Breakthrough Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 12

 



 
Breakthrough Newsletter

  Volume I, Issue 12                                                                           Top December 2009

PITAGORSKY
CONSULTING

In This Issue
Endings and Beginnings
Innovation - Achieve Sustainable Excellence
Is Optimal Performance a principal goal of yours?
Optimal Performance Progran
This program weaves together the critical skills for optimal performance, across weeks or months to enable measurable improvement. It consists of six segments that stand alone as well as build on each other. 

More about the Program
Breakthrough
"Productive insight; clear (often sudden) understanding of a complex situation."  Free Dictionary

Pop the bubble of conditioned thinking and emerge into the creative realm of "no absolutes," continuous change, uncertainty and unlimited possibilities.

Then, there can be innovation, adaptation and optimal performance.
 
Performance & Open-minded Mindfulness:
Open-minded: questioning everything, accepting diversity and uncertainty.  

Mindful: consciously aware; concentrated. 

Foundation for blending process, project, engagement and knowledge management into a cohesive approach to optimize performance.
This Newsletter
Our aim is to stimulate the kind of thinking, dialogue and understanding that leads to optimal performance.  

Let us know what you think.  Email Breakthrough
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Endings and Beginnings

The calendar year is ending, a new one is about to begin.

When faced with any kind of ending - the end of a day, year or project - it is wise to reflect on what is ending and think about how we would like the future to unfold. For me this year that is ending has been an interesting one, income has been way too low but there has been a greater sense of fulfillment. I have been able to put out some interesting (at least to me) articles  blogs and to complete a series of presentations and workshops on Optimal Performance. I have spoken around the country on my favorite topics (knowledge management, optimal performance, the Zen approach) and have found a strong interest among a wide range of people in how to integrate mindfulness and open-minded thinking into daily life.

You can expect the continuation of this newsletter in 2010.  I hope you will enjoy it and be able to use the ideas. If you have the inclination, please pass the newsletter on to others, and I always welcome feedback. I am eagerly available for consulting, coaching and training work - in project and process management. A juicy project in a complex environment would be nice.

Happy holidays to all. It is a particularly powerful season we are in. Light is the theme.

May there be peace on earth, freedom from ignorance, suffering, oppression and mental slavery.  

May loving kindness, gratitude and generosity motivate all.

May anger and hatred born of greed and fear vanish from the earth and be replaced by open-mindedness born of love for all things and a sense of responsibility for what we think, say and do.

May we all be healthy, prosperous, and happy in 2010.

~ George Pitagorsky
 
© 2009 Pitagorsky Consulting
Innovation - Embracing Change to Achieve Sustainable Excellence
By George Pitagorsky

InnovationCan your organization afford excellence or will they offer mediocre products and services, resting on reputations and inertia?  So many organizations seem to settle for mediocrity. Excellence seems to frighten many. We settle for the good enough; and maybe that is good enough.

Looking at the news, economic conditions and many organizations it seems as if mediocrity is rife.  Innovators, unless they own their own firms, are met with politics as usual, fear of the unknown, impatience, paltry budgets and jealousy. Once great organizations have failed and are failing. Some take a very long time to die and may take many well-meaning people down with them. Many start-ups, whose initial success was founded on out-of-the-box thinking and superior performance, devolve into institutions, hiding behind barriers to entry in once open markets. 

Tired of Mediocrity
Many of us are tired of putting out efforts that may make short term profits but in the long run are bound to result in failure, not only for the organization itself but for the organization's employees and the environment. 

Winning organizations produce products and deliver services, whether they are films, cars, training programs or anything else, that are a cut above their competition. Many beat the competition to the market because of innovation, clear thinking and effective sales. Then the organization grows and moves from the stage of entrepreneurial success to become either a fat bureaucracy or greed or fear driven entity that stifles innovation in a vain attempt to achieve stability and sustain momentum fueled growth. Innovators leave, frustrated by their inability to make an impact or they are driven out by small minded managers and entrepreneurs who devalue innovation or, worse, they stay and remain frustrated, wasting their creativity as they watch the organization slowly devolve.

Innovation
The article, The Innovator's DNA, in the December 2009 Harvard Business Review, highlights five discovery skills that differentiate the most innovative entrepreneurs from other executives. The five are questioning, observing, experimenting, networking and associating to cultivate new insights from the first four. Innovators "actively desire to change the status quo and regularly take risks to make it happen.  Innovative entrepreneurs overcome the "status quo bias - the tendency to prefer an existing state of affairs to alternative ones".

In innovative organizations mistakes are expected. If there aren't any, it is a sign that people are not trying to think and perform out-of the-box.

What You Can Do
Innovative entrepreneurs create organizations like Amazon, Apple and Skype. But, not everyone can work for these organizations. For those in organizations that are saddled with the impossible task of maintaining the status quo and sustaining mediocre performance, it is a worthy cause to keep from becoming part of the problem. How? By questioning, observing, experimenting and networking with people from diverse backgrounds to synthesize new insights. Doing this within your scope of control will keep your mind from becoming dull.

If you are not the innovative risk taking type, recognize that those that are, can offer you and the organization some hope for a more productive future. Instead of simply writing off the new and different as being impractical, annoying and frightening take the time to explore, to question your own status quo bias and to open your mind to possibilities. Realize how frightening it is to hold to the known when everything in the universe is moving you into the unknown, the future. 

Be careful of the kind of thinking that reinforces doing the same old thing because it worked in the past. The past is gone and no one knows what the future will bring. Innovation and resilience are the critical success factors. Learn to live comfortably in the moment, while in "free fall", no matter what comes along.
  
© 2009 Pitagorsky Consulting 
  
 
 
 
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