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Business Creativity & Innovation

Monthly Archives: March 2013

12 Phrases To Avoid At Work

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12wordsYou come up with good ideas at work and take them to the boss. Do you here any of these phrases in reply? Even worse, do you use these phrases when talking to your colleagues? They tend to kill ideas and have a nasty effect on organisational culture too.
  1. yes but…
  2. we have no time for that
  3. can’t be done
  4. let’s be realistic
  5. that’s not logical
  6. we need more research

  7. not my responsibility

  8. that is a MAJOR change

  9. the market is not ready yet

  10. we will consider the option

  11. that’s in our future plans

  12.  since when are you the expert ?

There are more ‘baddies’ out there and you will know them when you hear/use them. Beware anything that dismisses ideas prematurely or prevents collaboration.

Entropreneurship – Leadership for Today

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ambiguityEntropreneurship is a term that I have invented to describe the qualities and behaviours required for the type of leader that all organisations need NOW. This is why I strongly believe that in calling it Leadership for TODAY not tomorrow. Who wants to wait for something that is going to improve the fortunes of their organisation?

So what are we talking about? Borrowing Entropy from the second law of thermodynamics we have the concept of chaos or randomness which always increases. I am not suggesting that we make our organisations become ever more chaotic. I would like to give you two ideas to think about for now.

Firstly, you may remember a science experiment at school that introduced you to Brownian motion. Particles within smoke were shown to dart around like the lottery balls on a Saturday night Lotto draw. We also know that when people are allowed to interact then ideas tend to be created, modified and come to life. By increasing the ‘organisational temperature’ we can increase the likelihood of of people interacting (rather like our smoke particles). This means more ideas (and also an improved culture).

Secondly, we cannot let chaos or ambiguity increase indefinitely, nor should we waste our time trying to control it completely. Let us use another metaphor here. Imagine we have a flammable material in a barrel with no openings in the barrel. Once ignited, the barrel will explode unless we spend more and more energy trying to contain the fire/explosion. What if we do try and contain the flammable material but leave an opening for combustible gases. We are not now expending so much energy but we have now built a rocket!!

Metaphor is the best way to express the ideas but they do translate readily into business. We do not want traditional constraints (managers) but want visionary leaders who will allow a certain degree of organised, focused and healthy chaos. The leaders will set the direction but the organisation will actually be run by those at the sharp end.