Leadership Moments: Thinking Outside the Box

By: Robert Denker

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In this episode of Leadership Moments, I’ll explain how you can become an innovative leader and things you can do to really think outside the box to come up with creative solutions for your business.

Many people wonder how to be an innovative leader.

Sometimes clients, coworkers, or others tell us that we need to think outside the box. But what does that really mean?

How can we think outside the box and still be practical?

3 Understandings of Innovation

• Create novel solutions that result in improved performance.
• Measure Innovation. Do this by tracking what new ideas, improvements, or creative solutions that you and your team proposed recently and the number of those that were adopted.
• Understand that innovation is situational. The expectation of innovation is different at every company. It is worth discussing where on the innovation continuum your organization is and needs to be.

In order to really think outside the box a leader must:

• Challenge the team to view issues from multiple perspectives. Ask “what would a competitor do?” or “if you were a new owner of the company, what would you do?”
• Don’t over rely on facts and data. Allow room for ideas that are based on intuition and hunches.
• Don’t be too quick to decide or judge. Listen for the tendency to judge too quickly either by yourself or your team

About The Author:

I am currently the managing principle at rd&partners. You can follow me on Twitter @RDPUSA and read my latest leadership and management strategies on the rd&partners blog.

You Might Also Like:

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• From Bud to Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership

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