BECOMING A BUSINESS EVOLUTIONARY
This is a book for leaders and managers about how to use the natural innovations that their smart employees make to improve their business. It discusses how to create the right atmosphere to encourage people to innovate and share their findings.
The book looks at how we try to hire smart people but then restrict their ability to use their "smarts" to improve our operations. The book will help Managers and Owners to learn how to look for Evolutionary Innovation in their business and spread it across the operations to gain improvements.
It has helpful advice for managers at all levels on how to use data, and how not to, and what to do if you don't have any. The book even covers how to use rewards to motivate people to drive change for good.
Amongst the topics covered are Evolutionary Innovation - smart people within the operation innovate all the time and Managers need to spot those innovations, then propagate them.
The need for Vision - why vision is needed to help people within the work system to know and truly understand the ultimate end goal, providing context for innovation, clear direction and a line of sight to the set targets or objectives.
Use and value of KPIs - the dangers of a scorecard driven organisation, where achieving targets becomes the end goal rather than achieving the outcomes that the scorecard is trying to steer toward.
Analysis Paralysis - the balance between endless analysis of data and debate about what improvements could be tried and random action which is not focussed properly on improving outcomes
Inspiring with numbers - the dangers of numbers: how they can create the wrong behaviour if they become "punishment targets";
Unleashing the beast of creativity - how to motivate people to use their creative genius to improve outcomes.
Taming the tiger - the communication needed within the organisation to both encourage and guide the evolutionary innovation.
How to think - "Growth Mindset" has become a hot topic in education and industry. Based on Carol Dweck's original thinking, this book looks at driving improvement, fostering a creative culture and how to think about success and failure.
Rewarding, isn't it? how to think about rewarding individuals for creativity.
And threaded throughout the book are examples drawn from nature which show the parallels between biological evolution and evolution in the workplace.
Easy to read and understand, thankfully free of technical jargon, this is a book for anyone and everyone who wants to improve the outcomes of their organisation.
