Many of the metaphors we use for creative inspiration are used to describe innovation as well – lightning strikes, a light bulb switches on, the muse whispers in an ear tuned to her frequency. In each of these metaphors, innovation happens capriciously at best, and most often to other “creative” people.
If you don’t typically think of yourself as creative, and you don’t have The Muse on speed dial yet, can you still become an innovator?
“Yes,” says Holly Green, definitively.
Green writes about innovation regularly, drawing on over 20 years of executive-level and operations experience in FORTUNE 100, entrepreneurial, and management consulting organizations – as CEO of The Human Factor, Inc., former president of The Ken Blanchard Companies, and a former senior executive of The Coca‑Cola Company. This fall, she’ll be teaching critical leadership skills in the Professional Certificate in Core Leadership & Management program at SDSU’s College of Extended Studies.
“The brain has an amazing capacity to consider things differently,” she says.
“Our problem today is that we’re running so fast that we never pause to do that. We’d rather do it over than do it right. The key is to learn some of the triggers for your brain, and to use those. Give it five seconds, and you can be innovative. It’s about asking key questions: What if someone else has different data? What if we look at this from a different perspective? What would our competitor do? What do our employees think is the most important thing to change?
“It’s about considering different angles, changing your perspective, and challenging your own assumptions and your own belief structures,” says Green. “These are fairly simple approaches; the problem is that everything in the world around us beats that out of us today. The more successful we are, the more we get stuck doing the same things that helped make us successful.”
Interested in practicing innovation?
Check out Holly Green’s Core Leadership and Management program at SDSU’s College of Extended Studies. She’ll teach you the techniques of regular innovators, as well as covering a wide range of additional skills critical for leaders and managers today.
For more information, please visit CES online or call Kristen Cacka at (619) 594-0787.
