I love cheering for my favorite teams. Whether it is my daughter’s field hockey team, one of my sons’ swim teams, or the Dutch women’s soccer team. Likewise, I love cheering on your innovation team! Turn me into a fan of yours!
Professional service organizations (such as law firms, hospitals, and consultancies), are organizations whose primary asset is a highly educated professional workforce and whose outputs are intangible services encoded with complex knowledge. As a result, these organizations differ significantly from manufacturing firms in their organizational structures, employee composition, and decision-making processes. The most valuable asset of […]
Jim Craig gave the key note at the 2018 PDMA conference. He was the goalie of the Miracle on Ice hockey team. They beat the Russians in the Olympics in 1980. His talk was inspiring. Getting to the top and winning a gold medal is a great accomplishment. Winning as an underdog is even more special. […]
When we think about innovation, we often think about iPads, Tesla cars, Space X rockets, Uber, new pharmaceuticals and other big and fancy innovations. However, most innovations do not start out as billion-dollar ideas. Rather the contrary, often small, seemingly unattractive ideas turn into impactful innovations. Unfortunately, this type of seemingly insignificant ideas often don’t […]
Are you a Do It Yourself (DIY) Innovator? Either by choice or by necessity? No worries, we have you covered. For each of the steps of the innovation process, the checklist for the do it yourself innovator explains what to focus on. The checklist The checklist provides you with: An overview that shows you what you […]
Employees are the most precious resource in law firms, engineering firms, hospitals and all other professional service organizations. Professionals are paid well, and value their paycheck. Yet, just paying your employees well is not sufficient to keep them happy. As study after study has shown, employees who feel valued perform better and stick around longer. […]
What happens with an idea, after it pops up in your head? You think about it. You read about it. Do some background research. Talk with a few people… Eventually, when it has passed these initial “sanity” checks, you may put it forward to your manager, to get his or her take on your idea […]
There are many fascinating technologies – from big data, artificial intelligence, to blockchain – that can truly enhance the services provided by lawyers, clinicians, engineers and many other professionals. However, incorporating these technologies is not going to happen by itself. Successful incorporation requires professionals to take charge, take on the role of innovation champions, and […]
Critical Do-s and Detrimental Don’t-s In December, we sent out a survey asking people what made them act upon their innovative ideas and the challenges they experienced when doing so. We are happy to report the results of this survey in this blog. Thanks again for all those who participated, your responses have been extremely […]
All the best wishes for 2018! Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous year! I had the fortune to celebrate New Years Eve with my family in the Netherlands. Traditions make that the Dutch end the year with a big bang and start the new year with a cold splash.
More and more law firms are jumping on the innovation bandwagon. Meantime, many law firms are still on the fence. In this blog we compare three ways to organize for innovation in a law firm. Depending on the size and ambitions of your firm, you may prefer one approach over another. Organizing for innovation Before diving into three […]
In the professional services, it takes an innovation champion to successfully develop and implement new services. Because new service and new business development do not revolve around the development of things only. To be of value, they must become part of a valuable service offering. The professionals who are going to develop and apply the new […]