U-M alum Richard Sheridan, President and CEO of Menlo Innovations, talks about his take on the creative approach to the workplace.

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Do you trust your co-workers? Can you be critical or creative in your work environment?
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About the video

In these three chapters, Sheridan discusses how to increase confidence and collaboration among your workforce and create a safe environment for creativity and experimentation. He points out the disadvantages in a traditional work environment, and suggests how you can change your office to promote creativity and create joy.

About the instructor

From kid programmer in 1971 to Forbes cover boy in 2003, “outlier” Richard Sheridan (U-M grad BS Computer Science ’80, MS Computer Engineering ’82) has never shied from challenges, opportunities nor the limelight.  While his focus has always been around technology, his passion is actually process, teamwork and organizational design, with one inordinately popular goal:  the business value of joy!

Sheridan is an avid reader and historian, and his software design and development team at Menlo Innovations didn’t invent a new culture, but copied an old one … Edison’s Menlo Park New Jersey lab.  Some call it agile, some call it lean … Sheridan and his team call it joyful.  And it produces results … business and otherwise.

About the company

Software developed by Menlo for its clients is designed for everyday people by Menlo’s High-Tech Anthropologists®, built to last by Menlo’s world-class agile software development team, and managed by a set of professional project managers listed among the nation’s 50 Most Prolific by the Project Management Institute.

Sheridan and Menlo have won numerous awards and honors, and he and his team regularly are invited to present nationally and internationally to share the secrets of the Menlo Software Factory™ with all who wish to learn how to build a Learning Organization that can keep pace with today’s advances in software and design.

Awards and honors Menlo has received:

• Inc.’s Small Company Workplace Winner 2011 (including cover story, June 2011)
• Inc.’s 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America (Inc. Magazine 2006)
• Inc.’s 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America (Inc. Magazine 2007, 2008, 2009)
• Fast Track Award (Washtenaw Development Council) (Five time winner)
• Top Small Workplaces – Finalist (Wall Street Journal & Winning Workplaces)
• Emerging Leader (Automation Alley)
• Cool Places to Work (Crain’s)
• Alfred P. Sloan Award for Workplace Flexibility (When Work Works) (Five time winner)
• WORK/SPACES award for Creativity (Ann Arbor Business Review)
• Entrepreneur of the Year – Finalist (Ernst & Young)
• 101 Best & Brightest Companies to Work For – Elite Winner
• Leaders and Innovators (Lawrence Technical University)
• 50 Most Prolific Leaders in Project Management (Project Management Magazine)
• World’s Most Democratic Organizations – WorldBlu (two time winner)
• IAESTE (International Association Engineering Students for Technical Education) Employer of the Year

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