Successful companies have innovation in their blood. The single most important element in an innovative company is the creativity of their people. Creative thinkers dont win by conforming to a given set of rules. Rather they reinvent the game by asking the 20 challenging questions and following 20 breakthrough strategies.

20 Challenging Questions to Ask:

1. What if....?
2. What do you think about....?
3. What's the next step?
4. What can we do better?
5. How can we streamline?
6. What should we modify?
7. What should we replace?
8. What should we add?
9. What should we eliminate?
10. Can we make any new assumptions?
11. What will make it work?
12. What other ideas do you have?
13. What issues should we explore?
14. What patterns can you see?
15. How can we simplify?
16. How can we improve?
17. How will the customer benefit?
18. Have we forgotten anything?
19. What else?
20. Why?

20 Break Through Strategies to Follow:

1. Innovate for today as well as tomorrow.
2. Focus on what you can reasonably doand stretch a bit.
3. Make innovation part of the day-to-day operations.
4. Develop a company-wide innovation process.
5. Assign responsibility to one person or team for the innovative process.
6. Provide incentives if you want your people to be creative.
7. Reward the whole team, not just individuals.
8. Train everyone in your companys innovation process.
9. Focus innovation efforts on market needs & opportunities.
10. Target value and results instead of novelty.
11. Abandon old and the obsolete ways, but do so systematically.
12. Set high goals, but reward small improvements.
13. Focus on new and different as well as better and more.
14. Ask, Is this the right opportunity?
15. Establish specific accountabilities and targets.
16. Understand that innovation can require long lead time.
17. Accept innovation is an absolute survival skill.
18. Keep innovating; todays success is built on yesterdays results.
19. Remember, innovation is both hard work and fun.
20. Start small, but START.

Marcia Zidle

Marcia Zidle, M.S. N.C.C., the ?people smarts? coach, works with business, government and community leaders to quickly solve their people management headaches so they can concentrate on their #1 job ? to grow and increase profits. Her services include:

• What Really Works Handbooks ? resources for managers and supervisors on the front line
• Power-by-the-Hour Programs ? fast, convenient, real life, affordable courses for leadership and staff development
• Your Strategic Partner ? support to leaders who are in positions of high expectations, high visibility and high payoff.

Marcia is founder of Leadership Hooks, a business coaching company, which helps executive teams, operations managers, business owners and agency directors to move their organizations from seat-of-the-pants to feet-on-the-ground leadership.

She brings over 20 years experience from a wide variety of workplace settings, countries, and industries including: health care, financial services, professional practices, automotive and light manufacturing, energy, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, event management, education, non-profits, local and state government.

Finally, Marcia's ?claim to fame? is experiencing expatriate living with her family in Scandinavia and Australia. She has traveled in over 30 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Far East, and South Pacific. She welcomes invitations to speak internationally so that she can add to her growing list of interesting places to explore.