Successful Blog

Critical Skill 7: Bias Toward Action with an Eye on Opportunity Cost

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Failing Faster Isn’t Enough.

Future Skills

Three tasks on a desk. Three people are asked how to do them. One says jump in and get started “Just decide.” The second, more thoughtfully offers, “Wait. Let’s study them first.” A third person walks in to say, “Why are you wasting your time on revamping our flagship product? Use those resources to take down our competitor’s newest entry.”

Which of the three has the right approach? Put them together, and they all do.

It’s true, if we don’t act, we won’t move forward. If we don’t risk failure, we’ll not learn or innovate. Planning and packing and moving on that trail used to be the explorers’ way. Being an innovative explorer is no longer enough. That philosophy has a major part missing.

[Read more…]

5 + 1 Habits that Make Good Things Happen for You

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Make Things Happen

Some people say “It’s smart to be lucky.”

My favorite boss used to say, “I’d rather be lucky to be smart.”

I’ve always said, “You don’t need luck, if you can make good things happen.”

Everyone hears about someone who has all the luck. That person who is “in the right place at the right time — almost all of the darn time. How does that someone do that?

It’s not fate. It’s not an accident. It’s not even a lucky star.

That someone knows how to make good things happen.

It’s not hard — change some things and it could be you.

[Read more…]

Great Find for the Mind: A New Measure of Intelligence?

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As I Charge My Brain

Business schools are all looking for ways to add innovations and right-brain thinking to their curriculums. Tufts University is looking for a new way to gauge intelligence.

Great Find: Toward a New Measure of Intelligence

Permalink: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2006/id20060803_891819.htm?chan=innovation_innovation+%2B+design_the+creative+corporation

Audience/Topic: Anyone with an interest with innovation trends in business

Content: Robert Sternberg at Tufts University is looking for a new way to measure intelligence. In this BusinessWeekonline article by Romy Drucker, we find out the details of just what that means. Here’s a quick look.

BETTER PREDICTOR. Sternberg defines intelligence as mental activity devoted to “purposive adaptation to, selection, and shaping of real-world environments relevant to one’s life.” It is no wonder, then, that he believes the university should think about education “in terms of skills that matter.”

His research indicates that when applicants’ creative and practical intelligence are quantified and considered together, there is a substantial increase in the admissions committee’s ability to predict academic success in the first year of college.

He also thinks that the modifications in the Tufts rating system will have the effect of admitting more students who reflect the institution’s values of civic engagement. Given the research correlating test scores with socioeconomic status, the reforms should also help admit a more diverse class

To check out the whole article click the title shot below.

Toward a New Measure of Intelligence

I’m off today working with clients on creativity and innovation. We’ll see whether that helps my own intelligence factor!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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We’re All Creative 3: Three Year Olds Are the Masters

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Creative Curiosity

Creativity at Work

It’s true. It’s hard to get highly creative folks thinking inside the proverbial box. Curiosity gets us looking at the box inside, outside, and from every direction. Creativity motivates us. Curiosity nurtures and energizes us. “What ifs” drive our vocabulary. Put those qualities together and you have Jean Luc Picards going forth where no one has gone before and enjoying every minute immensely.

It had to be a caveperson’s creativity that got us fire. The wheel is surely an example of human creative thinking. Yet, the best example of creativity is any three-year old. [Read more…]

Think You’re Not Creative? That Could Cost You Your Job

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Balderdash and Piffle

Creativity at Work

Creativity comes from the sum of one’s life experience. It pulls from knowledge, abilities, and skills. It uses neural pathways in the brain made by everything a person has learned and makes new ones as new connections form. It calls upon an ability to get beyond the ordinary, automatic response—to explore the inside and the outside of that darned proverbial box.

Still think you’re not creative? Maybe your definition of creative is too narrow. Some folks, who call themselves “creatives,” would have you believe that all creativity lies only in artistic endeavor. That brings me back to balderdash and piffle. Those folks aren’t creative in how they define creativity.

Ordinary folk have the power for creative thinking.

Creative thinking is essential to most every career on the planet. Businesses need creative thinkers to innovate, to manage risk, to meet ever-changing customer needs, to build efficient processes and solve complex problems.

If you argue for your lack of creativity, that could cost you your job. [Read more…]

We’re All Creative 1: The Bunnies Prove It

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I Drive Myself Crazy Crazier

Creativity at Work

Yesterdays post on 10 Reasons Creative Folks Make Us Crazy — The 10 Dimensions of Creative Complexity got quite a response, particularly on a couple of forums. The most interesting part was that in the comments about the post it seemed that

  1. the folks commenting didn’t seem to have read the entire post, only the list.
  2. they also didn’t know this blog or they would understand that I count myself among the people who drive people crazy.
  3. they didn’t catch my personal belief that everyone is creative.

The fact is I drive myself crazy crazier the more I think. The other fact is business schools need creative thinkers more than ever. The whole world does if we want to get anything to change around here.

With those thoughts in mind, I dug out a piece that explains my thoughts on creativity. I’m posting it because the bunnies prove that we’re all creative types. [Read more…]