InnovationTools - Enterprise innovation articles

Ten top tips for the innovative leader

By Paul Sloane

1. Have a vision for change

You cannot expect your team to be innovative if they do not know the direction in which they are headed. Innovation has to have a purpose. It is up to the leader to set the course and give a bearing for the future. You need one overarching statement which defines the direction for the business and which people will readily understand and remember. Great leaders spend time illustrating the vision, the goals and the challenges. They explain to people how their role is crucial in fulfilling the vision and meeting the challenges. They inspire men and women to become passionate entrepreneurs finding innovative routes to success.

2. Fight the fear of change

Innovative leaders constantly evangelise the need for change. They replace the comfort of complacency with the hunger of ambition. “We are doing well but we cannot rest on our laurels – we need to do even better.” They explain that while trying new ventures is risky, standing still is riskier. They must paint a picture that shows an appealing future that is worth taking risks to achieve. The prospect involves perils and opportunities. The only way we can get there is by embracing change.

Read the rest here.

Today we feature a guest-post from Kris Rowlands, who writes at Words Within.

My To-Date progress with productivity and organization

Firstly, I would like to thank Stephen for the honor of asking me to guest post for his blog. Thanks so much Stephen!

On my path to following GTD and the 7 Habits course, I have learned and implemented several tidbits I have found over the web. One of these things was organizing my household files.

My memory had been going downhill for the last three years or so and it was so frustrating for me. I have a somewhat photographic memory: I could remember a phone number by seeing it as I had written it in my own handwriting. I find if I write things down, I can picture them better in my mind.

Well, I had started to lose that ability. I couldn’t remember things that I had even written down: and I finally figured out why I was having all this difficulty. I just didn’t know how to start to overcome it and couldn’t find the motivation to do so.

Recently a light bulb clicked in my head, and I found the motivation that I needed. With the up-front and simplistic approach that was GTD, I could finally start to organize my life.

My first task was to tackle my desk. It has always been overrun by papers and things that needed filing. But without cleaning out my file cabinet, I would have no where to file everything. So I bought some colorful file folders from my favorite online business supply, and got organized. I made categories with sub-folders within in order to facilitate being actually able to find things! I threw away and/or shredded receipts from years ago, and filed things in the new folders that I had made.

In turn, this allowed for filing of the things that were on my desk. Of course, organization is an expected side effect of filing and clearing your desk.

But the magnitude of the other side effect was mind-blowing. I had an almost immediate improvement in my memory! I was able to remember things that I had thought of the night previous, that I needed to add to my to-do list the next day. I remembered to actually mark our appointments on the calendar, and was readily able to remember phone numbers, and to actually make phone the calls that I needed to make.

So, I have a theory:

I believe that the reason we, as a people, have so many memory disorders is that we try to remember too much, which puts the brain on overload. After too many years of overload, the brain short-circuits: leading to Alzheimer’s, dementia and other ailments in our older age.

There are too many things nowadays to remember, we need a system in place to be able to keep track of our hectic lives.

GTD has helped me with this, perhaps because it’s not something that you have to follow to the letter. It is something that you adapt to your lifestyle and make it fit your needs. If you have had trouble in the past trying to get organized and found other methods having too much structure, take a second look at GTD. It may be just the thing to fit your life.

I can attest to the fact that you can mold it to be your very own. You may be surprised at the unexpected side effects!

“When a wise man has carefully rid himself of carelessness and climbed the High Castle of Wisdom, sorrowless he observes sorrowing people, like a clear-sighted man on a mountain top looking down on the people with limited vision on the ground below.”

~ Dhammapada 28

When, through constant awareness or heedfulness, the wise one has dispelled heedlessness, a great thing has been accomplished. But that is far from the end of the matter. Now he must climb the high tower of wisdom (discernment). Being high, it will take both time and intense effort, for there is no elevator to the top. The Short Path and the Quick Path simply do not exist. There are, indeed, shorter and quicker paths, but frankly our distance from the goal is so long that to bother with such comparisons is laughable and a waste of time.

Once that height has been attained, sorrow is over for him. As Swami Yukteswar Giri pointed out: “Finding God will mean the funeral of all sorrows.” For Wisdom is God. Everything else is ignorance.

Once that state has been established in the consciousness, then the sorrowing state of others is clearly seen and–contradictory as it may seem for a sorrowless person–keenly felt.

Although he perceives, even feels, the sorrows of the sorrowing, yet he does so from such a distance that his mind is in no way seized or agitated by that suffering. The same factor that renders him incapable of suffering enables him to objectively observe the miseries of those he would help. He can see both where they came from (what caused the suffering) and where they should be going (to remove and avoid the suffering)–a perspective completely impossible to most of them. Does such a person decide to help suffering humanity? No. Having arisen to such a level, it becomes a matter of spontaneous volition on his part.

Today’s quotation and commentary are a guest feature written by Swami Nirmalananda Giri, the abbot of the Atma Jyoti Ashram. Please click here to read more by the insightful and inspirational author.

We also invite you to discover more about the principles which form the basis of the world’s religions: Sanatana Dharma as found in the Upanishads, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and the Bhagavad Gita.

Explore this inner life resource, with hundreds of pages of articles and books about the mystical traditions of the world, as well as audio satsangs, and a blog with ever fresh content. Be more than a seeker. Be a finder.

Today’s guest post is from productivity blogger Mike St. Pierre of The Daily Saint 

If you miss the old David Allen Productivity Principles newsletter like I do, you may find another resource to be of interest.   Allen is now writing once per week for the Huffington Post.  Here are a list of recent articles worth checking out:

The Warmth of the Radically Mechanical

To the Tune of Too Much to Do

The Habit of Finishing Things

What’s Your Standard for Stuff?

The Process is Personal

Bonus Feature for Bloggers

At Allen’s company website, you can also download a stylish widget which displays recent DA coaching articles and even some audio material.  It updates itself and looks classy.

About the Author: Mike St. Pierre is a professional educator and founder of The Daily Saint, a productivity blog with a spiritual twist.   Mike writes weekly for HD Biz.