The Power of Ordinary Practices — HBS Working Knowledge Interview with Dr Teresa Amabile

Teresa M. Amabile's research centers on how the work environment can influence the motivation, creativity, and performance of individuals and teams. A recent study focused on the influence of team leaders on these factors. Professor Amabile and New Business publisher Mike Roberts recently discussed her research. New Business: Teresa, tell us about the general context of your research. Teresa Amabile: With all the focus entrepreneurs and business executives place on strategy, they can lose sight of the people "in the trenches" who actually have to implement the strategy—the knowledge workers who are carrying out the work of the organization. In my research we look at how entrepreneurs and executives can think about the day-by-day management of those people in the trenches,

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Using rivalry to spur innovation - McKinsey Quarterly - Strategy - Innovation

Business leaders tend to raise their eyebrows when they read about parallels between history and modern management—and for good reason. There are undoubtedly many people who offer better leadership lessons than Attila the Hun, and it is unclear whether Alexander the Great can tell us much about business strategy. So it’s with some trepidation that we set forth the premise of this article: that the Italian Renaissance was such an extraordinary period of creativity it can shed light on how to stimulate business innovation.

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The Heart of Innovation: 23 Reasons Why Nothing Happens After a Brainstorming Session

How many times have you participated in a brainstorming session, only to be underwhelmed by the utter lack of follow up?

Unfortunately, in most businesses, this is often the norm.

Here's why:

1. The output of the session is underwhelming.

2. No one has taken the time, pre-brainstorm, to consider follow-up.

3. No criteria is established to evaluate the output.

4. No next steps are established at the end of the session.
5. No champions (i.e. process owners) are identified.
6. The champions are not really committed.
7. The champions are committed, but under-estimate the effort.

8. The ideas are too threatening to key stakeholders.
9. No one is accountable for results.

10. The project leader doesn't stay in contact with key players and "out of sight, out of mind" takes over.

11. The "steering committee" takes their hands off the wheel.

12. The next brainstorming session is scheduled too quickly.

13. The output of the session is not documented.

14. No sponsors are on board.

15. Participants' managers are not supportive of the effort

16. It takes too long to document the output of the session.

17. The output is not distributed to stakeholders in a timely way.

18. Participants and stakeholders do not read the output.

19. Bureaucracy and company politics rule the day.

20. Somebody, in the session, is disengaged and sabotages the effort.

21. Teamwork and collaboration is in short supply.

22. Small wins are not celebrated. People lose heart.

23. Participants perceive follow-up as "more work to do" instead of a great opportunity to really make a difference.

Is there anything else we should add?

From Idea Champions blog

The Most Important Leadership Quality for CEOs? Creativity | Fast Company

For CEOs, creativity is now the most important leadership quality for success in business, outweighing even integrity and global thinking, according to a new study by IBM. The study is the largest known sample of one-on-one CEO interviews, with over 1,500 corporate heads and public sector leaders across 60 nations and 33 industries polled on what drives them in managing their companies in today's world. Fast Company's annual list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business just took on a whole new depth. And this year's list will be revealed later this month.

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The Case for A Behaviorial Strategy - McKinseys

Once heretical, behavioral economics is now mainstream. Money managers employ its insights about the limits of rationality in understanding investor behavior and exploiting stock-pricing anomalies. Policy makers use behavioral principles to boost participation in retirement-savings plans. Marketers now understand why some promotions entice consumers and others don’t. Yet very few corporate strategists making important decisions consciously take into account the cognitive biases—systematic tendencies to deviate from rational calculations—revealed by behavioral economics. It’s easy to see why: unlike in fields such as finance and marketing, where executives can use psychology to make the most of the biases residing in others, in strategic decision making leaders need to recognize their own biases. So despite growing awareness of behavioral economics and numerous efforts by management writers, including ourselves, to make the case for its application, most executives have a justifiably difficult time knowing how to harness its power.

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