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Covey. Books by Quote (Dutch)

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[From chaos onto calmth]

There you have it; Stephen Covey’s Seven Hobbits. Hobbies – I mean, Habits of Effective Leadership. In Dutch. You may figure out for yourself why I copied the quotes; either because I find them valuable or because the error is of import for its ominousness (is that a word?).
Be aware that the quotes as such, aren’t a real unbiased ‘objective’ summary; most often I heartily advise to read the book yourself..!

Stephen R. Covey, De Zeven Eigenschappen van Effectief Leiderschap, FranklinCovey / Business Contact, juli 2006, ISBN 9789025414894.

Wat je de Principiële Levenshouding zou kunnen noemen wordt daarentegen in vrijwel alle literatuur van de eerste honderdvijftig jaar beschouwd als basis voor succes: integriteit, nederigheid, trouw, gematigdheid, moed, rechtvaardigheid, geduld, ijver, eenvoud, bescheidenheid en de gulden regel. Karakteristiek voor die literatuur is de autobiografie van Benjamin Franklin. (p.16)

Principes zijn geen waarden. Een criminele organisatie kan bepaalde waarden delen, maar ze zijn in strijd met de principes die ik hier bedoel. Principes zijn het land, waarden de landkaart. Als we de juiste principes als kaart hanteren kennen we de waarheid. Principes zijn richtlijnen voor menselijk gedrag, die hun waarden op lange termijn hebben bewezen. Hoe fundamenteel ze zijn wordt direct duidelijk, als je bedenkt hoe absurd het is om te leven volgens regels die er tegenin druisen. Ik betwijfel of er iemand bestaat die er werkelijk van overtuigd is dat onredelijkheid, bedrog, lafheid, nutteloosheid, middelmatigheid of verval een solide basis voor succes kunnen vormen. (p.27)
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Battles; aren’t we over them?

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[Yes that actually is a watch – well, sundial but still]

Hmmm, just when I thought that manufacturer battles had gone out of style (would’ve been something for these lists), here we go again: Wired’s take on the next one.

Mehhh Practice

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[Mehhhdrid?]

This appeared:

Nicely summing up a widespread complaint. E.g., against ISO 2700x. One should be forbidden to call those ‘Best’, as they are average, at best.
Because they’re adopted by the ones with no imagination of their own so implementations will fall short of average, thus in mass lowering the average even further.

And Best has never been Best in the first place. ‘tWas a compromise, as it had to cover so much, over so many contributors at its inception already. Remember, BS7799 ..!? And on and on in review rounds, committees decided over changes. A camel is a horse designed by a committee. And it all had to be applicable to as many industries as you can dream up. Another flattener par excellence. Standards work, where there is little variation required. Here, much variation, tailoring to each and every implementation over and over again, is a prerequisite for any success. I might continue.

Luckily for you, the new ISO27001:2013 of last October, is a huge improvement…. To the panic of the knights of busywork, one cannot anymore rely on following the herd as described, prescribed, because, at last, the prescription tends to Use Your Own Brain. Principle-based at last ..! For some elements. Tuning required, not by the (C)ISO (office) (only), but by the Business itself. Oh dear! The implementation efforts… Consultants’ dreams.

Well, get the lowdown of this, from experts [disclaimer: don’t own anything of them]. Just wanted to post the tweet and my take on it.

The librarian wave

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[Had this as my cubicle, a long time ago]

There seems to be a silent undercurrent wave of librarians entering our (not) field of information processing. If you think their thinking might be stale, think again. This here piece, for example, is clear and bright in its contributions towards better …, well, calling it flatly what it is, ‘data’ management. Flatly, as that’s what one gets by approaching it from the IT side only. ‘Processes’ add only so much. I.e., so little.

Just one pic from that blog post to demonstrate the clarity of thought:
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How’zat for clarity ..?

I’ll pick this one up in full, later, when extending the stuff on ‘information’ in light of the one overarching Book on it all that I still have as a plan, if only I had the time to work on it full-time …!

Stumbling over yourself, in the retreat

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[Utreg]

Remember the good ol’ Boston Consulting matrix ..?

