I was first introduced to the principle of Taking Personal Responsibility when I attended a number of experiential workshops facilitated by Robert Kiyosaki who is now well known globally as the successful entrepreneurial author of the “Rich Dad Poor Dad” book series. At that time, in the late 1980s, the concept simply involved taking personal responsibility for your role in getting the results you get, in both challenging and problematic situations.
This principle has since evolved as the most crucial foundation for developing our emotionally intelligent, conscious, and transformational leadership capabilities. Largely through focusing on the development of self-awareness and self-regulation skillsets, which are especially important skills to cultivate in times of extreme uncertainty.
Blaming, Justifying, and Denying
Taking personal responsibility involves encouraging people to step up and out of blaming themselves or others, out of justifying their position or denying what is really going on to largely avoid the cognitive, emotional, and visceral results and consequences of their actions.
Which are essentially, largely unconscious defensive reactions to the problem or situation. So, it sounds quite simple, yet, even now, it’s still largely a countercultural principle, and a neurologically challenging one, because we are wired to survive (fight/flight/freeze) in the face of what we perceive as danger!
Especially when many of us are living in an oppositional blaming and shaming political environment, or within a passively or aggressively defensive organizational culture. Where a large section of the community, has been forced by the constraints of the pandemic, into fearing that their security and survival needs will not be met. Alternately, the great resignation and the nature of the virtual hybrid workplace have increased some people’s fears about even being able to get their jobs done!
All of this creates distorted thoughts and language that focus on “scarcity” where many people are fearing that they are not “enough” and do not have “enough” to deal with their current circumstances. Rather than leaning towards exploring and eliciting the possibilities and opportunities available in our abundant world. As there is no clear playbook about how people can effectively and responsibly lead and manage in this unique 21st-century context, many people are floundering, languishing into largely emotionally overwhelmed states.
Where it is easier, and sometimes safer, to be a victim, blame and shame others for their helpless or powerless situation, or to justify and deny any need to change their perspective about it, never mind their role in causing their own anxious and unresourceful emotional states.
Back to Leadership Basics
Yet, it is more important than ever, for leaders and managers to help people:
Take ownership of their consequences and be responsible for the emotional, cognitive, and visceral results of their actions,
Authentically connect, empower, and enable people and communities to flourish,
Provide safe, transparent, trusted environments and interdependence where people can dare to think differently and potentially thrive.
This means that the range of crises, uncertainty, and disruptions we are experiencing now is forcing us to go back to basic 101 management and leadership principles.
According to McKinsey & Co in a recent article “A Leaders Guide – communicating with teams, stakeholders and communities during Covid 19” – “Crises come in different intensities. As a “landscape-scale” event, the coronavirus has created great uncertainty, elevated stress and anxiety, and prompted tunnel vision, in which people focus only on the present rather than toward the future. During such a crisis, when information is unavailable or inconsistent, and when people feel unsure about what they know (or anyone knows), behavioral science points to an increased human desire for transparency, guidance, and making sense out of what has happened”.
The Maturity Continuum – Shifting to I and We
The principle of taking personal responsibility has evolved and been enhanced significantly through the work of Steve Covey, in the “Seven Habits of Effective People” and provides the core foundations for transformational and conscious leadership through the “Maturity Continuum”:
Dependence is the paradigm of you – you take care of me; you come through for me; you didn’t come through for me; I blame you for the results. Dependent and approval-seeking people need others to get what they want.
Independence is the paradigm of I – I can do it; I am responsible; I am self-reliant; I can choose. Independent people get what they want through their own efforts.
Interdependence is the paradigm of we – we can do it; we can cooperate; we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together. Interdependent people combine their efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success.
Putting the Maturity Continuum to Work
In the early 2000s I was an associate of Corporate Vision, Australia’s first culture change and transformation consultancy, now the globally successful Walking the Talk organisation, for fourteen years.
Where every culture, leadership, team development, or change program we designed and presented, introduced taking personal responsibility, as a fundamental, core learning principle. Aligning it with the principle of – For things to change first I must change, which deeply challenged and disrupted people’s belief systems, habitual mindsets, thinking styles, and ways of acting.
As a seasoned coach of twenty years, these two core principles seem to still profoundly challenge the majority of my coaching clients across the world, no matter how senior their role or position is, or how knowledgeable, skilled, and experienced they are!
Where many managers and leaders have failed to self-regulate, lack self-awareness, and have unconsciously slipped into feeling victimized, powerless, helpless, and in some instances, even hopeless about their futures where some are:
Feeling frozen, inert, paralyzed, overwhelmed, and immobilized in their abilities to affect any kind of positive change in both their work and home environments.
Unconsciously slipping into blaming and shaming others for their situations,
Justifying their inertia through a range of “reasonable reasons” and “elaborate stories” about how it’s “not their fault” or it’s not “up to them” to make any change.
Simply denying their current consequences, or the importance of needing to take positive actions, and make changes.
Unmotivated, lack any desire for control, or have the personal power to affect change in their situation.
Initiating Taking Personal Responsibility
To accept and share responsibility starts with being bravely willing to courageously connect with our whole selves and consciously stepping back to hit our internal pause button, retreat into silence and stillness, and compassionately ask:
What happened?
