Chapter 14
Pillar IV: Developing Innovation
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
—ANTOINE DE ST. ÉXUPERY
Innovation
- Foster ingenuity, imagination, and autonomous thinking:
- Understands the importance of taking risks, spurring ingenuity, imagination, autonomous thinking, values knowledge, and challenges seen as learning opportunities.
What does it take to be an innovative leader? How much impact can you have as an innovative leader on the organization? In a series of studies, the McKinsey Institute looked at the gap that exists between the leaders who want to innovate and their actual ability to innovate.1 They report that, according to their surveys, 70 percent of senior executives claim that innovation will be one of their top three drivers of growth for their companies over the next few years. They also found that 65 percent of senior executives were somewhat or less confident about their decisions in this area.
While there are no accepted best practices to foster innovation as yet, there is near unanimous agreement among top executives that people and corporate cultures are the drivers of innovation. McKinsey identified three key people-management building blocks of an innovative organization. The first, and some would say most important, aspect of innovation is to include it in your company's strategic plan. That way it can be managed, tracked, and measured.
Second, executives can better use their existing, and perhaps unused talent for innovation. They can do this without implementing disruptive change programs. It can be done by generating the conditions that allow active innovation networks to be created and grow. Finally, they can take clear steps to nurture a culture of innovation based on trust among employees. In this culture, people would appreciate that their ideas are respected, believe that it is safe to express those ideas, and oversee risk collectively, with their managers.
In another survey, McKinsey found that 600 senior executives reported that leadership was the single best predictor of innovation. In addition, they found, “the top two motivators of behavior to promote innovation are strong leaders who encourage and protect it and top executives who spend their time actively managing and driving it.”
In most organizations, there is little more than lip service paid to innovation, with rewards for short-term performance and a fear of failure stymying innovative endeavors. Three steps are recommended to overcome this inertia:
- Define the kind of innovation that drives growth and helps meet strategic objectives.
- Add innovation to the formal agenda at regular leadership meetings.
- Set performance metrics and targets for innovation (both financial and behavioral).
In another study, looking at the traits of innovative leaders, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman interviewed and used 360-feedback with 33 individual leaders found to be high innovators.2 Of the 10 traits identified, the most important ones included showing excellent strategic vision. This included the ability to paint a clear picture of where they wanted to go and leaving the route to get there up to the creative team. Second was having a strong customer focus. Innovation is not just for innovation's sake. Being successful at leading innovation requires you to really understand the customer—the emotional intelligence skill of empathy.
The third trait involved creating a climate of trust. Once again, this had to do with taking risks and giving people permission to fail. Collaborative relationships within the team and among others in the organization are also important. Fourth, these leaders also had a fearless loyalty toward doing what's right for the organization and for the customer. Doing the right thing for the customer took precedence over pleasing the boss. This is indicative of assertiveness as an emotional skill. Fifth, they promote a culture that takes ideas from the bottom up, as opposed to top down. They were seen as optimistic and energetic in their approach to other's ideas.
The sixth trait was their ability to be persuasive. They could get others to accept their ideas. They were described as enthusiastic. They were able to inspire others through their sense of purpose and meaning—an ability we previously described as insight.
Examples of Innovative Leaders
There have been a number of examples of innovative leaders over the past few decades: Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry Page (Google), Elon Musk (Tesla Motors and SpaceX), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Reed Hastings (Netflix), Jorgen Vig Knudstorp (Lego), Marissa Mayer (Yahoo!), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn), and Jan Koum (WhatsApp), to name a few. But perhaps the most iconic is Steve Jobs (Apple).
There have been many attempts to explain the innovation success of Jobs. As pointed out by Carmine Gallo, Apple was near bankruptcy after Jobs's 12-year absence.3 When he returned, he initiated one innovation after another and was named by CNBC as the number one most innovative and transformative leader of the past 25 years.4
What were the elements of his character that drove the innovation that took Apple from the verge of bankruptcy to the most successful company in the world? What can innovative leaders take from this lesson? Gallo distilled this success to a few distinct rules.
