Our consultants, and the occasional guest, deliver insights, tug on heart strings, and share lessons key to innovators
Our articles explore the latest trends in creativity, innovation, learning, and talent development. We write to inspire, to inform, to unpack challenging concepts, and to make the tools and methods required to innovate ever more accessible... And, we write to make ourselves laugh!
Innovation Bound demos new training programs, hosts innovation adventures, shares key insights, resources, videos, podcasts, and exclusive event invitations all via email about twice a month.
Creating multiple 10x, even 100x, ROI opportunities from learning programs
This article dives into how Chief Learning Officers can use Innovation Tournaments with top talent groups to generate innovation projects driving business growth.
Article w/ Audio »
How L&D Can Build More Innovative Organizations
How have organizations evolved to incorporate individuals' learning and establish innovation deep into the fabric of their organizations?
Article w/ Audio »
Grit was all the rage in the 2010s. Now it's time for Calm.
Grit can help us tackle relentless challenges, but it can lead to burnout and blowback. Take a trip into the underwater world to learn about a particular kind of calm that can succeed where grit fails.
Article w/ Audio »
How curiosity and courage persistently drive the kinds of actions that lead to innovation.
What is the role of attitude in innovation, and what examples set by great innovators might we follow?
Article w/ Audio »
The last but not least
innovation style of the improviser.
What can we learn from the improviser, and what role does adaptation play in the innovation process?
Article w/ Audio »
Innovation is not without risk, and this brings how we treat failure into question, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Innovation holds the promise of growth and progress, but it also introduces a very real risk of failure. How should organizations think about failure with regards to innovation?
Article w/ Audio »
As robots and algorithms take over repetitive tasks, applying creativity to solve new problems takes center stage for top talent.
For thousands of years human beings worked the same jobs for generations. A shoemaker, a merchant, an inn keeper, and a soldier learned how to do their job from their masters who learned from their masters...
Article w/ Audio »
Even if you have the most creative ideas, they can never make an impact if you make decisions the same way you always have.
For most organizations it isn’t difficult to get lots of creative ideas. What’s difficult is having the courage to make creative choices.
View Article »
Want better ideas? Come up with lots of ideas!
The first rule of creative thinking is to come up with lots of ideas! But first, it's not always time for creativity...
Article & Video »
Every stage in the problem solving process offers an opportunity to think creatively and seize an opportunity for innovation.
A short while ago, we conducted an informal survey of business leaders to explore how they perceived creativity, innovation and problem solving. We found that...
View Article »
A new idea is like a baby, totally helpless and full of potential!
In this article we detail how to deliver feedback in a way that improves ideas, maximizes their potential, and encourages those stewarding the idea to charge on with an open and adaptive mind.
Article w/ Audio »
An individual's ability to be innovative is the result of a variety of skills and attitudes, but curiosity is one of the core drivers.
The culture of an organization can support innovation, economic policies can incentivize it, but ultimately individuals must make innovation happen. When we ask what kinds of individual actions and attitudes lead to innovative outcomes, and then we ask again until we come to the core of it... eventually we arrive at curiosity.
Article w/ Audio »
When someone comes to you with a new idea, this is how you can give them good critical feedback without shooting down their idea.
Imagine you are teaching a child to ride a bicycle. You make sure his helmet, elbow and knee pads are on correctly. You help him onto the bike and give him a gentle push and he peddles away for the first time...
View Article »What if you could improve your technical training and your soft skills training by strategically combining them?
If the objective of your training program is to give people the technical information they need to do their jobs, you may well be aiming too low. Training programs can achieve multiple objectives, and there are many secondary objectives that can add to the impact of a training curriculum. You're paying a lot of money to bring all these people together, why not get more out of your training program by taking a little bit of time to design it, carefully, with layered objectives in mind?
View Article »
A case study and lessons learned from training creativity at the Marine Corps University
Recently, we had an opportunity to deliver a two-day workshop for faculty at the Marine Corps University in partnership with the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Creativity...
View Article »A case study on the power of play in learning programs
As a consultant, I have the opportunity to work with organizations that are doing exciting projects or going through major changes. This time was no exception...
View Article »
The novel experiences you have on your next vacation can restore your creativity.
A vacation that is filled with unique experiences, places you've never been, things you've never done, people who you haven't yet interacted with, then all of those new experiences become fuel to your creativity; things to draw upon when unpacking a problem, generating ideas for solutions, crafting plans, and thinking on your feet.
Article w/ Audio »
Were you told you sing badly, or can't draw? Has anyone looked at you funny while you danced? Did you leave your creative inclinations behind you? It's time to reclaim your creativity. You're gonna need it!
As robots and agorithms take over the reptitive tasks of the work world, we humans are left with the more creative tasks, the change and innovation.
Article w/ Audio »
What if innovation is already happening at your organization?
We first developed these techniques in working with a large global private enterprise many years ago. They had tasked a group of their directors with building formal innovation processes and structures, and after those directors attempted, learned, and pivoted a few times, they hired us...
Article w/ Audio »
And a modern version to test your creativity against
In the 1970's and 80's consultants pupularized a method of demonstrating what it means to 'Think Outside the Box' with this simple paper and pencil puzzle.
The puzzle demonstrates what it means to think outside the box, quite literally. It goes as follows...
Try It Out »
The word 'innovation' has become more and more common, but what does it mean?
Innovation is a word we use to describe something which is both novel and valuable. The more novel and valuable something is, the more likely we are to dub it an innovation...
Article w/ Audio »