Innovation and Change
The two biggest issues for business leaders these days are innovation and change.
Unfortunately, too many leaders are promoting small steps, trying to get by on incremental improvement efforts that were described in a Harvard Business Review article as “like fiddling while Rome burns.”
Over the last dozen or so years there has been a significant shift in what it takes to be successful - for businesses, government organizations, non-profits and individuals.
Regardless of what you do, your biggest threat is not from an industry rival doing something better, it's from somebody - the proverbial two kids in a garage, perhaps - doing something very different in the market space.
Business leaders who focus on doing things a little better each day are being replaced by those who can create the conditions that ignite the creative sparks in their people to create breakthroughs in products, services and solutions. Bold strategies of transformation rather than those of imitation are what's required.
Yet product development portfolios show a significant decline in “new to the world” and “new to the industry” investments and a corresponding increase in flankers and product line extensions that fail to deliver the revenues needed. During the tough economic times and turbulent conditions we face today, paralysis dominates the environment at many organizations, replacing the excitement and hope that inspire innovation. And the change efforts that exist - incremental or otherwise - are driven by fear.
Government institutions, prepared for a world that looks like the past, are caught unprepared as asymmetric threats - whether obscure diseases that go global at the speed of travel or terrorist cells armed with cell phones and internet access that plot from tribal villages and major cities around the world - surprise and capitalize on the lack of agility and anticipation.
The typical Arts organization tirelessly seeks to wring costs out of their operations as their audience and donor base shrink.
They remain in a perilous orbit of ever-increasing decay as new audiences and supporters invest their money and time in new and different experiences and technology-driven delivery methods.
Creating strategies for growth - not survival; igniting people's passions and innate abilities to generate new ideas and transform them into breathtaking innovations; leveraging people's needs for change that focuses on revitalization and making a difference; providing talent with the skills and the environment for success - these are what's needed in organizations today.
And this is where Zeisler Associates, Inc. helps; building with you what it takes for growth, innovation and positive change.
The process of human creativity - defining and exploring the challenge; generating ideas, concepts and alternatives; choosing and verifying potential solutions; and implementing the innovation - has been known for nearly a century. Zeisler Associates, Inc. helps companies use the innate human creative process to build organizational processes for innovation that mirror the Preparation, Incubation, Illumination and Verification stages that Graham Wallas identified in 1926. When company-wide and human processes align and are supported by the right environment and systems, innovation becomes the rule, not the exception.