Spin Doctors Discover Innovation- Leaders Keep it Real

 

From the perspective of your workforce (as well as with the talent you want to attract) and your customers, company brand has become one and the same- both must be real and transparent. As organizations revise their business strategies to stay competitive, increasingly “innovation” is embraced as a business advantage, and incorporated into brand. An article, You Call That Innovation? in this week’s Wall Street Journal, reports the word “innovation” has been used over 33,000 times in annual reports last year. According to Capgemini Consulting, four out of 10 executives queried say their company now has a Chief Innovation Officer, suggesting an emerging trend. How much of “innovation” is spin (from well-intended marketers) and how much is real? If we promise a commitment to innovation, as leaders, how do we back it up?

What are your leadership practices and systems to create and build innovation as a talent competency and a sustained organizational capability? While innovation needs some open space to think beyond the constraints of everyday operation, having a process to both develop and "manage innovation” is not an oxymoron. Price Waterhouse Coopers paper, Demystifying Innovation addresses a process to manage innovation outside of the R&D function. VJ Govindarajan and Chris Trimble from Tuck Business School explain how to manage the inherent tension between innovation and operations in their book The Other Side of Innovation.

Not everyone is a game changer everyday, however building a mindset and competency for innovation can be incremental. Clayton Christianson, author of The Innovator's DNA, distinguishes between “efficiency innovations” (decrease the cost to deliver an existing product or service without compromising quality and satisfaction), “sustaining innovations” (improve features of an existing product or service to keep it fresh and competitive), and “disruptive innovations” (transform a complex product into a simpler one). I would respectfully add to the definition for "disruptive innovations," offering a truly new product (perhaps replacing an earlier product or service with a ground-breaking offering, or coming up with something the world has not seen applied before, such as in patents and inventions). If your mind-set and culture are characterized by continuous improvement, then the gamechanging disruptive innovations are more likely to surface.

Turning an idea into a value-added product or service takes a process and discipline to make it a real part of your company’s culture and DNA. Be aware of how ideas get incubated, assessed or possibly even squashed because they represent change and rock the boat. When we’re developing innovation in our teams, assemble a team with complimentary thinking styles to make the team experience and meeting space fertile for all types of improvements and innovations. Pearson Learning describes seven critical thinking styles, that I believe align well with innovation:
1. Analytical
2. Inquisitive
3. Insightful
4. Open-Minded
5. Systematic
6. Timely
7. Truth Seeking
Team members can take an assessment Pearson provides to discover their preferred thinking styles, and share each others’ preferred styles. Those shared insights create a powerful norm for how the team will produce innovative performance.

One thing is certain about innovation… the more we get, the more we want, and that’s a good thing. Innovations are no longer top secret—everyone wants it- so the more it is shared, the faster more is created. Here's my take on leadership practices that drive innovation (to lead by example, think about how you would systematize these):

1.     Cultivate innovation by design- Compose teams with complimentary thinking styles to create rich ground for new ideas to spring up.

2.     Create a fertile space and change of place- Normalize time to dabble and daydream, then offer a place to collaborate and connect.

3.     Develop prerequisite competencies- Practice “expanding the inquiry” (a competency described by Peter Senge, author of The Learning Organization) to draw in diverse perspectives and open up thinking.

4.     Look to talent on the horizon- When you’re looking to schools for next gen leaders, consider grads from programs that offer a major or concentration in innovation, or who have taken courses in innovation.

5.     Brand reflects practice- Distinguish between improvement and innovation. Keep it real, call “trial balloons” as you see them; among today’s trial balloons is one with rocket fuel to take your business to a new level tomorrow.

6.     Feed innovation- Reward agility with what is learned from “mis-takes” in the spirit of continuous learning.

7.     Rotate your idea inventory- Timing is everything…develop a process to assess ideas, and incubate them as needed, to revisit when the time is right.

8.     Keep the finish line in mind- Develop a process to incorporate winning ideas into actions that improve a product or service.

9.     Communicate innovation as a real expectation- What gets recognized gets repeated; ask for innovation, and then give innovators the gift of your attention by listening to their ideas.

