Invest today in Innovation to ensure you’ll thrive long-term. Else be prepared to get wiped out!

I’m sick and tired of hearing such lame advice from people.

I don’t know of any company where they were struggling. So they “invested” in “innovation” and suddenly started building great products.

It’s like saying:

30-mins of daily Meditation (alone) will make you more creative!

Sorry you need to practice your art to sharpen your creativity. Meditation can certainly help, but not the essential ingredient for creativity.

Important thing to note is, one cannot treat innovation as a separate thing in which they can “invest” to reap benefit downstream.

Thinking of innovation as an independent entity, separate from the work itself and the culture/context in which the work is done, is fundamentally wrong IMHO.

One has to experiment and try new approaches. You cannot do your work the same old way and set some time aside for innovation. I’ve not seen that work.

In my view of the world, innovation is part of how you think and operate. To some extent its the nature of people and organizations. Its part of your work and the culture of your organization. In fact, innovation is inherent aspect of many businesses. One cannot bring innovation from outside.  Hence one cannot invest in innovation.

“Invest in Innovation” is like saying “Invest in Learning.”

If you are not learning while doing your daily job and thinking of investing time outside your job to learn, then you are in trouble. Either develop the attitude to learn on the job or find a job where learning is inherent part of your job, not something you do in the side.

If you are learning on the job and want to invest additional time to pick up new skills that’s great. But learning on the job is a pre-requisite.

Innovative thinking should be an integral part of your job and your company’s culture, not something you invest after the fact.

I always knew and believed that I need to exercise and stay in shape to be effective at work. But for few years other burning issues always forced me away from exercising. I kept procrastinating!

Gradually, inch-by-inch, year after year, I found myself becoming a potato. It got to a point where it felt like there was no going back.

Unfortunately many professionals (including myself) do the exact same thing when it comes to Learning and staying up-to-date (keeping our skills in shape.)

We all know the importance of learning, yet we always find reasons not to invest right now.

But why?

If you Google for “avoid procrastination”, you’ll find tons of techniques to help you avoid procrastination. But I don’t know a single person who does not suffer from this.

Luckily for me, from the last 3 years, I’ve really been exercising every day (almost everyday.) On a given day, if I don’t, I feel really crappy.

So far I’ve not seen a similar behavior when it comes to Learning.

So what made me change my attitude towards exercising but not learning?

• Most important thing, with exercising, both the outcome and output is easy to measure/judge.
  • There are some very easy measurements that can quickly show you the difference between being in-shape or not.
  • Did I workout for 30 mins everyday and is my weight stable? (Output)
  • Do I feel energized and fresh the whole day? (Outcome) (I can easily judge this.)
  • But with learning, how do I measure the outcome? Its a lot more vague and much more long term.
• Few things changed, I was in a company of people (at work, back home, amongst friends), who were all very conscious about staying in shape. Being surrounded by right people, who felt much better after staying in shape, reinforced my thinking and encouraged me to take the first step. Unfortunately its hard to find similar environment when it comes to learning.
• I was able to set some simple targets (run for 30 mins every day) and measure if I met the targets or not. If I did not meet those targets, the results were quite obviously immediately. Unfortunately when it comes to Learning I’m not able to find a simple model like this, esp. results being immediately obvious.
• Personally for me, exercising, which involves mostly physical work, is relatively easy even when I’m tired or feeling lazy. But its hard to learn under such conditions because learning requires high cognitive processing.
• There are many options for exercising, but I was able to quickly decide on running everyday as its the simplest thing I could do anywhere and still get a good workout. But when in comes to learning, we have so many options and its intimidating to even get started.
• Exercising usually is fun. Its enjoyable. There is an immediate positive feedback cycle. With learning that’s not always the case. Many times its frustrating.

When it comes to learning, I’ve tried to set various targets like:

• Everyday for 30 mins, either read a book or blogs or twitter or practice solving some design problems.
  • Problem is, even after doing this, I’m not sure if I’m really benefiting or not. May be in the long run, but not now.
• Write a blog post every other day. Hoping that, to write a meaningful blog post, I would go read something at least to clarify my thinking.
  • Problem is, I continue to write crap without reading much and I don’t write that regularly either.

What have you tried to keep up with your learning?

P.S: I learn a lot at my work, but its primarily driven by the need at hand. Which is good. But the broader learning and staying up-to-date with things is equally important and that’s what I’m talking about.

