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LeadingThoughts - LeadershipNow.com

LeadingThoughts - LeadershipNow.com

Learn How to Think Different(ly) - Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen by Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen | 10:24 AM September 27, 2011 In the Economist review of our book, The Innovator’s DNA, the reviewer wondered whether genius-level innovators such as Marc Benioff, Jeff Bezos, and Steve Jobs challenge the idea that working adults can really learn how to think differently and become innovators. We don’t think so. Remember, it was Steve Jobs who jump-started the now-famous “Think Different” advertising campaign as a way to inspire consumers and recharge Apple’s innovation efforts. It worked. Reflecting back on the campaign, Jobs said “The whole purpose of the ‘Think Different’ campaign was that people had forgotten what Apple stood for, including the employees.” Reams of relevant research (including our own) proves Jobs right. But neither Steve Jobs nor Apple nor any other high-profile innovator or company has a corner on the think-different market. Take Gavin Symanowitz, whom we recently met in South Africa. Just do It. Shake it up. Repeat.

Innovating for a Better City The following was published in McKinsey & Company's "What Matters" on December 3, 2011. by Mike Bloomberg Fifteen years after founding my company, I wrote an autobiography that forced me to look back on my experiences – not something I had had much time for. In doing that, I realized that my chief function at the company had morphed from managing day-to-day operations into soliciting new ideas and driving the best of them forward. “I make sure we allocate resources to new, innovative, and risky development projects,” I wrote in Bloomberg by Bloomberg (Wiley, August 2001). When I first ran for mayor of New York, many people were skeptical that an outsider could run the biggest city in the country. In general, government tends to be risk averse, because taking risks means taking on special interests. That’s why many officials tend to play it safe. Empower your team I expect my staff to value creativity and new ways of thinking. Remove the barriers Support those who fail

21 Awesome Quotes on Intuition Thanks to Val Vadeboncoeur for finding most of these quotes. “The only real valuable thing is intuition.” – Albert Einstein“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” – Benjamin Spock“Systems die; instincts remain.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes“It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.” – Henri Poincare“Intuition becomes increasingly valuable in the new information society precisely because there is so much data.” – John Naisbitt“A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.” – Frank Capra “It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It’s my partner.” – Jonas Salk“All human knowledge thus begins with intuitions, proceeds thence to concepts, and ends with ideas.” - Immanuel Kant“Trust your own instinct. Image credit: financialsensearchive.com

25 Quotes on Letting Go Letting go is can be a painful yet necessary part of life. And letting go can also result in feeling free. Read these quotes on letting go. Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself. - Deborah Reber, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. Forgiveness means letting go of the past. - Gerald Jampolsky In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself. – Deepak Chopra Letting go helps us to to live in a more peaceful state of mind and helps restore our balance. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values. – Dalai Lama Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. – Ralph Marston The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. You don’t need strength to let go of something.

Thinking Methods: Creative Problem Solving They further divided the six stages into three phases, as follows: 1. Exploring the Challenge (Objective Finding, Fact Finding, and Problem Finding), Generating Ideas (Idea Finding), and Preparing for Action (Solution Finding and Acceptance Finding). Description: Since the arrival of the now classical Osborn-Parnes structure, any number of academic and business entities have re-sorted and renamed the stages and phases of what we now call the Creative Problem Solving Process (CPS). The Creative Problem Solving Institute of Buffalo, New York, has finessed the Osborn-Parnes process to include a divergent and a convergent stage within each of the six stages. In his 1988 book, Techniques of Structured Problems, Arthur B. Mess FindingData FindingProblem FindingIdea FindingSolution Finding Where to Learn CPS

How Do We Get Smarter on Innovation? I wonder how the innovation community – corporate people, consultants, academics and others – can get smarter on innovation. In particular, I wonder whether we still need books and whether it is still worth the effort for authors to write them given the low book sales due to the insanely high number of books being published. There must be better ways to share insights and knowledge. Here are some of my suggestions: • Blogs. • Digital documents (PDF). • Short videos with explanations and key messages • Physical events. • Virtual events. • Books. What do you think of this? Before writing this blog post, I had a brief Twitter conversation. @risgaardknudsen yes for understanding 80% in 20% of the time. @innovationfixer Yes, will need to as ppl have less time available to read books / Yes – ppl have overloaded email inboxes, tough work/life balance. @ovoinnovation Books still relevant, but ideas must be boiled down, and must be actionable. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

99 Quotes About Risk to Inspire You to Great Things Throughout the ages, many have tried to put into words exactly what risk is and what it means to them. Some have been more successful than others—cutting to the heart of the matter, appealing to sensibility, or just putting an idea that’s difficult to explain into words we all can understand. Today, I want to share 99 quotes that have had the greatest impact on me and how I think about the concept of risk. I’m a big fan of quotes because they have the greatest signal to noise ratio of nearly any communication. And now I’ll get out of the way and let the words speak for themselves. Don’t listen to those who say ‘you taking too big a chance.’ The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead. – Albert Einstein Unless you choose to do great things with it, it makes no difference how much you are rewarded, or how much power you have. – Oprah Winfrey You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved.

Spatial Analysis.co.uk An Interview with Alec Ross, State Department Senior Advisor for Innovation Alec Ross joined the State Department in April 2009 after coordinating hundreds of policy advisers for the Obama campaign. He is in charge of developing the concept of 21st Century Statecraft, using communication technologies and social networks to help governments connect with their constituents and help build American leadership. He is also spearheading Civil Society 2.0, a program to train grassroots organizations around the globe in how to use Web sites, text messaging campaigns and other new tools to reach out to their communities. Alec visited the Fletcher School during the fall semester of 2010. MHL: How have you been lately? AR: I’ve been great. MHL: Why’s that? AR: Because I’ve got a really cool job. MHL: What’s the best part of it? AR: The best part of it is you are faced with really tough challenges and, in what is historically a somewhat risk-averse environment, I’m encouraged to think completely out of the box. MHL: Yes. MHL: Right. MHL: Absolutely. MHL: Right. MHL: I agree.

Measuring pain Pain is a fundamental part of life, and often a very lonely part. Doctors want to understand their patients' pain, and we all want to understand the suffering of our friends, relatives, or spouses. But pinning down another person's hurt is a slippery business. Is your relentless lower back pain more or less unbearable than my crushing headache? We begin with entomologist Justin Schmidt's globe-trotting adventure to plot the relative nastiness of insect bites and stings. NOTE: Pain Scale image remixed from CC By-SA 3.0 images from Haragayato; John Dalton; Isabelle Grosjean; Luigi Chiesa; and Sean Lamb. 10 Practical Uses For Psychological Research in Everyday Life | People love to give each other advice. The web is full to bursting with all types of pseudo-psychological advice about life. The problem is, how much of this is based on real scientific evidence? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

NLP Trainings, Communication Skills and Team Building, Vancouver Island, Vancouver, B.C. Brain Pickings Introduction to Psychology Syllabus Professor Paul Bloom, Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology Description What do your dreams mean? Texts Gray, Peter. Requirements Exams: There is a mid-term and a final. Reading Responses: Starting on the third week of class, you will submit a short reading response every week. Book Review: You will write one book review. Experimental participation: All Introductory Psychology students serve as subjects in experiments. Grading Reading responses: 15%Book review: 20%Midterm examination: 30%Final examination: 35% Join a Study Group Through a pilot arrangement with Open Yale Courses, OpenStudy offers tools to participate in online study groups for a selection of Open Yale Courses, including PSYC 110. View study group OpenStudy is not affiliated with Yale University.

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