Tag: business | Page 2 | Mariposa Leadership

Ask Mariposa: Understanding the Culture of Your New Org

Will asked:

How can I help a new employee understand the culture of our organization?

Barbara Baill, Senior Leadership Consultant responded:

The first step is to be able to verbally describe the culture of the organization. We all intuitively know the culture of the organizations in which we live, but it can be challenging to articulate that knowledge and articulate how the organization demonstrates its beliefs, values, underlying assumptions, attitudes and behaviors.

Here are some questions to think about:
• What stories demonstrate the culture? Can you describe situations where individuals have gotten themselves in trouble by unintentionally violating cultural norms?
• What have successful employees done that demonstrate the company values and attitudes?
• If your company has articulated a set of values, what specifics behaviors demonstrate what those values really mean in terms of winning behaviors/successful performance?
• Where is the decision making power in the organization?
• How risk adverse/risk taking is the culture?
• Does communication flow hierarchically (formally) or democratically (informally) across, up and down the organization?
• In what ways and for what reasons do people really get recognized and rewarded?

It’s a good idea to ask multiple people for their input on describing the culture of the organization. You can also give your new employee the task of asking these questions to a list of others that you believe would be honest and open about the culture and who are also highly regarded across the organization.

Over time, continue to mentor your new employee on the cultural realities of your organization. As he or she gains experience in your organization, their contextual understanding of the cultural nuances will grow. Your coaching will help accelerate the integration of the new hire.

Share your thoughts on this response in the comments section below, and ask us anything here: http://blog.mariposaleadership.com/ask-mariposa/

November 20th, 2012|Categories: Ask Mariposa, Coaching Skills, HR / Talent Management, Influencing Skills|Tags: answer, ask mariposa, Barbara Baill, business, coaching, communication, executive coaching, HR, HR Leadership, organizational culture, workplace culture|

November 15, 2012 / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation / Wise Talk

Wise Talk 11/29/12 with Jeanne Liedtka

Find any innovation leader in an organization and chances are they have been practicing design thinking all along. However, leaders don’t need to be naturally talented or creatively gifted to foster business development; a systematic approach is needed to problem solve.

Design thinking starts with the ability to understand a customer’s needs and figuring out how to pilot a new idea with minimal risk. In the book, Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers, co-authors Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie demystify design thinking by translating “design” from an abstract idea into a practical, everyday tool any manager can profit from.

Join us Thursday, November 29, at 12 pm PT, on Wise Talk as Mariposa Leadership, Inc. CEO Sue Bethanis talks with strategy consultant and educator Jeanne Liedtka on the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications to maximize business growth.

Topics for the interactive discussion will include:

• What is your interpretation of design thinking?

• You describe the design thinking process around four questions: What is? What if?
What wows? What works? Can you tell us a little about each one.

• How is design thinking beneficial to managers? How can a non-designer apply
design thinking to solve intractable problems?

• What advice could you offer a corporate leader or manager that might doubt their
own ability to innovate and foster growth inside their organization?

• What is one example of a simple tool that a practicing manager can use right away?

We welcome you to join this month’s Wise Talk teleconference and submit your questions for discussion. Sign up and be entered to win a copy of this month’s leadership resource, Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers. One lucky listener will be announced at the end of the talk!

November 15th, 2012|Categories: Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation, Wise Talk|Tags: business, design thinking, design thinking model, discussion, Jeanne Liedtka, sue bethanis, wise talk|

November 8, 2012 / Book Reviews / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation

Book Review: Designing For Growth

Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers by Jeanne Liedtka & Tim Ogilvie

Head: (4.5 of 5)
Heart: (4 of 5)
Leadership Applicability: (5 of 5)

Practicing managers don’t have much time for buzzwords and platitudes. Managers are doers, and when they hear about a promising solution, they want to know how to do it. Design thinking is one of those topics that has burst onto the scene accompanied by lofty promises but precious few practical details.

Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers is the book that provides those details. It goes beyond the theory and philosophy of the recent books on design thinking, showing you how to apply design thinking in a step-by-step way to solve complex growth opportunities. This book translates the fundamental promise of design thinking into a straightforward set of tools that the practicing manager-without any design training-can use immediately to create growth and innovation. The design thinking process described in this book is built upon four questions:

What is? – Exploring the current reality
What if? – Envisioning alternative futures
What wows? – Getting users to help us make some tough choices
What works? – Making it work in-market, and as a business

The book contains 10 ready-to-use tools — each aligned to one of the four questions. These tools include visualization, brainstorming, customer journey mapping, value chain analysis, customer co-creation, rapid prototyping, concept development, assumption testing, and the learning launch. This book will help you discover strengths you already have, develop some new ones, and give you the tools and templates to be an instant brown-belt in design thinking.

