To Unleash Innovative Ideas…

“Let Ideas Compete—Not People!”

Presentations and workshops for collaborative teams and the leaders who depend on them — encouraging the skillful friction of conflicting opinions as the engine that produces innovative 3rd ideas.

84% of executives say innovation is critical for success.
Only 6% are satisfied with their innovation performance.

McKinsey Global Innovation Survey

I help the 94% transition to the 6% — working with leaders, their key players, and their teams.

The problem I keep finding

Too many collaborative decisions settle for the best alternative among the knowns. The meeting ends, everyone agrees, and nothing new was created.

Do you see some of that in your organization?

And we have failed. Millions have been invested in books, consulting, training and coaching — some of it on me, across a fifty-year career. Most of us have not met the need — lots of good info, but not integrated and implemented.

The one broad exception is LEAN, built on six efficiency competencies, which has removed billions in waste worldwide. Efficiency got a system. Innovation never did — until now.

Unleashing innovation is based on these four competencies

3rd Idea Matrix

Seeking to discover the answer neither side brought into the room.

Diasuasion™ for collaboration

Dialogue and persuasion integrated into a unique approach for letting ideas compete, not people.

Peer coaching in real time

Teams that invite feedback and lift each other in real time.

Trusting yourself to fully engage

The practice that eliminates attempts at mind reading and reveals what we really need from each other to be innovative.

The skillful collision of ideas creates new and better 3rd ideas. Learning to skillfully engage passionate conflict is what hastens break-through thinking and break-out results.

How we work together

Keynote presentations

For conferences, leadership meetings and association events where the audience leaves with a usable frame, not a mood.

Workshops

For intact teams and their leaders, practicing the four competencies on the organization’s own live problems and opportunities.

Intensive Organization Renewal

Sustained work with leaders, key players and their teams, until the four competencies are how the organization actually decides.

The test is not whether people can name the four competencies. It is whether the next hard meeting runs differently.

Best fit: organizations that depend on teams to collaborate, solve problems and pursue opportunities — and leaders who need innovation from them.

Background

  • CPAE — National Speakers Association Speaker Hall of Fame
  • Certified Management Consultant, Institute of Management Consultants
  • Founding member and Past National President, National Speakers Association
  • Class of 2012, Legends of the Speaking Profession

Five decades of work in GE, and clients like IBM, Motorola, Honeywell, the U.S. Department of the Interior, various state government agencies, and a multitude of large and small organizations in Arizona and across North America and Western Europe.

Beyond all of the above, he considers his most important accomplishment to be that his grandchildren love him.

You are invited to put these competencies to work in your organization. Let’s Talk!

Tell me what your teams are wrestling with, and I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person for it.

Let’s Talk

don@DonThoren.com · 480-560-3525 · linkedin.com/in/donthoren