It’s one of the toughest challenges an executive faces: How do you get your people to think creatively—to challenge the status quo—while still keeping your everyday operations running smoothly? Innovation is not like most other business functions and activities. There are no reliable templates, rules, processes, or even measures of success. In a sense, each act of innovation is a unique feat, a leap of the individual—or the collective—imagination that
Self Development
April 29, 2025
Activation Energy and the Chemistry of Building Better Habits
There is a concept in chemistry known as activation energy. Here’s how it works: Activation energy is the minimum amount of energy that must be available for a chemical reaction to occur. Let’s say you are holding a match and that you gently touch it to the striking strip on the side of the match box. Nothing will happen because the energy needed to activate a chemical reaction and spark
April 22, 2025
Why Don’t We Know How to Protect Our Time?
The cognitive errors that make us waste our most valuable resource Credit: Westend61/Getty All day, we let it happen. A neighbor comes by and babbles on about a bunch of nonsense, and we politely nod, even if we are in a hurry. Or some co-workers start gossiping about something petty, and we let ourselves get drawn in, never stopping to think about the time wasted. Or we get a message