What can I/we learn from it?
What can I/we then do to create it?
Taking personal responsibility becomes a compassionate, creative, and courageous exercise in continuous learning, self-awareness, and emotional self-regulation in ways that safely disrupt people’s defensiveness and awaken them to the possibility of being personally powerful in tough situations.
It is also the basis for taking intelligent actions catalyze and cause positive outcomes, that deliver real solutions to crises, complex situations, and difficult business problems.
This is the first in a series of three blogs on the theme of taking responsibility – going back to leadership basics.
Find out about our learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators, Leaders, and Teams Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deeply personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 9-weeks, starting Tuesday, October 18, 2022. It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of an ecosystem focus, human-centric approach, and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, and upskill people and teams and develop their future fitness, within your unique context. Find out more about our products and tools.
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Many would-be innovators obsess over ideas, wait for inspiration to strike, and believe that with the right idea, success can miraculously come overnight.
However, as we’ve written before, that’s just not going to happen. In fact, usually the only thing separating the winning innovators from the rest is execution. It makes all the difference in the world, and yet, it’s still a vastly underrated capability.
As part of our coaching program, we’ve asked hundreds of corporate innovators and innovation leaders to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses. And, by far, the most common answer is that they’re great at coming up with ideas and thinking about the big picture but lack the patience and discipline to see things through to results.
As such, it’s safe to say that as a community, we innovators need to take a hard look in the mirror and admit that this an area where most of us have a lot of room for improvement.
So, in today’s article, we’ll explore the topic of executing innovation in more detail to try to understand what the problems associated with it are, and what successful execution of an innovation really takes. This is designed to be a guide to help leaders get it right, but I think there’s a lot that every innovator regardless of job title can learn from.
What does executing innovation mean?
Before we dive deeper, it’s probably a good idea to clarify what we mean with the term “executing innovation”, and how it relates to “implementing innovation”.
These are often used interchangeably, but I think it’s useful to distinguish them from one another. The way we like to put this is as follows:
Implementing innovation is the process of taking an idea and then turning that into reality.
Executing innovation, on the other hand, is the entire process of creating value with innovation.
In other words, implementation is what you do for an individual idea to make that happen. Execution covers the implementation, but also the process of turning that (along with many other ideas and innovations) into something that actually creates value and can be scaled up.
Implementation isn’t always easy, but it’s still typically a linear project that you can usually plan out in advance. Execution, on the other hand, is a much more complex and multidisciplinary effort.
To succeed at delivering value, you need to get a lot of things right. And with innovation, there are many assumptions in that plan. Some of those assumptions will always prove to be false, and you’ll need to deviate from the plan.
That combination of multidisciplinary collaboration and the need to deviate from original plans often leads to a myriad of practical challenges in many large organizations.
However, before we dive deeper into those challenges, let’s first take a step back to realize why execution is so critical.
Why execution is critical for innovation success
There’s a reason for innovation being defined as the act of introducing something new.
Everyone has ideas. Many can even implement some form of them, typically a prototype, but few successfully realize the full potential of the idea by truly executing on it successfully.
To clarify, ideas are an important starting point, but with every great idea, there are hundreds or even thousands of people across the world who’ve had the same exact idea.
Most never start working on it. Many give up in the process. Some make it to market, and a few might even make that into a feasible business. There are usually only a couple of winners. Those are the ones that succeeded in executing that idea.
Everyone has ideas, but few successfully realize the full potential of their ideas. The ones that do are the ones that know how to execute well.
This is of course a bit of an oversimplification but should help explain the fundamental importance of proper execution.
And that is not just true for individual ideas and innovations, but it’s also the case for corporate strategies at large. Look at any given industry, and it’s quite likely that you’ll see many companies with a nearly identical strategy. Again, the difference comes down to how well the company succeeded in executing that strategy.
In other words, your idea or strategy sets the ceiling for your impact if successful, but execution determines how close to that ceiling you’ll get. Even the best idea or strategy is worth nothing unless it’s executed well.
On the other hand, even with a mediocre strategy or idea, you can achieve remarkable success if you just execute it well enough. There are dozens of well-known companies like McDonald’s and FedEx that are obvious examples of this. There’s nothing particularly remarkable or distinctive about their ideas or strategies. They weren’t the first in their respective fields, they just executed on their ideas brilliantly.
What’s more, if you’re a strong executor, you’ll soon find out the limits of the original strategy or idea, at which point you can adapt and change course accordingly. But, it doesn’t work the other way around.
Thus, no matter the situation, execution will always be more important than your idea or strategy.
Misconceptions about executing innovation
As you might have realized by now, execution is of course a massive, nuanced, context-specific and very complex endeavor. In practice, it’s an endless jungle of interlinked choices and actions affecting one another that you need to navigate with limited information to get to the other side.
Thus, the space of possible challenges and problems you might encounter is pretty extensive. So, instead of looking at the individual problems themselves, it’s more helpful for us to try to understand the common misconceptions that ultimately lead to teams underappreciating execution and thus subsequently failing at it.
