Creative individuals in your organizations operating with clear standards and accountability can use advancing AI technology to innovate and supercharge productivity. 

Today’s guest post is by John Warner, author of The Intelligence Tsunami: Get Off the Beach, Ride the Wave, or Get Washed Away.

As early as the 1906 Olympics, high jumpers knew that the “flop” technique allowed them to jump higher with their backs arched and their heads first over the bar. The flop allows the jumper’s center of gravity to stay under the bar. In the early landing pits with sand or piles of thin matting, jumpers had to land carefully to avoid breaking their necks. No jumpers used the technique in competition.

Until Dick Fosbury did. Realizing that the landing pits at the Mexico City Olympic Games had deep foam mats, on Sunday, October 20, 1968, the 21-year-old Oregon State University student won the gold medal by flopping backward over the bar. Competitive high jumping changed forever. To this day, his technique is known as the Fosbury Flop.

Good governance is essential for individuals to excel at the highest level. Track and field organizations create rules and standards for high jump competitions. Athletes like Dick train to these standards their entire lives. Athletes benefit from coaches who know the rules and physical infrastructure built to meet the standards. Officials enforce the rules to ensure the competitions are fair.

Dick excelled in part through hard, dedicated practice, but outstanding execution alone wasn’t enough. Dick creatively realized that a change in technology allowed him to innovate and create a competitive advantage. Today, almost all elite high jumpers use the Fosbury Flop. Those that don’t aren’t competitive at the highest level.

The Intelligence Tsunami results from the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Many employees are understandably anxious from reading frequent announcements of job losses caused by AI. But here’s the good news. With good governance that fosters innovation, The Intelligence Tsunami is an opportunity, not a threat.

Just as dedicated practice is essential for elite athletes, operational excellence is essential for leading organizations. But great execution alone is not enough to thrive during dramatic change. Create a culture of continuous learning and adaptability that empowers the “Dick Fosburys” in your organization to challenge the status quo and embrace new possibilities.

Empower Every Employee. Every employee, at all levels, should feel encouraged to innovate. Create safe spaces where employees feel comfortable sharing ideas, even if they seem unconventional – especially if they seem unconventional. Great ideas, like the Fosbury Flop, are obvious only in retrospect.

Build an Adaptable Workforce. Riding The Intelligence Tsunami is not solely about adopting new technologies but is fundamentally about cultivating an adaptable, creative workforce ready for the future. Focus on building a workforce that thrives in a changing landscape. This means continuous learning, not just about AI, but also about creativity and critical thinking. Encourage employees to develop new skills and step outside their comfort zones.

Make AI a Partner, not a Replacement. Set a vision where AI and machine learning are seen as tools to augment human capabilities, not replace them. AI can handle tedious, repetitive tasks, freeing up humans to focus on more complex, creative work. Rapid advancements in AI technologies represent a new kind of “deep foam matting” for your organization.

Provide Resources and Trust. Define what’s essential for your organization to excel. Provide the resources your team needs, from technology to training, and make sure they understand how they are accountable. Then let go and trust your team to excel. Create an environment where calculated risks and experimentation are encouraged. Your trust will empower employees to take ownership of their work and find innovative solutions.

Celebrate Success. The most iconic moments in the Olympic Games are the medal ceremonies. Celebrate your champions who excel at the highest level, taking your organization to new heights. Recognize and celebrate not just groundbreaking inventions but also the everyday problem-solving that keeps the organization progressing.

The Intelligence Tsunami is washing ashore with a vengeance. Like Dick Fosbury, creative individuals in your organizations operating with clear standards and accountability can use advancing AI technology to innovate and supercharge productivity. By unlocking creativity, embracing new technologies, and empowering your workforce, you can achieve gold-medal results.

John Warner is the author of The Intelligence Tsunami: Get Off the Beach, Ride the Wave, or Get Washed Away, a #1 New Release on Amazon. John has a lifetime of experience as a serial innovator, riding waves from scrappy startups of companies, academic centers, not-for-profits, and a government agency to the towering halls of the New York Stock Exchange. See more at his LinkedIn profile.

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We have been taught to find answers to problems, not to question the problem itself. 

Today’s guest post is by Roger L. Firestien, Ph.D., author of SOLVE THE REAL PROBLEM: Because What You Think Is The Problem Is Usually Not The Problem.

Based on my experience working with thousands of people and hundreds of organizations, when it comes to solving problems, 99% of the time what we think is the problem is actually not the problem. It’s a symptom of the problem, what the boss thinks is the problem, or a knee jerk reaction to the problem.

Why?

Because we have been taught that when we face problems, our first impression of what we think is our problem… really is the problem. We have good reasons for this. Our educational systems set the problems up for us.

What is 3+3?

What is the capital of Spain?

Madrid.

We have been taught to find answers to problems, not to question the problem itself.

Today’s problems are not textbook formulas. They are complex, ambiguous, non-routine, difficult and potentially dangerous. Yet, we still use the same strategies we learned in elementary school to solve these problems.