10.  Lead by example- Like the leaders in the most innovative companies, schedule some “innovation dabble time” for yourself, and make a note in your calendar to share your fresh ideas.

photo courtesy of virtueel_platform

Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve

In HBR article, Open Leadership: A New Paradigm Emerges, social media expert Charlene Li, says, “Leaders never really had total control over their customers and employees; what they have to give up now is the need for control.” Letting your people go is not about a reduction in force-- “letting your talent go” refers to asking the people who choose to follow your vision, “Have you used your best self today? Why, how, -or why not?” Letting go is a mental and stylistic shift for a lot of leaders.

Granted, of all the things leaders do to move their company forward, spending time as a coach (and having the interest and ability to coach) is often not high on their list. In fact Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones in HBR, Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? discovered that leaders are better at inspiring rather than imparting or developing “how to.” But leaders can encourage people to get a coach. The important thing is to develop a lot of entrepreneurs within our organization; the best intrapreneurs may be allocated resources such as IT and marketing in your business plan, and empowered to drive their supporting visions forward.

Leader Richard Branson believes that taking care of business begins with taking care of people. In his recent book, Screw Business As Usual, Branson says “I've always believed that by taking care of people in my companies the rest will take care of itself. This can be something simple, like allowing people to job share or giving them the chance to run their own show. This has worked for us and has also built a pretty special group of people around the world who are not only passionate about Virgin, but also about making a difference.”

Goffee and Jones say that “tough empathy” is a quality of successful leaders whom others choose to follow, and that showing tough empathy is about “giving people what they need --which may be different from giving them what they want,” yet these leaders “care intensely about the work others do.”

Mark Murphy researched talent leaders who balance the business side and human side in Hundred Percenters: Challenge Your Employees to Give it Their All and They’ll Give You Even More. Murphy found that both “challenging” and “connecting” with employees is required to foster optimal performance. Murphy recommends that leaders encourage people to set  HARD goals (not SMART goals), because these leaders see significantly higher financial performance, innovation and retention of key employees.

Caring at home and in our community but not at work defies logic; a whole person cares all the time. People notice loving leadership when you:

·        Wear your heart on your sleeve- show what you're passionate about;

·         First care about people, then care intensely about the work they do;

·         Ask people to bring their best selves to work, and practice tough empathy.

photo image courtesy of net_efket

Group Genius, Not Group Think

First published March 1, 2012

Of course by definition leaders have always been visionary and smart. Recently leaders’ roles have evolved to include leading intelligence and talent development. Though the term “learning organization” has been around for decades, it is taking on new meaning, especially since innovation (arguably the hottest competency and organizational capability today) springs from learning new ideas and approaches. So how do leaders cultivate “group genius” (where together people know more than the sum of their parts) instead of “group think” (where people acquiesce to a weak approach without consensus or engagement).

Jay Gordon Cone from Interaction Associates blogs about “the capacity of a group of individuals to tap into the power of collaboration in a way that produces outcomes that surprise even themselves. The key word here is ‘surprise’ — a team that successfully leverages its combined wisdom can generate genuinely new solutions that aren't traceable back to any one individual…[to] produce fresh ideas that the group is passionate about, resulting in a dramatic performance improvement.” Do your teams have this innovation capability? And how do you measure this capability to offer predictive analytics on results?

Professors Thomas W. Malone, at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Jeremy Gray from Yale, who co-authored, Putting Heads Together: Groups demonstrate distinctive ‘collective intelligence’ when facing difficult tasks, say, “Having a bunch of smart people in a group doesn’t necessarily make the group smart….but features of the group can be more important than features of the individuals that makeup the group for determining outcomes. In groups where one person dominated, the group was less intelligent than in groups where the conversational turns were more evenly distributed. It’s possible to improve the intelligence of a group, by either changing the members of a group, or teaching them better ways of interacting.” The key finding is there is a general effectiveness, a group collective intelligence, which predicts a group’s performance in a lot of situations.

