On this week’s Killer Innovation Series, we analyze qualities that promote strong leadership and will help any organization become a trailblazer in the innovation game.

What are the unique skill sets needed for innovation leadership?  We all have a list of what good leadership skills are but what are the unique ones you need to be a true innovation leader?  Today on Killer Innovations, I will discuss what I have found to be the skills needed for successful innovation leadership.

Innovation Leadership Skills

These leadership skills apply to all organizations, whether you are a small organization or a large organization.

1.       Integrity

1.       You need to trust the people you are working with.

2.       You need to know they are looking out for what is in the best interests of the team and organization.

2.       Vision and Strategy.

1.       Team members are looking to the leaders to communicate what the vision and strategy are.

2.       You need to look long-range beyond where the team is and roll that back in so they can see what your vision is.

3.       You need to be able to tell the story, make the pitch, and share your dream with others.

4.       Communication is critical to successful innovation leadership,

5.       If you are going to be a leader, you need to be able to interact and build relationships and truly have an interest in other people’s lives.

6.       Know what is going on in your team members’ lives so you can help them eliminate distractions and get their heads in the game.

7.       You have got to persuade people to leave what they are doing now and join your team.

8.       You must be able to convince them that what are doing is something worth their time.

3.       Adaptability and Flexibility.

1.       As a leader you cannot be rigid, you must be adaptable and flexible with your team and organization.

2.       Can you operate as a leader of a team?

3.       You need diversity in your team to be successful.

4.       Coach and develop.

1.       Find young and upcoming people and coach and develop them.

5.       Decision-Making.

1.       You must be comfortable making the final decision.

2.       Realize that sometimes the decision you make is going to fail.

6.       Planning and organizing.

1.       If you are not good at planning and organizing, then hire people to do it for your team.

These are the basic skills you need to be a successful innovation leader.  So, what skills do you need to do differently to truly be an innovation leader?

1.       Innovation leadership involves taking risks.

1.       You must be comfortable that some of the decisions you make are going to fail.

2.       Some of your decisions are going to be flipped.

2.       You need to keep looking for new opportunities and threats.

1.       Look for threats to your organization, industry, or geography.

3.       Innovation is about change.

1.       Stability is the death of innovation.

2.       Foster a culture where change is expected.

4.       Do not rest on the traditional management techniques.

1.       Every situation is different.

2.       You need to invent the way you manage and do leadership.

5.       Be an optimist.

1.       Innovation is about being an optimist.

2.       You need to convince and convey an optimistic view of the future.

6.       Innovators cut through the crap.

1.       Innovation leaders need to cut through the crap and get to the core.

2.       You need to step in and stop the corporate game-playing.

Let’s connect; I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.  If we do connect, drop me a note and let me know.  The email address is feedback@philmckinney.com or you can go to Philmckinney.com and drop me a note there.

Thinking Beyond the Obvious

The challenges on the creativity innovation side do not change based on scale.  It is the same whether you have a five-person team or a fifty-person team.  The challenge is operating and innovating at the same level.  A lot of companies get in a rut because they are doing what they have always done.  So, how do you push yourself and people to go beyond the obvious and do the next thing?

1.       Break the rules.

1.       Corporate antibodies will come after new ideas; you need to recognize that these antibodies exist.

2.       Sometimes you are the corporate antibody.

2.       You must think differently.

1.       You must unlearn what you have been taught when it comes to conforming.

2.       Make sure that you challenge yourself to go beyond the obvious answer to questions.

3.       It is all about asking.

1.       How do you ask questions that will make you think about something you have not considered before?

2.       How do you ask those killer questions?

_3.         Better questions get you better answers.

Continuing our Best of Killer Innovations Series, we touch on creativity. Below are some ways to get inspired into incorporating creativity into your personal life to benefit your professional success.

Everyone is creative.  Yet some people seem more creative than others.  What do those people have that others might lack?  What's the secret to creativity? This week we talk about finding creative inspiration outside of work.  I'll share my thoughts on what makes people creative. We'll also hear Kym McNicholas interview Tania Katan.  Tania has just come out with a book called Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy into Your Work and Life.

