Lately, it seems, business managers who are planning an important meeting or event, sort through the websites of top business speakers, seeking a speaker who can help them become more innovative.
This isn’t surprising. In response to the business contraction we are all experiencing, there’s an “innovation economy” emerging. The realities of the business contraction are requiring everyone to drastically cut expenses. Interestingly enough, some business stock prices have gone up as a result of the value obtained from some of this newly created “cost-effectiveness.”
OK. So, good going. We’ve cut back. In some instances, way back. It has been painful for everyone, but we’ve measured up to the challenge. Now what?
Of course, the obvious answer, which everyone seems to be reaching for, is innovation.
It makes sense. Even if you have cut your budgets to the bone, and your available resources seem extremely limited, you still have your business goals. Even if you are being forced to re-invent your business, you have results you really want to create. It’s that old saying about “having to do more with less.” Only this time it’s not just a good idea. It’s mandatory. It’s a necessity. And it is developing into a primary value, that will stay with us for a long time to come.
Innovation is the process of creating a new bridge between the results you want to create and the limited resources available. If there’s less demand in play, the competitive frenzy to capture that demand increases, does it not? And so, one of the important questions we must ask is, “How do we win out, in capturing what demand there is?”
Top business speakers are pretty good at articulating the right questions. But we have to ask the questions in a new way, if we are to get the new effective answers we seek.
So let’s re-phrase the question:
> How do we use our current limited resources more effectively?
> How do we develop new resources we’ve never thought of before?
The answer is two-fold:
> We articulate those questions in all of our internal business discussions, so everyone in the organization knows what new answers we are seeking. And then we start a process to stimulate, capture, and utilize ideas from everyone. That’s what innovation really is. It is new ideas. And in this marketplace it’s important to involve everyone in the process of generating new innovative ideas.
> We also want to learn to use the generative creative process, because it provides a structure that organically drives innovative thinking.
Bodine Balasco’s clients consider him to be one of the top business speakers in the country. He is a speaker who will provide you with wisdom, strategies, and tools for participating successfully in the emerging “innovation economy.”