Recently, a CEO asked me to spend some time with two of his prominent senior executives, whom I’ll call John & Nancy.  These two got along so well that they could literally finish each other’s sentences; they were equally creative, spontaneous and enthusiastic, and had very similar approaches to solving problems.  I found them to be jovial and fun, engaging, and motivating.

And a complete waste of the company’s resources (time, effort and capital) in their respective roles! Read the rest of this entry »

A friend, Stephen Shapiro, has just released Personality Poker (Penguin/Portfolio).  It is an engaging and insightful read with a fun interactive twist. 

Personality Poker is unique, not only because it raises insightful and counterintuitive perspectives, but it comes with a deck of innovation personality cards that makes determining ones personality style (or that of an entire team) both interactive, fun and easy.

Some of my favorite insights from the book are:

• Why the person you like the least is the one you need the most

·       How your greatest strength can limit your success

·       Why homogenous teams are more efficient, but end up limiting innovation

…and it is packed with useful information whether you are a Fortune 500 business or a solopreneur.

Click here to purchase on Amazon

Click here to purchase on Barnes and Noble                

About Stephen:

Stephen Shapiro is one of the foremost authorities on innovation culture, collaboration and open innovation and has personally touched hundreds of thousands of lives spanning the globe throughout nearly 40 countries. While Stephen’s insights apply to virtually any organization, big or small, he has contributed to shifting the innovation culture for such fortune 500 organization such as Staples, GE, BP, Johnson & Johnson, Fidelity Investments, Pearson Education, Nestlé, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.  Over the years, Shapiro has shared his innovative philosophy in books such as 24/7 Innovation and The Little Book of BIG Innovation Ideas and has been featured in New York Times, Newsweek, O- The Oprah Magazine and Investors Business Daily.  As the founder and creator of a 20,000 person internal innovation practice within Accenture, and consultant to thousands of organizations worldwide, Stephen possesses a rare and extensive arsenal of tools allowing him to arm any organization with the knowledge they need to shift  their most threatening challenges. His latest creation Personality Poker, has been used by more than 25,000 people around the world to create high-performing innovation teams. In addition to being an advisor, speaker, and author on innovation, he serves as the Chief Innovation Evangelist for InnoCentive, a pioneer in the burgeoning field of open innovation.

Looking forward to hosting old friends from the Emory EMBA’00 Reunion.  Sharing and collecting good quotes about the impactful value of good wine:

“Good wine makes good blood;
Good blood causeth good humors;
Good humors cause good thoughts;
Good thoughts bring forth good works;
Good works carry a man to heaven.
Ergo:
Good wine carrieth a man to heaven.”
- James Howell, to Lord Clifford early seventeenth century

From Bob Zorowitz courtesy of Stephen Sondheim:

“Out of wine comes truth,
Out of truth the vision clears,
And with vision soon appears a grand design.
From the grand design
We can understand the world.
And when you understand the world,
You need a lot more wine.”

Players weren’t happy with the team’s leadership under Coach Raymond Domenech, so they refused to do their jobs. Team managers didn’t listen to the players, hurled insults, and lost control, and still another resigned. And now everyone is pointing fingers at each other.

It’s sounds like a typical day at any dysfunctional organization.

A lack of trust, respect and communication can doom any company — or any team — no matter how talented its players or employees or managers are, said David Nour, a consultant and author of “Relationship Economics” and “ConnectAbility”, who has also played and coached soccer.

Read the rest of the article here.

Ahh… To be carefree. How are you nurturing the inner child in you?

I recently had lunch with a colleague – let’s call him Bob, and couldn’t help but to make some general observations – not being judgmental, simply the blatant obvious: Bob has become fat, dumb & happy – and I’d submit by choice!  You see, Bob came up with an interesting idea in the mid 80s and became very engaged in consulting with global companies of varying sizes and industries.  For the past two decades Bob has milked every possible angle you can imagine on this simple (and at its height, unique and powerful) idea.

Read the rest of this entry »