Finding Inspiration

Humans use creativity every day to solve complex issues.  Some people are more creative than others in problem-solving.  How do these people manage to stay ahead of everyone else creatively?  First, these people are inspired. Find something piques your interest and drives you to go above and beyond, experiment, and learn.  You can find creative inspiration even at work. If you are passionate about your work, you are feeding your creativity.

Practicing Creativity

Another common denominator of creative people is that they practice creativity.  People do not just wake up already skilled at something. They have to practice it until they have mastered it.  We can define practice as two things:

• To do repeated exercises for proficiency
• To pursue a profession actively

There is a myth that you can't practice creativity and innovation.  You can practice and become proficient. There are many ways to exercise your creative abilities.  There are exercises for the daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly practice of creative skills.

Talking Creative Inspiration with Tania Katan

Tania Katan shares with Kym McNicholas how people's creativity in their personal life can enhance their work.  Her book, Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy Back into Your Work and Life, examines the impact of bringing personal creative exercise into the workplace. Tania wrote this book because she saw a disconnect between people's creativity and what they did at their jobs during the day.

Tania says that if you are looking for innovation, you must bring your creativity to your job.  We can solve problems with innovation by getting our creativity to work. Throughout the book, there are exercises called "Productive Disruptions."  These are creativity breaks. Stanford's study was called the "Walking Creativity Study." This proved that people who went for walks experiencing creative blocks experienced 60 percent higher creativity afterward.  Disruptions and breaks are scientifically proven to help improve creativity. Many people don't enhance creativity because they don't have the right experience or training.  We must break through that barrier and ask "what if" questions. Stop trying to solve problems the same way and push creativity.

Some of the most significant takeaways from the book are:

• Our job does not have to be uniquely creative for us actually to be creative.
• We need to feel free at the workplace to create a creative revolution inside our bodies, minds, and cubicles.

One of the biggest roadblocks to creativity is the fear of thinking and doing things differently. The best way to get through that obstacle is to face it.

 Looking at our Best of Killer Innovations Series, we examine the dynamic nature of innovation and how to manage changes best so that you and your ventures can succeed.

Today's latest innovation can quickly be replaced with the next best thing tomorrow.  Whether you're a newcomer to innovation or a seasoned innovator, there's something every innovator should know.  How to forecast and survive cycles of innovation.  This week Ray Zinn, longest serving CEO of a publicly traded company in Silicon Valley, shares his insights—Ray's astute ability to forecast what was coming enabled his company to survive the innovation cycles.

Sage Advice: Don't Work for Someone Else

In 1974, Ray's boss conveyed a bit of advice.  Don't work for someone else. This advice set Ray on the entrepreneurial path.  He started his own company. With $300,000 of self-funding, he started doing test services.  It was challenging to start a company that was profitable from day one. Ray and his business partner managed it.  By 1985, their company, Micrel Inc., hired engineers and started designing their products. Eventually, Samsung selected Micrel technology for their first cell phones.  With blue chip clients, numerous inventions, and patents in wireless radio and other areas, Micrel went public in 1994. Micrel was profitable every year through 2001. Although Ray had to rebuild the whole company, it remained profitable.  

Forecasting Innovation Cycles

How do you lead companies through the high rate of innovation change?  Ray was able to accomplish this. Ray learned the cycles of innovation so he could forecast them.  You have to know the cycles to predict them for your company.  How do you do this? Your customers are your best lead.  The key to surviving these cycles is understanding them.  Cycles last at the most five years.  You must anticipate what is going to be the following winning product.

Getting Your Board Right

What were the insights Ray wished he had early on?  Be careful about your Board. He elaborated on his biggest mistake –  not being more selective about his Board of Director participation.  Having a viable, helpful, and contributable Board is critical.  You want members who roll up their sleeves and add value where needed.  You don't need board members to pick you apart and create tension. Ray believes that Boards must focus less on what investors or shareholders want.  They must emphasize what is best for the company and adds sustainable value. Boards should not be too independent. Independence leads to disconnect and a lack of understanding of a company's intricacies and operations.