Peeling the onion on “group genius” to discover its prerequisites also includes using a facilitative leadership style with groups. How can we engage others in a robust process of inquiry? Online discussions have jump-started this capability. As a leader do you stimulate and participate in selected online discussions? And do you seek out face-to-face conversations, asking more questions that lead to answers, rather than give all answers which may close down the inquiry?

IBM’s Institute for Business Value report, Collective Intelligence, Capitalizing on the Crowd, points out that leaders can:

• Address sources of resistance, including operational challenges, conflict with existing charters, perceived loss of control (including their own), and shift roles and responsibilities to work across silos. 
• Rely on technology and develop cultural norms to integrate collective intelligence into the work environment. Moreover, if leaders deliberately remove barriers to collective intelligence they can achieve idea contagion.
• Honor breakthroughs, recognize and act on what is discovered, communicating value and outcomes to both the organization and the individual.

Whether you’re leading teams or an organization, Jay Gordon Cone adds, "Two characteristics are important-- openness and interlocking success, where everyone’s success depends on the achievement of others." So as leaders, do you lead by example with openness by inviting different points of view? Do you facilitate internal partnerships among people with the competencies to achieve more than each person could on their own?

As business leaders we can take a lesson from community organizing where people’s overlapping and compatible ideas build shared vision and capability. I was reminded of this dynamic recently attending Town Meeting Day, where across Vermont and New Hampshire citizens meet to discuss the issues important to their town prior to voting on budgets and leaders running for office. In his book Creative Community Organizing Si Kahn brings out some principles business leaders can apply in their organizations:

• Figure out people’s common self-interest, the glue that binds organizations and movements.
• Believe that human beings can somehow find some common connection (that means leading by example to transcend stereotyping)
• Frame and ask questions in ways that make people not only want to answer them, but also to think deeply, and in unexpected ways, about what the answers might be.

How are you moving the needle from group think to group genius in your organization? Drop me a line to share your thoughts.

photo courtesy of angrywayne

Opening Our Mind to Paradoxical Thinking

First published March 8, 2012

I tend to be drawn to patterns; maybe it’s a need to impose temporary order to a world of controlled chaos, or the need to look for clues that can solve complex challenges. I find that just when we get comfortable thinking about something in a certain way, there appears to be a contrarian view that has merit, and that in and of itself is helpful for leaders to keep in mind. This week I ran across three such examples of contrarian views, and as you identify more, they remind us to suspend the human inclination to sometimes think we know it all.

Contrarian view #1: Extroverted leaders are not more successful.

Francesca Gino, co-author of The Hidden Advantages of Quiet Thought, in HBR, points out that matching introverted leaders with proactive staff leads to higher team performance than extroverted highly directive leaders. This suggests the power of intentional deployment of complimentary competencies in teams. The HBR study found that introverted leaders were more successful, maybe because they don’t blow their own horns-- they were open to listening, and were receptive to followers’ ideas which contributed to higher team performance. Gino advises that leaders think about the context we’re in; if your followers are creative, adopt a non-directive style. And leaders who are naturally introverted can push their followers to be more proactive. Moreover, global leaders might adapt their leadership style (to be introverted/listening or extroverted/directive) to the local culture of the teams where they are leading.

Contrarian view #2: Conformists contribute to innovation.

If you think all you need are creative types to drive innovation, think again. In March 2012 HBR article,“To Drive Creativity, Add Some Conformity,” Ella Miron-Spektor, Miriam Erez, and Eitan Naveh point out that groups with a variety of cognitive types produce higher levels of innovation, and that getting the right balance of types is key. It might not occur to us to put “conformists” on innovation teams, but these researchers discovered that conformists support the creatives, boosting cooperation and improving a team’s confidence. However, large numbers of detail-oriented people on a team can suppress creativity in their eagerness for precision.

Contrarian view #3: Analytics may not lead us down the garden path to insight.