Lead with Passion and Vision
Jobs often talked about how important it was to do what you love. It was all about passion. It wasn't computers that Jobs was passionate about, but rather the potential that computers brought to people all over the world. A bold, specific vision inspires others and sets things in motion. While passion fuels the rocket, vision sets the direction. Jobs believed in hiring the best people and setting them toward the vision he shared with them.
Strive for Simplicity
When Jobs returned to Apple, he found many different, unrelated projects in progress. One of his first missions was reducing the number of projects in development. In his words, “innovation comes from saying no to 1,000 things.” He believed in making things simpler. While Microsoft went about expanding the capabilities of Windows and making it more complex, Jobs set about creating an iPhone that was simpler and had fewer buttons than competing phones.
Look for Connections
A big part of innovation is connecting disparate things. Innovators know how to associate ideas from different disciplines and apply them to specific projects. Jobs was able to take different concepts and apply them to his innovations, such as using the calligraphy he learned in college on the Macintosh typeface. As Jobs stated toward the end of his life, “it's the intersection of technology and liberal arts that makes our hearts sing.”
Share a Story and Sell Dreams
Being a good storyteller helps get your message across to others. Perhaps inspired by liberal arts, Jobs was a great storyteller and legions of followers would fill theatres just to hear his new product messages. Jobs knew that being a good storyteller helps get your message across to others. Having a great idea is not enough to be an innovator; you have to sell your message.
Another great attribute of Jobs was his ability to sell dreams, not products. People are generally not interested in products. They want to know how their lives will change for the better. Whether it's an iPhone or iPad, it's not about the device. It's about how easy it will be for you to use and how it will make your life easier.
Listen to Yourself
What happens when dealing with all the naysayers that innovators encounter? Well, Steve Jobs said it best with, “don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice…. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”
What Is an Innovative Leader?
Our definition of an innovative leader is:
An innovative leader focuses on taking risks, spurring colleagues' ingenuity and autonomous thought. Knowledge is valued and challenges are viewed as learning opportunities.
The basic emotional intelligence skills that contribute to innovative leadership are:
Self-Actualization
Independence
Problem Solving
Assertiveness
Flexibility
Optimism
Self-Actualization
Self-actualization is a significant factor on all four of our pillars of successful leadership. Self-actualization is strongly related to overall work success and performance. It can be summed up in three words: pursuit of meaning. While this sounds quite philosophical, as a leader it means finding purpose and enjoyment in your role and performing to your fullest potential. When you have a higher sense of accomplishment and resolve, you are more motivated, both as an individual and as an influencer for your team or organization to strive for greatness.
Self-actualized leaders are perceived as role models and as someone who is striving to learn, develop new skills, and willing to grow to fully optimize their talents. Strong self-actualized leaders permeate the entire organization, as employees may emulate their approach. This drive for self-fulfillment stimulates higher productivity and greater employee satisfaction.
Independence
Independent leaders are capable of feeling, thinking, and working on their own, a critical skill that all great leaders have in common. When well developed as a skill, you are ready and capable of holding your own ideas and making necessary decisions required for your team on your own. Independent leaders are unlikely to be swayed by popular opinion, which can help maintain an established direction for the team. Consider the following characteristics of independent leaders:
- They are comfortable providing direction and working on their own.
- They can work without emotional dependency on others, and don't require their reassurance.
- They accept responsibility for their decisions, knowing that at times people will disagree with them.
Leadership Implications
Independent leaders rarely depend on others to make important decisions. These leaders are self-directed, can analyze a situation, formulate a response, and move into implementation mode without second-guessing their decisions. This skill is crucial for a leader, especially when difficult decisions need to be made and direction is limited. At the same time, they are careful not to neglect the emotions and opinions of their team, which could possibly leave them feeling alienated, and eventually disengaged.
