Creative Destruction: Can I change my behaviour?

Creative: I can think of new ways to behave, and then manage to behave in the desired way.

Destruction: I may or may not be able to see new ways to behave, but I cannot behave in the desired way.

I am developing a leadership and management course at the moment. As part of this I hope to set up some action learning groups.

If given the opportunity to discuss a pertinent business issue with some other trusted contacts you might get 2 responses to your issue:

Some advice

A question that probes your potential action

Does the question have more power than the advice? If so - to what extent does the background of the individual have a bearing on how good the question could be? Someone who has been trained to mentor or coach perhaps or someone who has the experience of the stituation in a parallel situation?

I would be interested in hearing from anyone with thoughts on this subject.

roger.croft@prdpartnership.com

Creative Destruction: Are myths useful?

There are lots of myths about age. Many of them relate to inflexibility, ability to learn new things, respond to customer needs etc.

The consequences is that some older people find it difficult to get work.

Is this helpful?

Assuming the myth can be shown to be generally true - in other words more right than wrong - then employing older people is going to be more of a risk (on this one factor), or will take longer to process than younger people (in order to weed out the inflexible people).

If the myth is no more true about older people than it is about younger people - or we are not seeing the full picture - then it may take a lot of time to find out what the truth is - expensive!

If the myth is plainly wrong - then it is just a set of co-incidences for a small number of people -and not very useful to adopt. There will be people in every workforce who will be "opinion leaders" and keen to impress their ideas on others. How easily influenced might you be about there opinion?

I was told at interview once that I was employed because I didn't have buckles on my shoes - and the other shortlisted candidate did. I have never bought buckled shoes since - and I do look at peoples feet instinctively!

In the workplace - how much time do you take to explore whether something is fact - or fiction? How easily might you accept a way of doing something from someone else?

We all adopt myths - things our parents say to us, rewards we are given when young, images and headlines from media. Many of them may not be true - and yet they influence our behaviour, our decisions, and our productivity.

Creativity in the pursuit of a single goal

Entrepreneurs are interesting to academics as they often confuse models of behaviour that apply to most people.

Here we often assume that someone who is "creative" considers lots of different perspectives, and may find it difficult to pursue a single goal for a long time. To convert creative output into innovation the market must respond.


"There are some experiences in life that only a privileged few people will ever enjoy. Flying around the world with some mates in your own private jet plane on a world rock-and-roll tour has to rate as one of the most spectacular.
John Otway is planning just such an experience for 2006 and Carlsbro will be there with him all the way. For a long time after his big Top Ten Hit record, John Otway really did not know what he should do next. He did not know if there was anything which would come anywhere near the euphoria of being in the charts.
But lying in bed one morning, he thought that now could possibly be the time to achieve a long-standing ambition of his - to do a World Tour. Years ago he had a plan to buy a round the world ticket and do a gig at every plane stop.
The more he thought about it, lying in bed, basking in his recent glory, the more he realised that these were the dreams of a mere one hit wonder.
Having a top ten smash hit he was now in a position to do things properly and not scrimp and cut corners. So, he started by coming at the world tour from the opposite direction. Instead of trying to work out what he could afford, he just asked himself what is the sexiest aircraft in the world and which are the most prestigious venues.
The answer to the first question was the Airbus 340, and the answer to the second The Cavern, Liverpool, The Carnegie Hall, New York; Vegas, Dubai, Shanghai, Tahiti and Sydney Opera House.

It was time to get out of bed and use Google.

It turns out that you can get an Airbus 340 for a couple of weeks to circumnavigate the globe for around a million quid, and both the Carnegie Hall and Sydney Opera House have within their complexes halls that hold around 600 people.

It started to look feasible...In no time at all the dream was fast coming a reality and after overcoming a number of setbacks that would have deterred lesser mortals we are now in a position to present….. “The World Tour”Starting in Liverpool with a gig at the “Legendary Cavern club”, the home of the Beatles on 27th October 2006., the tour party will then fly to New York the following morning..."

John Otway has a single goal - to be a star. Even his fans chant "can't sing, can't play...." Remarkably, he has already filled nearly half the seats on the jet and is confident of a full flight.

He said: "One day I realised I probably had enough fans to fill my own jet and I put the idea on the internet and I did."

Creative Destruction: Greatest innovation of the last 40 years?

The University of Bath Research and Innovation Service have recently conducted a competition to find the greatest innovation of the last 40 years.

The internet was the clear winner polling 249 of the votes
The mobile phone
Polymerase chain reaction (DNA testing)
The CAT scanner
The fax machine
Contact lenses
The space shuttle
Prozac
= Solar panels & post modernism.