Frankly, your creative place may not be a physical location. It could be a particular state of mind. It could be a certain mood, time of day, or the type of music that you are listening to at the time. It could be something you do such as driving or walking. Or it could be any combination of the above.

Every employee has at least one place that focuses the mind and puts them in a more inspired state. Not a state that will necessarily lead to a nuclear fusion breakthrough, or the next generation of computer chip. But it could be a state that helps them think through a more creative presentation, design a more environmentally-friendly container, improve the profitability of a company service offering, or find a more efficient way to process expense reports.

A company’s challenge is to help find those places for employees where they can be more innovative. Most companies insist that employees produce results in sterile environments under rigid conditions. Ask yourself this question: if you were using your own money to fund a composer to come up with a great score for your next blockbuster movie, would you insist that he or she do it between 9 to 5 on a Tuesday in the small conference room down the hall? I don’t think so.

I realize that organizations may not have the flexibility or the resources to put their employees into their most creative physical spaces. But with a little bit of ingenuity, leadership, and guts to try something different, they could clearly get employees to a better place or frame of mind.

Let New Lantern help your company find its creative place. It could be the beginning of a more beautiful and productive relationship between you and your employees.

(Back by popular demand, the above posting appeared originally in April 2009.)

Parker asserts that Romney’s concession speech that evening was the best speech to date of his candidacy, saying it “was touching and sweet and true.” She goes on to compare other major concession speeches by Presidential candidates, like Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004, as their best speeches of their respective campaigns.

Of course, Romney’s February 7 loss was but one step along the way, and not an ultimate concession for the final prize like that of Gore and Kerry. And that’s the point. Romney still has a chance to leverage that night’s loss.

Parker goes on to say, “The moral of the story isn’t that one must lose to win, but that one try to harness the spoils of loss for the road to victory.”

Clearly, we can apply this same “power of losing” concept to the business world. Whether for an individual senior executive at a company, or the company at large, there is nothing like losing to a competitor or suffering your company’s first quarterly loss to get the juices flowing.

But success will turn on how that executive or how that company chooses to react to that loss, and whether they are successful in summoning a renewed winning spirit to take the next hill.

Loss is inevitable at some point for anybody and any company. Prepare yourself to respond to it accordingly, and turn the power of losing to your ultimate advantage.

And, seek to harness the spoils of loss for your road to victory. It might just lead to a bit of “Hail to the Chief” for you and your company.

In today’s fast-paced frenetic world, the term “new” is losing its luster. Everything is “new.” Every “new” product is higher in Omega fatty acids, easier to use, more feature-rich, or is bigger than the previous model.

The humorous television advertisements that show a customer’s smartphone as obsolete the moment after she purchases it is not far from reality.

Of course “new” is not new in the world of business and marketing. For decades, businesses have been peddling their products and services as “new” in an effort to lure customers. And for decades, market research has supported this notion.

Yet, I may be bucking the trend here, but I’m willing to step out on a limb to say that “old” has never been better positioned to make a comeback.

Sure, when it comes to products, customers will likely want to shell out the most dinero for the newest versions. However, when it comes to business, there may be opportunities to embrace some of the “old” ways of doing things that could lead to greater sales, higher margins, and happier shareholders.

Take talent for example. Routinely, companies bring in new, fresh talent and work them hard over the first few years. This is the classic management consulting firm model. Newbies are cheaper, more apt to work longer hours, malleable, and come with less personal baggage like child care or parental care. What’s not to like?

There’s a time and place for new talent in any company. However, I would argue that the best deal and greatest value these days may be with the older and more mature cohort. Cheaper is not always better. And with personal baggage comes experience and valuable perspective. And malleable sycophants are definitely not the recipe in my book for improving your company’s productivity.

Companies should not simply look at employees as units of labor, but as a valuable resource that should be mined and nurtured. A team made up of at least several more mature team members is likely the team that will not repeat past mistakes.

