Saturday, April 25, 2009

Are You Stuck in a Rut?

'Mindless habitual behavior is the enemy of innovation.'
--Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the celebrated (rightly, we think) author and Harvard Business School professor, whose work centers on leadership and innovation. It doesn't hurt that she also happens to be a Cleveland-area native. You can read an interview with her here, and check out The Economist's brief overview on her here.

5 Comments:

At 7:27 PM, Blogger Diane Vogel Ferri said...

Impressive - but how do we break out of the mindless habitual behavior????

 
At 9:52 PM, Blogger John Ettorre said...

That's of course the $64,000 question, Diane. But we apologize: our brain doesn't work well enough on weekends to tackle that answer. Anyone else care to address it?

 
At 3:14 PM, Blogger John Ettorre said...

Okay, Diane, it's Monday afternoon, and the thinking cap is now back on. Let me throw out three possible steps that could help get one started down new paths:

1). Find a new professional group/association in a subject area that's perhaps outside your main area of interest/employment, but in an area you're interested in either moving or at least learning about, and make a point of attending a few of their meetings/events and trying to meet a couple new people.

2). Ask friend(s) who knows a lot about subjects such as physics, design, poetry, engineering, painting or biotechnology (choose at least one) what the best books is/are about their field(s) that would be intelligible for a generalist, and make a point to read at least a couple.

3). Bookmark a site (www.aldaily.com) that's perhaps the best single online gateway to the best writing in the English language (the links along the left column), and make a point of sampling a new publication each week.

Okay, folks. Now it's your turn to add your ideas. Diane deserves to hear from some others as well.

 
At 8:24 AM, Blogger John Ettorre said...

Do post some of that video, will you?

 
At 6:47 PM, Blogger John Ettorre said...

Come on, people, you're letting me down. Doesn't anyone have any ideas for Diane? Hell, I can't do all the work around here...

 

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