Should We Expect Greater Innovation in the Future?

Will we see higher levels of innovation and skill development in the future? When entrepreneurship creates new products, it forces human capital upward as companies adapt this technology to create competitive advantages. Today's employment market is filling vacancies quickly and may soon begin to innovate again to find greater competitive strengths.

Spurts of technological advancement are followed by greater demands for market skills that raise human capital formation (Gomes, 2011). As companies adapt to new technology, they will seek to hire and train employees to use this technology. Employment expectation will adjust education and schooling to meet new job needs.

As the labor market moves closer to maximum employment capacity the cost of wages rises and pushes companies to adjust their strategies to focus on new competitive strengths. Technological advancement and integration is one approach that raises productivity and profit margins. The new demands will leave a gap in the employment market that takes time to fill.

The process of entrepreneurship, implementation, and human capital adjustments is a cyclical process where improvements in human capital can lead to greater adaptation. As businesses improve their competitiveness and hire additional skilled employees to fill vacant positions, the market becomes a draw for investment.

The development of society requires thinkers to create new ideas and spread those ideas to others where mass adaptation takes place. Today’s business world is more accustomed to innovation than at any other time in the past and will realign its educational and employment practices to encourage greater innovation. The speed of information transference will make innovation mass consumption faster thereby creating shorter product development times. Society will be in a constant process of change as innovation and skill development grow together.

Gomez, M. (2011). Stages of Economic Development in an Innovation-Education Growth Model. Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics, 5 (4).

How to Bounce Your Business Off the Bottom

Businesses can decline over the years until they no longer have enough working capital to maintain their current course of action. Without drastic change, the business will either be sold or liquidated in bankruptcy court. Change requires a new way of thinking about things, taking risks and making better strategic choices that lead to higher outcomes.

Organizations operate on processes & procedures. The culture of an organization will determine its overall communication and work patterns. When processes & procedures and culture are aligned to market needs it becomes more likely that the business will be able to pull out of its current predicament.

Consider a company that produces a single product that once brought in a lot of money but over the years alternative products have been developed by competitors that are eating away at a shrinking market. Continuing to do the same thing over and over without adjusting course is likely to end in a complete disaster.

Companies usually wait too long to make changes like many of us wait too long to adjust a bad habit. It is a human problem that we avoid change until it is necessary. By being proactive and watching for trends and opportunities it is possible to make smaller and easier to handle changes to keep a company focused on market relevancy.

If your company’s market is dwindling, competition is increasing, and your adjustment capital is dwindling consider a few helpful hints in developing a more sustainable business. Bounce your business off the bottom by answering a few questions…

1. Are you in the right market? Take a hard look at your capacities and market need to ensure your business is still relevant.

2. Are your processes & procedures focused on outcomes? Adjusting processes & procedures can create better outcomes, at lower cost, and more efficiency.

3. Do you have the right people? Ensure you have the right intellectual and skilled capital to transform your company.

4. Are there new markets? It is a global world out there. Companies can open up new markets and reach more customers.

5. Are you giving your customers what they want? Make sure that your business is focused on what the customers need and want.

6. Can you find more value? Take a look at your products/services and see if you can enhance their value.

7. Should you diversify? There are times when it is necessary to add new products and services to ensure that you are not overcapitalized into a single risk.

8. Should you Collaborate? Your product/service might match well with another product/service from another company that can raise the value of both.

The Necessity of Change-Using Kotter’s Change Model

Organizations that fail to change, eventually fail to exist. Threats to longevity can come from any source that ranges from market preferences to enacted legislation. Organizations must continue to adapt to changes and threats to be fruitful and thwart failure. Kotter’s Transformational Change Model helps formulate how change occurs and ensure that the change becomes embedded.

Kotter’s Change Model has eight different stages that move the company through the process of change and into the solidification of change. The steps required to avoid stagnation include increasing urgency, building guiding teams, developing a vision, communicating, enabling action, develop short-term wins, continue pressure/urgency, and making the changes stay (Tanguay, Waltman& Defebaugh, 2011).

