The 8 stages to guaranteeing innovation

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I created a process to help my clients learn and take action. It’s turned into a way to guarantee innovation and progress. It’s also a track I use regardless of the kind of work I’m doing or the event I’m conducting.  I’m taking people on a journey from information to insight to inspiration to idea/s to implementation to introspection to integration to innovation. This is my fundamental methodology.

Let’s take a quick look at each phase:

Information

Information is everywhere right. We’re drowning in it. It’s accessible and mostly free. Deliberate distribution of disinformation is now rife. One of the challenges today is determining whether information it’s true or false. The bottom-line, information is actually of very little value. What we crave is insight.

Insight

Insight is everywhere too. Yet not easily accessed. 

A most worthy pursuit because it’s the beginning of more people feeling valued, living values and delivering value, which are the fundamentals of a thriving enterprise.

Inspiration

Very few people take the time and energy to savour insight and imagine what can be. To be inspired heart is required. Emotions need stirring.

Idea/s

Any idea from the heart inspired by intuition is worthy of consideration. There’s three key questions to answer:

1) What’s your process for considering people’s ideas and getting back to them once considered?

2) What is the decision-making process for choosing an idea to implement?

3) How much freedom do your people have to implement ideas?

Then love your idea like your dearest. Find people who love it too. Work with them to turn your idea into innovation through the final three crucial stages.

Implementation

There are three essentials for successfully implementing any idea.

1) do so one quantum leap at a time.

2) implement in 90 day blocks using performance possibility plans-on-a-page. 90 days is enough time to do things that matter and yet short enough to be able to correct any missteps.

3) aggregate the marginal gains.

Introspection

To reflect on actions taken and their impact is vital to all learning and progress or innovation of any kind. I help a lot of my clients with after-action-reviews and have a simple 5 stage process that I’ll mention shortly.

Integration

Integrating new perceptions with what is already working well for you is an essential to embedding learning and established new levels of performance.

I recommend the following 5 stages to for introspection and integration work.

1) Review one implementation action at a time and answer the following questions what happened and why? what did we learn, relearn, and unlearn? How can we be better, wiser and more valuable in applying these learnings? Who will we become? What will we do next?

2) Determine with your colleagues how your answers will be integrated with what is already working well for you.

3) Upgrade your individual, team and organisational plans and co-promises on a page accordingly.

4) Reflect new perceptions in appropriate standard operating procedures, policies and practices.

5) Upgrade learning and development materials.

Innovation

Innovation has occurred when we have changed what’s normal, when we have shifted from sameness or the status quo that was no longer serving us, to something more valuable.

The 8 stages to guaranteeing innovation are integral to Heart-Leadership. There's more podcasts plus videos and online courses here to help you further.

Do Your Work.

Be remarkable.

Ian