RESPOND TO TWO CLASSMATES POST FOR BUSINESS FOSTER A CULTURE OF INNOVATION…PLEASE CITE AT LEAST ONE REFERENCE…PLEASE COMMENT ON THE CONTENT OF EACH POST….PLEASE SEAPARATE EACH POST

POST 1:

In health care patients go the facility that they know will not only take care of their illness but also treat them with respect and make their hospital stay as comfortable and less stressful as possible. Sometimes its difficult for employees to make every goal the patient has a reality but I have found that by letting them know you care and want the best for them will sometimes suffice. With that being said I would gather my staff together to brainstorm ways that we can make our patients feel valued through a tough time. I would gather health care professionals along with ancillary staff to share things they observed while working that benefited or didn’t benefit the patient experience. Dyer (2009) stated that observation is a discovery skill that produces uncommon ideas by scrutinizing common phenomena. Through observation my staff and I will build on what we’re doing correctly and what we could be doing better. For this particular project I believe convergent thinking would better aide our creativity. Puccio (2012) has 4 principles for convergent thinking. Affirmative judgment which is identifying what is good and work to overcome the flaws. Everything wont be perfect in terms of keeping our patients happy but we can learn from our shortcomings and make a negative into something positive. Another principle is keeping novelty alive. Healthcare can become very rigid especially when the prognoses for a patient isnt good but we have to remember that we don’t just treat the disease but we treat the entire person spiritually, physically and emotionally. By remembering this we can remain creative by finding different ways to cater to the whole person and not just an illness. The last two principles are staying focused and checking objectives. With any project people do there will be times where you lose sight of the goal but I belive my job as a leader would be to remind my staff through awards and a simple thank you so that they can remain focused and motivated to do their job.

References:

Dyer, J.H., Gregersen. H.B., &Christensen,C.M.,(2009). The innovator’s DNA. Harvard Business Review, 87(12). 60-67.

Puccio, G.J., Mance, M., Switalski, L.B.,& Reali, P.D. (2012). Principles for divergent and convergent thinking: becoming a better creative thinker. In creativity rising: creative thinking and creative problem solving in the 21st century (pp.51-70).

POST 2:

Innovating Customer Loyalty Program at Kendrick Auto Group

Customer loyalty is an important aspect that organizations need to pursue in order to enjoy high market share, and revenues. Wise leaders often rally their members of staff in a manner that facilitate achievement of loyalty among its potential clients. These managers do so by using a number of initiatives geared towards satisfying clients and giving them an experience, which matches with their pre-consumption perceptions. In Kendrick Auto Group, my primary responsibility is to establish a team that has the requisite skills and innovation to harness the benefits accrued from client loyalty. Being the new manager in the company and with a number of human resources under my leadership, I will introduce a range of strategies that will augment innovation among my team and enhance the level of loyalty among potential clients. To achieve the requisite creativity from my team, I will refrain from the ten flaws outlined by Zenger and Folkman (2009) which include lack of focus and failing to develop employees. In the department where I work, I will create flexible models of communication, delegate responsibilities where appropriate, and encourage employees to present new ideas.

Through high-end communication, I will successfully bring my team together and have them work as an entity towards a common objective of attaining client loyalty. Cui and Wu (2016) explain that high-end communication will facilitate the development of superb interpersonal relationships, which is an ingredient of success and progress in any organization. Besides encouraging the use of high-end communication, I will also challenge the human resources under my leadership to utilize components of innovation that include critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and creativity. When the members of staff practice these components, they leave their comfort zones and begin advancing new ideas that are useful in the creation of a good client loyalty program. When a leader works with employees who do not think critically and are not creative, the overall quality of innovation diminishes. Poor skills in critical thinking and creativity impede the quantity and the quality of ideas presented by the human resources (Zenger & Folkman, 2009). Therefore, the principal objective that should inform the beginning of innovation in Kendrick Auto Group should entail the act of encouraging creative and critical thinking among the employees.

After ensuring that the members of staff have excellent communication skills and can utilize their critical thinking skills to harness creativity, I will then work with them in the presentation of new innovative ideas. The central focus of the ideas is on the need to boost the scale of loyalty program tasked before my team. In precision, the relevance of working together stems from the need to analyze ideas presented by members of staff and filter those that do not have a close relationship with the issue of loyalty. Remarkably, innovation is a tool that materializes after a series of trials and prototyping. Cui and Wu (2016) elucidate that companies like Apple and Amazon have numerous trials that take place inside the trial sections and only practical ideas enter the phase of implementation and are then displayed to the consumers. Therefore, I will work closely with the employees under my leadership to ensure that we filter out unnecessary ideas and only retain those that are useful.

Cui, A., & Wu, F. (2016). Utilizing customer knowledge in innovation: antecedents and impact

of customer involvement on new product performance. Journal of the academy of marketing science, 44(4), 516-538.

Zenger, J., & Folkman, J. (2009). Ten fatal flaws that can derail leaders. Harvard Business Review, 1(3), 1-2.