Fractals of Innovation

Kathy Eisenhardt, co-director of Stanford Technology Ventures Program and professor in Management Science and Engineering, discusses the size and composition of successful teams. She recommends a team of three to five cross-functional people with diverse age group and experience.
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Stanford University Professor Tom Byers believes that the impact of marketing is often underestimated by companies. He describes how key partnership can bridge crossing the chasm between the early market and the mainstream market.
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An interview with Joseph L. Bower, Professor, Harvard Business School. To become an effective CEO, work for companies committed to leadership development, and take responsibility for your own development on the job.
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An interview with John Elkington, Founder and Chief Entrepreneur, SustainAbility. Social entrepreneurs are generating impressive results — and capturing the imaginations of businesspeople and public policy makers.

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An interview with Scott Anthony, President, Innosight. Disruptive innovation occurs when an innovator brings something to market that is simple, convenient, accessible, and affordable. Here are some tips to help you pinpoint disruptive opportunities within your organization.

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An interview with John Boudreau, Professor, University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. The key to staying competitive? Invest in your strategic pivot points–roles where improved performance would make the biggest difference to executing your strategy.

Ideas fuel us to spring into action. Unless we can keep our mind from confusion, misery, and unsettled greed, it would be difficult, or impossible, for our mind to generate actionable ideas. Without a meaniful action we slip ourselves into deep agony and pain. As a result, we inflict pain to ourselves as well as people around us.

Communicating what we want to communicate precisely is an art and it needs a deliberate practice. Real understanding of our communication comes when we, you and I, meet on the same level at the same time. That happens only when there is a communion. It is very difficult to commune with one another easily, effectively and with definitive action.

Other side is an art of listening. To be able really to listen, one should abandon or put aside all prejudices, pre-conceived notions, beliefs, and daily activities. You need to keep your mind in active listening state. When you are in a receptive state, things can be easily understood. Unfortunately most of listen through the  screen of resistance. We are screened with prejudices and we listen really to our own noise, to our own sound, not to what is being said.

Practicing the Art of Active Listening

• Understanding is now – not tomorrow. Tomorrow is for the lazy mind, the sluggish mind, the mind that is not interested. When you are interested in something, you do it instantaneously, there is immediate understanding, immediate transformation(I will explain later what really is the transformation). If you do not change now, you will never change, because the change that takes place tomorrow is merely a modification, it is not transformation. Transformation can only take place immediately; the revolution is now, not tomorrow.
• While you are listening actively, if anything is said which is opposed to your way of thinking and belief, there is no need for you to interject and condemn. Just LISTEN ACTIVELY. Do not resist. You may be right and I may be wrong; but by listening through and reflecting the thoughts together we are going to discover and find new realities, new ideas, new thoughts which would lead to new actions and result.
• Understanding comes through being aware of what is. To know exactly what is, the real, the actual, without interpreting it, without condemning it or justifying it is the beginning of opening your conscious to awareness of the problem. What we believe or know is just an opinion. It doesn’t need to be true always. It is just an opinion. Opening our ears and actively listening without any biases would leads to different kind of realization and learning.

Stan Christensen, Managing Director at Arbor Advisors and professor at Stanford University, believes that communication is a key element in negotiation. He stresses the fact that communication is about convincing the other side that you can hear them and that they are being heard. He illustrates the point with anecdotes and his personal expertise in deal negotiation.

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