The Art of Invention and Innovation in Chicago S14 Ep32

10/16/18 • 23 min

Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney - A Show About Ideas Creativity And Innovation

Every year Chicago highlights the art of invention and innovation. I’m honored to welcome back Tom Kuczmarski to the show. Tom talks about exciting things going on in the realm of Chicago innovation and student invention. If you’ve had trouble buttering your toast, today’s show might have the solution. At the Chicago Student Invention Convention, one student invention solves a simple breakfast hassle. Great and small, Chicago innovation is making a difference and Tom is helping to lead it.

Chicago’s Invention and Innovation Evangelist

Tom’s enthusiasm for innovation is catching. His career is multifaceted. Senior Lecturer at Northwestern University, author, and President of Kuczmarski Innovation. Tom is dedicated to bringing the art of invention and innovation to life in greater Chicago. Co-founder of the Chicago Innovation Awards, he has cheered on Chicago innovation for seventeen years. Recently, offshoots of the Chicago Innovation Awards have emerged. The Chicago Student Invention Convention and the Woman’s Mentoring Co-Op have been huge successes.

Inspiring Young Minds through Student Invention

The Student Invention Convention challenges young students in the greater Chicago area to invent. Students work with teachers in a ten-week program to create inventions that solve a range of problems. It thrills Tom to see these kids engaged in the art of invention and innovation. The exposure to invention and innovation at an early age unlocks their future potential.

Fostering Woman Entrepreneurship and Innovation

The Woman’s Mentoring Co-Op has nearly doubled every year since its inception. This program involves successful women mentoring women innovators who want to grow their business. It’s a way for women to help each other with the unique challenges for women in business and innovation. Tom’s proud of the strength and power created by this new community of Chicago innovation.

Unlikely Partners

Tom recalls a conversation several years ago with the CEO of a major hotel chain. Tom broached the topic of Airbnb as a potential competitor. The CEO dismissed his concern. In the last five years, Tom’s seen a major shift in the thinking of major corporations. Rather than keeping innovation in-house, corporations are opening up. Major corporations are seeing the need and benefit of partnering with startups. That’s where the Chicago Corporate Start-Up Matchmaking program comes into play. It’s similar to the CableLabs Fiterator program, but on a broader spectrum. The Matchmaking program connects corporations with start-ups whose Chicago innovation can bring value.

What Recognizing Others Reaps

Tom likes to recognize others in their innovation and invention. There is power in creating an environment that values people at all levels. His latest book is co-authored with Susan Smith Kuczmarski. Lifting People Up: The Power of Recognition focuses on encouraging people. He sees this as pivotal for leadership now and the future. In fac...

Chicago’s Invention and Innovation Evangelist

Inspiring Young Minds through Student Invention

Fostering Woman Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Unlikely Partners

What Recognizing Others Reaps

Previous Episode

Brain Health for Innovation and Creativity S14 Ep31

Anyone who wants to be highly creative, be an innovator, and generate killer ideas needs above all else one thing. You need your brain. That’s why it’s of primary importance that you take care of your brain health. Your brain, like any muscle can be exercised and strengthened. In today’s show, we talk about how you can optimize your brain health for innovation and creativity.

Good News for Your Brain

Reading the Chicago Tribune, I came across an interesting article by Leslie Barker. The article reveals research findings from the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas. At the forefront of the research is Sandra Bond Chapman, founder of the Center for Brain Health. The research indicates that we can strengthen our brain and improve our brain health. If you’re thinking Sudoku, think again. And while I do practice some of these tips for brain health, there is room for improvement. Since I plan to be in the innovation game for life, brain health is essential. So, I’ll be working on these. I hope you’ll join me.

Steps to Brain Health

What’s good for your body is also good for your brain. Want to increase your brain bandwidth to maximize your innovation and creativity output? Do you fear the potential diseases of Dementia and Alzheimer’s? Maybe someone in your family has gone through one of these cognitive diseases. Don’t sit back and give up because the disease is in the genes. There’s hope to increase your brain’s potential and minimize decline.

