My first job, when I finally stumbled out of university, was with a small creativity and innovation company. It was pretty fantastic – sort of a ‘Fast Company’ company before such a thing existed. And we truly felt that we were in the vanguard for making innovation and its attendant skill creativity important in organizations.
But vanguard? No, not really. Roger von Oech – now he was in the vanguard. He started his company Creative Think back in the mid 1970s and his book A Whack on the Side of the Head is a classic in the creativity field.
In this interview we talk about:
- The power of persistence, and some of the early struggles to get creativity seen as something that matters within organizations
- The importance of embedding creativity into the structures of your organization
- The role of the warrior in helping creativity flourish
- And a certain activity that can increase your ability to be creative (And David Rock agrees.)
You can follow Roger on Twitter at @RogerVonOech and on his website.
Posted on February 5, 2010
I’ve seen Mitch speak at a number of conferences recently – “The Art of Management” and the HRPA – and there’s a reason he’s so popular. Because when you look at the explosion of social media around us such as blogs and podcasts and Twitter and Digg and Tumblr and the like, you should be confused. (If you’re not, you may not understand the question.) You’re not alone. People at Google, Wal-Mart and CostCo are wondering what the implications of this are too, and they turn to Mitch Joel for guidance.
I was lucky to interview Mitch before he got swept up in the buzz of his new book Six Pixels of Separation.
In our talk we discuss:
- Why Great Work doesn’t necessarily have to be a “Mt Everest Moment”
- Why personal branding is more important than ever before in this world of social media
- What it means to strive for excellence
- And “Creativity Does Not Keep Office Hours.”
You can follow Mitch on Twitter at @MitchJoel and also on his blog.
Posted on February 1, 2010
Are you fired up? Or burned out? That’s the question Michael Lee Stallard asks in his book Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity, and Productivity. He asks these questions about leadership and engagement after a successful corporate career. Before he left Wall Street in 2002 he had been the Learning Director and Chief Marketing Officer of the U.S. Trust business of Charles Schwab, as well as a Principal and Chief Marketing Officer at the global private wealth management business of Morgan Stanley. I discovered Michael after reading his excellent Change This Manifesto, The Connection Culture.
In our interview we discuss:
- How his wife getting sick revealed just how important and powerful connection truly is
- The challenge of being deeply connected, when it’s so easy to be ‘friends’ on social media
- The neuroscience that tells you why you need to interact regularly with people – even if you’re an introvert
- The factor that is most significant in increasing engagement at work.
You can follow Michael on his blog.
If you enjoyed this interview, you’ll also enjoy my conversations with
- Susan Scott, author of ‘Fierce Conversations’ and ‘Fierce Leadership’
- Jim Loehr, author of ‘The Power of Full Engagement’
- James Huffines, SVP of the Plains Capital Corporation
Posted on January 25, 2010
Roger Martin who is the Dean of the Rotman School of Management here in Toronto and the author of three great books on business. The first is The Responsibility Virus which talks about the power of building true partnerships. The second is The Opposable Mind which talks about ‘integrative thinking’ and his most recent is The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage.
In this interview we take on:
- The journey ideas take – from ‘mystery’ to ‘heuristic’ to ‘algorithm’
- Why ‘design thinking’ could be considered a counter-cultural act
- How the beginning of change lies in changing the way we think
- Why the burden of proof can be impossible to meet (and what the implications of that might be)
- The power of projectization – and a company that’s showing just how powerful that can be.
You can find out more about Roger and his work and get access to a range of great material at www.RogerLMartin.com.
Posted on January 21, 2010
