Foster Performance | Paul4innovating Innovation Views

Having A Curators Platform for Innovators

I would like to lay out some thoughts on why we should be considering a curation platform for innovation and the value it can bring to a broader innovation community.

These are some opening thoughts that I felt needed to just “hang out there” and see where they take me and clearly, you as a reader.

The issue I am reflecting upon is our growing concern that we all are living in a world heading towards digital overload, with the risk of it simply overwhelming us, perhaps we are becoming more isolated and detached within this.

We can’t simply rely on focusing on ‘all things digital, we need people to bring the insights and their experience together for the eventual innovation solutions. We need to provide a curator’s platform for innovation, to make all the essential connections. Continue reading “Having A Curators Platform for Innovators”

Putting the coordinates into your innovation world

Innovation can be fairly complex in what needs to be pulled together, as often it ‘flies’ in contradiction to the normal organization’s ways and wishes to work in structured, efficient ways. Innovation can often be rather chaotic and discovery-driven.

One of the useful ideas of using an external resource is to put additional coordinates into your innovation world, they see contradictions in a different way and can assist in working through the conflicting signals, so as to help align innovation in helpful and thoughtful ways. Certainly, the innovator’s role is not an easy one inside the structured world of larger business entities.

I like practical advice with evidence, it helps bridge misunderstandings. This can come through a variety of methods: benchmarking, validating, frameworks and interpreting how innovation can fit with your current or future needs. Often the outside advice can place innovation into a greater context that can accelerate the outcomes you need to gain understanding and achieve increasing identification. Continue reading “Putting the coordinates into your innovation world”

The Value in Personal Innovation Learning Journeys

If you don’t have time, how can you learn? We are in need increasingly, of faster understanding, to quickly learn or resolve an immediate need, or we have this determination or essential requirement within our innovation role to deepen our knowledge and understanding of innovation.

These are usually split into two parts, called “micro or macro learning opportunities”.

The value of having an innovation guide, mentor or coach helps you accelerate through both these needs and learning opportunities. I see four points of value, my value proposition, if you like, for you to achieve personal innovation growth: Continue reading “The Value in Personal Innovation Learning Journeys”

Fitting understanding into the innovation puzzle

Formalizing a new innovation learning-as-a-service is complicated, far more than I originally thought, it is often a puzzle.

Still, a certain course has been set and it is now working through much of its structure, learning much myself on the way to fit this within the innovation puzzle we all have.

When I was thinking through this concept I fell back onto one of my most valuable techniques to work through, clustering a set of questions and capturing all the different thinking through the use of Mind Mapping techniques. Such a valuable tool.

A selection of maps included what a curator can do in innovation; of painting a picture of a strong advocacy practice, of working through a guiding approach, the need to reflect on the whole facilitation process, etc., and each brainstorm takes a time to work through, build and formalize.

The end result becomes a much richer landscape of what I can offer and what equally might be needed. Continue reading “Fitting understanding into the innovation puzzle”

Learning Platforms and Personal Learning Pathways

My mind has been swirling around the significant changes taking place in learning. Not just in the time we have available, suggested recently as 25 minutes per week to stop and learn but in the variety of ways we can learn.

Clearly, many of these are digital to construct, so as to apply the more modern design process that works for each of us individually, in our time of need.

I have been struck by the emphasis on personal learning and development. We still get very caught up in the need for scale yet it is the ability and flexibility to design these to our individual pathways that become “the order of the day”.

The constant struggle is for each of us in simply stopping to focus, finding the time and the last thing you can afford to do, is take an ad-hoc approach to this, it needs a structured design.

This is where external facilitation might help Continue reading “Learning Platforms and Personal Learning Pathways”

Building a Strong Innovation Advocacy In Practice

I have been a strong champion for innovation for a number of years. It has become my overriding passion, interest, and source of inspiration.

I research continuously in this area, as innovation is restless, it never stays the same, it is always evolving.

My worry though continues, innovation gets treated often as an add-on, often overridden, to the more established practices within organizations. Innovation does need a different mindset, metrics, and operational practice to be able to yield its true potential.

