Do you have a creative place? It’s the place where you feel you are at your most creative and productive. It may be a bench in your favorite park, a special nook or room in your house or spot in your yard, a quiet desk at a library, a small bistro table in a busy Starbucks, or a spot at work where no one can interrupt you.

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.)

There’s only one thing better than the early arrival of an airline flight to lift the spirits, and that’s the early arrival of spring. And nothing says “spring” to me like the fresh blooms of the Forsythia shrub.

Its small, yellow starbursts of flowers are among the first signs of color in mid-March in many parts of the United States. Given our mild winter, this year’s Forsythia blooms arrived at least a week earlier than usual, much to my delight.

Forsythia is both the genus and the common name for this spring-flowering shrub. There are 11 species of Forsythia, which are also native to Asia and Europe. It is named after the Scottish botanist, William Forsyth.

For the remaining 50 weeks of the year, Forsythia shrubs are frankly unremarkable and tend to blend into the neighborhoods and parks where they commonly are found. Yet, come March, when the temperature and conditions are just right, this genus of shrub magically transforms itself overnight.

Plants like the Forsythia serve an important purpose. They indicate that a change for the better is at hand. They lift the mood and spirit. And they remind us that every plant or person has a valuable role to play if put in the right conditions, nurtured appropriately, and situated for the greatest benefit.

Look for the exceptional in what may otherwise appear unexceptional. Actively cultivate Forsythias and a wide variety of other flora within your organization. By doing so, you can turn a run-of-the-mill roadside nursery into a sustainable and highly productive garden.

RENT is one of the longest running Broadway musicals in history (1996-2008). Its success, at least in part, was the result of a wonderful collection of memorable songs. First among them is the song “Seasons of Love,” written and composed by Jonathan Larson.

“Seasons of Love” starts with the monotonous recitation of a long number string: “Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,” which typically is not the makings for a Tony Award-winning song. Yet, this number has meaning as the song goes on to ask, “How do we measure, measure a year?”

That’s an important question posed in the RENT musical; and, it’s an important question for every business.

Today’s businesses spend most of their time thinking about time. They live quarter to quarter, particularly the publicly traded companies which have to expose their financial laundry four times a year. And they obsess over metrics, which are driven by varying time increments, e.g., monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually.

However, companies generally don’t obsess enough over how their employees actually use their time.

Most companies pay their employees for 40 hours-a-week of work, 52 weeks a year. If you set aside the two weeks for vacation, that comes to a nice round 2,000 hours a year that the average employee is paid to be “on the clock.” If you take it a step further and put it in RENT terms, it translates into 120,000 minutes a year for the average employee.

That’s a lot of minutes. Of course, the actual number of minutes a year that an employee works is much smaller. If you consider the average eight-hour day for an employee, you would need to back out the minutes for unproductive time, such as going to the restroom, chatting in the hallway, and taking numerous breaks throughout the day.

Then there’s the time an employee might be sitting at the computer checking their Facebook or Twitter accounts, or browsing on Amazon.com or Ebay.

So when it’s all said and done, the actual amount of available time each day – and each year – that remains for the average employee to contribute to the company’s bottom line is relatively small. As a result, it’s important that the employer do everything it can to ensure that each employee is making the most out of those few remaining minutes.

In sum, incent your employees in smart ways, cultivate and grow their talents, applaud their successes, and create a culture that makes every minute count. If so, I predict you’ll love the seasons that will follow.

September marks the beginning of school for students around the globe. Some schools started in August, while others get underway this coming week.

Nothing says “fresh start” like the first day of school. The slate is clean. The grade book is empty. And no classes have been missed. In short, the opportunity to succeed will be never be greater.

Likewise in business, September can represent a new day and “back-to-school” opportunity.

Start with your employees. If you’re like most companies, you will not be adding headcount this coming year. Therefore, it’s important that you literally make the most of what you have.

Treat your employees as your company’s most important asset, and they will return the favor. Invest in high-value training for your employees. Use September and the months that following as an opportunity to hone your employees’ skills.

Second only to a raise or promotion, providing an employee with effective training sends the most important message you can send: we value your contribution to the company and we want you to stay and grow. Most important, training can make a so-so employee good, and a good employee even better.

So use September as a fresh start for your company, and take your employees back to school with an innovative training program. I’m betting it will lead to a better grade for your company.

In Toby Keith’s 2005 hit country song, “As Good As I Once Was,” the punch line of the song goes, “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.”

I can’t say that it’s a favorite song of mine, but the song surely resonates with my husband. Leave it to country music to always win the day in the lyrics category. And as lyrics go, “As Good As I Once Was” is as good as it gets.

The song spent six weeks at the top of Country music charts in 2005 and helped to make Keith one of the most popular singer-songwriters of the past decade.

“As Good As I Once Was” may also resonate with your company as suggested in this verse:

“I ain’t as good as I once was,
My, how the years have flown,
But there was a time back in my prime
When I could hold my own.”

Has your company seen better days? Were you once number one in your product category, or higher up the charts than you are now? Odds are that your employees may be less motivated today than they were a few years back when your workforce was probably younger and hungrier. But don’t worry, you’re not alone. I’ve probably just described over half of the Fortune 500.

Many companies today are looking over their shoulder to find younger and more ambitious competitors on their heels. Or worse yet, you may already be looking at their taillights.

There are ways to turn maturity and experience to your company’s advantage. Sure, your organization and employees may be less nimble than they were a decade ago, but you can draw upon the expertise that comes with age. The key will be to find ways to inspire and incent your workforce through creative compensation and reward programs.

A motivated workforce also starts with motivated managers. Make sure you are utilizing innovative executive and manager training programs to spur more inspired leaders.

In the end, you should not try to match your younger opponents step-by-step, but should seek to ensure that each step counts and is smarter and more efficient based on valuable experience and perspective.

That’s the type of company I would want to work for. Then again, I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.

Over the last three years, I have used this blog on a number of occasions to note the value of telecommuting or teleworking. I’ve called on corporations and organizations to look seriously at telework programs, which can lead to happier employees and greater productivity.

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.