Organizational Implications
Independent leaders tend to voice their thoughts and opinions, likely adding their own perspective to the discussion and influencing the direction of the organization. They are active participants in generating ideas rather than passive receivers. Keep a close eye on how often you go off in your own direction rather than building coalitions. Teams that strive for the same values and goals build strong organizations.
Stay Connected
While being emotionally independent is important for leading a team, being completely autonomous can hurt the amount of buy-in you receive from them. Once again, here are four qualities that indicate you are too independent:
- Ignorance:Are people feeling like I am ignoring facts in an effort to pursue my own agenda?
- Know-it-all:Do I think I know everything, and thus my team's advice is not needed?
- Detached:Am I hurting collaborative relationships and engagement by not including others?
- Closed door:While I have an open-door policy, is my behavior distancing myself from my team?
Listening to Feedback
To ensure that you do not hurt any key relationships throughout the organization, balance self-directed thought with the ability to seek advice and feedback.
You do not have to be a fan of an idea to entertain the thought process of others and explore different perspectives. Doing so can help gain the support of others and perhaps even generate new possibilities.
- Examine a few of your past decisions. What did your decision-making process look like? Who did you connect with to seek advice or a differing point of view? How well did you follow along the input that was given to you?
- Next time when you are seeking advice from your team, note down the different perspectives before presenting a counterthought. Then reflect on those notes and think through the feedback and the possible impact on your decision.
Problem Solving
Solving problems is an everyday reality for leaders. However, leaders need more than just problem-solving skills, they need to work with problems where emotions are involved and recognize how these emotions impact their decisiveness. This is an area of emotional intelligence that innovative leaders extensively use; they tackle problems head-on without being overwhelmed or distracted by their emotions. Their approach is likely uninterrupted and invokes a sense of steadfastness and confidence from those they lead. These leaders:
- See emotional information as playing a pivotal role but are not sidetracked by it.
- Work through the many steps to solving a problem without being emotionally distracted.
- Are likely to delve into tough or touchy problems, understanding the emotions at play.
- Rarely let emotions inhibit their decisions, but they do not take it to the extreme and ignore their feelings entirely.
Leadership Implications
For almost every problem, innovative leaders show focus and a rational demeanor as they generate solutions. Their leadership approach allows them to reframe problems and approach situations in new ways, spurring the creativity of their team and allowing for process overhauls when required.
This leader still wants to appear emotionally invested in the decisions they make—they just aren't allowing their emotions to derail them from making a decision.
Organizational Implications
The innovative leader's method of viewing a problem from different perspectives, without being derailed by their emotions, helps them generate a wider range of solutions than most leaders. They are likely sought out for their rational problem-solving approach, particularly when emotions are running high.
Tackling problems head-on enables them to set the tone for responsiveness and efficiency throughout the organization.
Seek Understanding First
If you find yourself quick to jump into problem-solving mode, you may start implementing solutions without fully surveying the situation.
- Begin by explaining your interpretation of a problem to at least two people, one who is connected closely to the problem and the other who is a neutral third party.
- Don't ask for solutions; have them hear your summary of the situation and ask clarifying questions if needed.
- A question to which you do not know the answer is a sign that you need a greater understanding of the problem before you begin to solve it.
Set the Emotional Stage
As a leader, you need to manage the emotional landscape of your team. Others may not be as decisive as you; don't leave people behind as you forge ahead solving problems.
- If your team needs to be innovative and consider unconventional approaches, try to evoke positive emotions within the group (e.g., recall a successful event, use humor, or hold a meeting outside of the office).
- Alternatively, to ensure others can concentrate on the details or analyze the associated costs of a problem, try to generate a slightly less positive mood that can help you with the analytical phase of problem solving.
Assertiveness
Another key emotional skill you should develop as an innovative leader is assertiveness. Picture a line between the words passive and aggressive. At the middle point of this line lies assertiveness, a place where you work with your team by finding the right language at the right time to express your feelings and thoughts. It is helpful to articulate your thoughts in a clear and confident way. You should be firm and direct when making decisions. You can guide your team toward your goals by articulating your needs and protecting their resources. As well, you should view your rights and those of your team's as sacred.
