Driving Ideas from Strategic Initiative to Value Creation In this program, participants will come to see the management of innovation as a powerful and practical way to create value by selecting and exploiting the best new ideas — both for improvement and for radical change in products, processes, positioning, or paradigm. The program is based on research by David L. Francis, Ph.D. and his colleagues at CENTRIM (The Centre for Research in Innovation Management.), identifying the best practices of successfully innovative organizations and leaders. Participants will learn to incorporate innovation management skills and processes into their jobs by absorbing the results of research on exceptionally innovative organizations; they will put that knowledge to work through structured activities, cases, and skill practice. They will simulate an “innovation journey” and will practice many of the skills and tools used by the most successful innovation managers. Avatars of Innovation Innovation management is like a five-phase journey, with an Avatar to represent the spirit an the guiding principles of each phase of the journey. We developed a quiz to introduce the innovation journey, and ask our readers which Avatar they most identified with. Take the quiz & find out more about innovation management. During the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to assess their own skills and the culture, structure, and processes relating to innovation in their organization, comparing them to the best practices of benchmarked organizations. Participants will create a plan to move their own skills forward and to create a more innovation-supportive structure and culture within their organizations and teams. Objectives and Outcomes Participants will: • Describe best practices in innovation management • Reflect systematically on their own strengths and weaknesses as a manager of innovation • Identify ways to weave innovation into their management … [Read more...]

Exercising Influence:  Building Relationships and Getting Results Today's organizations run on influence. Influence enables you to build the relationships you need to get results inside or outside the formal power structure. The formal power structures are quickly changing or even disappearing, being replaced by newer, “flatter” and more flexible systems of governance. To provide products and services “faster, better and cheaper,” day-to-day decisions must be made where the action is happening. To be successful in today’s influence organization—regardless of your positional power—you need to be skillful and flexible in the way you influence others. The Exercising Influence Program: This two-day accelerated influence training program uses a “fitness model” to help participants develop strength, focus, and flexibility as influencers. Participants gather feedback before the program, which gives them valuable insights into their strengths and needs as influencers. Participants also learn new influence skills as they work through the program on real-world business situations. Through a series of exercises, including warm-ups, isometrics, cool-downs and behavior workouts, participants learn how to plan and prepare for important exercising influence opportunities up, down, across and outside their organizations. Exercising Influence is a just-in-time learning opportunity, enabling participants to apply new skills immediately in resolving problems and conflicts and achieving outstanding business results. Participants will: • Use influence models to help them develop effective influence behaviors and a strategic and tactical approach to influence • Evaluate how they currently use influence behaviors and identify areas for development • Develop and practice a variety of influence behaviors which they have identified as important to achieving successful results • Establish clear and powerful influence goals • Design an … [Read more...]