It is truly amazing to watch a team form and attack a problem that is far removed from their normal day to day activity. The team will probably try to tackle issues using their normal tool kit, and if that fails as can happen in novel situations, the failure of the established way of working can on occasion make room for creativity to blossom; assumptions can be stripped away and good old fashioned problem solving occurs.
What is truly awe inspiring however is to watch this process being driven by a group of people who have little or no ego, no concerns about whether they are the most important person in the group or how they are perceived by their colleagues or those outside of the team. In the rare instances you might find yourself observing such a team it can be truly inspirational.
I was honoured to be invited to Plymouth University this week to take part in ‘Chemistry Flux 2012’ which involved teams of students faced with the task of setting up a business and business planning in chemistry or chemical engineering
Every participant was in the second year of studying for their chemistry degree, rather than a business or marketing degree. They were given one of four briefs at nine in the morning, and had to form a plan, come up with a number of questions for a panel of experts and then make a pitch for investment in the style of Dragons Den, all before three that afternoon.
The team work displayed was frankly humbling; they easily divided jobs according to talent and knowledge and then gave each other the space to function within their allotted role.
The winning team created a measured and measurable business plan that we all found not only ambitious but realistic and well thought through.
It is surprising where you can find inspiration, but a good place to start would be here
MD
infinite pie
Happy New Year! I hope that you had a great Christmas break. We got some very interesting feedback on the website over the holidays. It was good to see that people are starting to take notice and are generally appreciative of what we are trying to achieve. The feedback was more of a question around as we are in such a crowded market place, how could we make our unique approach to infinite pie thinking more distinctive? So we're working on that now.
But it got me thinking about how people are very good doing almost everything except what they're passionate about in the work place. Think about it, are you an amazing whizz with spreadsheet analysis? Do you find writing concise copy as easy as pie? Are you the sort of person who will see that tough project through to the very end? Do you have a dream to start your own auto-valeting company? You're probably already thinking about what it is that flicks your switch, gets you all excited. Now ask yourself, are you doing this in your day to day job?
It's odd that in most cases I would guess that the answer is no, which is a real shame. I'm not suggesting that we all need to jack in our jobs to write a book or take up a career in painting without thinking the consequences through, however, if you are not tapping into your talent, your passion, it wont be long before you start looking through the window at work and wondering what the next step will be.
So, your challenge should be, how can I tap into that thing that gets me going, gets me up in the morning. Now how can I use that in my current job do do something better for those that I work with and for, but more importantly, better for myself.
How's that for a New Year resolution?
MD
infinite pie
I read a fantastic article written by Eric Jackson for Forbes today on why large companies are failing to retain their top talent. It’s fascinating to read that these reasons plague large companies as well as smaller ones, but the reasons are still the same.
If you are involved in a company that is knowledge based, and let’s face it most of us are you will need to rely on your talent to take your business forward. In the previous article ‘The Art of Science’ the point made was of mastering the process and then letting the art shine through. Reading through the list in the Forbes article, every single item on the list can be boiled down to mastering change, improving leadership skills and communicating effectively. What do you think? It might seem simplistic, but in reality the tools and techniques needed to retain talent are, it’s the application, the art of the science that makes all of the difference.
MD
Infinite pie
