Number 5 - Innovation and the power of team

I consider myself to be a catalyst for new developments.  Having the original thought which often develops into something totally different to my original idea, but then would not have happened at all if I had not had the idea.  I am generally not precious about my original thought, but I am about achieving the development, the change or ideally transformation.

Where do you stand on this? Are you precious about your ideas expecting them all to be actioned as you originally conceived it, seeing yourself as the master of all new thinking?

Often this is a hard one to get beyond and sure there are times when my ego has been dented a bit by my original idea being completely changed.  I have got used to giving myself the pep talk to overcome it.

I find the pebble, rock, boulder, tombstone analogy useful, where pebble signifies something I hold on to very lightly increasing through the sizes to tombstone which is something I am prepared to ‘die’ fighting for.  If the idea is a pebble I can easily handle others developing it into something else, if it’s a boulder then less so.  If it’s a tombstone I am ready for battle.

You will be familiar with the phrase ‘choose your battles’ but often we can lose sight of this, especially if our ego gets in the way.  Let me challenge you and me today to let go of the small things but work hard on the really big and important issues – the real battles.

Let me finish with the second part of the title – power of the team.  I am a great believer in the power of team and their ability to really develop innovative ideas, especially with a great mix of skills, personality, and behaviour types.  I wholeheartedly recommend the power of team to you.  For many you are already there, for others you may think you are but let me challenge you to review how you work with your team to develop new initiatives.

In my e-book 5 Winning Ideas to Improve Your Business one of the ideas is called Quarter Challenge and its all about how you use the power of team each quarter to develop the means of overcoming an obstacle or developing a new initiative.  You can download the e-book here to learn more.

All the very best

John

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