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The Tao of
Cross-Pollination |
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YIN
(passive, accepting side).
Inviting inspiration, effective
listening; learning about new
processes, methods, and technologies.
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YANG (active, aggressive side).
Inspiring others, searching for
synergies; helping each
other analyze and interpret data; making time or creating a place
for new ideas
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The Jazz of Innovation
11
Practice Tips |
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Cross-pollinate.
Incorporate a wide
range of styles, skills, and perspectives
to
inspire and develop winning
innovative solutions. Encourage comments and ideas. Inspire
advocates and critics. Invite outsiders – experts, customers,
suppliers, partners.
Change hats
to generate and evaluate ideas...
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How To Make Cross-Pollination
an Integral Part of Your Workplace
Seven Planting Tips1 |
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Browse,
constantly search for new ideas and
inspiration:
make constant browsing of journals, books, newspapers, Internet and
other sources your habit and an integral part of your
corporate culture...
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Inspiring Innovative
Solutions
In the
new economy
driven by
systemic Innovation, new
ideas arise from cross-pollination – complex interactions between many
individuals, organizations and environmental factors. Winning innovative
solutions are inspired and developed in the process of cross-pollination of
ideas, rather than narrowly focused search.
Balanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements
Wood (Corporate
Capabilities):
Cross-pollinate within Your
Organization
To face today's complex
challenges, you need to incorporate a wide range of styles, skills, and
perspectives, and build
knowledge communities. In the new era of
systemic innovation, it is more important for an organization to be
cross-functionally excellent than functionally excellent. Firms which are
successful in realizing the full returns from their technologies and
innovations are able to match their
technological developments with complementary expertise in other areas of
their business, such as manufacturing, distribution, human resources,
marketing, and customer relationships. To lead these expertise development
efforts,
cross-functional teams, either formal or informal, need to be
formed. These teams can also find new businesses in white spaces between
existing business units...
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Managing Creativity In Your
Business Environment
Creative thinking
is an intense social activity. You need a stimulus and information input of
other people's minds to be a great creative thinker...
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Cross-pollinate with People
Outside Your Organization
Sharing ideas and observations
with an outside board of directors, consultants, lawyers, accountants,
bankers, and peers will help you to build your
cross-functional excellence, to broad your perspective in a complex
environment, and keep solutions on-target. Exchange of ideas among peers,
e.g. within networking groups, such as executives organizations, is not only
useful within an industry; it is also a means of learning about best
practices in related industries.
Sharing company information once
protected as proprietary has become a common practice – in
strategic alliances,
partnerships,
joint ventures
and other linkages that may involve even your competitors. Today, it is
difficult for one business to have all answers, but when you network and
link with multiple companies to bring total solution to your customers, you
become a much more valuable supplier...
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Case
in Point
Nokia
Nokia has an informal rule that no one should
eat lunch at their desk or go out for lunch. People are encouraged to eat in
the subsidized cafeterias and to mix with people from outside their
department. They have found that the informal meetings across departments
are beneficial in sharing ideas and understanding.
Case
in Point
GE
GE
Work-Out "Town Meetings"
gave the corporation access to an unlimited resource of imagination and
energy of its talented employees. "Nobody wears a tie at our quarterly
two-days meetings," says
Jack Welch."
We take a coffee breaks for almost an hour sometimes so people can swap
ideas. We bring in an outside speaker to every meeting – the heads of
Wal-Mart, Pepsi-Cola, and Compaq. We have dinner together and drinks after
eating. We run this place like a family grocery store."2...
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Case
in Point
Oticon
An impromptu setting can help spark
cross-pollination of ideas and team chemistry. "When the Danish hearing-aid
company Oticon discovered that spontaneous interactions between employees
located on different floors were taking place on stairwells, the firm wisely
broadened the stairs to encourage the multidisciplinary interchange."1
Case
in Point
Apple
When asked "How you
systematize
innovation?" "
Steve Jobs,
Founder of Apple, answered,
"The system is that there is no system. That doesn't mean we don't have
process.
Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that's
not what it's about. Process makes you more efficient.
"But
innovation
comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30
at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots
holes in how we've been thinking about a problem. It's ad hoc meetings of
six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new
thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea."...
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10 Commandments of Innovation
Synergize.
Cross-pollinate ideas,
leverage diversity, create
synergies...
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