And most importantly, a team member that is willing to speak up and challenge the status quo in a constructive way – based on years of experience – is better positioned to add value to the bottom line, not take from it.

So look around you and embrace the old. Not every time, but when it is wise to do so. This newfound wisdom may be just the ticket for your company to compete in the new global marketplace.

Fast Company magazine’s cover story this month is “How to Lead a Creative Life,” which includes a “Complete Guide to Making Your Inner Genius Your Greatest On-the-Job Asset.”

The article features über Hollywood movie director Martin Scorsese as possessing the “vision thing” needed to achieve the “trifecta of a fulfilling, creative life: enough money to do only what truly interests him, enough freedom to attack those projects in a way that is satisfying, and enough appreciation from his peers to tame the neurotic beast of self-doubt.”

Scorsese provides important advice to those in business who are trying to achieve the creative life: respect the past, trust your confidants…but not too much, play the corporate game, defy them when you must, find another outlet – or eight, and give back and learn.

All successful creative artists need others who serve to inspire them, and Scorsese lists six other filmmakers “whose bold risks changed cinema” — Orson Welles, Roberto Rossellini, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, John Cassavetes, and Robert Altman.

Who inspires you to be more creative? What helps you tap into your inner genius? Let New Lantern help you lead a more creative life that’s worthy of box-office hit.

Nothing says November like the feel of wearing a wool sweater from L.L. Bean.

I’ve been a fan of L.L. Bean’s no-frills, long-lasting clothing products for over 30 years. They are comfortable, affordable, and always get the job done.

If I had a dollar for every “Blucher Moc” moccasin shoe that L.L. Bean has sold over the years, I would, well, have a lot of dollars. The shoe is timeless and iconic, and the product description today was the same 30 years ago: “The handsewn upper conforms to your foot for a fit that only gets better with time. Traditional rubber sole has channel grooves to provide traction on wet surfaces.” Current retail price: $69 a pair.

If it ain’t broke, keep selling it. Or something like that.

L.L. Bean owes its success not only to great products, but to great customer service. Year after year, L.L. Bean ranks among America’s top 10 companies for customer service according to the National Retail Federation, based on written surveys of over 9,000 shoppers.

The company was founded in 1912 by Leon Leonwood Bean in Freeport, Maine — a place that knows something about the importance of keeping warm and dry. Today, L.L. Bean’s flagship store and campus is still in Freeport on the original site where Bean opened his retail business.

Open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the 200,000-square-foot flagship store draws nearly three million visitors each year.

Next year marks L.L. Bean’s 100th anniversary. Few companies on the planet survive long enough to celebrate this milestone, much less one that is still at the top of its game. The company’s annual sales now top $1.5 billion.

L.L. Bean wrote the book on succeeding as a mail-order business, and decades later was able to successfully pivot to capitalize on the e-commerce revolution. Like its famed Blucher Moc, L.L. Bean has been able to effectively adapt and conform “for a fit that only gets better with time.”

Yet, L.L. Bean’s current President, Chris McCormick, knows that the company’s success will continue to rely on its commitment to putting the customer first: “It goes back to L.L.’s Golden Rule of treating customers like human beings.”

That’s using the old bean from which we all can learn.

Metrics are important in today’s highly competitive global business climate, but many senior managers can sometimes lose sight of the performance forest for the metrics trees. Corporate leaders can become too reliant over a particular set of metrics while never stopping to ask, “Are we using the right metrics?”

This month’s Harvard Business Review featured an article written by Office Depot’s President, Kevin Peters, who discovered first-hand that his company was not focusing on the right metrics to improve customer service and drive increased sales.

Based on his own incognito visits to 70 stores in 15 states over a several week period in 2010, Peters found out that Office Depot’s current customer metric scores were correct, but that their scoring system was not. “We were asking the wrong questions.”

Peters said that his company had been grading store managers and associates with questions such as: Are the floors clean? Are the bathrooms clean? Are the shelves fully stocked?

