As a leader, there is
absolutely no way that decisions can be made without experiencing a healthy
dose of anxiety. Undoubtedly, there will always be times in which the decision
of “should I stay or should I go” will become the crucial moment in everybody’s
career. Indeed, my various roles as a leader have been permeated with the
dubious uncertainty of knowing that “if I go there will be trouble and if I
stay it will be double”. However, it is precisely at moments like these when
true leaders take possession of the biggest tool available in their arsenal,
themselves (Covey, 1990/1991).
A few weeks ago I had a kickoff at a client site with a
project team that included the regional HR staffing director and corporate
training manager. In a side
conversation, we had an opportunity to talk shop about other projects and they
brought up their recent budget planning and how it had always seemed they were
jockeying for each other’s slice of the pie.
“How would you
distribute our budget percent between our departments, Adam? Are great employees born or made?” This clearly was not a question I thought
would bode well for me. When possible,
in the world of consulting, you try to deliver win-wins, as every contact is a
potential ally down the road. After
cracking a few jokes about knowing the limits of my scope and moving on, I gave
it some thought on the flight home.
What makes Apple, one of the market leaders in terms of
innovation today?
In this blog, I examine five guiding principles that seem to
increase our capacity for innovation, as exemplified by innovators such as
Steve Jobs.
I also debate how these principles can be applied as we
conduct research on innovation using I-O Psychology approaches, for developing
theory and practice. I invite you to think through these factors with me and
provide your comments.
Think back to a typical workplace in 1992, twenty years ago. What were the hot I-O topics then? Now imagine 10, 20, or even 50 years from now. What will the new hot topics be? The Jan-Feb 2012 issue of The Futurist, a magazine from the World Future Society (WFS), and a YouTube video from odesk.com called The Future of Work pose some interesting possibilities.
Compared to workers today, workers of the future might be…
The news stories in this column have been gathered through the use of a Google News Feed. They are neither filtered nor endorsed by SIOP but aggregated automatically using specific search terms.
