brialogue

Innovation First

2012-01-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

1. What is so crucial about innovation?
Put simply, the rate at which business enterprises need to change to stay alive - let alone stay ahead - is unprecedented. Add to this the need to keep up with rapid technological changes and increasing complexity and we see why we must all innovate. In business terms, being innovative is coming to mean how distinctive your business is. One that stands out because of its technology, product or service. What’s often different nowadays is that we don’t need to be better so much as to be distinct.

2. Why is China paying so much attention to innovation?
China has a national policy of prioritising innovation. And substantial resources are being channelled into equipping state-run enterprises with the skills to move China from the position where it is now - broadly ‘Made in China’ to one where it will be “Conceptualised in China’. This will largely determine whether China will become the world’s number one economy - how innovative the nation can be.

3. Why do some companies seem to find it hard to innovate?
One misconception I find with business innovation is that many entrepreneurs equate innovation only with being able to commercially apply a creative idea, for example a new kind of robot that performs a useful task for a human at a competitive price. We need to remember that, for long-term business success, we must nurture a culture of innovation. That means thinking and behaving in creative ways and continuously searching for new and better ways to do things.

4. What do you do in your Connect, Direct innovation workshops, like the recent one in China, that drives home this point? What are some techniques used?
A very simple one is SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Add... etc). Using this method, we came up with some very interesting ideas for new ways to present and sell products. In terms of Project Management, one of the things we worked on was applying the ‘diamond’ model to compare your project’s required status and its actual status. It measures aspects of technology uncertainty, complexity, pace and novelty.

5. How successful are such workshops?
We find that participants, in whatever country, like to work further on specific project innovation at an enterprise level. We look forward to developing this focus in 2012.

Exploring Interaction

2011-11-07T02:43:00.000-08:00

1. You participated in the 25th International Project Management Association (IPMA) World Congress, Delivering the Promise, in Brisbane last month. What do you think are the benefits of being a member of this association?

IPMA is genuinely trying to further a more humanistic form of project management, and it’s great to feel part of that. I have the opportunity as a lead assessor to work in project teams involving people of different nationalities assessing project excellence. You learn a lot from project team members - your own and those of the applicant - about how to develop and spread Project Management as a way of successfully operating in a modern business environment.

2.Do you think businesses have to be more humanistic in their approach?

Yes, it is very clear from what’s going on in the world today. Business is not solely about profit - it’s about building something enduring and about providing meaningful work, as Rosabeth Moss Kanter reminds us in the latest Harvard Business Review. Many people have lost faith in business leaders who focus≤ too much on the financial aspect and have lost sight in the last few decades of the essence of business.

Naturally, people run businesses for many reasons, but the focus on profit cannot be all-consuming. The essence of a business lies in creating and providing value (not just monetarily) to your customers, both internal and external.

3. What was your best learning experience from heading an assessment team on the recently concluded IPMA Project Excellence Award?

In assessing the applicant, GE Oil & Gas - Contractual Services for its Qatar Modular Replacement project, ultimately the Award Winner 2011 in the Big-Sized Project category, we saw innovation at all levels. They excelled because of this innovation, the formal and informal opportunities for learning and, above all, a positive atmosphere set and maintained by the project manager.

4. What do you see as an interesting new development in Project Management?

Linking back to what I said, new research is showing that the project workplace is a highly generative, on-the-job learning place. Not only is it a dynamic learning space, it also gives a lot of opportunities to reflect and interact as well as explore issues. This has implications for developing learning for individuals and organisations, as the recent issue of the International Project Management Journal shows.

Trust is Key

2008-04-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

BRIALOGUE 3

Dr Lulwa Al Mutlaq is not your typical go-getter entrepreneur. She doesn’t seek publicity and plaudits for herself, nor does she appear to be in a constant scramble to accrue wealth, accoutrements and other trappings of what passes nowadays for an ‘executive lifestyle’. Because of her professional achievements in human resource and women’s development, she is very well regarded in her native Bahrain, as well as in the broader Gulf region where she conducts most of her work.

Trust is key to Dr Lulwa’s business philosophy - and to her daily dealings with people, you sense. Indeed, this HR professional has called her one-year-old company Golden Trust.

Dr Lulwa is a banker by training, yet gives out none of that hard edge and bottom-line brashness that so often accompanies a person who has spent a life on the monetary side. Quite the contrary, she is a genuine ‘people person’ who actively listens, smiles often and readily, and has deep faith in her fellow human beings.

I’m certain that we shall see more of Dr Lulwa’s leadership style in the future. She practises what she preaches and, more crucially, she has the facility for getting people to follow.

Sailing the 'C's

2007-07-29T05:35:00.000-07:00

BRIALOGUE 2

Sailing his own boat from Vancouver was how Cresswell Walker (‘Cress’) made his way initially to Singapore. Now, 14 months on, he’s about to return for a family reunion. I only half-jokingly asked if he was taking the boat back.

The sea journey is significant in that Cress looks at life as something of a voyage…(I wonder if he has ever been nick-named ‘Water Cress’) But with a breezy view: Course rather than Goal, indicating a voyage along which you can meander, moor and mull over, as opposed to a damn-everyone-else laser-focus fixation that achieving one’s goals seems to have become for some.

An ‘I’ specialist would gabble on, but Cress halted, adding “I don’t wanna bore ya.” Far from it. I was curious to learn about his 5 Cs: Choice, not Risk, Collaboration, not competition.

He brings this philosophy to coaching, wanting to help people make their own choices in the sea of ‘schlock’ they encounter daily.

We share the view that new learning pathways are due to open, that current orthodoxy is beyond its ‘self life’, as I would call it.

We finished our drinks and went our separate ways, but I sense we’ll talk again. What was his drink? Water.

The J Factor

2007-07-12T07:01:00.000-07:00

Some have described Joyce Ong as a ‘dragon lady’, ‘fierce’, even ‘scary’. She can certainly talk, but it is because that talk is both forthright and sincere that Joyce is our first featured dialogue partner.

She doesn’t just go with the flow – even at this Coffee Club outlet in Singapore she chooses berry tea. And you sense that this is why her company, J Factor, has stood the test of time.

I learn that Joyce started J Factor in 1995, the same year that Language Works was set up. As you listen to her, you realise that she has strong belief. Yet belief on its own is not enough: “To do something that you believe in, you really need perseverance and passion.”

Moreover, you have to enjoy what you do. Joyce’s enjoyment of her chosen craft is palpable. “The beauty of it is - I love it. I still love it.” She sounds surprised at herself.

Surviving a 12-year cycle in one of the fastest-moving, most demanding economies on earth, especially in advertising, promotions and consultancy, needs something more elemental and enduring than street smarts, business acumen or a smart strategy. And I’d say it’s the J Factor.