In my career I’ve done a fair amount of traveling. Airplanes have become a place of solace for me, ironic as that may seem. Despite opportunities to be connected to the interwebs when 38,000 kilometers from terra nova, I prefer to use this oxygen deprived fuselage to both catch up and to (re)think. The introduction of the tablet has made it even easier. The number of times I’ve received glaring eyes from my seat companion for opening up a laptop are innumerable. And bless you @pachikov for inventing Evernote. It’s my lifeline to rambling thoughts, pieces of information, things to remember, writing, photos and even a book. (more on the latter another day) My reflections on air travel, however, lead me down a path of
innovation Archive
If you haven’t noticed, I’m a big fan of trying to create simplicity from chaos. That stated, I am more comfortable when a part of (or the instigator of) chaos itself. As Churchill once said, “to improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” Perhaps my own personal leadership style is one that evokes equal parts chaos and order. Give your brain a dose of ‘mental Olympics’ and read former VISA CEO Dee Hock’s “Birth of the Chaordic Age”. The tweet version of Chaordic Theory, in essence, is a new organizational form Hock calls “simultaneously chaotic and orderly.” Chaordic is any self–organizing, adaptive, non-linear, complex system, whether physical, biological, or social, the behaviour of which exhibits characteristics of both order and chaos
I’m a proud Canadian, but on Sunday, May 27th, 2012 my level of pride exponentially increased as a result of 31 year-old Ryder Hesjedal, a native of Victoria, British Columbia, who became the first Canadian ever to win one of the three heralded Grand Tour cycling races, the Giro d’Italia. It’s akin to India winning the Olympic Gold Medal in Ice Hockey. If you’re unfamiliar with cycling and specifically the Grand Tours, imagine being on your bicycle for three weeks, pedaling between Vancouver and Chicago (3,500 km), climbing up thousands of meters of mountains while moving at an average speed of 38 km/h. Insane, I know. Imagine being 6’2 and weighing only 159 lbs to boot. Outlandish, I know. Aside from my patriotism and passion
Víctor García-Morales, Francisco Lloréns-Montes and Antonio Verdú-Jover published a paper in the British Journal of Management (December, 2008, Vol. 19 Issue 4) entitled, “The Effects of Transformational Leadership on Organizational Performance through Knowledge and Innovation”. In it they set out to prove the following hypotheses: Transformational leadership will be positively associated with knowledge slack (prior knowledge), absorptive capacity, tacitness, organizational learning and innovation. Knowledge slack will be positively associated with absorptive capacity. Absorptive capacity will be positively associated with tacitness. Tacitness will be positively associated with organizational learning. Organizational learning will be positively associated with innovation. Tacitness, organizational learning and innovation will be positively associated with performance. Size will be positively associated with strategic variables that affect organizational performance. In summary and at its core,