New Year - Same old me.

The New Year has begun and I’m feeling in a reflective mood.

It seems that everyone around me is talking about a ‘New year, New Me’! Be it detox or alcohol free January, promises to exercise more, eat less crap or setting goals to loose 20lbs. At this time of year we all focus on what we should do to improve our lives, health and wellbeing. Its ironic really that it all comes so soon after the period of gluttony and excess we call Christmas.

It’s as though we needed this over indulgent, indigestion fuelled break to give ourselves a good boot up the bottom!

I gave up making New Year resolutions a long time ago. Finally admitting that my ‘good intentions’ didn’t match the lack of strength in my willpower. I actually hate New Year with a passion and would much rather hibernate between Christmas and my birthday on Jan. 6^th (epiphany*).

I was born in 1964 – This year marked the end of the so called ‘Baby boomer’ years so Im celebrating my 50^th along with 1.014 Mil other Brits. On average 84,000 each month or 2780 per day!!

Far from feeling depressed at reaching this remarkable milestone of a half century I find myself actually wanting to jump with joy. Something remarkable has happened and I’ve had my very own little epiphany. Wait for it……

‘It’s OK to be me’.

Sorry Its not that earth shatteringly stunningly, amazing!

Its true I could do with losing a few pounds, should be eating less Jaffa Cakes & white wine and could be more tolerant of people who irritate me. However on the whole I think it’s actually OK to be me, wrinkles and all.

As Alexander Pope said; ‘To err is Human to forgive is divine’

So my new focus for 2014 is to go easy on myself, try to be a better person but forgive myself if I don’t always get it right, which I undoubtedly wont much of the time. This of course works two ways and I’m really trying to be a little more forgiving of others too. This is proving more difficult J

Whatever New Year resolutions you’ve made – go easy on yourself we are after all only human.

*Epiphany -  enlightening realization allows a problem or situation to be understood from a new and deeper perspective. 

5 Tips to boost creativity.

Creativity and innovation are terms that often get confused so here is my own personal take on what the difference is and some ways to help boost your own creative thinking to help you innovate with focus!

Creativity vs. Innovation

The difference as I see it between creativity and innovation is the focus.  

Innovation is about ‘how’ we unlock and apply our creative potential to come up with new ideas. It’s all about focussing our creativity to solve a problem, develop new concepts, products or services. It a process to help us apply creativity for commercial impact and should therefore be measurable, systematic and outcome focused.

Creativity on the other hand is subjective it’s difficult to measure and appears to exist and manifest itself differently in everyone’s very individual mind. Just take a look at how the Art world divides itself around the work of people like Damien Hirst to see how subjective creativity really is.

Theodore Levitt  sums it up nicely when he said

“What is often lacking is not creativity in the idea-creating sense but innovation in the action-producing sense, i.e. putting ideas to work.”

 While many organisations now have systems, approaches and processes to help aid the Innovation capability what is appears to be lacking is the individual’s ability to think creatively at work. Hence many organisations still come up with quite traditional ‘me too’ ideas.

We are all too often constrained by behavioural norms that somehow prevents us from being truly creative between 9 & 5!

Here are a few ways which may help:

 FIVE Top Tips to boost creativity:

Keep your eyes peeled and your ear open!

Being curious, staying connected to the world and what is going on around you is a great starting point for creativity. Seeking out inspiration in what you see is the spark for creative thinking. Likewise read stuff that is outside your comfort zone. For me that’s picking up a magazine about Kite surfing or reading a Financial Times article!

To illustrate the importance of staying connected I will points to fashion designer Paul Smith’s inspiring experience in the Milan airport. Smith had some time to kill as his flight was delayed, but instead of retreating to a quiet seating area, he took a stroll around. A lone bracelet charm which had fallen to the ground caught his eye. He picked it up and decided it would make a beautiful button for a shirt. Smith went on to make 30,000 shirts with that button detail.

Meet new and different people

We often surround ourselves with ‘people like us’ which is great but can also lead us to think along similar wave lengths. Instead seek out people with different opinions, attitudes and experiences. It will open new channels of thinking that you never considered.

Find a new place to let your mind wander:

Find a new place to seek out creativity and inspiration. Open your curtains and stare out into the world and explore somewhere you’ve never been. If you can’t leave your home – surf the internet, read a book or try a different routine for a few days and see what sparks fly.