Analytics in the absence of judgment can lead down the garden path to nowhere. For all the value analytics bring to support evidence-based and predictive decision-making, Deloitte’s article, “A Delicate Balance- Organizational barriers to evidence-based management,” James Guszcza and John Lucker point out “the dangers of ‘magical thinking’ about analytics…. the notion that models are repositories of truth rather than inherently provisional and imperfect—but useful—tools for guiding actions.” They recommend that the people who build and use analytics know something about the real world, and, “promoting dialogue between groups with different perspectives and skills…. Modelers can do more effective work when they are in continuous dialog with the decision-makers for whom their work is intended.”

These initially contrarian views are reminders that none of us knows it all. But we can be open and search for contrarian views to either open our thinking and/or affirm comfort with our present judgment. After all, leaders bet their company’s well-being everyday on their judgment and experience. An IBM Global CEO study, “Has the Nature of Leadership Changed?” emphasizes successful leaders’ ability to make decisions in a complex world often in the absence of data. Hindustan Unilever sends developing leaders into communities to work on problems without the typical support the corporate environment provides, so that they can think their way through new challenges and engage support through influence rather than authority. The Corporate Leadership Council’s newest study on what makes a successful global leader zeroes in on one competency above all others, and that competency is influence.… so, how can we influence others if we are not open to being influenced ourselves by contrarian views and paradoxical thinking? What’s your view what makes leaders successful, and drop me a line…

tough nut photo courtesy of jochenWalters

Innovation Returns

First published April 26, 2012

Everyone today is looking for optimal solutions, not ideal solutions. Life is about making acceptable trade-offs and being “innovative with efficiency”- not an oxymoron, apparently. AT Kearney consultants in, “Are You Focused on the Perfect over the Optimal?” state, “multifunctional teams are, in a way, arbitrageurs, searching not for 100 percent along one dimension but for the optimal among all dimensions.”

I spent the day with talent management leaders in HCI’s Engagement, Collaboration, and Retention course; naturally, the discussion moved from collaboration to innovation, as these were a critical part of most organizations’ business strategies. So how do CEOs retain the most innovative talent? AT Kearney experts say three capabilities are essential: 1) leaders with superb communication 2) connecting innovative talent from around the world (including suppliers and partners), and 3) working towards “solidarity of purpose.”

Eric Sauvage, head of organizational transformation at AT Kearney states, “Optimal innovation requires collaboration across all functions. Yet collaboration with other functions can be as challenging as collaboration with other companies—a greater one, in fact, when organizational politics intrudes. The mental barriers are high where real cooperation is not the norm, where teams are not used to stage gates, process rules, supplier management, decision committees, and commitment to success along multiple dimensions. In such environments, working collectively may be novel and subtly discouraged.”

In contrast, Gary Lefko, Employee Engagement Manager with the IT Division of the US Forestry Service in Colorado, explains, “Your job pays the bills, but your passion pays the heart.” Not surprising that the IT function led the practice of crowdsourcing, often the source of innovative breakthroughs. In a Forbes article, "Ten Top Reasons Companies Fail to Keep Top Talent"- which reads like a David Letterman top ten list- #2 is "failure to find a project for talent that ignites their passion."

AT Kearny experts advise, “Multifunctional collaboration is pragmatic lever of organizational transformation... [these] multifunctional project teams are among the best talent-development programs an organization can devise. Smart team members who work with peers from other functions will pool their knowledge and take it to their next assignments. They will become among the most valued members of their organization. The satisfaction they derive from their experience as innovators will deepen a sense of attachment to their organization and help immeasurably in their retention. Here's the big implication of working this way: Members of a multifunctional innovation team will not come back to their old job in the same way they left it.”

Qualcomm retains top engineers in a customized PhD program bringing expert faculty in to teach; the engineers don’t have to leave their jobs to matriculate in a graduate program; what they care about is learning to stay cutting edge in their field, and of course the company benefits by retaining this top talent. CLOs from General Mills, Raytheon, and Qualcomm, recognize that driving innovation is key to their companies’ future.

How about when someone does leave your organization and comes back-- what do you do to maximize their return? At Kaplan University, the “boomerangs” who return are actually presented with a boomerang gift that recognizes their return. Kaplan is cognizant of the “opt in” organization, where the best talent can choose where to gift their intellectual capital. In companies such as American Express, Timberland, REI, and Nike, people take sabbaticals where a fresh environment becomes a wellspring of innovation.

