Practice Notes

Welcome to the June Practice Notes

 

Early notice of our September Leadership Café

Leadership and Communication

This is a chance for a two-hour long learning experience looking at different aspects of how effective leaders communicate.

Date: Thursday 8 September 2011

Time: 4pm – 6pm

Venue: Write Ltd, Level 9, Baldwins Centre, 342 Lambton Quay

(Enter via lifts opposite AA on level 2)

Email maria@trainingpractice.co.nz if you want to register your interest.

All welcome - $50.00 plus GST per person.

 

What's new in the world?

One simple question you can ask as a manager

Sometimes it’s simple ideas that are the best. So, here’s a really simple question all managers can ask there staff: What can I do to help you be more effective?” Some of the answers may be direct or indirect criticisms of you as a manager. But the key is to listen and if needed reflect on your response. To follow up this idea, read Linda Hill and Kent Lineback Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader, HBR Press, 2011.

 

Creating a culture that fosters creativity and innovation

A lot of organisations talk about building a creative and innovative culture. Here’s how

Tony Schwartz, the energy management thinker, believes you can create one. Not surprisingly he has an energy management slant on his six steps.

1. Meet People's Needs

Questioning orthodoxy and convention, the key to creativity, begins with questioning the way people are expected to work. How well are their core needs — physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual — met in the workplace? Ask staff what they need to perform at their best. Next, define what success looks like and hold people accountable for delivering it.

2. Teach Creativity Systematically

It isn't magical and it can be developed. Teach the five well-defined, widely accepted stages of creativity: insight, saturation, incubation, illumination, and verification. (Read Betty Edward's book Drawing on the Artist Within for a really good understanding of this process and right brain thinking.)

3. Nurture Passion

The quickest way to kill creativity is to put people in roles that don't excite their imagination. Look for small ways to give employees the opportunity and encouragement to follow their interests and express their unique talents.

4. Make the Work Matter

Human beings are meaning-making animals. We feel better about ourselves when we're making a positive contribution to something beyond ourselves. To feel truly motivated, we have to believe what we're doing really matters.

5. Provide the Time

Creative thinking requires slack—relatively open-ended, uninterrupted and unscheduled time, free of pressure. Ensure that creativity gets attention by scheduling time for it regularly.

6. Value Renewal

Human beings aren’t meant to operate continuously without a break. We're designed to expend energy for relatively short periods of time — no more than 90 minutes — and then recover. The third stage of the creative process, incubation, occurs when we step away from a problem we're trying to solve and let our unconscious work on it. Go for a walk, listen to music, meditate, or even take a drive. Movement, especially exercise induces a shift in consciousness in which creative breakthroughs spontaneously arise.