The most useful management book I’ve read this year is Problem Solving 101 – A Simple Book for Smart People
The author, Ken Watanabe, a former McKinsey & Company consultant, studied at both Yale and Harvard Business School and is now the CEO of his own media company, Delta Studio. Spurred on by discussion among [...]

The Challenge: How to motivate people to take the stairs instead of the escalator?
The solution: If you want to change someone’s behaviour make it fun to do!

Or as Einstein put it: Creativity is intelligence having fun

(By Ruth O’Looney, TV Producer/Director)
Last week, the BBC series “Imagine” looked at an art ownership scheme that has been running in the UK for the last five years.
The Own Art scheme offers interest -free loans (up to £2,000) to people who want to buy contemporary artwork.  Organised and run by the UK Arts Council, 12,500 [...]

Further to my previous post  featuring Scott Campbell’s illustrations of new ideas being variously eaten, hacked and bludgeoned to death please see  below 8 suggestions of how to protect your ideas and guide them towards implementation.  
Within a Problem Solving/Brain storming session:
1.       A good facilitator is essential to create the atmosphere of trust which enables the [...]

While a number of posts have focused on ways  to generate new ideas this original artwork by Scott Campbell shows how unfortunate ideas can come to a grisly end…….

The marshmallow test is one of the best known scientific experiments featured in Daniel Goleman’s seminal book Emotional Intelligence.:Why it can matter more than IQ. Emotional Intelligence aka EQ can be loosely defined as the awareness of and ability to manage your emotions in a healthy and productive manner.
In this experiment, four-year-olds at Stanford University [...]

What you focus your attention on determines how your life will be. In other words, your life experience to date-who you are, how you think, what you feel and do is the result of what you have chosen to focus your attention on.
Our focus of attention falls on a spectrum. At one end of the [...]

(From www.thisisindexed.com)
For those of you who’ve had that high heels from hell experience this simple incremental innovation will be very welcome!
From a company called Rollasole (www.rollasole.com) come vending machines  where you can get a pair of ballet flats for a fiver. What a great example of taking commonplace, everyday products (i.e. the almost ubiquitous vending maching and [...]

Ben Zander (pictured) conductor for the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and professor at the New England Conservatory of Music, faced the same problem at the start of each semester. His students, all gifted instrumentalists and singers were so anxious over the measurement of their performance that they were reluctant to take creative risks and open themselves [...]

My previous post referenced why playing to your strengths makes sense. But what exactly constitutes a strength? And how do you find what your real strengths are?
What is a strength?
Firstly, it’s important to remember that your strengths are not necessarily limited to your skill-set. You may have attained a high level of competence in a [...]