Copycats - "Use What Works" principle in action

"Imitation is the sincerest of flattery." ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Harvard Business Review's got a podcast series that talks about (you guessed it) business and management ideas as well as some of the books recently published in the field.

In his HBR podcast, Oded Shenkar talks about his latest book Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic Edge.

I think he does a great job of redeeming the concept of being a "copycat" - something that often has negative connotations of unfairly taking advantage of someone else's sweat and labour.

So when is imitation OK...and when it is just a blatant rip-off?

Take Shenkar's example: he stirs it up a little by stating that Apple, usually thought of as an avant-garde innovator, is actually an imitator in many ways. Apple's value-add comes from improved user-friendliness and intuitive interfaces...plus of course the aesthetics and geek-tech-wow-factor.

Therein lies the difference. Imitation is ripping-off when it fails to add value and improve upon the concept being imitated.

After all, it's natural: children learn through imitation. And of course it's true, "there's nothing new under the sun." Progress results not when we waste time reinventing the wheel but when we creatvely apply a principle that lies at the heart of a solution-focused approach - "Use What Works" - with the intelligent addition of "...and make it work better!"
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Following tmconsultancy on twitter

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What you can expect as a tmconsultancy follower on twitter are posts with:

• links to practical and interesting articles and blog posts on (among others) the following topics:

• Positive Change
• human behaviour and interaction
• neuroscience & brain research
• limbic responses
• emotional reactivity
• psychology, philosophy, anthropology
• employee engagement
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Who's Todd anyway?
I’m a Canadian living in Manly, Australia (part of Sydney’s “Northern Beaches”) and I divide my time among Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and Canada.

Ich spreche sehr gerne Deutsch, je parle pas mal le français, ik spreek wel Nederlands, estoy aprendiendo lentamente español, och jag förstår lite svensk - so I enjoy connecting with people all over the world.

My non-work interests include surfing, scuba diving, sailing, wildlife, travel, photography, design, film, cooking and learning about wine (especially big Aussie reds...the "hard" way, glass by glass).

What I do
I consult, write and speak about the many aspects of human behaviour and interaction that can help (or hinder) organizations seeking practical business results. For my professional bio check out my LinkedIn profile and, if we share interests, send me an invitation to connect.

Thanks!
tm

Change, innovation & global opportunities

In the run-up to the workshop I’m running next Tuesday that asks, “Is your organization change-ready?” a bit of recent research suggests a growing realization among global senior leaders that their organizations are not as change-ready as they would like.

The “Global CEO study” by IBM is based on interviews with 1,130 CEOs, general managers and senior public sector and business leaders from around the world.

Here are some highlights:

• Eight out of ten CEOs see significant change ahead, and yet the "change gap" between expected change and the ability to manage change has almost tripled since the last Global CEO Study in 2006.

• Nearly all CEOs are adapting their business models and two-thirds are implementing extensive innovations. More than 40 percent are changing their enterprise models to be more collaborative. (And I would suggest this is not just with customers as the IBM study suggests, but also with employees as the Mercer Workplace 2012 report has persuasively argued.)

• CEOs are moving aggressively toward global business designs, deeply changing capabilities and partnering more extensively; organizations of all sizes are reconfiguring to take advantage of global integration opportunities.

An increasing number of senior leaders are coming to the realization that a different approach is required if they are to successfully manage change, develop sustainable innovation and succeed in a global context.

How does your organization compare?

According to the IBM report, the predicted Enterprise of the Future is change-ready, radically innovative, accesses active (not reactive) creativity and is comfortable with the realities of global business across cultures, able to work virtually and beyond the constraints of traditional “9-to-5” thinking.

So how does your current organization measure up to this predicted future?

Are there structures in place to manage the inevitable conflict created by change? Is there a healthy corporate culture in your own organization, let alone the expertise to manage the cross-cultural challenges of global business?

If not, what steps are being taken to foster the development of trust relationships? Is it a project devised by an external consulting firm and done TO your people, or process created collaboratively and interactively WITH your people – who are after all the ones who will have to carry on long after the consultants pack up and head out?

Does your organization have the management capacity to deal with complexity, the leadership ability to guide through change and – crucially – the transformational skills to overcome natural resistance to change by channelling that energy into engagement to produce positive growth and development of people, teams and organizations?

Useful questions to consider, whether you are a senior leader making your way in the current global business climate or a staff member making decisions about the sort of company where you want to spend the majority of your productive waking hours.

If in your opinion the answers to those questions fall short of the mark, the good news is that there is a way forward: an integrated, holistic approach to improved business performance that offers people a common language to structure their experience of change, helps to effectively engage stakeholders cognitively, emotionally and behaviourally, and enables organizations to communicate in a structured, effective, managed and phased way to enhance strategic alignment and produce high-performance cultures.

Email me for details.

TM

What motivates you to grow…?

A colleague of mine once offered a line that’s stuck with me ever since: “In life, most of us turn our fundamental character flaws into careers.”

You may know someone who grew up in a dysfunctional home and later became a social worker, mediator or psychologist (or even a cop) in an effort to bring order and harmony to the world around him or her.

The kid who’s allergic to chlorine becomes a superhuman swimming champion while the painfully shy kid becomes class clown and then an internationally famous comedian and actor.

Or as my talented and insightful friend Andrew once exclaimed: “Sometimes I don’t know why I work in 'change management' – personally, I hate change!!”

Similarly, when I train teams and coach individuals on conflict resolution I often ask: “So…is there anyone here who likes conflict?” I can tell you, not many hands go shooting in the air.

That’s the point at which I feel comfortable admitting that I am frankly terrified of conflict – and that’s precisely why I’ve made a career out of learning about human interaction and offering that expertise in my work training and consulting.

