[Neurons] 2012 Meta Reflections #14

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections 2012  #14

March 2, 2012

 

 

DISCIPLINED INNOVATION

 

The Secret for being Creative and Successful

 

 

Innovation makes the world go round!  If we do not innovate new products,
new services, new information, new experiences- our businesses will not keep
developing, growing, progressing, and succeeding financially.  Businesses
must innovate.  Bill Gates, Business At the Speed of Thought, noted that
every product at Microsoft will be redundant in three years.   Three years
and the business has nothing to sell that anyone would want!  How about that
for pressure!

 

Back in the 1950s Abraham Maslow was recognized as one of the foremost
thinkers, developers in the field of Creativity.  And why not?  By then he
had been modeling for over a decade self-actualizing people and noting how
they were so innately creative and how they were the ones actualizing new
ideas into products, services, businesses, etc.  In doing so, Maslow sorted
out primary and secondary creativity and distinguished it from innovation. 

 

"Inspirational ideas are a dime a dozen" he wrote.  And why?  Because merely
having great ideas, big ideas, and inspirational ideas is not enough.  If
you don't know how to innovate the great idea, if you don't have the
discipline, consistency, dedication, commitment, and persistence to make the
idea real and actual, the creativity will never amount to anything.  You
will be a dreamer- poor and unsuccessful, and your creativity un-actualized.

 

All of this has been recently re-discovered in the research that Jim Collins
and Morten Hansen has conducted on highly successful companies.  In their
book, Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck- Why Some Thrive Despite
Them All (2011), they reveal what their latest research has indicated about
the companies that actually thrive in the chaos of the turbulent and
tumultuous events of recessions, change, and uncertainty.  Now they thought
and expected that innovation by itself would be the trump card.  To their
surprise, it wasn't.  

 

The companies that far exceeded the comparison companies, exceeded them by
10-times (hence "10X companies") "were not necessarily more innovation than
their less successful companies." (p. 73).  In fact, Gerard Tellis and Peter
Golder Will and Vision studied 66 wide-ranging markets and found that only 9
percent of the pioneers of innovative products ended up as the final winners
in the market.  In fact, 64 percent of the pioneers failed outright.
Obviously, pioneering new stuff by itself is insufficient-it isn't the big
secret for success.

 

So what's going on?  What's missing?   Collins and Hansen discovered that
the secret ingredient that made the difference is disciplined innovation.
About innovation they discovered that innovation without discipline
inevitably leads to disaster (p. 77).  "It's a discipline game, a scale
game, a systems game, not just an innovation game."  Yes you have to
innovate, but above the threshold level for innovation in a given industry,
being "more innovative" doesn't seem to matter very much."  What matters is
the mixture of creative innovation with discipline.  In fact, there has to
be "fanatic discipline and empirical creativity."

 

And what does all this mean?  What is this discipline?

Discipline is consistency of actions- consistency with values, with
long-term goals, with performance standards, consistency of method,
consistency over time.  True discipline requires the independence of mind to
reject pressures, and long-term aspirations.

 

"For a 10Xer, the only legitimate form of discipline is self-discipline,
having the inner will to do whatever it takes to create a great outcome, no
matter how difficult." (p. 21)

 

And what does "empirical creativity" mean?  It means have a specific
methodology, being able to identify the specific details that make the
difference, recognizing what works, how it works, why it works, and then
setting up a methodology that can be repeated and doing it consistently.  It
is being specifically methodical and doing so consistently. 

"No human enterprise can succeed at the highest levels without consistency.
If you bring no coherent unifying concept and disciplined methodology to
your endeavors, you'll be whipsawed by changes in your environment and cede
your fate to forces outside your control." (p. 145)

 

The energy for creativity and the power to actually create an innovative
product or service may sound easy and simple.  It is not.  Long after the
creativity and inspirational ideas comes the discipline to make it real.
That's why so many "creative people" with great ideas are not able to
innovate them for practical results.

 

So what's the solution?   Easy, the solution is to create a synergy between
your meanings and your performance.  Your meanings- the creative ideas; your
performance- your ability to actualize, to translate into action, to
innovate in actual experience.

You can read about all of this in Neuro-Semantics: Actualizing Meaning and
Performance (2011), in Self-Actualization Psychology (2010), and in
Achieving Peak Performance (2009).

 

Or, you can attend the Unleashing Creativity Workshop.   Here are details on
the next one:

                                    

                           Date:              March 16, 17, 18, 2012

               Place:             Washington DC

                       Venue:              Hilton Garden Inn Tyson's Corner,
8301 Boone Blvd., Vienna, VA 22182

                        Theme:           Creativity & Innovation: Unleashing
Your Creative Potentials

                        Contact:          Mark Ashton:
<mailto:ma.ashton1 at yahoo.com> ma.ashton1 at yahoo.com 

                                                Richard Liotta:
<mailto:rfliotta at gmail.com> rfliotta at gmail.com 

                                   

                         To find out more and/or to register, the
registration page is:

 <http://lmichaelhallcreativityandinnovation.eventbrite.com/>
http://lmichaelhallcreativityandinnovation.eventbrite.com/


                                   <http://bit.ly/creativityDC>
http://bit.ly/creativityDC

 

 

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Neuro-Semantics Executive Director  ----   <http://www.neurosemantics.com/>
www.neurosemantics.com

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA                              

1 970-523-7877                                               

     

What is Neuro-Semantic NLP?   Get your free subscription to "Neurons" ---
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Hall at  meta at acsol.net  

 

For world-class Coach Training --- see Meta-Coaching System at
<http://www.meta-coaching.org/> www.meta-coaching.org and at
www.metacoachfoundation.org  

 

Neuro-Semantics launched the New Human Potential Movement in 2007, for
information about the Self-Actualization workshops, go to
<http://www.self-actualizing.org/> www.self-actualizing.org

 

 

 

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