The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelly (IDEO CEO)

IDEO: Design firm AND consulting firm

Quotes:
"Like an olympic decathlon, the object is to achieve true excellence in a few areas, and strength in many." - pg. 6
"When you are stuck with a tough decision or a problem you don't understand, talk to all the smart people you know." pg 19 - networking approach to problem solving
Lessons:
Method of innovation
1. Understand market, client, tech, AND perceived constraints
2. Observe Real People in real situations - get out of the office/books
3. Visualize/Brainstorm
4. evaluate and refine...as a team w/ voting / testing ideas and products before #5
/5: /implement

Personal Traits: Talent, facilitator, leader of brainstorming, bringing disparate * teams together, creative
Corporate Traits: culture of creativity: risk taking, occasional failures, games, non-routine, (See Greenhouse ch.), break the "rules" and try the opposite

Apps:

Personal Development...Lessons from Peter Drucker

http://www.inc.com/magazine/19970201/1169_Printer_Friendly.html

The editor-in-chief, then around 50, took infinite pains to train and discipline his young crew. He discussed with each of us every week the work we had done. Twice a year, right after New Year's and then again before summer vacations began in June, we would spend a Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday discussing our work over the preceding six months. The editor would always start out with the things we had done well. Then he would proceed to the things we had tried to do well. Next he reviewed the things where we had not tried hard enough. And finally, he would subject us to a scathing critique of the things we had done badly or had failed to do. The last two hours of that session would then serve as a projection of our work for the next six months: What were the things on which we should concentrate? What were the things we should improve? What were the things each of us needed to learn? And a week later each of us was expected to submit to the editor-in-chief our new program of work and learning for the next six months.
-2x/yr. review progress/make plans for future learning [begin with the end in mind - with specific and expanding! goals]
-critiques: start +, move to -
-use today.xls/.doc for comprehensive planning

Every three or four years I pick a new subject. It may be Japanese art; it may be economics. Three years of study are by no means enough to master a subject, but they are enough to understand it. So for more than 60 years I have kept on studying one subject at a time. That not only has given me a substantial fund of knowledge. It has also forced me to be open to new disciplines and new approaches and new methods--for every one of the subjects I have studied makes different assumptions and employs a different methodology.
-learning new things: focus on one subject at a time for 3-4 yrs.

"I understand you did very good securities analysis at the insurance company. But if we had wanted you to do securities-analysis work, we would have left you where you were. You are now the executive secretary to the partners, yet you continue to do securities analysis. What should you be doing now, to be effective in your new job?" I was furious, but still I realized that the old man was right. I totally changed my behavior and my work. Since then, when I have a new assignment, I ask myself the question, "What do I need to do, now that I have a new assignment, to be effective?" Every time, it is something different. Discovering what it is requires concentration on the things that are crucial to the new challenge, the new job, the new task.
-know your role...do the work that is most important for that role.

To know one's strengths, to know how to improve them, and to know what one cannot do--they are the keys to continuous learning.

I learned from it three things: First, one has to ask oneself what one wants to be remembered for. Second, that should change. It should change both with one's own maturity and with changes in the world. Finally, one thing worth being remembered for is the difference one makes in the lives of people!!

Note: he can be reached by fax...alone!