Mariposa Leadership is very excited to welcome Designing For Growth author Jeanne Liedtka to join CEO Sue Bethanis on this month’s Wise Talk. Join us on Thursday, November 29th from 12-1pm PT as they plan to discuss the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications for optimal business growth. To sign up for Wise Talk and submit your questions, please visit our website.

For more information and to buy Designing For Growth, please visit http://designingforgrowthbook.com

We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

November 8th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews, Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation|Tags: business, design thinking, design thinking model, discussion, sue bethanis, wise talk, women|

November 1, 2012 / Articles We Like / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation / HR / Talent Management / Wise Talk

The Cultivation of Leadership and Design Thinking

Leadership team development is at the forefront of growth and as a business scales, it must do so in a way that is smart and sustainable. In addition to executive coaching to assist organizations with growth, today’s successful leaders need to embrace tools and methods for innovation and problem solving. Design thinking is one of those methods and a proven approach to growth.

In the article, Design thinking and the new language of leadership, *Tim Ogilvie conveys the process of design thinking through a narrative about an executive and his business travel experience.

He identifies three design thinking tools for leadership:

Journey mapping
Visualization
Co-creation

Journey mapping, also known as empathy, is a way to walk in your customer’s shoes, to see the world from their perspective, and is the most fundamental way in which the design process differs from an analytic process. Rather than breaking things down and tweaking the trouble spot, design thinking seeks to build up something new while framing it in a holistic context.

Once you’ve mapped the customer’s journey, leaders become problem-solvers, immediately seeing new possibilities. The problem is: Will the customer see them the same way?

To help solve this, leaders can implement Visualization, also known as ideation — the process of forming and testing ideas in planning, ad-hoc, and research and development activities. Essentially, it’s a tool to create clarity and transparency for collaborative work. This can be done through various methods – gamestorming especially, provides numerous possibilities.

That being said, visualizing a new result is only part of the process. Co-creation, also known as prototyping, is a tool that lets the market tell companies which solution works best. This is the results driven aspect which shows the progress that’s been made. Co-creation is used to engage customers directly in “playing with the future” so we can discover what will truly meet their unarticulated needs.

No mater what the business is, using these design thinking distinctions, leaders can meet the needs of their customers and provide a better product or service before a problem or unmet need becomes common. Leaders who design the growth of their organizations and innovate in such a way will keep themselves on the leading edge of thought. And in the long run, the effort it takes to do research and development using design thinking will in turn save you time and resources.

So, what are you waiting for?

We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

*Tim Ogilvie is CEO of innovation-strategy consultancy Peer Insight and co-author with Jeanne Liedtka of “Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers.” We are very excited to welcome co-author Jeanne Liedtka to join Mariposa CEO Sue Bethanis on this month’s Wise Talk, Thursday, November 29 from 12-1pm PT where they plan to discuss the ability to turn abstract ideas into practical applications for optimal business growth. For more info and to sign up, please visit our website.

November 1st, 2012|Categories: Articles We Like, Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation, HR / Talent Management, Wise Talk|Tags: business, coaching, design thinking, design thinking model, executive coaching, growth, HR Leadership, Jeanne Liedtka, leadership, Mariposa Leadership, Tim Ogilvie|

October 17, 2012 / Design Thinking / Creativity / Innovation / Wise Talk

Q&A with Saul Kaplan on Business Model Innovation

Listen to these audio snippets from our September teleconference, Wise Talk, where guest Saul Kaplan discusses some of the ideas behind his book, The Business Model Innovation Factory.

In this first snippet, Saul talks about how you must become the disruptor, or else you will be disrupted:

listen to ‘Becoming the Disruptor’ on Audioboo

In this snippet, Saul explains that the key to an innovative business model is experimentation, willingness to fail, and to try more stuff:

listen to ‘Experiment and Try More Stuff’ on Audioboo

Click here to access Mariposa Leadership’s Wise Talk archives, and click on “Business Model Innovation” for the full audio of this session.

We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

Ask Mariposa: An Executive Resistant to Coaching

Lance asked:

My executive is resistant to the idea of coaching. What steps can I take to change this?

Tawny Lees, COO responded:

I like the way this was asked in terms of “steps” because there is no silver bullet approach to this challenge. Executive coaching only works with a willing and ready participant, and there could be a wide variety of reasons for the resistance. You’ll need to get clear on what the resistance is about. A fear of facing tough feedback? A perspective that coaching indicates weakness? A concern that it takes too much time/energy? Try to get clarity and then put yourself in this leaders’ shoes (empathize) so you can best address the issues. And you need to make sure that coaching is the right approach. Coaching works best under certain conditions – the executive’s performance and potential are highly valuable to the organization, the particular challenge or developmental need is a fit (executive wants to learn how to be more effective via behavioral change), there are key people in the organization ready to support this executive’s efforts to grow and change, and most importantly – the executive is willing.

