Group items tagged

You often hear this from idea entrepreneurs: Don’t ask us for the answers. Let us help you frame the questions, so you can answer them yourself.

At Jump, they prefer to brainstorm with a variation of a technique pioneered in improv theater. A comic offers the first sentence of a story, which lurches into a (hopefully funny) tale, when someone else says, “Yes, and?” then adds another sentence, which leads to another “Yes, and?”— and back and forth it goes. In the context of brainstorming, what was once a contest is transformed into a group exercise in storytelling. It has turned into a collaboration.

Why now? Why did innovation-mania take hold in the last decade or so? One school of thought holds that corporations both rise and die faster than ever today, placing a premium on the speedy generation of ideas.

Other ideas entrepreneurs offer a “great man” theory, pointing to the enormous influence of Clayton M. Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor and an author of books including “The Innovator’s Dilemma”and “Innovation and the General Manager.”

Dev Patnaik of Jump has his own answer to the why-now question. He contends that advances in technology over the past three decades have gradually forced management to reconceive its role in the corporation, shifting its focus from processing data to something more esoteric.

“Suddenly it’s about something else. Suddenly it’s about leadership, creativity, vision. Those are the differentiating things, right?” Patnaik draws an analogy to painting, which for centuries was all about rendering reality as accurately as possible, until a new technology — photography — showed up, throwing all those brush-wielding artists into crisis.

Most idea entrepreneurs offer what could be described as Osborn deluxe. Govindarajan, the Dartmouth professor, presents companies with what he calls the three-box framework. In Box 1, he puts everything a company now does to manage and improve performance. Box 2 is labeled “selectively forgetting the past,” his way of urging clients to avoid fighting competitors and following trends that are no longer relevant. Box 3 is strategic thinking about the future. “Companies spend all of their time in Box 1, and think they are doing strategy,” he says. “But strategy is really about Box 2 and 3 — the challenge to create the future that will exist in 2020.” He recommends to clients what he calls the 30-30 rule: 30 percent of the people who make strategic decisions should be 30 years old or younger.

Do rewards motivate people? Absolutely. They motivate people to get rewards. When people use rewards to motivate, that’s when they’re demotivating.

once an activity is associated with an external reward, people are less inclined to participate in the activity without a reward present.

We want pupils to develop their intrinsic motivation.

Elementary students in Finland often have the SAME teacher for up to SIX YEARS of their education.

Finland understands that the ability to teach isn’t something that can be gained from studying. It is usually a gift and passion.  Some have it, some don’t.

They do not try to interfere or usurp their authority and decisions.

Study after study

Imagine all of the exciting things you could do with your students if there wasn’t a giant state test looming over your head every year.  Imagine the freedom you could have if your pay wasn’t connected to your student’s test scores.  Imagine how much more fun and engaging your lessons would be!

teachers take their time.  They look deeper into the topic and don’t panic if they are a little behind or don’t cover every topic in the existence of mathematics in a single year.

math ONCE a week

The students get to actually understand the material before they are forced on to a new topic.

Finnish students have the least amount of homework in the world.  They average under half an hour of homework a night.  Finnish students typically do not have outside tutors or lessons either.

I won’t give you homework if you work on this while you are in my classroom.”

Trust is key