Harvard Business Review recently reported the results of a survey of top-level executives on problem diagnosis. The findings were stunning – with 85% of these leaders, from both the public and private sectors, responding their organizations were just bad at diagnosing their problems. 87% said their companies were experiencing significant costs because of this weakness.

Why? Managers are typically responsible for output. Results. Efficiency. Bottom lines. Managers tend to switch quickly into solution mode when they see a problem.

The solution?

Problem redefinition – exploring and identifying the challenge you’re facing before trying to solve it.

How do you redefine problems?

Questions. But not just any questions – creative questions.

The language used to describe a problem is going to determine whether you create a good, lousy, or creative question. It also dictates the kinds of solutions you generate.

For example, “We don’t have enough money.”

Good or bad statement?

Answer: Bad.

When you hear that statement, your brain says, “OK, we don’t have any money.”

“Decision made. Move on. Don’t bother looking.”

“How might we raise the money for this project?”

“How might we reduce the cost of this project?”

Good and creative questions.

Questions framed this way provoke your mind to search for solutions. They tell your brain, “Let’s go find answers. And because we are using the word ‘might,’ these can be any answers. We haven’t made any decisions yet. Look for options.”

So, the first step to becoming better at solving the right problem is to use creative questions.

In my book, Solve the Real Problem, I interviewed people from business, education, agriculture, manufacturing and I posed one question.

“Can you tell me a story when you discovered that a problem you were trying to solve was not the problem at all?

I found their answers settled into four primary approaches or mindsets. A mindset is a particular way of thinking, a way of thinking that can actually help you solve the problems you are facing.

The four problem-solving mindsets were:

Challenge your assumptions

Get an outside perspective

See the big picture

Look for all of the details

Here is a story that illustrates the mindsets, challenges your assumptions, and looks for all the details.

My Tailbone Hurts

12-year-old John is experiencing severe tailbone pain.

The pain is so bad that his parents take him to the local children’s hospital. As the secretary at the hospital’s orthopedic department is checking John in, she asks, “What are you here for?”

John replies, “I have pain in my tailbone.”

Because the general model of orthopedic treatment is getting an x-ray before a patient sees the orthopedist, an x-ray of the sacrum, coccyx, and tailbone are ordered.

As the orthopedist enters the room with the x-rays he begins, “Well, I have reviewed your x-rays and I don’t see anything wrong with your tailbone. Since your x-rays are normal, I’m going to order a CT scan of that area.”

Just like the x-rays, these scans appeared normal. So, the doctor ordered a bone scan of the area.

The result: The scans all came back normal.

The orthopedist’s response: “I don’t know what is wrong.”

John next visits Dr. Michael Geraci, a specialist in this area.

During a first visit with Dr. Geraci, patients draw on a “pain diagram,” an outline of the body where they indicate where they are experiencing symptoms.

As Dr. Geraci began to take John’s history he reviewed the pain drawing. “I notice in your pain drawing that you didn’t draw it in your tailbone. Why don’t you stand up and just point to where you are experiencing the pain?”

John stood up and pointed to a place in his back a few inches above his beltline. A place five inches above the tailbone.Dr. Geraci quickly realized that young John misunderstood the terminology of his anatomy. After conducting an MRI of the lumbar spine, the results showed that John had a herniated disc which was the cause of his “tailbone” pain.

John responded well to physical therapy. After a few weeks, he was completely pain-free.

Lessons Learned

Challenge your assumptions. John’s orthopedist never challenged the assumptions he made when he looked at the first x-ray. He made his decisions based on one frame of reference – that a 12-year-old boy knew where his tailbone was.

Look for all the details. The doctor failed to look for all the details in John’s case, because he did not question him thoroughly in the initial examination.

It doesn’t take long to find the real problem, in fact, in controlled research studies when subjects took only 5 minutes to redefine a problem, they produced more original and higher quality solutions than those subjects who went right to work and did not spend time redefining the problem.

So, the next time you are faced with a tough problem.

Pause.

Don’t accept your first impression as the real problem.

Ask creative questions.

Take a few minutes to generate 10+ creative questions

Choose the creative questions(s) that best define your problem

Only then generate ideas to solve your problem.

Dr. Roger Firestien, author of SOLVE THE REAL PROBLEM: Because What You Think Is The Problem Is Usually Not The Problem, has presented programs on innovation to over 600 organizations around the world including: fortune 500 corporations, government agencies, universities, associations, hospitals and religious institutions. He is President of Innovation Resources, Inc., Associate Professor Emeritus at the Center for Applied Imagination at Buffalo State University, a founding member of the Buffalo Society for Creativity in Medical Education and guest lectures at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, NY. For more information visit www.RogerFirestien.com

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Dr. Sam Adeyemi offers insight to business executives and C-suite professionals on the next generation of leadership development planning.

Today’s guest post is by Dr. Sam Adeyemi, author of Dear Leader: Your Flagship Guide to Successful Leadership.

