Design Thinking or Thinking Outside The Box -Luciano The Key Santini

Hello my friends and I would like to thank all who continue to believe in my abilities to be your service provider whether as an individual or your business. One think that I would like to start talking about is what is called Design Thinking what is design thinking?

Design thinking as a process for problem-solving

Unlike analytical thinking, design thinking is a process which includes the "building up" of ideas, with few, or no, limits on breadth during a "brainstorming" phase.^[13] This helps reduce fear of failure in the participant(s) and encourages input and participation from a wide variety of sources in the ideation phases. The phrase "thinking outside the box" has been coined to describe one goal of the brainstorming phase and is encouraged, since this can aid in the discovery of hidden elements and ambiguities in the situation and discovering potentially faulty assumptions.

One version of the design thinking process has seven stages: define, research, ideate, prototype, choose, implement, and learn.^[2] Within these seven steps, problems can be framed, the right questions can be asked, more ideas can be created, and the best answers can be chosen. The steps aren't linear; can occur simultaneously and be repeated.

 A simpler expression of the process is Robert McKim's phrase "Express–Test–Cycle".^[3] An alternative five-phase description of the process is described by Christoph Meinel and Larry Leifer: (re)defining the problem, need finding and benchmarking, ideating, building, testing.

I have to tell you that when I took this class in business school I took it to fulfill a credit and had no idea how important this would be someday in business and though it has been around for a long time. I never thought the need for it but I realized that I have been doing this for such a long time for businesses I just called thinking outside the box with the belief that for every problem there is a solution. 

The one thing that I have always believed and has embedded in my mind from one of my professors and mentors is that a leader can come up with great ideas and great programs but if that leader has no idea how to get people to buy into the new idea and then if that happens the the BIG ONE the EXECUTION must happen and that is where the problems comes in EXECUTION is where most so called leaders will fail.

This is what I see when I assist businesses: What I see is that leaders in that organization will come up with great ideas and then just push them on to other supervisors and expect them to execute and what happens here is that they will fail. Then the Leader will do what most do and that is blame the supervisor for not executing correctly. The fact is as follows which is that the leader should have been extremely clear in execution process to assist and put their supervisors for success and not failure.

The crazy thing regarding this process is that it is OK if we fail.

Your failure may prove to be an asset, provided you know why you failed.

Napoleon Hill

There are a few occasions during our brief time on earth when most of us experience great flashes of insight, great moments of truth that forever change the course of our lives. Most of those experiences result from spectacular failures, not from outstanding successes. 

It is from the failures that so chagrined and dismayed us that we learn the most lasting lessons. When you are the unwilling recipient of a great moment of truth, extract the useful lessons and then put the entire episode behind you. Learn from your failures, forget about them, and move on to better things. 

To Know What You Do Not Know And Admitted Is Key To Business And Life-Luciano The Key Santini

Good morning everyone and how is everyone doing this wonderful day. Thank you to all who follow me and continue to inspire me to write for you and for all the great comments and suggestions. Know what you do not know and admitted that you need help understanding a concept or a task will give you more credibility then doing a task and not know what you are doing and never asking for clarity.

Here I am facilitating a great seminar on Leadership

People who will try to stay up with a knowledge based person but who will never admit to their incompetence. I find this sometimes to actually hinder a business person because this does not mean that the person is stupid it simply means this person does not know or understand. The person however will be considered stupid when they do not admit that they need help to understand what they do not understand in the first place.

Incompetence

Sam Ashe-Edmunds has been writing and lecturing for decades. He has worked in the corporate and nonprofit arenas as a C-Suite executive, serving on several nonprofit boards

Incompetence means different things to different people, but generally it denotes the inability to do a job to a satisfactory standard. If an employee completes a task on time, without errors and the way he was asked to do the work, the employee is considered competent. If the final product goes beyond what was asked of the employee, the employee is more than competent.

 Indicators of incompetence include work being submitted late, over budget, with errors or requiring considerable help from others. There is always the other side to this story and that is  that sometimes the person who asks someone to do or complete a task either does not know how to do the task themselves or they gave the wrong instructions to begin with. This happens more then the professional world wants to believe.

Poor Communication

Just because you give someone instructions doesn’t mean you’ve done your job. A competent employee asks coworkers or clients if they received the message, if they understand it and if they can meet the request. Waiting until deadline to learn that a project won’t be delivered is another form of incompetence -- you should check in with key stakeholders during the course of a project to evaluate its status. If you are not able to properly and clearly communicate your thoughts or your superiors’ instructions to others, leading to problems at work, you are not competent to work with others, no matter how good your intentions.

How often does this happen when your boss tells to do a task and then you have no idea how or what to do? This also happens all the time I see this on a daily basis with organizations and well it is funny to see but not funny on the consequences for the unfortunate people who receive the tasks but no real direction from those who have given the task.

It is a reality that most organizations know is happening but tend to ignore due to lack of communication skills or lack of having skills to resolve any kind of conflict.

Employee engagement
Here is another huge issue in all organizations large or small non profit or for profit. This issue is across the board through out the world. Employee engagement doe snot happen by OSMOSIS, believe when I tell you it does not happen by OSMOSIS it really does not!! I hope I made that very very clear because some leaders!! believe it does and yes it makes me laugh to see this take place in front of my eyes and then I ask did they understand what you just said and the reaction is of course they did they have been here for a long time.