Leadership Implications
Innovative leaders pull on strong emotions and convictions to state their position. This is a crucial skill to have when leading a team; it helps in gaining your team's buy-in and inspiring them toward innovative solutions. Further, a high level of assertiveness helps to gain the resources your team needs and proactively clear obstacles in the path of your team's success. While such situations require you to be an assertive leader, others may require you to be more flexible in your thinking. Becoming too rigid in defending your position may result in unproductive, stubborn, or aggressive behavior.
Flexibility
Flexibility requires that you be able to modify your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in response to change. An innovative, flexible leader has a finely tuned ability to adapt to shifting priorities in the organization. They are a catalyst who inspires fresh ideas, and learns from unexpected events. This willingness to adapt helps them become a champion of progress and use a variety of leadership styles with direct reports. Some indicators of the flexible leader are:
- They are viewed as quick to respond to unpredictable events.
- They are reactive, and not stuck to conventional and outdated methods.
- They are able to mold their leadership style and emotional responses to changing conditions and differing needs of those on their team.
Leadership Implications
An innovative, flexible leader is at ease with both minor and major transformations. They realize that they cannot control everything, which helps fuel ideas and creativity in their teams. They are not always a proponent of the status quo and are receptive to improving business processes and changing leadership styles when necessary. Nevertheless, it is important to be mindful that change is made easier when they are armed with sufficient information to make a credible decision.
Organizational Implications
Innovative, flexible leaders are role models for responsiveness. Their flexibility likely helps to ensure that new insights and fresh perspectives are fostered. Different opinions are raised within their team and work relationships, and challenges to traditional procedures become the norm. They help contribute to an organization that adopts “outside the box” thinking and views change as a continual learning process. They rely on instinct and reality testing when evaluating alternative courses of action.
Remain True to Your Convictions
Watch that you are not heavily swayed or influenced by others' perspectives, as too much flexibility can pose as many challenges as too little.
- Employees respect leaders who remain true to their beliefs, even if the outcome is unexpected.
- Employees are not fond of leaders who waver, based on the opinions of others. Behave consistently so that your adaptable approach does not become counterproductive.
- Reflect on the core beliefs and values that underlie your choices and ensure that your leadership style embodies these traits.
- Be prepared to share the reason(s) why you veered from a particular course of action, so that your colleagues can understand your logic.
Establish a Culture of Innovation
Funnel your drive for innovation and creativity through the organization.
- Reward and praise your employees for their new ideas and creations. For instance, you can award a plaque of recognition to the employee who presents the most original and imaginative idea.
- Be sure to give your employees the freedom to fail. There is likely something of value within every idea that doesn't come to fruition.
- Hold your employees accountable for achieving key metrics (e.g., sales targets) but allow them the flexibility to plan how they will achieve these goals and encourage questioning of the status quo.
Optimism
Optimism, the ability to remain positive despite setbacks, is a crucial differentiator between successful leaders and others in the workplace. It permeates almost every application of emotional intelligence, from helping you persevere, to motivating and inspiring colleagues. As a leader, you need to view your work and life in a positive light.
Some characteristics of optimistic leaders are:
- They approach leadership with enthusiasm and gusto.
- They motivate colleagues to achieve success, help them set stretch goals, and reach for greater heights.
- They believe that setbacks are temporary and that they can overcome them.
Leadership Implications
An optimistic leadership style helps you view most situations as malleable and controllable. By further developing a sense of optimism, when you encounter adversity, you will be able to overcome the challenge, learn from the situation, and inspire others to do the same. You will be able to set an inspiring mission and vision for the organization that produces results and productivity.
Four general areas of innovation were outlined as eligible. They were:
- Process improvement: Process improvement is the proactive task of identifying, analyzing, and improving upon existing business processes within an organization for optimization and to meet new quotas or standards of quality.
