Stan Gryskiewicz
Positive Turbulence describes a climate that values and seeks novelty.
More Positive Turbulence Resources
Get Stan’s book: Positive Turbulence: Developing Climates for Creativity, Innovation, and Renewal. Sold on Amazon
Get Rob’s Book: Innovations in Strategy Crafting. The e-book edition is sold on Sierra Learning Solutions.
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What is Positive Turbulence?
Positive Turbulence describes a climate that values and seeks novelty.
Positive Turbulence mixes novelty with the known and the familiar resulting in an energizing tone compatible with change by providing stimuli to motivated people who are looking for ways to make their own contributions to the renewal and success of the organization.
Leaders who foster creativity in organizations create a culture that values and seeks novelty from the outside. These outside sources include a changing economy, new technology, here-to-fore unknown competition, shifting demographics, social trends, and more. A manager and an organization that keeps on the lookout for these changing forces while simultaneously managing them for innovation can create novel and useful ideas and processes that solve the often-complex problems associated with change. Creative leaders create the meaning, set the tone for this culture and also a climate compatible with change. This reality has always been present but now that we operate in a global context and a wired world, the changes come faster and from more exotic sources than ever before in history.
Positive Turbulence begins with the recognition that change is inevitable. It then provides ways to keep change manageable and apply it to an organization’s strategic advantage. Asserting that creativity need not be random, Gryskiewicz outlines a proactive process for bringing new information into an organization, making sense of it, and translating it into novel ideas that are both useful and actionable. With a variety of examples from history, organizations large and small, and even jazz groups, he provides real-world examples of how Positive Turbelence at your company will help ensure its vitality in a hyper-competitive, rapidly changing world.
Dr. Gryskiewicz is a consultant and an international authority in leadership, creativity, innovation and change management. An author, a keynote speaker, and a researcher, he has explored these topics domestically and globally. His Ph.D. is in Organizational Psychology from the University of London.. His experience stretches across organizations such as the World Bank, Moscow G.V. Plekhanov Institute of National Economy, the Singapore Productivity and Innovation Board, the Japan Management Association, and the United Nations University International Leadership Academy. In 1993, he was named Senior Fellow, Creativity and Innovation, a special position of honor granted by the Center for Creative Leadership for distinguished service and international recognition.
He is currently Board Chair of the organization he founded in 1981 entitled the Association for Managers of Innovation (AMI), which is a network of professionals who manage the innovation process. The AMI was recognized in 2001 by Fast Company magazine as a “meeting to never miss” and a “forum for large-scale change.” In 2008 AMI became a separate corporate entity receiving nonprofit status in spring 2010.
He has published on individual, team, and organizational creativity and innovation. His thinking on renewal, strategic innovation and proactive change management is captured in his book entitled Positive Turbulence and was published by Jossey-Bass. His other works include the production of an award winning videotape entitled Creativity in Organizations: A Jazz Musicians Perspective with trumpeter Bobby Bradford, an edited volume of collected papers on theory, research and applications entitled Readings in Innovation, and Making Creativity Practical.
Episode 1, Part 1 (30 mins)
Making Meaning with Mary
Meet the designer and leader of the Design Management and Arts and Cultural Management programs at the Pratt Institute, Mary…
Episode 3, Part 1 (40 mins)
Flooding Insurance with Positivity
Jim Albert, data whizz kid and innovator in multiple industries. Lately, he’s turned his attention Flood Insurance going up against…
Turbulating College With Confidence
In this episode, we talk to Emilia Wiles, the founder and CEO of College Confident, an organization whose mission is…
Elements of Positive Turbulence
Chapter 13 in Innovations in Strategy Crafting, by Rob Brodnick and Stan Gryskiewicz summarizes the 10 key elements of positive turbulence this way:
Periphery
Pay Attention to the Periphery (Periphery)
Look beyond your day to day, pay attention to trends, events, innovations.
Encourage Nonlinear Thinking (Non-linear)
Nonlinear thinking is when someone seems to make “quantum leaps” or connect seemingly random dots.
New Patterns of Communication (Communication)
Running into too much resistance? Try changing up how you are communicating.
Embrace Change and Diversity (Diversity)
Diversity is not just differnt skin tones, genders, and sexual identiies, it’s different experiences, different ways modes of expression. Seek cognitive diversity
Open Flow for the Arts and Technology (Open Flow)
Open yourself, your orgnaization to fresh ideas and creative energy from the arts and technology
Bring Positive Turbulence to Teams (Teams)
Give up the old command and contral model and instead foster positive turbulence on your team(s).
Keep Turbulence Positive (Positive)
Don’t blame others when things go sideways, look for the positive and reframe the challenge.
Manage the Intensity of Turbulence (Intensity)
Don’t try to boil the ocean. Allow your team time to adjust.
Ensure Periods of Renewal (Renewal)
ITurbulence, even if its positive can be intense. Everyone needs down time, time to reflect and time to process.
Be Intentional About Positive Turbulence as Strategy (Intentional)
Setting an intention to generate positive turbulenace as a core strategy will transform your organizartion. more…
Buy Rob’s book: Innovations in Strategy Crafting and check out Chapter 13, Positive Turbulence. This chapter is co-written Stan Gryskiewicz and Rob Brodnick.
You can buy the e-book directly from Sierra Learning Solutions.