I was talking with a client recently who was wondering out loud if she was really worth her salt. “What if I can’t help this client? What if they realize I don’t have an advanced degree? Do I really have something of value to offer? Why would anyone buy a book that I write? I’ve only been doing this a few years.”
This woman had what I call “But It’s Just Me” Syndrome. In other words, she was thinking: When will they find out I’m a fake – it’s just little ole’ me?
The world of innovation scares many people. Typically, these frightened people associate innovation with HUGE, risk-laden ideas that change things dramatically. To the contrary, “innovation” refers to change and to doing something new. Here, size does not matter. In fact, some very small changes create dramatic innovation.
MIND-BUILDING — Where, then, can your innovation work begin. Picture a body-building program, only this one is for the brain. You need strength, agility, flexibility, clarity, and simplicity. Strength manifests itself in conviction and the ability to persevere. Agility appears in your ability to visualize possibilities. Flexibility materializes in your challenging established rules. Clarity emerges when you try to share your changes with others. Simplicity springs from your desire to be understood and your belief in the changes you propose.
STARTING POINT — If your innovation skills are under-developed or flabby, start in the work environment where you are most comfortable. No need to try to lift 200-pounds in your first exercise. The least territorial environment is the processes within the business. People accept them as a matter of getting the work done. They feel no conviction about preserving any given process.
To begin your mind-building, list all of the processes that come to your mind. The first ones that come will be the ones you regularly use. Next, come the ones used by people who report to you. If you have official manuals which detail official processes, add these processes to your list. Finally, let your mind stretch to include processes that you know are being used in the business but are not necessarily official.
#1 REPETITIONS — Now the “reps” begin. Start with any category of processes. Look, first, for ones that can be retired. The first retirement is difficult because you have not done this for a long time, if ever. Each repetitive retirement becomes easier. What is happening is that, as you move through the list, you are developing retirement criteria. Every retirement is innovative. You have changed the environment.
At this point, you can involve others in verifying your retirement choices. If even one person wants a process to remain, it remains. What you are doing in this exercise is strengthening your connections to other potential innovators. As they detect your willingness to let go, they gain their own strength-to-participate. Again the environment changes.
#2 REPETITIONS —The second set of “reps” offers different challenges and opportunities. The people who worked with you on the “retirees” now become your exercise partners. They enhance your agility and flexibility. Ask them to review the processes in your list. Ask them to choose ones that they believe can be changed. Change takes many forms. People can identify other processes in your list that need to be retired. People can admit that they have found a better “unofficial” way to do an official process. People can venture into dangerous territory to suggest that a process needs to be changed dramatically. As you progress, observe how your ability to visualize possibilities and to accept the breaking of rules changes. You improve. Your exercise partners improve. Your business environment improves.
#3 REPETITIONS — The third set of “reps” offers hurdles to be overcome. Now, you need to work with your partners to develop the needed changes. Ask them to review processes related to their work. Ask them to identify anything that needs to be clarified. This clarification arises from comments such as, “We don’t really do it that way.” Then, ask how they suggest that the process be done. Integrate their thinking into your thinking about what changes need to be made.
Simplification, also a part of the third set, emerges from the need to examine impact. What does each change really mean for the business? What are the outcomes of the changes? More innovation? Savings of time? Reductions in required completion time? Empowered workers? An environment of trust? Ask your exercise partners to add to the list of outcomes they see and experience. As the list grows, the people involved engage in participation at a much greater level. They have grown beyond the need to protect themselves to an excitement about what can be done in moving forward. You created a world of innovation.
THE NEXT PHASES — When you feel that the current work with processes is finished, your brain-building moves to other areas of the business in search of innovation, of change, of the new. Depending on the extent of your brain building, you can continue to work inside the business. Look next, possibly, to practices that are not necessarily processes. These could be as simple as how we greet each other. These can be more complicated as to how we engage others in work outside their area of expertise. How do we leverage their knowledge, insight, and foresight?
Finally, you can look to internal policies. Start again with retirement. Work yourself through the brain-building. Assess the impact of each change. With your innovative, internal house-cleaning completed and your brain-building solidly implanted, you are now ready to enter the world of innovation beyond.
With some clarity on what you want to achieve and some understanding about who you need to become, you now look to the obstacles standing in your way to the BIG innovation. Although many small hurdles cross your path to innovation, the really big obstacles reside within the innovator. They include the ego, the motivation, and the desired recognition. These are the slowly diminishing Siren songs and Circe visions. Confront them.
WHAT IS STOPPING YOU?
EGO — To confront this obstacle, question who you really are. How much do you doubt your ability to innovate? Question it? Retreat from it? Delay it? How do you react when people criticize or challenge your ideas? Defensive? Accepting? Threatened? Fearful? How do you define yourself? Name? Occupation? Title? Degrees? Accomplishments? In what areas are you judgmental? Other people’s behavior? Other people’s ideas? Solutions proposed by others? Other people’s conclusions?
As you contemplate these questions, remind yourself that life consists of small things. These small things, when connected, grow into landfills of mental debris. As the debris accumulates, the ego grows. As the ego grows, it becomes a hungry creature that must be fed regularly — breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks in between. It munches on your dreams, your imagination, your commitment to innovation. Put yourself on an ego-diet. Systematically, dismantle the landfills. Remove the debris. Free yourself, to the greatest extent possible, of all ego entanglements. The freer you are of this menace, the easier you will envision innovations.