Physical Exercise

First, getting physical exercise increases your brain health. The higher your fitness level, the better your brain wiring. Exercise can increase the number of pathways through your brain and widen pathways. This can only increase your ability for innovation and creativity. Physical fitness may also slow cognitive decline. Conversely, if you let your body get out of shape, your brain will follow. To slow or prevent the development of Dementia or Alzheimer’s, stay active. The study recommends 30 minutes most days. I’ll admit, this doesn’t come easy for me. While my wife is great at keeping an exercise regimen, this is something I have to get better at. Set the goal and make exercise a habit for your brain health.

Five by Five

The second step for brain health is to take five -minute breaks five times a day. It’s what we call five by five. Breaks can mean getting up from your desk and taking a walk outside or even staying at your desk, but unplugging from work. In the office, I sometimes sit back in my chair at my cubicle, close my eyes, and take a short break. As CEO, I do this in full view of my team as we are all in cubicles. In this way, I let them know it’s ok to take a brain break. If you’re a leader, I encourage you to model this with your team. Those of us in the innovation game put our brain under a lot of pressure and stress. By doing five by five brain breaks, the benefits are all around. Brain health improves innovation and creativity. Remember five by five.

Quit Multitasking: Focus

The third step to brain health is to stop multitasking. This one goes hand in hand with the “F” in the innovation framework FIRE. That is focus. If you are doing multiple tasks at once, the quality of your work declines and the potential for mistakes increases. The time it takes to do these tasks increases. By focusing on a single task, your ideas will have greater depth and quality. Even better, you are exercising your brain when you focus on one thing at a time. In the office, when I need deep focus, I put my earbuds in and listen to instrumental music. No lyrics and low volume. This helps to minimize the background office noise and keep me focused on the one task ...

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Decision-making: OODA Loop for Fast and Accurate Decisions S14 Ep33

“ The time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something.

—ANTOINE DE SAINT EXUPéRY

When the enemy is in close pursuit, there’s not a lot of time to decide what’s next. Fighter pilots are trained to make decisions fast. It’s a decision that could mean life or death. And fast is not enough. Fighter pilots must make fast and accurate decisions. Decision-making is critical in innovation too. Freezing, making the wrong move, or having a slow process for decision-making can mean endgame. A competitor will swoop in and take over, leaving you in the dust. What works for fighter pilots may work for you. It’s called the OODA Loop.

Speed up the Pace

Continuing the series on innovation leadership skill sets, this show addresses a question from a number of listeners. The question centers on decision-making. You’ve been trying to stand up an innovation effort in your organization. But, the decision process through the organization is slow. How can you speed up decision-making?

What has worked for me over the years is the OODA Loop. It’s a military framework for decision-making. A military leader developed the OODA Loop to train pilots to make swift, critical decisions. The OODA Loop helps pilots in crisis situations. It trains them to avoid rote thinking and solve immediate problems creatively. This decision-making framework translates well beyond the military. It has had wide use across business, industry, and organizations.

What it Means

OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. These are the steps to take to making fast and accurate decisions. The Loop is the repeat of the steps until you arrive at the solution. The OODA loop guides you to look and evaluate a variety of things, test them, and act on them. Based on the result, you go back through the OODA loop again until you can get to a solution. Each time you go through the loop, you add what you learned from the last loop. If your first run through the OODA Loop doesn’t resolve the issue, on the next Loop, you know what to change.

The Steps

Observe

Collect data – this could be hard data, customer surveys and feedback, sales numbers, competitor’s sales info
Gather information from observing – customers, competitors
Rapidly gather as much information as possible accurately.
This will never be complete, but don’t let that delay you.

Orient

Identify the barriers to decision-making
Recognize biases – “we’ve always done it this way”
Traditions — competitors will predict your move based on them
Beware of confirmation bias – leaning on what’s worked in the past
Sift through the overflow of information to pull out essential elements
Synthesize information gathered in unique and different ways

Decide

Use the information observed and orientated to make informed decision
Choose the most relevant option
Avoid first conclusion bias – don’t make the same decision over and over again if the outcome was negative

Act

Act quickly on the rational decision
Test it, experiment
If it doesn’t work, go back through the OODA Loop
Use the results to feed into the OODA Loop

Keep in mind that you need to cycle through the OODA Loop very fast. Don’t stay in any one step of the Loop for any length of time. The quick- paced, continuous loop improves decision-making. With each cycle, it’s a feedback mechanism.