How to be a rockstar

If you want to be a rockstar, you can't just buy a special pair of jeans and learn a few cords on a guitar and then consider yourself transformed.

To be a rockstar you need to think, and act, and embody the essence of rock.

You need to smoke strong cigarettes, swig Jack Daniels from the bottle, have a regular VIP booth reserved for you at a nightclub in Vegas and generally live with a confident, laissez-faire attitude that demonstrates to others that you care very little about their opinion of you. Achieving rockstar status takes commitment, practice and a consistent output of high-quality rebellion.

The same is true if you want to be an innovator.

Using the word on your LinkedIn profile doesn't make you an innovator. It takes training, practice, strategy, a commitment to constant tinkering and willingness to take on risk and an openness to learning.

Becoming innovative is an active and ongoing process of transformation.

The rewards for embarking on the journey are well-worth the effort, but simply reading a book, doing a course, attending a keynote presentation or using the label isn't going to produce the outcome that the actual hard work makes possible.

Most companies want to be innovative - they want top line growth, but then don't actually invest in transforming their culture into one that produces innovation.

Millions are spent on change management programs and organisational development initiatives that are 100% guaranteed to be a total waste of time and money, because they predictably fail to have an impact on a complex adaptive system that has a certain way of thinking hard-baked into the DNA of the company culture. We call this kind of approach 'culture pageantry' and if you work in a corporate company you'll be all to familiar with the kind of awkward horse-and-pony show that get rolled out.

Just because the word is on a poster in the canteen, doesn't mean that you can tick that box.