Based on his own field analysis and random interviews with customers, Peters felt the company should be focused more on whether a customer walks out of the store without a purchase. And if so, how could they improve the in-store experience to reduce the no-purchase rate?

As Peters describes the office products business, “This is not a browsing industry – people are shopping with a particular purpose in mind. If they don’t make a purchase, something has gone wrong.”

Customers told Peters that they care more about knowledgeable associates and smaller and easier-to-navigate stores. He also found that associates were not asking the right questions of customers. For example, instead of asking, “How are you today, and are you finding everything okay?” associates should be asking, “What can I help you find today?”

In response, Office Depot recently instituted a simplified sales process called “ARC” – Ask, Recommend, Close. They have also sought to shrink the size of their stores, coupled with a greater focus on the in-store experience.

The bottom line according to Peters is this, “If you think your company is doing well with customer service, ask yourself, ‘Am I really sure?’ Do I know what the customer experiences?”

Make it a point to challenge your own corporate metrics on a periodic basis to ensure you are asking the right questions. Otherwise, your company may find itself racking up some very nice scores, but taking the wrong test.

The I Love Lucy television show first aired on this day in 1951. It starred then-Hollywood legend Lucille Ball, whose zany and fresh comedic antics helped turn the sitcom into the most watched television show of its era.

Ball’s trademark blazing red hair and slapstick humor was an unlikely pairing with her co-star, Desi Arnaz. Arnaz, who played Lucy’s husband Ricky Ricardo, was also her real-life husband during the run of the show. Arnaz was a dark-haired Cuban American singer and bandleader, whose memorable heavy accent and exclamations on the show continue to resonate to this day.

CBS executives at the time questioned whether the U.S. television audience would accept the idea of an All-American redhead married to a Cuban. Those fears quickly turned to celebration as I Love Lucy went on to become one of the most popular television sitcoms of all time. Sixty years after its debut, reruns of I Love Lucy are still viewed by more than 40 million Americans each year.

On the show, Lucy and Ricky were joined by co-stars Vivian Vance and William Frawley, who played Ethel and Fred Mertz. Vance and Frawley were perfectly cast as the Ricardos’ neighbors, landlord, and best friends. To this day, I still laugh thinking about the scene of Lucy and Ethel working in the chocolate factory on the production line.

Lucille Ball not only broke new ground as a leading female character of a television sitcom, she also served as the first woman to head a television production company, Desilu, which she and Arnaz formed. As a very active studio head at Desilu, Ball “pioneered a number of methods still in use in television production today such as filming before a live studio audience with a number of cameras, and distinct sets adjacent to each other.”

Whether it’s a television studio, and large corporation, or a small or medium size business, chief executives need to be willing to move outside of their safe zone in order to innovate and try new approaches. Success in business comes from bold leadership, a strong team, and promoting a culture that embraces an inventive spirit.

That’s a winning formula I know your shareholders will love.

It’s hard to add to what has already been said from so many corners of the globe about the enormous contributions of Steven Paul Jobs to the fields of technology, movies, music, telecommunications, and design itself. But I do feel compelled to say something about Mr. Jobs. We just lost our country’s Chief Innovator.

Steve Jobs was a once-in-a-generation visionary who demonstrated a unique blend of design, business, and marketing savvy. He took a quirky, irrelevant computer company named after a fruit, which he co-founded in the 1970s, and turned it into a global business powerhouse boasting the largest market cap of any other company on the planet  – equaled only by Exxon Mobil.

The last decade, in particular, has been truly impressive as Jobs led Apple as it redefined the music industry via the iPod, wireless communication via the iPhone, and more recently, the computer itself via the iPad.

Jobs didn’t always get it right. In 1985, after being fired by Apple, he started the NeXT computer company. NeXT folded in 1996 after shipping only 50,000 units, but its high performance personal computers impressed many, including Apple, which re-hired Jobs in 1997.