Some specific ideas/steps might include: you help the executive get feedback from a trusted and credible source, you have a credible peer describe the benefits he/she obtained from coaching, a valued direct report starts coaching first so the executive gets more familiar with the process and its impact, you brainstorm with the executive about he or she can continue to grow as a leader (self-assessments, 360 feedback, high-level training, mentoring, reading, etc. and discuss whether/how coaching could fit in.) The bottom line is likely repeated, open and honest conversations that get to the heart of the resistance and help the executive to see the value and opportunity in taking stock of his/her current leadership effectiveness and seeking expert help to become even more effective.

Share your thoughts on this response in the comments section below, and ask us anything here: http://blog.mariposaleadership.com/ask-mariposa/

Ask Mariposa: Renew Reputation and Shift Perceptions

Claire asked:

At my last review, I received negative peer reviews and since then I’ve been taking steps toward making a significant change in my behavior and working relationships. It’s been a really difficult process. Can you advise as to how can I renew my reputation and shift the perceptions of others in my organization?

Tawny Lees, COO responded:

The first thing to remember is patience! People formed a perception of you over time and won’t necessarily immediately notice or trust new behavior on your part. Remain consistent in your new behaviors and not get discouraged. There a few things you can pro-actively do to move the process along. Apologize and admit to your not-so-great behavior if appropriate. Have candid conversations with a few key people – describe the changes on which you are working and enroll their help to observe you and give you regular feedback for 6-12 months. Make sure to ask for the feedback, at least once a month. Establish one specific supporter with whom you can check-in and talk through any obstacles. Your boss? A peer? An HR business partner? Again, commitment and consistency are the keys – don’t give up!

Share your thoughts on this response in the comments section below, and ask us anything here: http://blog.mariposaleadership.com/ask-mariposa/

The Breakthrough! Model Explained

What wicked problem do you want to solve? An operational efficiency? A new iteration of an old product? A totally different offering that will hit home with your customers? How about a new revenues stream? These sometimes intractable problems need a breakthrough approach to be solved. Breakthrough! is a model and program designed by Mariposa Leadership’s own CEO, Sue Bethanis, to incorporate the latest most cutting-edge thinking.

Breakthrough! is a fresh model for fostering creativity, empathy, brainstorming, and problem solving in a corporate environment. The Breakthrough! model provides a specific method which can help leaders address customer needs and issues in a more efficient and creative way. Leaders will not only understand the customer more deeply, but will also have an arsenal of tools to use by which to expand upon that newfound understanding.

The key to applying the Breakthrough! model is to let go of the traditional incremental mindset that may stifle creativity. Through Breakthrough! (Empathy –> Brainstorm –> Prototype –> Test –> Implement), corporate leaders learn to balance and combine analytic thinking with intuitive, creative thinking so to maximize innovation and problem solving.

The aim of the Breakthrough! model is to provide the knowledge to create a starting point from which true innovation can grow and flourish to benefit any company in terms of problem solving, strategy, and idea generation.

Post your thoughts and questions in the comments section below!

Design Thinking for the Perceptive Corporation

You feel: a sense of constant nagging that your corporation has fallen behind, that product and services are somewhat out of sync, and that your team and general corporate environment are becoming a bit stagnant.

The lack of creativity and innovation within your company has become more and more apparent. The way you design is not consistent or constant, or it may be unclear to everyone. But, what is the best way to problem solve for optimal operations, products, or services?

Well, we can tell you what it is not – it is not to find one solution that will make these problems disappear, because in general that is neither sustainable nor productive in the long run.

A sustainable approach is finding a path that will lead to a well of many solutions (versus one big one) and many small failures. This will inspire new and fresh idea generation.

This path is called design thinking, which includes a deep understanding of (internal and external) customers, frenetic brainstorming, and rapid prototyping.

Stay tuned: our next blog post goes into applications of Breakthrough! — Mariposa’s design thinking model.

Why Women Still Can't Have It All

Perhaps you have already seen The Atlantic article by Anne-Marie Slaughter that has touched a nerve across the country. My take: It’s a much bigger issue than women/moms trying to have it all. This is a work-life integration issue that affects everyone; men/fathers need to have flexible scheduling, too, and until it is okay for a dad to say to his co-worker or boss, “I can’t be at the 8am meeting because I am taking my kid to school,” then things really aren’t going to change that much for women or men.

What is your take?

Read the article here: Why Women Still Can’t Have It All

We welcome your thoughts in the comments section below.

– Sue Bethanis, CEO
@suebethanis