Building a High Potential Pool for Executive Hiring – Approaches and Criteria

Roopesh Panchasra will lead a lab on executive hiring. He will start off the lab off by briefly introducing a framework to guide the group discussion that follows. Lab participants will discuss and learn about the following:

• What criteria organizations use to identify internal talent with high potential for executive positions
• How do organizations establish their criteria, measure the program’s impact, and nurture and adapt it – and how do they continue to build the talent pool and reassess its members
  

Running on Empty: Reimagining Healthy Workplaces in an Age of Overwhelm and Burnout

Reports of stress, mental ill health and burnout appear in the press every day, with people describing themselves working longer hours, facing higher workloads and dealing with more demands at home and at work than they have ever known before. Given half of the working population now describe themselves as ‘overextended’ at work, the feelings of overwhelm that people report suggest that a large proportion of the global workforce may not yet be in burnout, but without remedial action, may soon succumb. We have now reached a point where employers ignore burnout at their peril. We are in the middle of a global mental health crisis with negative emotions such as worry, stress, anger and sadness reaching record levels. 7 in 10 employees now say they are currently struggling or suffering, rather than thriving in their lives overall. To put an end to disengagement and the talent drain that many organisations are currently witnessing, we need to create a future where organisations are radically re-imagined. In this session, we will explore what a future of retention, engagement and sustainable performance might look like with employees and employers co-creating a shared vision of what it means to lead a healthy work life and how work fits into a life well-lived. We will explore the actions that need to be taken at individual and organizational level to move us towards reciprocity and collective action in order to design future workplaces for that benefit the mental health and well-being of all.

Leading for Sustainable Innovation: Building a Culture of Collaboration and Effective Innovation

The heart of innovation is the combination of two ideas that have never before combined. Thus, the notion of connecting diverse perspectives is essential. But how can leaders build a culture that encourages bringing ideas together? Building on extensive research and decades of experience, Professor Erickson will help you identify specific approaches with the greatest potential for improving collaboration within your organisation.

• Use a seven-part assessment to evaluate your organisation’s “Collaborative Capacity”
  
• Identify the greatest opportunities for improvement
  
• Gain specific suggestions for action
  

Creating Safe Spaces and Fostering Brave, Focused, and Curious Behaviors

Maeve O’Sullivan will moderate a group discussion on how to leverage Campfires to create safe spaces and foster brave, focused, and curious behaviors to drive an innovation culture. She will introduce the tools for the subsequent group discussion session. The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Explore how to translate the Leadership Playground principles within own contexts
• Understand how to create safe spaces and involve people in safe conversations to drive a culture of innovation
• Learn and apply the tools to engage people in safe conversations and brave, curious, and focused behaviors
• Harvest the discussion results

The Futures of China – Leveraging Scenarios to Inform Corporate Innovation, Marketing and HR Strategies and Long-Term Plans

Björn Theis will lead a lab on leveraging scenarios to inform strategic involvement in China. He will briefly introduce the large-scope scenario study Evonik has conducted and share the main strategic findings. This will be followed by a group workshop.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the scenarios and the most important strategic insights for each of the scenarios
• Work in groups on a selected research question focused on innovation, marketing, or HR
• Use the future wheel approach to identify the consequences of the main development with respect to the group’s research question
• Work as a group to determine how to respond to the challenges and opportunities the results of the future wheel present
• Harvest the workshop’s results

5 Things You Need to Do Now to Augment Your Human Workforce with Automation

Augmented businesses perform better than their counterparts on multiple levels – including business, finance and employee engagement. By freeing people from the repetitive and mundane tasks, but also by enabling human-machine collaboration, augmented businesses further enhance innovation and creativity. This lab offers a framework for organizations to augment their workforce through optimizing work for people and machines, and encouraging collaboration between people and machines. Dr. Chris Brauer will start off the lab with a foundational presentation followed by group discussions, based on his making-work-human framework. Lab participants will:

• Get to know the five main challenges in augmenting work, and learn how organizations can tackle these to develop augmented services, data, and culture
• Work in groups to assess a real job description filtering the role’s tasks using the making-work-human framework in order to redefine the job for the purpose of increasing creativity and innovation via human-machine collaboration

Leading for Sustainable Innovation: Building a Culture of Collaboration and Effective Innovation

The heart of innovation is the combination of two ideas that have never before combined. Thus, the notion of connecting diverse perspectives is essential. But how can leaders build a culture that encourages bringing ideas together? Building on extensive research and decades of experience, Professor Erickson will help you identify specific approaches with the greatest potential for improving collaboration within your organisation.

