Friday, October 26, 2007

Innovation on a Friday???

Fridays are tough. Its the end of the work week and we are all ready to move on to something else. Usually we have fought our battles, we have pushed through on deadines, we have made our presentations and we are ready for a rest.

But I think we are missing something. Friday is also a great INNOVATION DAY! Why is that? Well think about it. Friday is the culmination of a whole week's worth of lessons, ideas, failures, brainstroms, etc. It is the synthesis day when a new idea is very likely to come together.

In fact, because Friday is a bit more laid back there is even more of a chance it can be a condiut for innovation. Many people have casual dress on Fridays. Most people are feeling a bit more light hearted.

The tightly wound work world has taken a breath.

If you harness it, that moment can be a powerful force of innvation. At HCJB Global we have worked on this in our Communciations Team. On Fridays we do 2 things:
1. We hold our team meeting to review the week, brainstorm and plot out the next.
2. We have 2-3 hours of learning time every Friday Afternoon where everyone in the team is working on some sort of learning activity.

These two simple things are producing exciting results. We are coming up with new ideas and then are ready to use them as we jump into the next week.

So many people write off Friday's from a productivity standpoint, but if you position them right, they can be your main force for innovation!

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