- Gamification: Gamification primarily refers to a process of making systems, services, and activities more enjoyable and motivating. Gamification commonly employs game design elements which are used in so called nongame contexts in attempts to improve user engagement, organizational productivity, flow, learning, employee recruitment and evaluation, (and) ease of use and usefulness of systems, among others.
- Mobile Apps: Mobile apps have existed long enough for us to know what they are; we need to focus on what they can do for us, both in terms of how they can support our current products, and how we can use them to enter emerging and future markets (i.e., wearables).
- Big data: Big data is a broad term for data sets so large or complex that traditional data processing applications are inadequate. Challenges include analysis, capture, data curation, search, sharing, storage, transfer, visualization, and information privacy. The term often refers simply to the use of predictive analytics or other certain advanced methods to extract value from data, and seldom to a particular size of data set. Accuracy in big data may lead to more confident decision making. And better decisions can mean greater operational efficiency, cost reduction, and reduced risk.
What Do Participants Produce?
Participants are expected to produce three things:
- Business plan
- Prototype (can be anything from hand-drawn sketches to fully interactive demo)
- Brief presentation summarizing their projects (similar to what one would present on Shark Tank or to a venture capitalist)
A number of questions to be answered during the presentation are provided to guide the presentations:
- What problem do you solve and for whom?
- How does your idea solve the problem?
- How does your idea/plan benefit MHS?
- How do we implement your idea?
- How is your idea/business plan innovative?
- How does this improve our technology/distribution?
The day of the hackathon is an exciting day. There are T-shirts for all participants, helpers, and judges. Food is provided throughout the day. There are “consultant” stations set up where participants can get advice and assistance from senior team members in accounting, presentation skills, marketing, business plan, and so forth. Participants learn to work in cross-functional teams, develop new skills, and think more entrepreneurially.
Participation has been excellent with approximately 70 staff on teams (out of 160 staff in total, including managers) working on 15 projects. There is a lot of buildup to the event as people develop and start to research ideas. We've had many excellent ideas and have already started putting a few to market. The ideas ranged across all of the eligible areas.
One example of an idea we developed can be a game-changer in the development and assessment of higher-level job competencies. A program called AscentMode was developed that contains a database of competencies and their definitions, used for a number of senior job positions, such as sales manager. The data were collected from hundreds of ads placed by Fortune 500 companies for senior positions. Within each of the competencies, a number of test items are matched from our various talent assessments.
Competencies include, but are not limited to, Analytical Thinking, Business Acumen, Change Orientation, Communication, Integrity, Interpersonal Management, and Results Orientation. So an HR director at a large company can build their own competency model from the options provided (with industry relevant suggestions, e.g., pharma, financial services). They can, in no time, be ready to assess applicants online for the relevant skills sets needed for the job. This could provide huge savings to organizations that hire experts for competency analyses. We already have one large pharmaceutical company piloting the prototype.
Another innovative idea one of the teams came up with was based on the success of our hackathon methodology in terms of not only new products and procedures developed, but the level of staff engagement throughout the organization. They created a format, structure, forms, and materials that would allow our organizational development team to consult to other organizations so they could benefit from our experience in setting up their own hackathon. They blueprinted a one-day consultation that would assist companies in carrying out their own hackathon and a three-day consultation where our organizational development team would come and help run the hackathon in your company. They called it Hack-A-Tron. Brilliant idea! One of our outside judges wanted to know when he could bring it to his company.
Developing the Ideas
Once projects for development were decided upon, we created an Innovation Hub. This was a specific unit of staff selected to work on some of our innovation projects. Their mandate is to take a project from prototype phase to development, and through field testing to eventually provide it to the sales and marketing teams. Our Hub was built with a combination of existing and new staff, as needed. They have no other responsibilities but to develop new projects.
Innovation takes time and commitment. There are also risks. You must be willing to accept failure. These key ingredients can help you and your team become more innovative. While there is a cost of innovation, the rewards can be huge. Innovation can make the difference between sustaining a successful organization and being disrupted.