where I was constantly saying to myself things like: exactly!, that’s amazing!, thats exactly what I said to _______!, etc.

Reading it made me really excited. So much so that I immediately started talking to, and calling friends of mine, probably babbling because I was so taken up by it. I sat at home last night reading parts of the interview to my wife as we sat trying to relax in our living room.

It made me really excited because this is something I am very passionate about. It’s something that I have very strong feelings about, and in this interview I saw my own passions and positions clearly shared by others that are truly thought leaders in the space of management.

Innovative Management: A conversation with Gary Hamel and Lowell Bryan

Please, take the time to read this interview and share with me your thoughts. If you aren’t a member at the McKinsey Quarterly this is more than enough reason to join. (IT’S FREE!)

The basic premise of the discussion is that there is an ever growing need for a new managerial model, that merits the gifts of creativity, passion, and initiative and leverages those gifts in each and every employee.

Here’s just a small sample:

“In terms of managing creative-thinking people, you have to separate the work of managing from the notion of managers as a distinct and privileged class of employees. Highly talented people don’t need, and are unlikely to put up with, an overtly hierarchical management model.

Increasingly, the work of management won’t be done by managers. It will be pushed out to the periphery. It will be embedded in systems. I think we’re on the verge of what I would call a postmanagerial society. The idea that you mobilize human labor through a hierarchy of overseers and bureaucrats and administrators is going to look extraordinarily antiquated a decade or two from now.”

Also, if you haven’t read my post from a few months back entitled: Creating a Culture of Innovation: The SANE Approach, I’m sure you will see many parallels.

John Moore posted a great overview of Gary Hamel’s new book, The Future of Management.

Tory Gattis of OpenTeams also posted some additional excerpts from the interview here as well.