Most eLearning simply automate the formal class-room training environment. Only difference is students can be distributed now.

Although a lot of money is spent on creating engaging, interactive, multimedia courseware, one vital ingredient is missing: Other People.

Many companies adopt a blended approach to bring in the other people aspect. But even face?to?face events are often delivered in a fairly traditional way.

Meanwhile outside of the formal learning environment in online colleges (online courses, classroom, workshops, etc) individuals are learning in other ways – often without realizing it ? whether it be by reading, listening or watching or simply by talking to one another.

Only recently informal learning been recognized as important part of learning and that it needs to be supported within an organization.

This presentation explains how:

1. There are imperatives for continual learning
2. Learning is a process, not a series of events
3. Most learning occurs outside classrooms
4. The vast majority of learning is social
5. A lot of formal learning is ineffective
6. People learn better when they are in charge
7. There’s inherent inertia in formal approaches
8. Informal and social learning are cost-effective

I came across this wonderful e-book called Did I Provide Value: The 8 Disciplines Of The Value Added Leader by folks from Business Efficacy, Inc.

Leaders who relentlessly provide value to every individual in each interaction achieve success no matter how it’s defined. A direct correlation exists between Leaders who passionately work at providing value and employee respect & appreciation.

Following are my key take-away (para-phrased):

• Accountability – Take It On
  • Everyone has a behavioral comfort zone. Moving beyond this comfort
    zone takes motivation, courage, and persistence
  • Valued leaders are not constrained by a desire for popularity. Instead, they just take it on. They realize respect is earned by helping others to achieve more than they believe possible.
• Timing, Not Time
  • Timing is more important than time in making this happen
  • No matter what is being done, never waste a learning opportunity
  • “just-in-time” coaching action is almost always superior to a planned
  • Employees value coaches being present at precisely the moment of need; effective leaders deliver this regardless of other demands
  • Do not base your actions on time or time management. Instead, drive your priority management based on commitment
• It’s All About Them
  • Personal gratification for a Leader is achieved by ensuring others reach their full potential and are enormously successful.
  • Leader make sure they know what motivates each individual they coach. They then use this knowledge to make each required behavior make sense from the individual’s perspective, and show how it ties in to her personal motivations. When done effectively, employees quickly trust their leaders are dedicated to their success.
  • Leaders eschew the notion of “one size fits all” and tailor their communication style and learning methods/activities for each individual
  • A Leader’s first objective should always be to remove barriers to listening, comprehension, dialogue, behavioral change, and skill mastery as quickly as possible
• Stay With It Until They Get It
  • It is pretty basic ? the more people there are doing the right activities, the more effective the execution is on what matters.
  • In today’s world of multi-tasking and conflicting agendas, it’s difficult to develop mastery.  Adequate (but not great) performance is often accepted.
    Repetitive practice and action is the building block of mastering any concept or task.  Unfortunately, personal tolerance for this effort wanes under the burden of our “get it done now” mentality.
  • Create opportunities to keep working on essential skills, even when dealing with a conflicting emphasis
• Clear Expectations
  • Clear expectations make it easy for employees to self-evaluate and determine if work is being done well
  • Expectation clarity requires thoughtful determination of each essential behavioral requirement
• High-Impact Few
  • Activity for activity’s sake must not be allowed. The mission is to do a few common (core) things exceptionally well
• Ask More Than Tell
  • Learning is dependent upon critical, reflective thinking.  Increasing understanding is best accomplished by determining what, how, and why something is happening.
  • Self-discovery is a staple of the learning process. Make way for it.
  • When purposeful questioning is combined with timely, useful suggestions, true guidance/assistance is achieved
• Learn From Each Win
  • Catch people when they are doing something right and make a big deal out of it
  • Its important to know how each individual prefers to receive recognition
  • Demonstrate an enthusiasm for success
  • Unfortunately, many don’t focus on finding success. They seem to dwell on communicating only what either is not being done or what is being done incorrectly
  • It’s important to address performance issues.  However, instead of criticizing, utilize everyday wins to help develop confidence, composure, and concentration
  • Individuals without the confidence to pursue success is destined for mediocrity
  • Invite people to enjoy the process, have fun, and celebrate a task well done. Understand doing so, encourages the characteristics in people which will help to achieve results.