Brad smith ceo intuit. Innovate in 30year old company? A: te

Brad Smith CEO of Intuit or more famously known for developing QuickBooks and the Intuit innovative culture. Innovation is a process and Smith has created an environment that promotes two ideas in his company. First, he creates teams and gives them the tools and time to come up with new ideas that will change their customers world. Second, he provides a culture that's allowed to present failing ideas in their search for the next great idea. How does your company stay innovative?



By de Bono Consulting

12 Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking

A fellow de Bono Trainer gave me 12 Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking which is completely accurate. As innovative thinkers, we can learn something from this great list on creativity.

1. You are creative. Believe it!
2. Creative thinking is work. You will have more bad ideas than good ones, but those bad ideas lead you to the great ideas.
3. You must go through the motions of being creative. You must practice your ideas to become better at them.
4. Your brain is not a computer. Your brain cannot tell the difference between actual and fantasy experiences. (Think about Walt Disney)
5. There is no one right answer. Aristotle said it best it is either A or not-A.
6. Never stop with your first good idea. Always strive to improve your good ideas because that improvement may lead to your greatest discovery.
7. Expect the experts to be negative. Experts look at new ideas with absolutes and self censorship about their expertise.
8. Trust your instincts. Don't be discouraged by others opinions.
9. There is no such thing as failure. Celebrate your failures and review what you have learned from them.
10. You do not see things as they are; you see them as you are. All experiences have no meaning until you interpret them.
11. Always approach a problem on its own terms. Always consider other peoples points of view on the problem.
12. Learn to think unconventionally. For knowledge is limited to current knowledge, while imagination has no limits so embrace imagination.

The de Bono tools have helped thousands of people worldwide to think more creative in a systematic way that helps capture all your ideas on POST-IT NOTES!

By de Bono Consulting

The art of innovation | Guy Kawasaki | TEDxBerkeley

de Bono Consulting

Six Thinking Hats = the Life of a Data Scientist

Debleena Roy posted a real world example of how the Six Thinking Hats help make her successful in the Data Scientist world. See the correlation between the Six Thinking Hats and the needs of a data scientist.

1. White Hat
1. de Bono: Calls for information
2. Data Scientist Needs: Data, just data
2. Blue Hat
1. de Bono: Manage the thinking process
2. Data Scientist Needs: Generate insights from the cartloads of data
3. Black Hat
1. de Bono: Negative or skeptical
2. Data Scientist Needs: Develop his/her hypothesis
4. Yellow Hat
1. de Bono: Positive or optimism
2. Data Scientist Needs: Survival tool in the highs and lows of the data valley
5. Red Hat
1. de Bono: Feelings or intuition
2. Data Scientist Needs: Call it trial and error or "red hat"
6. Green Hat
1. de Bono: Creativity or alternative ideas
2. Data Scientist Needs: Think outside of his/her self-made data box

The above sequence is a real world example of how the Six Thinking Hats impacts the world everyday. de Bono Consulting's challenge to you is what hat's will impact your world for the better. 

By de Bono Consulting

Igniting creativity to transform corporate culture:

Are you using your birthright?

By de Bono Consulting

Infusing Innovative Thinking Into Six Sigma!

Did any of you read the article by Don Peppers on Six Sigma? Peppers did a great job bringing to light the lack of innovation tools in the Six Sigma process. The Six Sigma process was designed to plan, predict, document, adjust, and improve the current work process. For this purpose, Six Sigma is a great tool and meets all of the companies objectives. If the company is looking to be more innovative, then the company should be looking for a tool that promotes innovation like Lateral Thinking or any other innovation tool. I think that comparing Six Sigma process improvement to Innovation is like comparing "oranges and apples." They both may be fruits but their taste, look, and purpose are completely different.

If your company is looking to implement the Six Sigma process, I would recommend that the objectives be clearly identified and communicated company-wide so that the company does not try to accomplish innovation objectives with a process improvement tool. Here's a thought, may be 3M was not looking for innovation in Six Sigma but process improvement?

By de Bono Consulting

America's Secret Weapon

Bill Gates recently published America's Secret Weapon an amazing article about innovation and how America needs to invest more into research and development. In a comment to Gate's article, someone wrote that we need an individual with the vision, alignment, and execution of innovation. I think that we need to train the leaders of this country some tools that will help build and execute a game plan in order to remain the top innovative country in the world. Thousands of companies and governments have turned to Six Thinking Hats and Lateral Thinking to push their people to think outside the box. I know these innovative tool will produce the innovative ideas this country needs to remain at the top.

By de Bono Consulting