How would you describe the up-and-coming leaders within your organization? Dynamic? Global? Inspiring? Unique? Now, here’s the big question: Do you think the same could be said about your organization’s leadership development?

By 2030, Gen Z will account for almost 30% of the workforce, and post-COVID globalization has erased many of the more conventional boundaries of an organization’s hiring criteria. It’s no wonder that most modern workplaces now draw on vast pools of professional talent, and their next wave of leaders will rise up from all corners of the world with a dizzying array of interests and motivations. As such, the most successful organizations will be those who can offer customized leadership development plans, or step-by-step strategies for achieving both short-term and long-term goals.

These plans are not one-size-fits-all, and executing them ineffectively can actually create a more counterproductive environment for the aspiring leader. So how do you create leadership development plans that both elevate your executives and produce tangible results? Start with three simple guidelines.

3 Tips for Next-Gen Leadership Planning

1. Acknowledge What’s Bad, but Promote What’s Good

When we are looking to support the next cohort of successful leaders, it is tempting to focus on what needs to be fixed — what isn’t being done well and needs to be done better. Unfortunately, this overly critical stance not only creates a sense of negativity from the very beginning, but it can also breed insecurity in the aspiring leader and serve to erode their confidence going forward. This is why the most helpful leadership development plans focus on a person’s talents and strengths, choosing to quickly neutralize individual weaknesses and redirect all developmental energy to the leader’s strongest gifts and most inspiring attributes.

You might be tempted to call this sort of thinking overly optimistic, or perhaps too fixated on the silver lining of what could be a cloudy situation. But did you know that not a single cloud in the sky actually has a silver lining? The silver lining our eyes see when looking toward the sky actually comes from the sun, who sits just above the clouds shining a bright light that frames every outline in positivity. The clouds are the same hardworking wonders of nature they always were, simply framed in a different light — by a more uplifting leader and a more positive development plan.

Over 85% of executives believe fear prevents progress and innovation at their organization. So why allow it to infect your planning process?

2. Ask a Lot, but Also Listen

There was once a farmer who lost all his crops to disease at the start of the planting season. To try and recover some of his income for the year, the farmer used the last of his money to buy a few sheep from his neighbor — and so, he became a shepherd. Unfortunately, these sheep proved much louder than the farmer anticipated — bleating at high volume into all hours of the night. After offering better food and better bedding to no avail, the farmer-turned-shepherd was at his wit’s end. In his desperation, he strapped a giant fake ear to his wooden cart and rolled it out into the field. The sheep immediately gathered around the ear and bleated their BAHs until they had nothing left to say. That night, everyone slept soundly.

When it comes to their own professional development, every aspiring leader has a lot to say, whether about their unique interests or underlying motivations. That said, those conversations can be virtually meaningless when one-sided — if the mentor isn’t practicing deep listening and using these moments of honesty to make meaningful discoveries about the individual. Leadership development plans are driven by these types of discoveries, but they are ultimately a collective effort, including the individual’s managers, immediate supervisor, and fellow team members. This is why it is important to ASK, but it is even more important to LISTEN.

3. Plan for Forever, but Lead in the Moment

The intention behind every leadership development plan should be to uplift the leader in question. Though these plans do indirectly support the organization in that they afford one of its leaders greater success, that organizational support should never be the focus. If you help an employee plan a career strategy that results in enormous success, then that plan was inspiring and well-constructed. If that employee then chooses to leave your organization, this does not diminish the success or importance of the planning process. In fact, when professionals are able to leave an organization and continue to prosper, it is often a sign of confident career planning at the source.

There’s simply no getting around the new reality taking shape in almost every industry: occupational mobility is at an all-time high. In 2022, it’s estimated that over 49% of working professionals switched jobs or made a larger career transition. Permanence is a thing of the past, and if you’re building all your leadership development processes around the presumption that no one is leaving, then you’re already a few steps behind. Leadership planning can be a powerful tool for your organization, but it’s important to remember these plans are primarily a tool to serve the individual and humankind at large. In this way, everyone wins.

Ready to Evolve Your Leadership Planning?

Your aspiring leaders are some of the greatest assets to your organization. Consequently, your plans for nurturing those leaders should be actively and routinely evaluated for their efficacy. Are they focusing on the strengths and positives of the professional in question? Do they begin with two-sided conversations and deep, active listening? Are you planning for forever, yet ready for change? The next generation of leaders is already working at your organization, which means it’s time to evolve your career planning processes and elevate your executives to their greatest potential.

Atlanta-based Dr. Sam Adeyemi (SAY: Ah Day yeh me) is CEO of Sam Adeyemi, GLC, Inc. and founder and executive director of Daystar Leadership Academy (DLA). More than 45,000 alumni have graduated from DLA programs, and more than 3 million CEOs and high performing individuals follow him on top social media sites. Dr. Sam’s new book is “Dear Leader: Your Flagship Guide to Successful Leadership.” He holds a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership from Virginia’s Regent University, and is a member of the International Leadership Association. He and his wife, Nike (say Nee keh) have three children. Learn more at SamAdeyemi.com.

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