Failure is an Option, Fear is not!

Earlier today, I was listening to a panel discussion and something that one of the panelist, Bharathi Vishwanathan, said, stuck a chord with me. She is the chief digital and information officer at Suntory. She said and I quote: Failure is an option, fear is not – Bharathi Vishwanathan She said that this was the motto of her company. When I think about it, it makes a lot of sense, specially if you want to innovate and create a culture of experimentation and exploration. I have written about this many many times that there is no innovation possible if failure […]

The Art of Possibility Thinking

Average leaders react to their situations; Good leaders respond to them BUT Great leaders find the opportunity within them! This doesn’t happen by itself but needs intentional thinking and a specific mindset and go looking for these possibilities. I talk about how to go about doing that here and here.

Two ways to Drive Performance Improvements

A recent post on GapingVoid talks about another performance equation (I shared one yesterday on my blog here): Performance improvements = Reducing Errors + Increasing Insights – Gary Klein The author of the post argues that while there is a lot of focus on reducing errors in organisations, there is not enough focus or energy spent on increasing the number of insights that people could share and use to drive productivity improvements. I think there are many reasons for this behaviour. Firstly, we are biologically attuned to negative information more than anything else. So, it is obvious that we are […]

Let Creative Ideas Surface

I was talking to someone earlier today about creativity and the need for creative ideas to drive innovation to enable us to solve difficult problems like climate change and achieving the SDG goals.. I was surprised when he said, that he was not the creative type and that he finds it really difficult to come up with creative ideas and so avoids participating in brainstorming sessions.. I strongly and fully believe that we are all born creative and “Deep inside us, creative ideas are already there! We just need to let them surface!” Mukesh Gupta This requires us to be […]