With his wealth of experience in the heart of the world's startup capital, Ray wanted to give back.  He created the Zinn Starter, a seed investment firm akin to Shark Tank for universities. Almost every university in this country has an entrepreneur program.  The Zinn Starter consists of students taking their business ideas before a Board. If the Board approves the concept, the student can start a company while still a student.  Zinn Starter is limited to fully enrolled university students. It is part of the entrepreneur program for six universities. The program has been running for two years, with over five thousand students participating.

Ray has also written a book called Tough Things First.  Used by many universities as a textbook, it covers his time with his company in Silicon Valley.  You can track Ray at http://toughthingsfirst.com/.  Visit his website to hear weekly podcasts and tips for entrepreneurs.

Diving into our Best of Killer Innovation Series, we address a common hindrance to innovation: a drought of new ideas. To fix this problem, I’ve developed a simple list of ways to get the creative flow of thoughts circulating back into your organization.

When generating ideas, the default answer is to host a brainstorming session.  Are there other ways to create new ideas that are not dependent on traditional brainstorming?  Today on Killer Innovations, I will share the five I use with you.

Mind Mapping and Wishing

Mind mapping is a fairly common term nowadays; many types of software provide templates for mind mapping.  Traditionally they are used to organize your data, but it is also a great way to generate new ideas.

·        Develop your problem statement.

·        Write the problem statement in the center of your idea (whiteboards work great).

·        Expand on this problem statement by surrounding it with terms that better describe your needs.

·        Now add a second layer to each of your needs describing how you might be able to solve these individual challenges.

·        Keep adding to your mind map using the steps above until you have sufficiently broken down your problem into manageable parts.

It is a fantastic ideation technique that encourages creative answers.  Another great way to generate new ideas is by wishing.  Wishing encourages your team to let their imaginations run wild.  Assuming you have a well-researched and understood problem statement, ask each participant to dream up the most unattainable solutions related to the problem statement.  Create a list of a few dozen wishes and go through the wishes by considering and discussing the ideas in detail.  Ask yourself:

·        What makes them so impossible?

·        How can that idea be scaled down?

·        Which features of that wish could we integrate into this other approach?

You might be surprised to discover practical, real-world solutions among the team’s wildest wishes.

Six Thinking Hats

Six Thinking Hats by Dr. Edward de Bono unleashed a new approach to generating ideas by breaking down the ideas into six areas of thought.  It helps participants put themselves into the shoes of another.  The six hats are:

·        Logic- the facts.

·        Optimism- the value and the benefits.

·        Devil’s Advocate- the difficulties and dangers.

·        Emotion- Feelings and intuitions.

·        Creativity- Possibilities and new ideas.

·        Management- Ensuring the observance of the hat rules.

So, how do you use the tool? Have each member put on one of these different “hats” for the discussion. Make sure everyone has their say, and rotate the hats to others for extended sessions. Hence, everyone can see the problem and ideas from various perspectives.

Brain-Writing and Forced Combinations

One challenge for generating ideas is getting everything rattling around in your head out.  In this exercise, each participant takes a piece of paper and writes rough ideas for solving the problem statement.  Each person passes on each piece of paper, reads it silently, and adds their ideas to the page. This process is repeated until everyone has had an opportunity to contribute to each piece of paper. Once participants have retrieved their original paper, they read and organize the ideas.  Then each participant shares the notes and ideas on their piece of paper.  The significant advantage of brain-writing is that it ensures everybody has an opportunity to share their ideas and reinforces the idea of “building on the ideas of others.”

Lastly, the final way to generate ideas is one I have used with my product teams.  The premise is to look at non-logical combinations to create entirely new ideas.  This exercise involves combining ideas that serve different needs or interests to form a new concept.  How does this work?

·        Bring a bag of random items to your ideation.

·        Draw up two lists side-by-side of the items in the bag.

·        Request a team member to choose two or more items and explore ways they can combine them.

·        On the list, draw a line for each combination shared with a brief description of the ideas that resulted.

·        Put the items back in the bag.

·        The following person selects two or more items and repeats the process.

This technique can produce some silly results, but it is ultimately a helpful way of getting your team out of a creative rut.