Allow yourself to have some FUN

Somewhere along the way we adults become serious grown ups. Or like me spend time pretending to be a grown up! We sometimes forget how to play like a child and dont let our sense of fun shine out, especially at work. Creativity isn’t always about discipline, in fact letting your mind forget “the rules” may help you spark creative ideas. Assess your work lifestyle, your home and office and any place where it could use some more whimsy and just get playful.

Don’t allow yourself to get “bullied” into the social norm

You know those voices in your head that say “What would people think if I said that out loud?” Creativity shouldn’t have a limit and often we as people let ourselves get bullied around by our own sub-conscience and feel we have to adhere to the status quo. Instead give yourself permission to be different and to seek creativity in any outlet that feels right for you!

 

Want to read more

HBR http://hbr.org/2002/08/creativity-is-not-enough/ar/1

10 Business Buzz words we love to hate.

If you’re working in the corporate world right now it’s highly likely that you will be all too familiar with many of the following phases. I’m sure like me we are all guilty of using any one of these at some time.

Maybe we think it makes us sound terribly clever or it’s a rouse to make people think we actually know what we are talking about or indeed as a way of convincing your boss you should get promoted.

However, all these do is aid miscommunication as everyone reads something different into the ‘real message it conveys’.

I’ve taken a conscious decision to avoid all of these hackneyed phrases and find a more original way of talking/thinking. Its easier said than done! ‘Old habits die hard’.  I hope you have better luck!

 So here we have my 10 most hated clichés along with how I think they really translate. Don't forget to scroll to the bottom for some great clips including my personal favourite  'The Teleconference'.

Credit to Forbes here for some great explanations

Buy in

Agreement on a course of action, if the most disingenuous kind. Notes David Logan, professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business: “Asking for someone’s ‘buy-in’ says, ‘I have an idea. I didn’t involve you because I didn’t value you enough to discuss it with you. I want you to embrace it as if you were in on it from the beginning, because that would make me feel really good.’”

Best Practice

Refers to a method or technique that delivers superior results compared with other methods and techniques. It is also perhaps the single most pompous confection the consulting industry has ever dreamed up.

Think Outside the Box

To approach a business problem in an unconventional fashion. Kudos to a Forbes.com reader who suggested: "Forget the box, just think." 

Synergize

This word has infiltrated nearly every cube and conference room in the country. Blame Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. (No. 6 is Synergize.) Of this habit, Covey writes, "To put it simply, synergy means two heads are better than one." The same advice was preached several decades earlier on the hit show Sesame Street. Big Bird called it "cooperation."

Learnings

Like most educated people, Michael Travis, an executive search consultant, knows how to conjugate a verb. That's why he cringes when his colleagues use the word "learning" as a noun. As in: "I had a critical learning from that project," or "We documented the team's learnings." Whatever happened to simply saying: "I learned a lesson from that project?" Says Travis: "Aspiring managers would do well to remember that if you can't express your idea without buzzwords, there may not be an idea there at all."

Reach Out

Jargon for “let’s set up a meeting” or “let’s contact this person.” Just say that---and unless you want the Human Relations department breathing down your neck, please don’t reach out unless clearly invited.

Window of Opportunity

This breezy expression refers to the amount of time, usually brief, in which to take action; when the window shuts, dreams of freedom die. Better scramble through that sucker. Or at least “take action.”

Low-Hanging Fruit

You’d rather not have to climb the tree to get your apple, so you curb your hunger by picking the low-hanging ones. Same goes for business tasks and opportunities. Except that no one knows which tasks and opportunities you’re talking about, or whether ticking them off, easy as that sounds, is a good idea in the first place.

Take Offline

An equally absurd variation of ‘let’s put this on the backburner.’ This means to postpone addressing an issue---one that may have nothing to do with the Internet. Unless you’re talking about removing your company’s Facebook page, you’re probably not taking anything offline. 

Leverage

The granddaddy of nouns converted to verbs. ‘Leverage’ is mercilessly used to describe how a situation or environment can be manipulated or controlled. Leverage should remain a noun, as in “to apply leverage,” not as a pseudo-verb, as in “we are leveraging our assets.” 

 

How to start a buzz word revolution?

A quick round of Buzzword Bingo soon raises everyone’s awareness of the issue and an embargo on some common clichés actually forces people to find real words to explain it in plain English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLgvlPMp0o8

Stimulus

Watch this video to see what one Tech company has done to ban buzz words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idI8YC2NsxI

 

And finally... just because I love this scarily accurate video about Teleconferences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00KvfeZm9VE