Most important, Jobs learned from his mistakes and he wasn’t afraid to make them. At every turn in his career, he ignored traditional business school dogma, and chose to take a different path – always guided by what he felt the consumer wanted.

Jobs concluded that consumers would be willing to pay more for a product if it was well-designed and simple to use.  He was right, and Apple and its shareholders have benefited handsomely.

Business schools will be studying the “Jobs Effect” and his hyper-successful business methods for years to come, and rightfully so.

At some point, there will be another Steve Jobs. He or she will also achieve success by eschewing the safe path. And most likely, he or she too will succeed as a result of a keen focus on innovation, smart design, and creative business approaches.

Key to its success, Irvine, CA-based Edwards Lifesciences has continued to pump resources into research and development in recent years, while “many companies have cut back on R&D due to economic pressures.”

Edwards has gained market share against competitors like Medco Health, Boston Scientific, and St. Jude Medical because of its focus on quality and innovation in the heart valve and vascular market, according to medical technology research analyst, Ben Andrew.

Mike Mussallem, Edwards’ CEO, also notes that the key to innovation is the willingness to make mistakes. “What’s important is making mistakes, learning from them and making adjustments.” The Edwards’ maxim: “Don’t Blame, Learn.”

Other company managers and executives could learn from this maxim. Employees many times are too timid to try something new for fear of failing, and then being ridiculed and penalized. This type of risk averse/don’t fail corporate culture leads more often to mediocrity, not to innovative products and services.

Take a page from Edwards Lifesciences, and put learning from your mistakes at the heart of your innovation program. You may not save lives in the process, but you could save your company and put it on a much healthier course toward success.

While telework programs are not the panacea for all workplace ills, they can serve as one important tool for motivating certain employees, increasing work-life balance, and increasing retention rates of top performers.

There is one challenge, however, that managers need to address as today’s employees spend more time working remotely from home or from other distant offices: maintaining the sense of team.

High-performing individual contributors can serve as a huge asset for any organization. Yet, the value of this asset is greatly diminished if these contributors are not effectively collaborating with team members toward a common business objective.

Also, there are immeasurable benefits that derive from a strong sense of team that cannot be overstated. Visibility to other team members and their accomplishments tend to increase the game of other teammates. Competition breeds increased performance. Case and point: a sprinter running the 100-yard dash against one or more competitors will almost always clock faster times compared to running the sprint alone.

Fellow team members also learn from one another in important ways. An employee that might excel in one aspect of her role can serve as a good role model for other team members – if there is visibility to these winning traits.

So how do you overcome the obstacle of geographic distance when at least some members of your team are working remotely?

First, leverage all the new collaboration and technology tools to increase your team’s “visibility” to one another. Thanks to fast, inexpensive broadband today at both work and home, relatively high quality VoIP (online) conference calls – including real-time document sharing and video – are easily within reach for your organization. Granted, these technologies are still no substitute for face-to-face collaboration, but they can play a critical role to the team experience.

Second, build regular face-to-face meetings and events into your annual budgets. Utilize existing office space or, better yet, a thought-provoking venue to spur creativity, team cohesion, and a more memorable experience. I’m not talking about a windowless, subterranean hotel conference room. Instead, seek out unique offsite meeting spaces such as an artist’s studio, a museum space, or conference room at a professional sports facility.

Third, include a fun, non-work event in every offsite retreat. It can be a team-building exercise; an informal round-table discussion or reception with a leading innovator; a nice dinner at a hot, new restaurant; or an inspirational training session. The point is to create synergies and chemistry within the team through shared experiences.

In short, use today’s telework and virtual office programs to reduce overall costs while increasing individual employee productivity — but not at the expense of eroding the team dynamic. Bring your team together at regular intervals that suit your company’s needs, and put them in intensive, idea-inducing environments.

You’ll soon find yourself building a winning team, which will take your company to virtually any new height.