(3) Espresso Shots of Business Wisdom

Espresso Shots of Business Wisdom Episode #3 shares a quick thought on being an eager and active employee.

Click on the play button below to watch/listen. Enjoy.

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Comments

[Valeria Maltoni]

John... I've been thinking a lot and talking about participation this past week. I must have missed the lesson on "not talking" at work ;-) This series is invigorating.

How do we teach others to take the initiative in participating? One way is by example. What are other ways?

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

Valeria ... besides employees taking initiative to participate, project managers/meeting organizers should take the initiative to ask quiet employees to offer their perspective. That's one way we can teach others to participate.

However, since you've been thinking a lot about "participation" this week, I'm sure you have ideas to share.

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[Valeria Maltoni]

Ah, nice come back, John! Participation is not only a way to contribute in a project, it's a state of mind -- making it alright for people to come up with the next big idea. Many managers have a hard time with this one as it's ok to have good ideas that revolve around what *they* think. Innovation is about looking at the same thing with new eyes... why not welcome the new eyes with the whole brain and person attached to them?

[Christian Knoflach]

Hi everyone. Just a voice from a fresh young employee: What I think would really force participation is a clearly institutionalized culture of error and failure. Employees are afraid to bring up new ideas because they are afraid to fail, because failure is considered to be a bad thing. However, regarding creativity, failure is an important part. Making errors is natural. New ideas have to be appreciated, have to be honored and failures to be celebrated. Only if people don't fear to fail they will participate with full energy.