Today news...

IN THE MOOD TO CREATE
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Innovation is a mental battlefied; only the best thoughts win

One of the most creative people I knew in the advertising agencies I ran
was a man who only produced excellent work when he was wearing corduroy
trousers.

Another wrote his best copy after a generous helping of vodka.

It is not necessary to drink to be creative, but it is essential to
provide an environment in which our inhibitions are relaxed, so that the
mind can wander.

Hungarian polymath Arthur Koestler once said: "Creativity is the ability
to perceive relationships."

Can we train people to be more creative? Some people might be more
innovative than others, but the quality of everyone's thinking can
definitely be improved.

As a boy, I was frightened of pain, which made me timid and nervous - not
a good disposition for playing rugby.

But I turned my fear into becoming fleet of foot and a passable winger.

The fact that I ran to escape the mob did not detract from the value of
the attempts I helped to put on the scoreboard.

When a problem becomes too difficult, you have three options - give up,
ask for help or try to solve it yourself.

The last option involves thinking out of the box and seeing if a changed
context provides the solution. An imaginative "escape" from a problem
often presents novel and practical solutions.

Creativity isn't only about solving problems. Innovation involves creating
new resources.

They often seem like solutions to problems, but the problems they appear
to solve did not exist until the resource was developed.

It is significant that the Pentagon uses Hollywood for much of its
forecasting. Fiction writers may be ahead of the real world, but they are
often right. Today's nightmare is tomorrow's reality.

But some attempts to introduce or upgrade innovation are doomed to fail
because they are subjected to procedures that systematise administrative
work but are counter-productive when it comes to encouraging creativity.

For example, a company needed a strategy for the future and hired a
consultant. It expected him to examine the company, analyse and produce a
report with a plan.

This approach is not worthwhile because it would only tell the company
what it probably already knew.

The keys to the future of any organisation should be:

- What owners wish to accomplish,

- What managers are capable of doing and willing to do

- What the finances of the company - including its profit margin trends -
allow it to do, and

- What a sensible and rational forecast indicates the market will allow or
demand.

An external consultant should ask the right questions, focus on the points
that matter and help to forecast the market, but the key word here is
"help".

Any consultant who presents a "solution" is doing his client a disservice.

Consultants who help their client propose a strategy using information
given, researched and developed by the client, is only doing what he is
paid to do.

Innovation can never be a solitary journey; it is a mental battlefield
where only the best thoughts are allowed to win.

John Bittleston mentors people in Business, Career and their Personal
Lives. Find out more at www.TerrificMentors.com

Yesterday News from Today

WHEN THE RUMOUR STRIKES ...
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Managers should make use of the underground rumour mill to understand
employee concerns

Dr Manoj Thulasidas

EMPLOYEES seek insights into where their organisation is heading. And they
should, because what their organisation does has a direct impact on their
well-being.

If your organisation is planning to retrench 50 per cent of its staff, for
instance, you had better start looking for a new job right away.

Who do you turn to when you need information? Your management most
probably wants you to go to them. From the employee's perspective, this
may not be the smartest move. But fret not, there is an alternative.

Parallel to the world of corporate memos and communication meetings, an
underground "rumour" city trades information, often generating it as
needed.

Employees flock to the rumour mills, not out of their inherent malevolence
for their employers, but because of a well-founded and mutual mistrust.

Management tends to be cautious (and therefore less than candid) with
their announcements, while more than 80 per cent of office rumours turn
out to be accurate, as some studies show.

Let's take a hypothetical situation. Suppose five years ago, your chief
executive officer took to the podium and declared that there would be
absolutely no retrenchments.

How many of you would have believed it? Probably only a handful. And when
the inevitable retrenchment did happen, this group of believers would
certainly wish they had listened to the grapevine instead.

This credibility gap that a typical management team suffers from can be
addressed only though open and candid communication. Therein lies the rub.

The management cannot always be as candid as they would like to be. And,
they certainly cannot afford to be as candid as the employees would like
them to be.

Lack of candour in an atmosphere of uncertainty breeds rumours.

Rumours, as defined in psychology, are hypotheses with widespread impact.
They abound when the management refuses to trust employees with strategic
information. This lack of trust and information leaves them with no choice
but to interpret the developments themselves. In such interpretations lie
the origins of office rumours.

Rumours are not to be confused with gossip. While rumours are based on
conjecture and are presented as future, corporate-wide eventualities,
gossip can be idle or with malicious intent directed at individuals. And
it is usually presented as fact. In highly-competitive settings, gossip
can inflict irreparable damage on unsuspecting victims.

Once a rumour attains a high level of credibility, the top brass will be
forced to talk. But the talk has to be candid and serious as well as
timely.

If they wait for too long, their attempts at a tete-a-tete would resemble
feeble attempts at damage control.

And if the talk is a mere torrent of cliches and rhetoric, it will be
taken as an effort to gloss over potentially-catastrophic changes. Such
weak communication fuels more rumour than it quells.

Given that critical job-related information usually flows down the
grapevine, the employees are going to talk.

The only sure-fire strategy for any management is to make use of the
underground rumour mill - the classic "if you can't beat them, join them"
paradigm.

If you are a part of the top brass, here is what you can do.

Circulate as much accurate and timely information as you possibly can. If
you cannot do it through formal channels, try informal ones, such as
lunches. This way, you can turn the rumour mills to serve your purpose
rather than let them run amok.

Do not underestimate the power of the grapevine, lest all your corporate
communication efforts should come to nought.

The writer is a scientist from the European Organisation for Nuclear
Research (Cern), who works at Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore. His
internationally-acclaimed book, The Unreal Universe, is available in local
bookstores and at www.TheUnrealUniverse.com.