I have been thinking for some time about the advocacy of innovation, turning my intent into purpose and positioning, by becoming a more dedicated source of essential knowledge for innovators as a guide, mentor, and catalyst for accelerating performance.

The timing now seems right so to launch this dedicated posting website under http://www.guide4innovating.wordpress.com

My intent derives from four beliefs I can offer something of innovative value to others

To be known for knowing something and contributing this to your thinking
Having clear independent expertise in innovation allows for ‘degrees’ of freedom
A wish to be a “go-to” trusted authority drives my level of performance
Being seen as a specialist in innovation understanding can be a real catalyst for you.

My purpose and positioning have five points of innovation value

The wish to unlock the knowledge within and add even more to yours
To find and set the true purpose and rhythm of innovation for clients
My ability for assessing capabilities, capacities and designs to innovate
A belief that coaching, mentoring, guiding and advising accelerates innovation
I can differentiate, determine and deliver innovation to specific needs

I see many areas of innovation activity that are managed poorly, where the linkage has not been fully established and it often remains sub-optimal.

Innovation is a distinct management practice and does need this strong advocacy that I wish to bring to the table on behalf of clients, ones that want to accelerate their innovation understanding and performance and achieve those higher returns that are available to them if they invest in the time and commitment.

I really think I can help! Can I catalyze your thinking?

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Mentoring versus Coaching for Innovation

I bet a lot of people get caught out in not knowing the differences between Mentoring and Coaching.

Equally, when you are in the coaching mode you need to guard against moving over to the mentoring mode unless it is the conscious way. Understanding the differences becomes important.

Why do we need to mentor or coach today? We are facing highly competitive environment changes. The key to the need of having facilitation is to bring fresher, more innovative and leading-edge solutions into any innovative thinking but it is often all about the blending of experiences and the relationship dynamics of those involved in this set of dialogues.

“For fresh vision and momentum, I need your past like you need mine”

The objectives are to deliver innovative understanding in both mentoring and coaching approaches Continue reading “Mentoring versus Coaching for Innovation”

A platform providing innovation learning.

I was reminded last week of what I seem to have forgotten in my years of focusing on innovation or was it that feeling it was simply repeating.

I am constantly aware of just how innovation has seemingly stayed still in much of its design in recent years, irrespective of what we believe have been ‘innovation advances’.

We certainly do keep moving relentlessly on in finding new tools, to squeeze a little more out of the innovation process but when you stop and think about it, we actually are still extracting mostly that incremental juice, we are not transforming how we innovate.

In the main, the radical solutions often so desperately needed in our business are somehow avoided. This is where this repeating cycle comes in, we are as stuck today in the same incremental ‘stuff’ as we have been for years. A sort of “rinse and repeat” cycle.

Revolving doors and growing intensity Continue reading “A platform providing innovation learning.”

Offering You An Innovation Coaching Methodology

Coaching offers real benefits for innovation. For instance, in Leadership Coaching, the results offer an ROI on the initial investment of nearly SIX times on average.

Can you imagine this X return factor going through the roof, going way beyond the initial investment if the innovation outcomes ‘take off?

One that delivers the level of growth across the organization’s business, partly gained from a greater awareness of innovation through coaching and how to then apply these different levers within its application to achieve this X return?

It often puzzles me the lack of investment we make in coaching, mentoring, or even facilitating innovation with the use of an external innovation expert. That should change and this is one of my personal goals to contribute to this intent as outlined in my Building a Strong Advocacy Practice on the launch of this site and service.

Let’s look at a possible innovation coaching methodology here

Are you aware we all pass through 4 distinct stages when it comes to learning and being coached? Continue reading “Offering You An Innovation Coaching Methodology”

Differentiating Yourself in Innovation Part Two

So my further part of how we need to set about and differentiate ourselves

How do we show the real difference that innovation can provide?

I believe we have eight needs to achieve.

Each of us will arrive at our own personal understanding of what this “all means”.

Innovation is about achieving difference so if we all arrived at the same point of understanding then we actually are defeating ourselves from the very beginning

So what are these eight ‘triggering’ points? Briefly Part one is here:

Exploring the second four below ( the first four are here ) Continue reading “Differentiating Yourself in Innovation Part Two”