Ideagen Intersection
I focused on ultimately who are we trying to help here. That is the civilian fleeing conflict. That is a refugee, and how do we better enable government agencies and humanitarian aid organizations to better support those people.
Rana:
It’s about keeping in mind what's the end goal and what are you trying to do and who are you trying to help? Also, knowing that there's always a way to get something done. Kind of a little bit of what I mentioned earlier is that if you're persistent, if you're genuine, then ultimately you will find a way to accomplish something. There was a great quote that came out of Gartner, I think it was the year before last, and that is that the greatest threat to innovation is organizational challenge.
Rana:
Which I find encouraging and discouraging at the same time. Encouraging because there's always a way to work through barriers to get things done, so I think those are probably the two key lessons that I would share.
Blake:
Hi Rana, it's Blake again. I'm curious, how do you see your colleagues innovating and positively effecting the world in the here and now?
Rana:
Oh gosh, so many different ways. Like I said, I think people ultimately want to make an impact. When we go to bed at night, we all want to reflect on the role we played in affecting the causes that we care about and how we made the world a better place today, so I think that that really is important to a lot of people. In IBM specifically, my colleagues I hear stories all the time of how people are making a difference for our clients every day. We have such strong volunteerism through corporate citizenship and just the team of volunteers focused on refugees and civilians in conflict.
Rana:
There's such a desire to solve these global challenges and so I see it all the time and just sharing ideas. People are always working to connect the dots and figure out how we can maybe leverage something to make a better impact in a different area, so all the time, all the time.
Kathryn:
I have another question for you too Rana, we've seen the amazing work that you and your colleagues have been doing at IBM and how you're positively impacting the world, so I just want to ask, how are you looking at the future to address the world's most vexing issues?
Rana:
A lot of what I'm doing with this solution is looking to the future. Actually a quick story. I took a, I don't know if anybody has heard of the strengths finder book, but there's this great book and an old mentor of mine suggested that I read it and so there's this little quiz and you go through the exercise and it tells you what your greatest strengths are. The number one strength that came back for me was futurist. I didn't even know that that was a strength that you could have, but I took it to heart and what does that mean? What does it mean to be future-focused, and a lot of the description I found to be really accurate.
Rana:
That what I do, what futurists do is we have these visions, which I know sounds a little wishy washy, but these visions of the future and if we're frustrated by the way things are right now, we imagine what could be and then we paint a picture of what that could look like and then put the pieces together and try to make it happen and see what's on the horizon. I just found it really accurate. In fact when I was in elementary school, I used to daydream all the time. I was a really active dreamer and so looking to the future for me I think it's something that I just, it's a just a part of who I am.
Rana:
As far as addressing the worlds more vexing issues. I just kind of do my small part I think. Although I do of course so strongly feel that refugee and migration issues are very connected to so many other aspects of the world, education, healthcare, etc. I guess, for me, that's how I feel like I'm doing my small part to help.
George:
Rana, those perspectives are so profound and it really is amazing to hear you talk about the Strength Finder.
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