Among the puerilely [that is a word] shallow startup business, apparently not many do. They’re only chasing the next, even more questionable question marks, ‘knowing for sure’ (not) to turn those into stars without fail. Current stars exist only to set the example and to be beaten.
Dogs, of course, are what they are. And cash cows are also dogs. As they aren’t fast enough. Sure. But where startup managers believe to have found the ultimate question mark will turn into star certainty, and VCs just spending off their (or Other Peoples’ Money ..!) lifetime earnings as lottery tickets, the cash cows prod along quite happily, getting only half of the world’s attention for delivering … 95% of the world’s goods and services (mostly, from the bottom up Maslow’s pyramid).

Thus, two economies result; the one being much more dependent on the other than usually considered, with the other not being old and decrepid, to be done away with, but a core, a solid basis for long-term alignment or else one keeps on floating in the sky until one evaporates. The other way around is not quite as necessary as believed..!
Which also leads to those of the stable kind, trying to get into the action of the fluid kind, to stumble while they try to retreat into some fluid future. They lose the stability, and cannot catch up with the road runner(s) for sheer secondness and ballast of the old. Cash cows are big, required and necessary, and should be left alone to innovate not to disrupt. Disruptors, may be loosely tied to cash cows, but certainly not with the intention to later integrate the latter back into the former. That will lead to failure throughout; the horse already left the barn and you wouldn’t have wanted to close the gate but now have had a kick in the teeth; i.e., the slow just missing the grasp and ending up on the rails, grappling their teeth together, while the train ever speeding up will have left the station. This form of retreat (that’s what it is, retreat as leader, T Rex trying to regain initiative by outpacing and outsmarting the Velociraptors in their teamwork) will lead to pathetic stumbling.

Conclusion: Don’t do it. Not in the me-too way. Dare to decide what you are, be proud of that ..! Just innovate, not disrupt yourself internally only, and be strong … survival of the fattest and fittest. Don’t be a lightweight, you’ll fall like Icarus – after you have learned not to fly too low …!

InNOvate

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[Again, curvy]

Gijs van Wulfen (profile here) posted something elsewhere, which I bluntly copy:

Innovation is difficult. You are not the only one who thinks it’s a challenge. It has been a struggle for me the last 25 years as manager, consultant, facilitator and as founder of the FORTH innovation method. That’s why I love it actually. I love to do difficult things. My personal goal is to make innovation less complex so others will be able to innovate their product – and service portfolios and organizations – themselves.

As one of the first Linkedin Influencers I have written more than 80 posts about innovation the last sixteen months. Last week I reread them all to identify my most essential insights. Some are provoking. Others are simplifying. Here’s a list of quotes from my LinkedIn innovation articles. Please use them to lead your organizations in innovation:

  1. In the long run a company cannot survive on doing the same things better and cheaper.
  2. Most managers are like dogs. They bark at what they don’t know.
  3. Managers say yes to innovation only if doing nothing is a bigger risk.
  4. Continuous innovation is bullshit. You only innovate when you have to.
  5. Organizations frustrate innovative employees.
  6. Starting innovation is like a child starting to walk. Learn to love the struggle!
  7. If there’s no urgency innovation is considered as playtime.
  8. Most people only innovate when they have to. Pick the right moment.
  9. Innovators need the patience of a hunter to wait for a shot that you’re sure you can make.
  10. Never start innovation with an idea. You will fall in love with it. But love is blind.
  11. A big idea is a new simple solution for a relevant problem or dream.
  12. The best innovators are need seekers.
  13. The problem of brainstorms is the inability of people to let go of the old ideas.
  14. If you don’t get new insights you won’t get new ideas.
  15. For most companies evolutionary ideas are quite revolutionary.
  16. You can invent on your own, but in an organization you can never innovate alone!
  17. Think outside the box and present your idea inside the box otherwise nothing will happen.
  18. Innovators should bring back new business not new ideas.
  19. Nobody buys innovation from a clown so bring back a new business case.
  20. The voice of the customer is your best support for a new concept.
  21. Innovators should stop writing plans. Innovation is learning by doing.
  22. Innovation does not stop at the first “No”. That’s the moment it really starts.
  23. Less creative ideas are better because they have a higher chance of becoming reality.
  24. An organization is just like a herd. Focus on the slowest animals. When they start running too your organization really gets innovative.

So here were 24 of my essential insights about innovation. I hope some of them are helpful to you. As I promised 25 insights please do me a favor and share with us, as a comment, your own essential insight about innovation as number 25……..

And yes indeed, I’d like to hear your number 25, too.

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord