CHAPTER 4
Creative Leadership: What’s All the Fuss About?

Leadership is like genius; it is one of those concepts that is recognizable when you observe it in action, but is otherwise somewhat difficult to define. Books about leadership abound, each describing the concept in a different way. Leadership has been defined as:

While there are no gauges by which we can effectively measure the value of leadership, leadership is often the factor that makes one team more effective than another. Leaders are often held accountable for team successes and failures. When a team succeeds, we often remark about its leader’s outstanding leadership abilities; when a team fails, the leader is likely to receive the blame.

Leadership is people-centered. And it is all about influence: it always involves actions by a leader (influencer) to affect (influence) the behavior of a follower or followers in a specific situation or activity. Three factors must be present for a person to act as a true leader:

We might not be able to do much to shape our inherent leadership disposition, but we certainly can create the appropriate learning opportunities and strive to influence our current situation and environment.

21^ST-CENTURY LEADERSHIP

In decades gone by, leadership in the business world was considered the province of just a few people who controlled the organization. By contrast, in today’s demanding, challenging, and ever-changing business environment, organizations rely on a remarkable assortment of leaders that operate at varying levels of the enterprise. Twenty-first-century leadership looks very different from that of previous eras for several reasons: (1) the economic environment is more volatile and complex than ever before; (2) much of the work is accomplished in teams, so there is a stronger-than-ever need for more leadership at differing levels of the organization; and (3) lifelong learning is at the heart of professional success. The most valuable employees will no longer stay in narrow functional areas but will be likely to work broadly across the enterprise.

Teams that perform multiple activities on multiple projects are now more common than are multiple workers performing a single task. As we transition from the traditional stovepipe-shaped, function-centric structures to the team- and project-centric workplace, we are seeing the emergence of creative leadership at the nucleus of 21^st-century business models. Because 21^st-century projects are exceedingly complex, we cannot manage them with the traditional command and control leadership style.

21^ST-CENTURY ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Virtually all organizations of any size are investing in large-scale transformations of one kind or another. Contemporary changes add value to the organization through the development of breakthrough ideas, the optimization of business processes, and the use of information technology (IT) as a competitive advantage. These initiatives are often generated by mergers or acquisitions, new strategies, global competition, or the emergence of new technologies. Other programs are launched to implement new or reengineered business systems to drive waste out of business operations. Still others are spawned because of the need to innovate, adapt, or die.

Most of these changes are accompanied by pioneering product launches, organizational restructuring, new partnerships, cultural transformations, downsizing or right-sizing, and the development of value-added IT systems. Others involve implementing new lines of business and new ways of doing business (e.g., e-business). In addition to these business-driven changes, IT organizations are transforming themselves, striving to become more value-driven, service-oriented, and better aligned with the business—and to really contribute business benefits. In the 21^st century, project teams no longer deal with IT projects in isolation but within the overarching process of business transformation and innovation. The reach of change affects all areas of the organization and beyond—to customers, suppliers, and business partners—making the complexity of projects unrelenting.

Rather than undertaking only a small number of projects, today’s organizations are engaged in virtually hundreds of ongoing projects of varying sizes, durations, and levels of complexity. Since business strategy is largely achieved through projects, projects are essential to the growth and survival of organizations. They create value in the form of new products and services as a response to changes in the business environment, competition, and the marketplace.

To reap the rewards of significant, large-scale business transformation initiatives designed not only to keep organizations in the game but also to make them major players, organizations must be able to manage complex business transformation projects effectively. However, failed projects and projects with huge cost and schedule overruns have been commonplace in the past. According to leading research companies such as The Standish Group International, Inc., the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Gartner, Forrester Research, and Meta Group, vastly underperforming business transformation and IT projects have been the order of the day. The actual numbers are at best disappointing, at worst punishing and debilitating:

These dismal statistics and the increased importance of projects in executing business strategies have advanced the value and criticality of project leaders, including project managers, business analysts, technologists, and business visionaries. And make no mistake; project leadership is very different from project management, just as traditional management is very different from creative leadership.

MANAGEMENT VERSUS LEADERSHIP: WHO HAS THE POWER?

There are subtle differences between management and leadership and how they amass power and strength. The differences manifest themselves in how individuals motivate others. Managers have subordinates, while leaders have followers. Managers are often risk averse, whereas leaders are risk seekers.¹

MANAGEMENT IS ABOUT OPERATING EFFECTIVELY

Management know-how involves establishing and executing a set of processes that keep complicated systems operating efficiently. Managers have authority by virtue of their title and position. Key facets of management involve strategic and business planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, and problem-solving. Organizations tend to implement management processes to impose discipline and to control the looming chaos. At the same time, they have to avoid becoming so bureaucratic that they squash creativity and innovation. Some say management is just about keeping bureaucracies functioning.

LEADERSHIP IS ABOUT CHANGING EFFECTIVELY

Leadership is a different set of processes—those that create a new organization and change it when the business environment shifts. Leadership involves establishing direction and aligning, motivating, and inspiring people to produce change. The irony is that as new entrepreneurial organizations grow to a sustainable scale through creativity and innovation, managerial processes need to be put into place to cope with the growth and control the unruliness. As the organization succeeds and managerial processes are put in place, self-importance and arrogance surface, and a strong culture that is dead set against change emerges.²

By contrast, 21^st-century creative leadership is all about welcoming and embracing change—in fact, creating disruptive change. The astute and influential business analyst is primed to play a strong role in resolving the inevitable tension and conflict between resistance to change and the need to innovate.

TO LEAD IS TO HAVE STRENGTH AND POWER

And then there is power. Power is something that is bestowed on an individual by someone else. It imparts the authority to get things done even when others resist, whereas leadership is about inspiring people to want to get the same things accomplished that you do and enabling them to do it. Val Williams, executive coach, tells us that:

Strength is very much like leadership. People want to follow a strong person, one who is credible, attractive, results-oriented, fun to work with. Effective project leaders, including the business analyst, are effective through leadership and strength, not through power and authority.

THE GENIUS OF SHARED LEADERSHIP

Organizations use projects to add value to their products and services to better serve their clients and compete in the marketplace. To realize their goals, organizations tap into the talents and competencies of project leadership teams, consisting of the business analyst, the project manager, technologists, and business visionaries.

As discussed in Chapter 2, project-driven organizations develop a portfolio of valuable projects that collectively form the road map from strategy development to strategy execution. Executives spend a great deal of time identifying which projects might offer the greatest rewards with minimal risks. However, to make good project investment decisions, executives are discovering the need for real business analysis so that they have solid information backing their decisions.

DELIVERING VALUABLE CHANGE

The business analyst who is working at the strategy level provides processes, tools, and information to executives to help the organization develop a portfolio of valuable projects. The business analyst then transitions to focus on project execution to meet business needs and maximize the return on project investment.

It is not enough for executive teams to just select the right mix of projects to achieve their strategic imperatives. Executive teams must also establish the organizational capabilities to deliver. Specifically, they must ensure that project teams are capable of contributing to the organization’s success. For optimal project execution, several elements are essential:

FIGURE 4-1. Business Analyst and Project Management Leadership Model

WORLD-CLASS PROJECT LEADERS

It is especially important for executives to groom exceptional project managers and business analysts so they can transition into effective leaders of complex innovation projects. Figure 4-1 depicts the transition from capable individual to world-class project leader and even to senior executive.

The performance of the business analyst is more critical than ever to keep project teams focused on the business benefits sought through project outcomes. With so much riding on successful projects, the business analyst is emerging to fill the gap in creativity, analysis of the business and the environment, and provision of information needed to execute strategy. At the same time, the project manager has risen to the role of strategic implementer, and cross-functional project teams have become management’s strategic tool to convert strategy to achievement.

When project managers and business analysts form a strong partnership with business and technology teams, organizations will begin to reap the maximum value of both disciplines. As the business analysis and project management disciplines mature into strategic business practices, so must our project leaders evolve into strategic leaders of change.

THE 21ST-CENTURY PROJECT LEADER

As programs and projects are launched to realize critical strategic goals, leaders of strategic initiatives should be considered the executive officer team of a small enterprise. Just as a business leader must be multiskilled and strategically focused, a project leader must possess a broad range of knowledge and experience, including competence in several distinct areas—general management, project management, business analysis, the application area (the domain), leadership, and business/technology optimization (see Figure 4-2).

FIGURE 4-2. Project Leader Competency Groups

THE CORE PROJECT LEADERSHIP TEAM

Clearly, a well-formed team of experts is better equipped to provide the requisite knowledge and skills than is a single individual. In the 21^st century, small but mighty high-performing teams of experts are a vital strategic asset. It is now becoming obvious that successful projects are more the result of collaboration and leadership than management, command, and control.

Right now, the project team structure is transitioning from a traditional project management setup to one of team leadership. Consider the core project leadership team configuration represented in Figure 4-3. In this approach, the core team is small, multidisciplined, dedicated to the project full time, and collocated. The core team forms subteams and brings in subject matter experts when needed.

FIGURE 4-3. Core Project Team Configuration

This core team shares the leadership of the project, each person taking the lead when his or her expertise is needed. Shared leadership does not mean there is no accountability. The project manager is still responsible for ensuring that the business solution is delivered on time, on budget, and with the full scope. The business analyst is responsible for ensuring that the project team fully understands the business need and the benefits expected from the new solution and for validating that the solution meets the requirements and will deliver the expected business value. The architect ensures that the solution is designed and developed according to specifications. And the business visionary continues to keep the team focused on the big picture, the strategic goal that will be advanced by the new solution; brings in the appropriate business experts when needed; and helps prepare the organization to operate in a new way once the business solution is deployed.

SITUATIONAL PROJECT LEADERSHIP

In the past, project teams revolved around the project manager as their leader, but the very nature of project team leadership is changing. The team leadership style changes subtly based on the needs of the project. The project manager still leads the planning and budgeting activities. During requirements elicitation, the business analyst takes the lead, and the other core team members slide into more of a support role. As the project moves into solution design and development, the technical architect or developer often assumes the lead role. All core leadership team members support each other, and they get out of the way when their expertise is not the critical element needed. In Chapter 5, we will explore the role of the business analyst as creative team leader in more detail.

THE BUSINESS ANALYST AS PROJECT LEADER

The business analyst, serving as one of several project leaders, closes the gap in areas that have historically been woefully overlooked in business transformation and innovation projects. Some areas that are the purview of the business analyst and that require more diligence include:

Serving as a key project leader with a perpetual focus on adding value to the business, the business analyst becomes a powerful change agent.

THE BUSINESS ANALYST AS CHANGE AGENT

According to John P. Kotter, a professor at the Harvard Business School who is regarded as an authority on leadership and change, “The rate of change is not going to slow down anytime soon. If anything, competition in most industries will probably speed up even more in the next few decades.”⁴ Kotter predicts that as the rate of change increases, the willingness and ability of knowledge workers to acquire new knowledge and skills will become central to career success for individuals and to the economic success of organizations. Workers who are able to develop the capacity to handle a complex and changing business environment are vital to organizational survival. Along the way, these individuals grow to become unusually competent in advancing organizational transformation. They learn to be leaders.

As we have seen, the prevalence of large-scale organizational change has grown exponentially over the past two decades. Although some foresee (or perhaps wish) that the amount of change, in terms of reengineering, mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, downsizing, quality improvement efforts, and cultural transformation projects, will soon diminish, all indications are that change is here to stay. Powerful economic and social forces are at work to force innovation and change, including the rise of the Internet, global economic integration, maturation of markets in developed countries, emerging markets in developing countries, and the turbulent political landscape.

One of the critical roles of the business analyst (and the entire project leadership team) is to effect positive change—to become a creative leader who brings about innovation. Competitive pressures are forcing organizations to reassess their fundamental structures and operations. The amount of change today is formidable. Some react to this change with anger, confusion, and dismay, and it falls upon the project manager and business analyst to lead the transformations most organizations must undergo. In her role as change agent, effecting change through projects, the business analyst:

CHANGING THE WAY WE DO PROJECTS

An organization’s culture is durable because it is “the way we do things around here.” Changing the way it selects projects, develops and manages requirements, and manages projects, while focusing not only on business value but also on innovation, is often a significant shift for an organization. Even today, many organizational cultures still promote piling project requests, accompanied by sparse requirements, onto the IT and new-product development groups and then wondering why they cannot seem to deliver.

Conversely, mature organizations devote a significant amount of time and energy to conducting due diligence and encouraging experimentation and creativity before rushing to construction. These due diligence activities include enterprise analysis, competitive analysis, problem analysis, and creative solution alternative analysis, all performed before selecting and prioritizing projects. This new approach involves a significant cultural shift for most organizations—spending more time up front to make certain the solution is creative, innovative, and even disruptive.

IMPLEMENTING CULTURAL CHANGE

Rita Hadden, specialist in software best practices, process improvement, and corporate culture change, offers some insight into the enormity of the effort to truly change the way we do projects. To achieve culture change, Hadden suggests organizations must have a management plan to deal with the technical complexity of the change and a leadership plan to address the human aspects of the change. According to Hadden, successful culture change requires at a minimum the following elements:

Hadden goes on to say that change agents need to understand the concerns and motivations of the people they hope to influence. They ought to clearly define the desired outcomes for the change and how to measure progress, assess the organization’s readiness for change, and develop plans to minimize the barriers to success. The goal of the business analyst is to create a critical mass, a situation in which enough people in the organization integrate professional business analysis practices into their projects and maintain them as a standard. Therefore, to become leaders in their organizations, business analysts need to learn all about change management—becoming skilled change experts.⁵

THE BUSINESS ANALYST AS VISIONARY

A common vision is essential for an organization to bring about significant change. A clear vision helps to direct, align, and inspire people’s actions. Without a clear vision, a lofty transformation plan can be reduced to a list of inconsequential projects that sap energy and drain valuable resources. Most importantly, a clear vision guides decision-making so that people do not arrive at every decision through unneeded debate and conflict. Yet we continue to underestimate the power of vision.

Whether she is implementing professional business analysis practices, a new innovative product, or a major new business solution, the business analyst needs to articulate a clear vision and then involve the stakeholders in the change initiative as early as possible. Executives and middle managers are essential allies in bringing about change of any magnitude. They all must deliver a consistent message about the need for the change. Select the most credible and influential members of your organization, seek their advice and counsel, and have them become the voice of change. The greater the number of influential managers, executives, and technical/business experts articulating the same vision, the better chance you have of being successful.

THE BUSINESS ANALYST AS CREDIBLE LEADER

When acting as a change agent, the business analyst needs to develop and sustain a high level of credibility. A credible leader is one that is trusted, one that is capable of being believed. Above all, a business analyst must strive to be a reliable source of information. Credibility is composed of both trustworthiness and expertise. In addition to these elements, colleagues often judge others’ credibility on subjective factors, such as enthusiasm and even physical appearance, as well as the objective believability of the message. At the end of the day, professional presence, ethics, and integrity are the cornerstone of credibility.

Credible business professionals are sought out by all organizations. People want to be associated with them. They are thought of as being trustworthy, reliable, sincere—and creative. The business analyst can develop her credibility in bringing about organizational change by becoming proficient in these critical skills and competencies, all of which should be part of an organization’s business analyst professional development program:

CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

Creativity has always been important in the world of business, but until now it hasn’t been at the top of the management agenda. Perhaps this is because creativity was considered too vague, too hard to pin down. It is even more likely that creativity has not been the focus of management attention because concentrating on it produced a less immediate dividend than improving execution. Although there are similarities in the roles of manager, leader, and creative leader, there are subtle differences as well. Figure 4-4 shows the distinctions between these roles.

FIGURE 4-4. Comparison of Managers, Leaders, and Creative Leaders

SUSTAINING A CULTURE OF CREATIVITY

Because creativity is, in part, the ability to produce something novel, we have long acknowledged that creativity is essential to the entrepreneurship that starts new businesses. But what sustains the best companies as they try to achieve a global reach? We are now beginning to realize that in the 21^st century, sustainability is about creativity, transformation, and innovation.

Although academia has focused on creativity for years (we have decades of research to draw on),⁶ the shift to a more innovation-driven economy has been sudden, as evidenced by the fact that CEOs lament the absence of creative leaders. As competitive positioning turns into a contest of who can generate the best and greatest number of innovations, creativity scholars are being asked pointed questions about their research. What guidance is available for leaders in creativity-dependent businesses? How do we creatively manage the complexities of this new global environment? How do we find creative leaders, and how do we nurture and manage them? The conclusion of participants in the Harvard Business School colloquium “Creativity, Entrepreneurship, and Organizations of the Future” was that “one doesn’t manage creativity; one manages for creativity.”⁷ Management’s role is to get the creative people, position them at the right time and place, remove all barriers imposed upon them by the organization, and then get out of their way.

INNOVATING

Business analysts are now being challenged to rethink their approach—to not just record what the business is doing or wants to do, but to operate as a lightning rod to stimulate creativity and innovation. To do so, business analysts are also rethinking the role of the customers and users they facilitate, looking at them as creative resources that can contribute imagination and inventiveness, not just operational knowledge. The business analyst who works across and up and down the organization, getting the right people at the right time and in the right place, can fan the flames of creativity.

Good, sometimes great, ideas often come from operational levels of organizations when workers are given a large degree of autonomy. To stay competitive in the 21^st century, CEOs are attempting to distribute creative responsibility up, down, and across the organization. Success is unsustainable if it depends too much on the ingenuity of a single person or a few people, as is too often seen in start-ups that flourish for a few years and then fall flat; they were not built to last, to continually innovate. Success is no longer about continuous improvement; it is about continuous innovation.

ENGAGING IN CONSTRUCTIVE DIALOGUE

Creative leaders have many distinguishing beliefs and observable behavioral characteristics. According to John McCann, educator, facilitator, and consultant, creative leaders:

McCann believes that a skilled and credible facilitator can set the stage for groups to engage in productive dialogue that incorporates creativity, ambiguity, tension, and decisiveness. The business analyst is perfectly positioned to be that credible leader and facilitator, one who sets these conditions that lead to creativity in motion:

FACILITATING CREATIVITY

As a creative leader, the business analyst combines open dialogue with expert facilitation as creativity-inducing tools for stimulating the sharing of unique ideas across the organization. Not only does the collective “IQ” of the groups the business analyst works with rise, so can the CQ, the creativity quotient. In fact, business analysts who encourage creativity and guide groups at all levels through the innovation process can increase an entire organization’s CQ.

Business analysts would be prudent to take into account the views of John Kao, author of Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity. According to Kao, drawing up a “Creativity Bill of Rights” can help team members feel as if they are truly responsible for their own decisions. The Creativity Bill of Rights proclaims the following:

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BUILDING

What kinds of barriers should business analysts expect to encounter when they try to become the invaluable creative leaders organizations need today? The creative leader must learn to penetrate a formidable set of customs that exist in any organization. In a Harvard Business Review column, Rosabeth Kanter calls these organizational cultural barriers “inside the building thinking.” These may pose the strongest obstruction to creativity and innovation.¹¹

What does this mean for the business analyst in her role as facilitator, charged with helping groups engage in productive dialogue? Business analysts must be cognizant of the fact that their first inclination—and the first tendency of their stakeholders—will be to limit their options by focusing on similar companies doing comparable things. So it is up to the business analyst to be aware of and encourage the group to penetrate the inside-the-building boundaries.

To unleash creativity, business analysts must begin to challenge their stakeholders (users, customers, managers, project managers, developers, and executives) to use not only systems thinking, but also complexity thinking and out-of-the-building thinking—to look at the entire ecosystem that surrounds their organizations. It is only then that they can set the stage to bring about lasting innovation.

BECOMING A CREATIVE LEADER

Stew Friedman, professor of management at the Wharton School, former head of Ford Motor’s Leadership Development Center, and author of Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life, posed this question to business leaders across the country: “What kind of leadership do we need now?” The most common response was adaptive, flexible, and innovative. Because of the current sense of turbulence in the business world and in our lives, the leadership attribute that comes to mind most often is a means for dealing with chaos, which Friedman calls playful creativity.¹²

Friedman believes that every person can have a capacity for leadership, regardless of organizational level or title. Friedman also teaches that leadership should not be confined to work but extended to one’s personal life, community involvement, and family life.¹³ So how do we become creative leaders? Friedman contends we need to actively work at it by experimenting with changing how things get done at work, as well as in other parts of our lives. He stresses that it is not the experiment that counts, but what we learn from it. Did we really create something new? What worked well, and what didn’t?

Friedman believes that we must continually strive to overcome the three great inhibitors to creativity: fear of failure, guilt about appearing to be selfish, and ignorance of what’s possible. If present and future leaders are not focusing on removing these barriers through experimenting, imagining, and continually trying new things, then they are “missing opportunities to strengthen their capacity to gain control in an increasingly uncertain world.” Hence, Friedman asks: “So, what small wins are you pursuing these days? How will they improve your ability to be creative and to have greater capacity to adapt to the rapidly shifting realities of your life and work?”¹⁴

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN TO THE BUSINESS ANALYST?

Creative leaders produce sustainable change. We have provided lots of food for thought as you strive to become a creative leader—and strive you must, because creative leadership is gravely needed for your organization to survive. Your power will come from your professional presence, your credibility and expertise, and your ability to get creative things done—to bring about disruptive change. As organizations mature in their use of business analysis, you may derive some of your power from positioning in the company, but without a doubt, it is through creative leadership that you will thrive.

NOTES

1. Val Williams, “Leadership: Strength vs. Power,” (undated). Online at http://www.valwilliams.com/articles/Strength.html (accessed August 2010).

2. John P. Kotter, Leading Change (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996): 27.

3. Williams.

4. Kotter, 161.

5. Rita Chao Hadden, Leading Culture Change in Your Software Organization: Delivering Results Early (Vienna, VA: Management Concepts, 2003): 133–226.

6. Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, “The Creativity Crisis,” Newsweek (July 19, 2010): 44–50.

7. Teresa M. Amabile and Mukti Khaire, “Creativity and the Role of the Leader,” Harvard Business Review (October 2008). Online at http://hbr.org/2008/10/creativity-and-the-role-of-the-leader/ar/1 (accessed July 2010).

8. John M. McCann, “Leadership as Creativity: Finding the Opportunity Hidden within Decision Making and Dialogue,” National Endowment for the Arts (undated). Online at http://www.nea.gov/resources/Lessons/MCCANN2.HTML (accessed July 2010).

9. Ibid.

10. John Kao, Jamming: The Art and Discipline of Business Creativity (New York: HarperCollins, 1996): 75–93.

11. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, “Column: Think Outside the Building,” Harvard Business Review (March 2010). Online at http://hbr.org/2010/03/column-think-outside-the-building/ar/1 (accessed August 2010).

12. Stew Friedman, “Become a More Creative Leader—Think Small,” Harvard Business Review Blogs (June 15, 2009). Online at http://blogs.hbr.org/friedman/2009/06/become-a-more-creative-leader.html (accessed August 2010).

13. Marci Alboher, “Hot Ticket in B-School: Bringing Life Values to Corporate Ethics,” New York Times (May 29, 2008). Online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/business/smallbusiness/29shift.html?_r=1 (accessed August 2010).

14. Friedman.