Author Archive
Start with Shared Values
If you work in a big company, with people around the world operating in different cultures, on different projects, with different skillsets and different world views, how can you create shared conviction and vision? Don Vanthournout is the Chief Learning Officer of Accenture, a premier global management-services and advisory organization with more than 259,000 associates…
What do you do when predictions fail?
The Mayan weren’t the only ones to predict the end of the world. Or rather I should say, those who interpreted the Mayan to have predicted the end of the world aren’t the only ones who have predicted the end of the world. In the 1950s a Chicago housewife named Dorothy Martin predicted the end…
Changing behavior is the new killer app
Innovation is implementing something new, which is realized by another as having value. This isn’t creativity. People can be wonderfully creative over and over until they finally produce an innovation recognized by another person, or a whole community of people, as indeed valuable. Lytro has introduced a real game-changer in the camera market by creating…
No one can innovate alone
Think of some of the most iconic ancient innovations: the wheel, the arrowhead, pottery. In each case some one knew how to make such a thing, because they were mentored by some one before them knowledgeable in the craft. Each learned a skill which enabled them to replicate a thing of value, hone their skills,…
Beware the Innovation Killers
“All too often the act of the innovator, that stroke of genius, is in spite of the company system, not because of the company system.” – Craig Wynett, Chief Innovation Officer, Procter & Gamble Alan Murray blogged today in the Wall Street Journal that management is dead. Within hours Tom Peters tweeted: “Guarantee: Hierarchy will…
Bring back quiet time and your ideas will benefit
It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. – Einstein Theresa Amabile, of Harvard, and her colleagues conducted a study in which they tried to capture creativity in the wilds of teams and companies by asking participants to reveal their activities in Daily Questionnaires. These surveys were aimed at…
Conversations with Leaders Down Under
We recently had the honor to learn from some of Australia’s leading thinkers, authors and executives, all offering unique insights on leadership, on the challenges of change initiatives, on the power of socially responsible efforts, and even the positive effects of waking up each day with a smile. Nick Kugenthiran, CEO of Fuji Xerox Australia,…
The Next Level – Become a Change Artist
My last post argued for recognizing and adopting the innovative practices of positive deviance. Now I’m suggesting you can become one. Identifying and adopting the strategies of positive deviants can be a powerful accelerant in your work, your play. I’m talking about being a Change Artist – creating new, unique change in positive and pro-social…
Learn from Positive Deviants
On December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, at age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. In her own words, she was “tired of giving in.” As a popular Zen Buddhist story goes: Two monks were returning to…
Let New Ideas Past the Watchman
Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Issac Newton, Albert Einstein all included long walks as part of their daily routine. Charles Darwin had a favorite “Sand Walk” that has since become famous and popular for tourists to walk. Teddy Roosevelt, who greatly expanded our National Parks, was such an avid outdoor enthusiast that after his Presidency, he…
About Shawn
Shawn Hunter is currently Executive Producer & Vice President for Skillsoft's leadership video learning collections. For over a decade Shawn has engaged, collaborated with, and filmed, hundreds of business authors, executives, and business school faculty in an effort to produce video learning solutions, as both an entrepreneur and later as a product developer for Skillsoft.
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