Then I ask another question: Do you know what you just asked them to do? The answer is yes of course. I then ask for an explanation and of course this where it starts to get clear to me that NO!! they did not know what they asked they only knew what it meant and how it should take place theoretically and that is where the problem lies in most organizations.

Most (Leaders)  theory works in the real world and guess what?
THEORY:

  THEORY (noun)
  The noun THEORY has 3 senses: 1. a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena- I like this one but never the less it is accepted knowledge and the key word here is variety
2. a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena- This one well I believe it is self explanatory.
3. a belief that can guide behavior- Key word here is guide!!

Josh Bersin

Contributor

Creating a high performance work environment is a complex problem. We have to communicate a mission and values, train managers and leaders to live these values, and then carefully select the right people who fit. And once people join, we have to continuously improve, redesign, and tweak the work environment to make it modern, humane, and enjoyable.
And despite the simple models engagement vendors use, the reasons for low engagement and turnover are varied.

• Some companies are going through transition and the leadership and management hasn’t re-engaged people.
• In others the workload is too high and the performance management process is flawed.
• Others have a lack of investment in development and talent mobility, making it difficult for high performers to advance.
• Some have a non-inclusive culture (perhaps as a result of history) and cannot attract and retain today’s more diverse workforce.
• Others just have old fashioned working conditions that simply make work difficult.

Our research shows that building a highly engaged workforce takes combination of many things, each impacting people in different ways. And with the influx of younger workers and the proliferation of technology at work, the whole environment has to be more flexible and transparent.

When We Assume In Life And Business OOOPS!-- ASS-U-ME ---Luciano The Key Santini

Good morning to all my continued readers and supporters of this great journey to assist people reach their potential as individuals and also business owners reach their goals in life and business. We all want to accomplish what is best for both the mind and body. We should understand exactly what that means.

Sometimes we will try to accomplish things because they sound good at the time while not getting the correct mind set in place and thus we find ourselves failing. The other thing for today is to have a clear understanding regarding leadership and as we all know countless books have been written over the last hundred years on this subject.

Don’t overlook small details. Remember that the universe and all that is in it are made from tiny atoms.

There is an old expression that says, “If you take care of the little things, the big things will take care of themselves.” It’s another way of saying that every job is composed of many small details, any one of which, if overlooked, can create big problems later. If you have trouble dealing with details — paperwork, expense accounts, and other annoying details — set aside a time during your work cycle (daily, weekly, or monthly) to deal with such unpleasant tasks. 

 

Prepare yourself mentally to deal with those tasks, and you may find that you dispense with them quickly and efficiently. You may even find that the job wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as you expected it to be. 

 

What is leadership?

I can tell you that most leaders today are called leaders but they have no idea what leadership is. I can also tell you from the countless people that I have coached both at a supervisor level or an executive level that most manage or lead through fear or simply put they lead by power of position in other words what I say goes or go look or find another job. 

I can tell you that this work for a while but most will eventually fail. My friend and one of my many mentors and friends has stated what it means to be a leader and of course I agree but have disagreed with him in the past and guess what that just makes me human with a different way of looking at things. Here what I wrote to an executive leader regarding a letter he had sent me. 

Please be aware that all this is under the assumption that your leaders know and have a clear understanding regarding implementation and execution of the strategic plan and what each mean such as:

What is and how to execute successfully transformational change to be able to create a high performance culture which in turn becomes integration between both companies.

 

Communication skills: What is the process of not only transmission of words but to create the thought that  will or should follow making sure it was clearly understood.

 

Relationship building skills: What is the process of repairing a damaged relationship between partners? Or Staff members?

 

Building and getting the buy in of employers.

 

Leadership: January 2015 | byClaudio Feser, Fernanda Mayol, and Ramesh Srinivasan

 

• Solving problems effectively. The process that precedes decision making is problem solving, when information is gathered, analyzed, and considered. This is deceptively difficult to get right, yet it is a key input into decision making for major issues  as well as daily ones (such as how to handle a team dispute).
• Operating with a strong results orientation. Leadership is about not only developing and communicating a vision and setting objectives but also following through to achieve results. Leaders with a strong results orientation tend to emphasize the importance of efficiency and productivity and to prioritize the highest-value work.
• Seeking different perspectives. This trait is conspicuous in managers who monitor trends affecting organizations, grasp changes in the environment, encourage employees to contribute ideas that could improve performance, accurately differentiate between important and unimportant issues, and give the appropriate weight to stakeholder concerns. Leaders who do well on this dimension typically base their decisions on sound analysis and avoid the many biases to which decisions are prone.
• Supporting others. Leaders who are supportive understand and sense how other people feel. By showing authenticity and a sincere interest in those around them, they build trust and inspire and help colleagues to overcome challenges. They intervene in group work to promote organizational efficiency, allaying unwarranted fears about external threats and preventing the energy of employees from dissipating into internal conflict.

He believed that leadership was simply making and changing policies and sending out to supervisors to implement.Remember that sometimes we think we know it all simply because we are sitting in a position of power and sometimes that is where we will fail as leaders because we assume and we all know what that means right and if not please allow me to remind ourselves.

When we do not make sure whether something is right or wrong or we simply do not know or understand and we push and push by assuming the other person has a clear understanding what we mean. 

When we 

assume the consequence can make us look like an ASS-U-ME

This is what a client drew and gave to me and I was very flattered and thankful. WOW!!