Business Relationship Management & Synectics
I’m excited to announce Synecticsworld® as a new Knowledge Partner and sponsor of the BRM Institute — a Business Relationship Management membership and development organization whose mission, like ours at Synecticsworld®, emphasizes the importance of building collaborative relationships to enable breakthroughs and deepen impact for an organization, its purpose, and its people. This partnership expands and deepens BRM Institute knowledge offerings through Synecticsworld’s 60 years of research,...
Exponential Innovation Through Synectics
It is your imagination that is the key ingredient into harnessing the future.
Reimagining HR’s Most Misunderstood Role: The HRBP
What are the competencies that Chief Human Resource Officers ought to seek when hiring or promoting staff to an HRBP position?
A Visual Overview of the Synectics Invention Model
Imagine That! is a collection of thought pieces, stories, and articles by current and former staff members, clients and other associates that guides readers through 50 years of Synectics, its Body of Knowledge and its impact on clients, organizations, communities and individuals. It was edited by Connie Williams, General Managing Partner and Chief Knowledge Officer of Synecticsworld and Vincent Nolan, retired Chairman of Synectics Europe...
Leading Innovation
What makes for a successful leader of innovation efforts? It is different from what makes for a successful innovator in many crucial ways. The requirements of a successful innovation leader are different than those of a creative star. You don’t have to be the rock star, the source of all ideas, the superstar inventor. You need to be the shepherd of Climate, Thinking and Action,...
Trends having an impact on how people think about “Innovation”
By Synecticsworld Three trends that we have observed accelerating recently. Over the 55 years we have been working in the innovation business, we have observed a lot of changes come and go. It has been important to be able to identify what are the important fundamental shifts that are going to last for many years and change the way clients approach their challenges and opportunities...
GOT GROWTH? 4 Questions to Prepare for Strategy Innovation By Connie Williams
Connie Williams, CMO & General Partner Synecticsworld When will you start your strategy planning process this year? Most companies do a reasonably good job at strategic planning. Strategy planning is a rigorous implementation process to achieve objectives. It involves a fit to the existing business model aligned with the value proposition already in place. Through historical data and analytical processes, it builds the future plan...
Innovation Triggers
By Joe Giordano In a previous post, I talked about the notion of renovation versus innovation. Both have their place in the business world, however I feel that organizations and their leaders tend to confuse the two when the business needs to make growth truly happen. There are complexity issues that encompass both renovation and innovation looking from the outside into any organization; using the...
The Not-Yet-Viable Product
By Paul D. Roberts I think we can all agree that there is a general acceptance of the concept of a Minimum Viable Product, upon which we iterate to build the final product, all the while learning as we go. It is the basic principle of Eric Reiss’s Lean Start-Up model and many other Lean approaches to the back end of innovation for new product...
Moving Forward with Strategy Activation: Innovate versus Renovate
By Joe Giordano Many companies and organizations are in the process of defining or refining their strategies to move into 2016 and beyond. Strategies are invented (and reinvented) across many different pillars or focus areas for the business needs at the time. Many strategies tend to stall or even die off because of the lack of foresight to activate and implement the thinking and ideas...
The Immediacy of Climate
How well do you understand how your team is working as a group? Do you have a person on your team that others don’t want to run into when making a cup of coffee? Is there someone on your team that when they start speaking in a meeting, people Skype a snarky remark to a colleague? Do people have nicknames for others on your team...
Climate: the Unarticulated Need in Your Organization
By Joseph Giordano As a team, organization, or even individual, to achieve innovative outcomes you must have three distinct components that come together: Climate—the way we treat each others and ourselves. Thinking—thinking differently, not harder, about our problems and solutions. Action—a process to follow that is iterative and replicable. We express this as a formula: Innovation (is a function of) = Climate X Thinking...
On Curiosity
By Paul D. Roberts I am curious about curiosity. Can it be taught? It is such a crucial element of innovation. A team without curiosity is going to lack the proactive tendency to explore uncharted areas, and there is so much serendipity that comes from pure wondering in the act of exploring (it is why Steve Jobs put the bathrooms in a central place). For...
To Change the Culture, Change the Climate
By Connie Williams If your company looks similar to a competitor on paper, yet your business results are markedly different, the mostly likely source of that difference is the organization’s climate. Climate’s intangible nature leads many executives to believe it is unquantifiable or worse, fanciful. The truth is, climate is highly measurable in terms of impact on productivity, creativity, innovation and ultimately employee engagement,...
How do you diagnose climate?
Climate can be challenging to measure because it is made up of many small but significant, subjective elements. Yet, it can be assessed and progressed with focus on some important factors. What does it entail? What should be measured? Some of the keys are: Interactions are based on positive intent Interpersonal relationships (behaviors, language) are transparent Different ideas, styles and ways of working are encouraged...