Homeostasis

The human need to achieve homeostasis is hardwired into our brains, and so we strive to compensate for and correct perceived imbalances in ourselves and our surroundings.

In everyday language we have the metaphor of the swinging pendulum to describe how one extreme often produces a movement in the opposite direction. Newtonian physics tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In philosophical terms, think yin-yang and the eternal dance of counterbalancing opposites.

This tendency can also have pernicious effects, as the drive to compensate tumbles into pathos. Pacifists become militant, right-to-lifers commit murder, communists become fascists. Men of a certain age buy red sportscars or Hummers and women inflate some body parts while deflating or de-wrinkling others.

So how do you know if you’re on the track to a successful career or just kidding yourself?

Motivation and growth

Clearly the compensatory drive behind the quest for homeostasis is a powerful motivator. And as I’ve described above, it also needs a reality check to keep from becoming absurd and overshooting the mark into extreme compensation.

In a previous post I talked about the concepts of change vs. growth. Since then many people have told me how useful they’ve found that distinction, since there’s no quicker way to get someone’s back up than by telling them, “you really need to change,” while by contrast most people are interested in – indeed quite enthusiastic about – personal growth and development.

What I would therefore suggest as a useful corrective is to ask the question, “Am I heading away from something I don’t want, or toward something that I do want?”

"What do you want...?"

Put another way: answering the fundamental question “What do you want?” is a great way to develop insight and ensure you are on the path to positive growth rather than engaging in a dodgy process of resisting change.

This question encourages a frank assessment based on its four component parts:

What – be specific about exactly what you’re after

Do – think of what you do want as opposed to what you don’t; when you state your outcome in the positive it triggers the brain’s creativity and drive

You – ensure that your goal is something that you actually want, not what you think other people think that you should have/do/be

Want – as opposed to what you’d like, if someday maybe it were possible…this needs to be an act and expression of your will if you are going to successfully harness your willpower and motivation to get what you want

I invite you to take a moment today to think about whence you derive your motivation and whether its based on a desire to survive...or to be fully alive. Raw survival is driven by the fight-flight-freeze response of the emotional or limbic brain, while being true to yourself and creating the life that you actually want means you need to tap into everything that is best in yourself.

It's a challenge not everyone is willing to undertake; if you're going to be truly happy in this life, it's one you need seriously to consider.

TM

Mintzberg’s Five (plus one) Minds of a Manager

The business website BNET recently offered a useful summary of the classic HBS article, The Five Minds of a Manager co-authored by Henry Mintzberg (management theorist and professor at my alma mater, McGill University).

The article outlines five mindsets for managers to cultivate in order to cope with the often conflicting demands of their jobs.

I noticed that these five mindsets line up with five of the six intelligence centres (ICs) of the brain as described in the NeuroPower framework (developed by author and strategist Peter Burow). To explore the parallels, I’ve therefore added to Mintzberg’s five the “clarity” mindset, which corresponds to the sixth IC and in a sense completes the set.

Six mindsets, six intelligence centres – how do they match up? Read my full article comparing the two theories.

Just to give away the ending: I think The Five Minds of a Manager theory aligns quite well with what NeuroPower has to say about brain function, which is why when we read Mintzberg’s article it is easy to say, “Yes, that all makes good sense to me, I want to start doing more of those things.”

In fact the great advantage to the NeuroPower framework is that it makes no claim to “replace” other frameworks and theories. Rather, it lays out a powerful explanatory method describing how our brains work in certain predictable ways. And because everyone's brain functions in remarkably similar ways, any other framework or theory that produces positive change and possesses real explanatory power will do so in the exact degree to which they line up with what we now know about brain function.

NeuroPower therefore provides an overarching brain research-based framework into which so many other models can be readily integrated without people needing to “un-learn” what they have previously learned. Quite simply, if it works, it is because it aligns with how our minds are working.

What is more, NeuroPower is a profoundly practical framework that can help turn the best theories from Harvard and elsewhere into real results based on a common language and explanatory system that everyone can understand – from the boiler room to the boardroom.

TM

tm adds NeuroPower to consultancy model

Do you ever wonder what makes you tick?

Do you ever muse over what is going on inside your brain that gives you a sense of individuality both intellectually and emotionally?

When you see someone clearly performing at his or her personal best – a charismatic leader, a loving parent or an outstanding athlete – do you wonder: What does that person do differently from everybody else? What drives such people and how do they access resources that seem to give them an almost unlimited confidence and excellence in whatever they are doing?

Well, the good news is that we are beginning to understand the inner workings of the most mysterious organ in the body – the human brain. The application of fMRI brain imaging has provided neurobiologists with new insights into how the mind develops and operates. We are discovering NeuroPower.

NeuroPower is a paradigm-changing system which integrates recent scientific findings on the brain with the latest understanding of developmental psychology.

Intelligence centres in the brain combine to create very clear behavioural patterns associated with various manifestations of adult personality. These six intelligence centres form the basis of everything we communicate and everything we do.

NeuroPower is a profoundly simple, yet profoundly practical means of understanding of yourself and others, making it possible to improve the quality of the interactions you have in all kinds of life situations.

NeuroPower and organizations

toddmontgomery consultancy is pleased to add the NeuroPower framework (developed by author and strategist Peter Burow) to its consultancy toolkit. The NeuroPower learning development approach has practical application to creating strategically aligned high-performance teams and cultures. Broadly speaking, NeuroPower has application to any situation where people are working together and using their brains to achieve some outcome.

Its more specific applications include:

• sales training
• conflict resolution
• problem solving and creativity/innovation
• creating high performance teams
• executive coaching
• team performance coaching
• culture change
• strategic planning
• change management
• organizational transformation

TM