An addition to a way of creating “thinking time” is to use one of the concepts from Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s way” – Morning pages.
I found that this method works very well, since all it takes is to write 3 pages of text each and every morning as the very first activity you do. These 3 pages of text has to be written without any stops or breaks at all – just one constant string of writing. This practices a fluent thought flow and therefore a direct approach to creative and innovative thoughts.

You ask an excellent question. Many executive believe they merely need to ask for an innovation culture and it will be so. Nothing could be futher from the truth. Establishing a culture of winning through innovation requires constant engagement.

Executives must first and foremost make their commitment to innovation something that is not only heard by others in the organization, but something that is seen, felt, and believed. This means that they must actively drive it, support it, and provide the resources to make it happen.

The innovation agenda must also be highly visible as part of the corporate plan. The plan must be visible to all employees and expressed in such a way that each worker can have line-of-sight visibility to how their specific role contributes to the plan. These same worker must be encourage to constructively provide feedback as to how they increase their contribution to the plan.

Mangers at every level need to reinforce these concepts by working with employees to establish measurable goals around the business plan and the supporting innovation agenda.

Reward systems must also completment the goal messages. Good employees will always respond when they believe they are part of a meritocracy that rewards contributors who take initiative, who are always thinking about how to create new value for the company, who deliver results, and are the avatars of responsible leadership at every level in the organization.

Dirk, I understand the value of meeting face-to-face. However, I do not believe this value is high enough to justify for the amount of time it consumes. I also believe that we have gotten better to pick up the emotions when we communicate virtually. At least for me, I do not see this as a big issue.

When this is said, we really have to acknowledge that we all have different approaches to things such as time management and networking – and these differences should be respected.

Stefan

Stefan, agree with most of your points, however not with your communication priority. Agree that many things can be handled with e-mails but I have the experience that the best order = 1: Face to face; 2 : phone; 3 : e-mail & the simple reason is that you do not feel the emotions when somebody is reading your e-mail. Each telephone conversation or a contact is mostly several e-mails; more qualitative information & has a network additional benefit.

Nice post. Carving out time to address problems, think through challenges, and drive innovation is absolutely essential. We all are time challenged these days, but it really is as simple as managing priorities and resources well.

In my own situtation, I am CTO for a global technology company. I oversee many aspects of the business and have roughly half the company reporting to me. Yet, I make sure there is ample time available for the innovation type activity. By focusing my time on what is important rather that what is urgent, I am able to carve out not just one hour a week, but roughly 25% of my work time for being directly engaged in the heavylifting of innovation.

This concept is not only important for individuals, but it is also important for how managers think about resource allocation. Looking to my own experience again, I have consistantly allocated roughly 25% of my engineering resources to the research function. This may seem too excessive to some, but it has paid tremendous dividends to my company in the form of world-leading technologies that power a product with unique value for our clients.

Best regards,

Jim

Much respect though for giving a valuable contribution to time management and productivity. As we’re busier individuals, it takes great habits & realistic mindsets on what activities matter most to our career, social, love, and leisure interests.