The model seems to create a buzz in the workplace, sets social standards, creates small steps to enact and solidify the change. Staying power requires adjusting the metrics and performance needs of the organization. Much of this includes modifying how employees are promoted and awarded to ensure that change takes effect.

Change comes down to two fundamental ideas of process and expectation. Changing processes leads to new expectations and expectations support the use of processes. People must accept the new methods and then adapt them as the most beneficial. Resistance occurs when processes are rejected, and companies slip back into previuos ways of doing things.

All entities and organizations must change and adapt or they will soon find themselves irrelevant. The processes of development requires challenge and successfully overcoming that challenge. Using models such as Kotter’s helps decision-makers understand how change happens which can lead them to promote more efficient change with the least amount of turmoil. All change will require some frustration and adjustment

Tanguay, D., Waltman, J. & Defebaugh, S.  (2011). An ethics program assessment: a case study of Kotter’s Transformational Change Model. Ethics & Critical Thinking Journal, 2.

The Power of Perceiving - The Secret of Entrepreneurship

Perception is a powerful way to create opportunities. It is so powerful that it can change lives and spark opportunities in abundance. Entrepreneurship is about perceiving differences and then capitalizing on those differences through applicable market solutions. Perception is created by years of hard work that culminates into a moment of clarity and innovative inspiration.

Entrepreneurial insight is derived from connecting lots of information together in a way that creates new products or services. This development relies on experience with the product, exploring uses of the product, and finding ways to improve the product. When education, experience, motivation come together, a new perception is created that leads to innovation.

Perception is not a passive process and requires the full engagement of the individual. Finding innovative market solutions relies on gathering and interpreting information. Information can come from formal research or experimentation with different solutions. The more someone is familiar with a product or issue, the more they can perceive areas of improvement.

Entrepreneurship actively interprets information. People assume that the body takes in information from its senses and passively records that information without interpretation. Perception is strongly influenced by experience, education, cultural values that interpret information from the body’s sensory receptors (Curry, Meyer, & McKnney, (2006). Our past experiences help us create meaningful use of information.

Two people can look at the same problem and see different solutions precisely because they are interpreting information differently. Entrepreneurs have developed cognitive models that allow them to find potential solutions through a process of connecting and deconstructing information to find similarities among elements. Reconstructing elements creates new products and services.

The problem-solving model they use is learned over years to create an effective approach. This is one reason success results from years of failure. Failure is only part of the learning process of establishing a successful model. Once the model has been developed it can be applied to many other locations with higher rates of success. Thomas Edison was invented thousands of products based upon the effectiveness of his model.

The secret of entrepreneurship rests in perceiving things in new ways and finding that which no one else has yet seen. It is a process of turning the unseen into the seen. Capitalizing on the perception requires the ability to find value in the solutions and market those solutions to others. Once an effective mental model has been built it will continue to use successful processes to detect new problems and find solutions that lead to innovation.

Curry, D., Meyer, J. & McKnney, J. (2006). Seeing versus perceiving: what you see isn’t always what you get. Professional Safety, 51 (6)

Considering Culture in Your Strategic Road Map

A strategy is a roadmap that guides organizations to higher levels of performance that encourages productive growth. Executives can develop excellent business strategies that take into consideration market projection, resource allocation, human capital, and financial streams. To their own detriment, many CEOs do not factor in organizational culture into their strategies and how it impacts organizational goal attainment.

Culture should support business strategy (Eaton & Kilby, 2015). The values and semantics contained within culture should enhance business strategy through proper orientation of people's expectations. If there are contrary elements within a culture, the values should be adjusted to ensure they realign to meet organizational needs.

Consider an example of how culture can support or detract from organizational objectives. Two companies seek to become market leaders, but one company promotes employees based on patronage and the other from performance. These values become embedded into the culture of the organization and create a way of thinking that impacts daily operations.

