The Monthly Innovation Brief: Who are those Innovators Aug. 2016

Innovation takes a cycle of observing-questioning-connecting-networking-experimenting. From a management perspective, innovation is how to transform novel ideas to achieve its business value. Due to hyper-complexity of modern business, innovation is essentially about reducing the unnecessary business complexity to tackle the complexities of business dynamic. And the leadership in any organization must have the ability to guide, inspire, innovate, and motivate a group of people toward accomplishing shared visions and goals. But who are the innovators, and what are important elements in innovative leadership though?
                         Who are those Innovators
An Innovator’s Scoreboard  Innovation is about transforming novel ideas into business values. Innovation score means an attempt to measure innovation; so the factors included in any scoring system will depend on what you are looking to evaluate (individual vs. organization? potential vs. past performance?), this is usually done through innovation indicators. What’re the pros and cons of measuring innovation and score innovators
The T-Shaped Talent with Innovative Thinking  With the border between different functions or disciplines continue blurring, the specialized generalists are in strong demand, or we normally call the “T-Shape” talent, and the innovative thinker -you start with a strong T and then sprinkle heavy dots randomly across the graph with varying strengths of lines connecting them and the occasional pulsing outlier dot. How do T-shaped people feel? What are their emotional strengths and weaknesses? What is their ability to make sense of a situation? Does this "profile-metaphor" take into account fit and affinity, rapport and empathy? Why is T-shaped talent so popular, and how to groom such type of talent??
Top Qualities & Skills of Innovation Leaders? There are many common leadership qualities or skills shared between an innovative leader and any good leader or any creative team member. However, being innovative leaders take more courage, creativity, courage, collaboration, and concentration.

Three Traits of Innovative Team Due to the complexity of today’s business dynamic, more often than not, innovation is a teamwork, rather than just an individual’s effort, what are the successful traits of an innovative team, and how to improve  the team’s innovation fluency?
Shall you Assess Talent's 'Creatibility'?Traditional performance management in most of the organizations usually focuses on measuring employees’ efficiency: are they doing what being told to do well. However, with increasing competition and emergent business changes, should organizations today also assess their talent from innovation angle, in order to cultivate a culture of innovation and improve business competency, if so, HOW, what’re the technique or best practices can be shared?
Why ‘Good Managers’ are not always Good for Innovation Modern managers are pillars of running complex businesses, good managers are disciplined, dedicated and accountable, however, in many cases, why good managers are not always good for innovation, what’re the issues, how to flex innovation muscles in the management team?
Can Employees Learn to Be Innovative?  Innovation is the light every forward-looking organization is pursuing; however, business’s innovation capability depends on its people, the team of talent who can transform novel idea to achieve its commercial value. How should organizations train their staff to become more creative? And can employee learn to be innovative?The “Future of CIO” Blog has reached 1.5 million page views with about 3000+ blog posting in 59+ different categories of leadership, management, strategy, digitalization, change/talent, etc. The content richness is not for its own sake, but to convey the vision and share the wisdom. Blogging is not about writing, but about thinking; it’s not just about WHAT to say, but about WHY to say, and HOW to say it. It reflects the color and shade of your thought patterns, and it indicates the peaks and curves of your thinking waves. Unlike pure entertainment, quality and professional content takes time for digesting, contemplation and engaging, and therefore, it takes the time to attract the "hungry minds" and the "deep souls." It’s the journey to amplify your voice, deepen your digital footprints, and match your way for human progression.
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