MOTIVATION — To confront this obstacle, question why you want to be a BIG innovator. Impress people with your performance? Conquer your perceived mountains? Control other people? Accumulate riches? Achieve prestige? Establish bragging-rights? Win arguments? Share the glory? Increase awareness? Avoid ready-made answers? Penetrate the unknown?
Again, remind yourself that life consists of small things. Your positive motivation directs you toward creativity, toward making the world better, toward being able to hear the whispers of emerging ideas. As you move away from argument as motivation, your world increases in its silence, a silence that lets you hear the voices speaking to you from your deepest self. These voices sing not the Siren songs; these voices guide your in what you love. These voices do not speak of terrifying visions; they focus your attention on your creative imagination.
RECOGNITION — To confront this obstacle, question what recognition you want for your innovating. This obstacle is the most complicated. EGO and MOTIVATION are within you, in your control to change. RECOGNITION is something so deeply embedded in cultures that undoing it as an obstacle demands the release of long-held practices. From the earliest steps of childhood, we encourage. As children grow we reward them with money, with badges of accomplishment, with diplomas and degrees to applaud knowledge gained. As people reach adulthood, the forms of desired recognition change to honors, to prizes, to awarded titles and degrees.
Again, remind yourself that life consists of little things. Each plant in a garden creates it own space but demands no recognition for the creation. It simply draws upon itself. Each innovation creates its own space within you. Each innovation tries to penetrate the unknown. Each innovation forces you to grope in the dark. Each innovation exposes “again ideas” that are simply re-workings of the past. Each innovation moves you closer to other innovations. Ideas are never finished. Some are given away to others. Some are nurtured to maturity. Some change the world in ways that cannot be imagined. Therefore, seek not the recognition, seek only what connects you to the future that makes the world better.
To further help you understand people who do not covet personal recognition, conduct a search on “Vinton Cerf,” and “Tim Berners Lee.” The simple things the two men did changed the world in their own lifetimes. Each in his own way gave innovations to the world — free of charge. Without them, no internet, no world wide web. To find others, search for “people who refused Nobel prizes.” Do not let desired recognition interfere with the work of the innovation.
In the end, you must confront all of your own obstacles — the temptations of the Siren songs and the visions of Circe. Innovation begins as a solitary activity. However, as you share your ideas and your love of the work you do, people who want to help gravitate to you. You move beyond the simple call to innovate and the seduction of unrefined dreams in your head. You began your Odyssey by courting the BIG innovation. The courtship now ends. The music and visions still exist. You are now free of the diversions. In the end, you marry yourself to the ideas that please you, the ideas you love. You, too, can change the world.
How would you like to accomplish anything you want, faster? There is a secret that is available to any and everyone who wants just that! It’s a secret that is really powerful but sometimes hard to understand and take action around. It’s simple, yet difficult at the same time. But when you get it, you’ve got the key to unlock the achievement of your goals.
What is that secret? Clarity.
Clarity, as defined in the dictionary is the state or quality of being clear. Clear is defined in part as not dull or cloudy. Most think that they are clear in their intent or desire, or what they want to take action. But their results say otherwise. Why the disconnect? Because clarity truly means being open to what is in your mind, heart and soul without the impact of others thoughts, opinions and input. It means not allowing the outside events to influence the inside desires. It means giving attention and focus to what your heart and soul are truly saying to you. And when you listen and it feels true and good, then you’re in the vicinity of your own clarity.
Let me illustrate with a recent example. As a career transition specialist, I focus on helping individuals who are at a career crossing, get clear about what they deeply want to do. It is a critical FIRST step in their job search, career development and personal fulfillment. Otherwise, they continue to pursue someone else’s dreams!
In some recent discussions with clients in pursuit of new opportunities, I was struck by the numbers of times I heard the same deep longing. “I want to do event planning”; “I want to be a coach”, “I want to run my own business”, and on and on. When I asked what they were doing today… Well, you guessed it, none were in that field nor were they pursuing it. I must say that the relief that came across their faces when they said what they truly wanted to do was astonishing. You could see their eyes widen, their smiles broaden and their voices lifted. This is a major clue that you’re very close to your own clarity.
A lot of the reasons that people haven’t pursued their dreams is that they weren?t sure how. But as we talked further, I discovered that they were doing parts of it currently, but just weren’t making the connection. Just by saying it out loud, they began the process of becoming increasingly clear about what they want, why it’s important to their well being and how to get started. An amazing thing happens when you give sound and feeling to what it is you want.
Now you know that you must first give yourself the gift of voicing what it is your heart and soul truly longs for. Keeping it inside ensures you’ll get burned by the flame. So share it with a trusted friend mentor or coach. Ask for their input or resources that can help you learn more. You’d be surprised at what people are actually doing and making a great living at today!
The next step, as always, is taking action with your new-found clarity that unleashes the spark that burns the flame. Just start with one step to give you the evidence of what is possible. It can and will light the path to your first step and next steps to achieving the goals.
When you are clear about what you want, you start to see and experience coincidences, synchronicities, the Universe in full support of your desires, all of that. And as long as it’s what you truly desire and begin to take action, you will bring the results to you, faster.
Voila! Now you know the secret to accomplishing anything you want faster! Will you allow clarity to bring you closer to your true heart’s desire?