Over time, poor values will cost the company their productivity and put them into market irrelevance and bankruptcy. Companies thrive off of their intellectual capital and when this is traded for patronage and personal gain the innovative and productive spirit dissipates.

Building a strong culture supports the achievement of organizational objectives by creating a way of thinking. An organization based in service quality should consider a culture that has focused values. Likewise, a company that relies on lean manufacturing promote efficiency.

Culture is a collective pattern of thinking that leads to action. As a whole organization, the actions of individual workers will determine whether or not a company will be successful. Developing the right culture will create social pressure to recruit, promote and perform at certain standards that helps the organization become stronger. A comprehensive strategy must include the soft cultural skills that support goal attainment.

Eaton, D & Kilby G. (2015). Does your organizational culture support your business strategy? Journal of Quality & Participation, 37 (1).

Call for Papers: Forum for Interdisciplinary Dialogue: Ethics and Development

Date: 10th to 11th April 2015 Location: Charlottesville, VA, United States of America

Organized by: Jefferson Scholars Foundation
Deadline for abstracts/proposals: 30th November 2014
Website: http://www.jsfconference.org/
 
The Jefferson Scholars Foundation and the Jefferson Society of Fellows at the University of Virginia present the fourth biannual Forum for Interdisciplinary Dialogue (FID) to be held on 22-23 September 2015 at the Jefferson Scholars Foundation Hall in Charlottesville, Virginia. The FID is an interdisciplinary conference for students, faculty, and community members from around the world. The theme for 2015 is Ethics and Development

The Footprints to a Solid Career

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will your career. Successful careers take a consider amount of effort and time to develop and may not always end the same way you planned when you started. As the market changes and adjusts it is beneficial to roll with the changes and seek out opportunities to learn and develop. At various stages of your life you will be in different career positions that can contribute to your professional development.

Young graduates often assume they are going to conquer the world solely through elbow grease. This enthusiasm manifests itself in excitement, motivation, and participation. Even though the pay is not high the new job offers a level of independence, a new apartment, a car, and lots of other goodies that were previously out of reach.

Eventually that enthusiasm will wane as they become accustomed to their new money and find out that what they earn is not nearly to feed a family and still live a comfortable lifestyle. They may start to move out of their starter jobs to take promotions and raises in other companies. It is through this movement that companies loose talent and other companies gain new talent; the market shifts its resources.

During their mid career most professionals have worked for multiple companies and may have switched their careers at least once if not a couple of times. The knowledge gained makes them a valuable asset to any organization. Still young enough to learn and old enough to apply working knowledge they will be in the sweet spot for growth. Adaptability and knowledge are sufficient to get them that first management job or a higher paying position when warranted.

In the later part of a career position and power may not be the most important determinant of one's career. It is entirely possible that leaving a legacy for others and engaging in those activities that are intrinsically pleasing may have more appeal when compared to more of the same. Seasoned managers start to mentor and coach younger employees in an effort to leave some type of mark on the organization and society.

Throughout a career cycle a person will work for a number of different organizations and may even switch careers a number of times. It is necessary to be adaptable and continue learning in order to grow and develop. At the moment one closes their mind they will stop growing and it is important to ensure one is  more of a sponge that soaks knowledge than a rock that sinks to the bottom.

In your path don't fret about having to switch careers. It is a natural part of life in a fast paced American economy. The average person can expect to switch their career up to seven times in their lifetime (Bialick, 2010). A high number I agree but not necessarily implausible as I have seen Generation X switch at least 3 times by their late 30s.

The biggest challenge you are likely to face is being open-minded and continually learning. We get stuck in our ways, do the same things over and over, and live by a routine. Sometimes it is a great way to function but at other times it can lead us down a path where we become more disconnected from future employment opportunities. You don't want to someday lose your job you are stuck without the skills needed to find something that pays better. Make sure you continue to learn, adapt, grow, develop, and change toward improvement.

Bialick, C. (Sept. 4th, 2010). Seven Careers in a Lifetime? Think Twice, Researchers Say. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704206804575468162805877990