When your best talent takes leave (for whatever reason), could you give them a boomerang to remember to return? We know innovation brings big returns (ROI). How do you develop and manage collaboration and innovation in your organization? Drop me a line…

photo courtesy of protoflux

Trust in Good Business

First published May 10, 2012

Well, the physiology and social scientists have proved it… trust is good business. The “moral molecule” is a chemical called oxytocin (Wall Street Journal preview of Paul J. Zak’s book, The Moral Molecule). Zak, Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies, demonstrates that a feeling of being trusted makes one more trustworthy, something leaders have intuitively known, but it’s comforting to have the science behind it. Both socially and in business, group activities with familiar and with new people promotes the release of oxytocin and a feeling of connection to others, sustaining happier and healthier rich social lives.

When I lead HCI’s Engagement, Collaboration, and Retention course we cover 12 workforce experiences that rest on a foundation of leadership trust and transparency. You've heard, "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer"-- it helps to understand the enemies of engagement as well, to head off what's deteriorating engagement in the workplace.

Of course there is a direct connection between trust and ethics, and the organizational climate leaders create; the world’s most ethical companies know something about that. Dr. Zachary Horn, leads Climates at Work discussions on LinkedIn and a podcast with Sharon Allen, Chairperson of Deloitte.

What is trust in today’s business world? Interaction Associates (IA) asked that question and found that seven out of ten respondents trust others based on the consistency, predictability, and quality of their work and actions, and believe trust is based on evidence of past accomplishment and demonstrated capability. IA's research on trust in business explains how organizations and leaders become trustworthy in behavioral terms, with the pay-off of customer loyalty/retention, cost reduction, and top line revenue growth. Their research reveals that high trust companies are “highly collaborative” (87 percent vs. 24 percent), have “effective leadership” (91 percent vs. 35 percent), and are three times better able to attract, deploy and develop talent. These organizations are more likely than others to be confident in their organizations’ ability to manage through the current economic crisis (88 percent “extremely or very confident” vs. 60 percent others). Andy Atkins, Chief Innovation Officer at Interaction Associates, with Linda Stewart, their CEO, explains their research in a podcast.

Recently I’ve been discussing with practitioners the impact of values and a moral compass.
My ten take away’s from Interaction Associate’s research on trust:

1. High trust organizations are forward thinking even in this economy of belt-tightening and short-term, survival focus.
2. High-trust companies practice what they preach, and excel in areas of talent and innovation. They embrace flexible organization structures and are very effective with the people and process aspects of collaboration.
3. People within the organization have a sense of shared commitment and responsibility.
4. People feel safe communicating their ideas and opinions with colleagues/peers.
5. People are acknowledged and rewarded for their work.
6. People within the organization have a sense of shared commitment and responsibility.
7. People feel safe communicating their ideas and opinions with colleagues/ peers.
8. ndividuals are not assigned “impossible” tasks that are outside the scope of their knowledge/training.
9. Nearly two thirds of people trust others based on their contribution to a shared commitment and responsibility and feel that trust is based on confidence that others will work diligently to accomplish shared goals.
10. Ninety-three percent of high-trust organizations base their trust level on others’ “contribution to our shared commitment and responsibility.”

Paul Zak asks permission to give a hug to visitors to his lab (he believes in the release of oxytocin!) As leaders we can convey “the equivalent of a hug,” releasing oxytocin, by being intentional about conveying these four behaviors into every conversation and meeting (from IA’s toolkit on trust):

• Transparency- Because people feel more in control when hidden processes become visible.
• Appreciation- Because through sincere appreciation, even those with a pessimistic outlook will derive personal satisfaction and meaning from their work.
• Empathy- Because empathy helps people feel understood; they’ll be more open so that their leader can deal directly with concerns.
• Rapport- Because rapport undermines the obstacles to trust created by status, and enhances trust even when uncertainty is high.

If we know that trust is good business we can trust in good business. What are your thoughts about building trust within virtual teams?

photo courtesy of intersection Consulting