• Use a seven-part assessment to evaluate your organisation’s “Collaborative Capacity”
  
• Identify the greatest opportunities for improvement
  
• Gain specific suggestions for action
  

Experience Design – Creating End-to-End Customer Experience

Nina Warburton will lead a lab on leveraging experience design for an end-to-end customer experience. She will briefly introduce the approach and explain how it allows the organization to identify and address issues in customer experience. This will be followed by a group workshop.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the benefits of experience design and learn how to leverage the ’living wall’ to identify issues in customer experience
  
• Work in groups on leveraging experience design
  
• Harvest the workshop’s results
  

Leveraging Innovation for Circular Economy at Scale – and Overcoming Linear Lock-Ins

Markus Zils will lead a lab on circular economy. He will provide a quick introduction to the core principles and building blocks of a circular economy. Markus will explain how innovation can be a pivotal driver for circularity within organizations and value chains. This will be followed by a group discussion.
Lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the building blocks of capturing value and scaling circular economy innovation
• Work together on a discussion starter case for exploring value creation opportunities through systems-wide innovations
• Discuss how to address the design and innovation challenges in the accelerated transition towards a circular economy at scale
• Harvest the workshop’s results

Creating Safe Spaces and Fostering Brave, Focused, and Curious Behaviors

Maeve O’Sullivan will moderate a group discussion on how to leverage Campfires to create safe spaces and foster brave, focused, and curious behaviors to drive an innovation culture. She will introduce the tools for the subsequent group discussion session. The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Explore how to translate the Leadership Playground principles within own contexts
• Understand how to create safe spaces and involve people in safe conversations to drive a culture of innovation
• Learn and apply the tools to engage people in safe conversations and brave, curious, and focused behaviors
• Harvest the discussion results

The Futures of China – Leveraging Scenarios to Inform Corporate Innovation, Marketing and HR Strategies and Long-Term Plans

Björn Theis will lead a lab on leveraging scenarios to inform strategic involvement in China. He will briefly introduce the large-scope scenario study Evonik has conducted and share the main strategic findings. This will be followed by a group workshop.
The lab participants will learn and work on the following:

• Understand the scenarios and the most important strategic insights for each of the scenarios
• Work in groups on a selected research question focused on innovation, marketing, or HR
• Use the future wheel approach to identify the consequences of the main development with respect to the group’s research question
• Work as a group to determine how to respond to the challenges and opportunities the results of the future wheel present
• Harvest the workshop’s results

Striking the Balance: Navigating Corporate-Startup Collaboration with Do’s and Don’ts

The lab workshop provides an interactive format to discuss and conclude good practices on startup & corporate venturing. Attendees will gain insights into H&M Region Central’s open innovation lab’s top lessons learned and will then discuss how to accelerate their impact as corporate innovation executives.

5 Things You Need to Do Now to Augment Your Human Workforce with Automation

Augmented businesses perform better than their counterparts on multiple levels – including business, finance and employee engagement. By freeing people from the repetitive and mundane tasks, but also by enabling human-machine collaboration, augmented businesses further enhance innovation and creativity. This lab offers a framework for organizations to augment their workforce through optimizing work for people and machines, and encouraging collaboration between people and machines. Dr. Chris Brauer will start off the lab with a foundational presentation followed by group discussions, based on his making-work-human framework. Lab participants will:

• Get to know the five main challenges in augmenting work, and learn how organizations can tackle these to develop augmented services, data, and culture
• Work in groups to assess a real job description filtering the role’s tasks using the making-work-human framework in order to redefine the job for the purpose of increasing creativity and innovation via human-machine collaboration