27 Sep 2020

Digital Working Place, Engagement and Transformational Leadership, Innovation Leadership
Scientific Framework - Grooa
I recently attended an executive MIT Sloan program on "Digital Business Strategies". It was fascinating to deepen my understanding of AI and Learning Machines, Platforms and Blockchain, Crowd Sourcing and the Economy of "free, perfect and instant". It was also enlightening to get a better grasp of the strategic challenges posed by digitalisation to firms and organisations in general. ...
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02 Sep 2020

Courageous Conversations, Engagement and Transformational Leadership, Innovation Leadership
Colorful balls of paper, with a lamp draw
Have you ever wondered how some business teams predictably achieve breakthrough innovation? Time and again, research indicates that positive change thrives where ideas conflict – and our perspectives clash. Think about yourself and your organization. Do you show the curiosity and courage to listen to one another's views, while keeping your options open until each puzzle piece fits? Does ...
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07 Sep 2017

Innovation Leadership, Priorities / Trivial and Toxic Work
One woman and two men, all in work office outfit in position of fight
Do you know what today is the biggest obstacle to being innovative? I do not mean being technologically inventive (this is actually relatively easy). I mean having a positive and trusting approach to being truly innovative in our everyday, daring to voice a different opinion, or to seriously listen to a totally diverging point of view with the genuine curiosity of learning somethin...
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14 May 2017

Engagement and Transformational Leadership, Innovation Leadership
Two men yelling to each other
A different opinion needs not be a provocation, yet we often feel personally attacked and tend to react in one of three classical ways: we find faults in the other opinion, we display a defensive/aggressive behaviour or we insist on explaining our logic. In all three cases we let our pre-conscious biases hijack our behavior. Not surprisingly, this seldom produces constructive outcomes. B...
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20 Feb 2017

Innovation Leadership
Dandelion in the wind
That change is hard and uncomfortable, is old news. That most companies do a poor job at handling change, is also, sadly, old news. We might be living in the fastest changing era in human history; we might be change-adept when it comes to personal choices that we control (e.g. changing phone, car, diet, home furniture); but we are still taking it very hard when things are being cha...
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23 Aug 2016

Innovation Leadership
3 different sun glasses in a fun style
Every one of us is fully capable of learning and applying any type of behaviour. The reality however, is that we have strong natural preferences that make us adopt a relatively restricted and predictable portfolio of behaviours. We automatically select the behaviours that we naturally prefer, preferences become habits and habits form our style, they become who we are; getting out o...
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29 May 2016

Courageous Conversations, Innovation Leadership
"Love" by Ukrainian sculptor Alexander Milov, at the 2015 "Burning Man" Festival, Nevada (photo author unknown)
Niels is a successful leader. He is engaged and able to engage others around him, he is focused, upbeat and pragmatic, he and his team deliver consistent results, and he is humble about it, conscious that external circumstances and luck have also played a role in their success. There is only one dark spot in his stellar performance, something he is not proud of: he stresses about disa...
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