Management guru Peter Drucker coined the term âknowledge workerâ in 1959.[1. Peter F. Drucker, The Landmarks of Tomorrow, 1959.] He differentiated knowledge workers from manual workers, forecasting that new industries will employ mostly the former. Late in his life, Drucker wrote, "The most important contribution management needs...
A vision gives you clarity on what you should and shouldnât do. It forces you to stand for something instead of being for everyone. And, it gives you the confidence to make those decisions: when you have a vision you believe in, youâll have the emotional wherewithal to fight for whatâs best for the organization over the long-term, not just today.
Having a vision isnât just about trying to achieve the vision. Itâs about turning your company into the type of organization that has the potential to achieve the vision.
Few established organizations set aside time to come up with game-changing ideas. Most meetings are designed to produce incremental changes or strategic shifts.
Rarely do you find an established organization trying to create a future that is radically different than what exists as their current day-to-day reality.
This is why most organizations are blindsided by disruptive competition: they couldnât see them coming because they didnât come from the competition they were monitoring.
Yet everyone should be cautious not to make something impossible that nature would not allow, unless it would be that one wanted to make a dream work, in which case one may mix together every kind of creature.Albrecht DĂŒrer, Four Books on Proportion[1. Translation from: Peter Parshall, "Graphic Knowledge: Albrecht DĂŒrer and the imagination," The Art Bulletin, 2013.]
When people think about creativity, they typically think of it in terms of three Ps: Person, Problem, and Product. A person solves a problem in a new way and creates a new product.
The problem with thinking about creativity in this way is that it ignores the fourth and most important P: the Process.
Innovation is usually the result of connections of past experience. But if you have the same experiences as everybody else, youâre unlikely to look in a different direction.Steve Jobs in Roger von Oechâs A Whack on the Side of the Head
Highly creative people donât have special abilities. But, many of them naturally do what others have to train to do.
And, training to be creative begins with constant learning.
Close your eyes. Picture Steve Jobs.
Black mock turtleneck? Jeans? Sneakers?
Jobs designed his outfit to convey both his personal brand and the Apple brand of simplicity. But, it also had a second benefit: it simplified his life to focus on tasks that matter. By: Greg Breeding - President & Creative Director at Journey Group. Iâve served as an art director for the U.S. Postal Service for seven years. Itâs a curious and delightful job and one that has brought me a great deal of creative fulfillment throughout my tenure. The...
If youâre like most businesspeople, youâve entered problem-solving meetings excited to devise a solution, but then left feeling like you wasted valuable time. Often, the solution is similar to something already in place or it was brought up early in the meeting. It feels like the...