A big factor behind most of these is the fundamental uncertainty that innovation is always associated with. Because you can’t know everything in advance, it’s not going to be a nice and linear process of doing simple steps one after another. Instead, it’s a messy and iterative process of creative problem-solving.
Anyway, with that, here are the top four that I most commonly see innovation leaders and their teams have.
1. The leader’s job is just to get the big picture right
This is probably the most common problem I’ve come across, and it’s especially common among inexperienced executives, or ones that otherwise lack execution experience, such as some management consultants and academics.
There are many shapes this one might take, and we’ll return to it later, but what it ultimately comes down to is the glorification of strategy work and/or surface-level creativity.
In business school, and in consulting, we’re taught to think about the big picture as the job of top management. We’re led to believe that a leader or innovator takes in a market analysis, compares a few scenarios, chooses a positioning, and then paints an inspiring vision to show direction for the company. Then the pieces will simply fall in place and success happens.
While the above mentioned are of course still useful activities, if you’ve ever actually turned an innovative idea into a successful business, you know that in practice, there’s a lot more to it than that, and experienced executives are of course well aware of that
Strategic choices can be made across the organization, but the responsibility for execution always lies at the top.
As Professor Martin has well put it, CEOs should stop thinking that execution is somebody else’s job, and the same applies for every innovation leader. Strategic choices can be, and frequently are, made where the action is. Yet, the responsibility for execution always lies at the top. After all, there’s a reason for the CEO being the Chief Executive Officer.
2. I don’t need to understand the details
The second is closely related to our first one. It’s easy to think that as a leader or visionary innovator, you’re the person responsible for the vision, ideas, and big picture decisions, and then the experts will then figure things out in practice. After all, that’s why you hired them, right?
Well, that might work if you’re operating in a static industry where all the variables are known and static, but with innovation that really isn’t the case.
You need to get the big picture right, but it isn’t enough to succeed. You need to also have the right product, business model, technology, customer experience, customer acquisition channels and tactics, operating models, etc. All of these have a wide variety of choices that depend on one another and changes in any of the areas will force you to change many of the other pieces in the puzzle too.
With innovation, the devil is in the details!
As an innovation leader, connecting the dots is ultimately your job, and you can’t do that without understanding the details.
That’s why you’ll find an obsession for the details in pretty much every successful innovator, both past and present. They have the same in-depth understanding and attention to detail as the best artists, athletes and top representatives of other fields do too.
So, while you absolutely need to engage with and empower the experts, they are experts in their own field and likely don’t know how to consider all the other moving pieces in the puzzle. As an innovation leader, connecting the dots is ultimately your job, and you can’t do that without understanding the details.
It’s the one responsibility you simply can’t delegate away.
3. Execution requires a clear and unambiguous plan
Even if you are an experienced executive and value the importance of execution highly, it doesn’t mean you couldn’t fail when executing innovation. Here the most common problems occur if the leader’s experience comes primarily from operations within the known and well understood confines of “business as usual”.
When the environment is well understood, and the scale large from the get-go, it’s of course valuable to try to plan carefully, analyze business cases and craft detailed project plans prior to execution.
Also, since everyone knows that innovation is a risky endeavor, it of course makes sense to try to reduce those risks before your start a big innovation project to try to avoid major mistakes and generally just ensure that you’ve done a good job in planning and preparation before committing to the project.
This often leads to large companies commissioning all kinds of market studies and strategy projects. Some of those can certainly be useful in increasing your understanding of the landscape, but most invest way too much time, energy, and money into these. Also, every now and then these projects seem to be ordered only to have a scapegoat in case something goes wrong.
Regardless, there’s a fundamental problem: with innovation, you can’t have all the answers in advance. You’ll always need to make a number of assumptions upon which your plan relies on, some of which will inevitably prove to be wrong.
With innovation, you won’t have all the answers in advance.
Thus, if you require innovators to propose clear, detailed and unambiguous plans for you, or conversely create such plans and then hold innovators accountable for successfully executing them, it just won’t work out. And, whenever it then comes to surface that everything hasn’t gone according to the plan, innovation projects are frequently shut down, even if they’d still hold a lot of potential.
You obviously still need to align with the strategy, plan ahead, and have a disciplined approach to execution, but it’s not so much about creating a detailed roadmap, as it is about choosing direction and figuring out which questions or problems you’ll need to address first.
In other words, you need to embrace the uncertainty and the fact that you can’t have a perfectly unambiguous and detailed plan before starting to execute it. Instead, figure out what the assumptions and uncertainties in your plan are and commit to a disciplined learning effort to figure out the right path forward.
4. Innovation is fun
There’s a stereotype around people working in innovation being these visionaries that are bursting with great ideas and seem to come up with great new concepts all the time. And as mentioned in the intro to this article, that is often true.
That skillset is of course very useful for innovation, but there’s also a downside. There are naturally exceptions, but many of us working on innovation can find execution too boring and repetitive, and/or lack the perseverance, discipline, and patience needed to succeed at it.
Innovators often spend too much on the creative and “fun parts” of innovation, as opposed to what’s really needed to turn an idea into a successful innovation
As a group, we generally love creative work, and are always looking for fresh, new stimuli to feed that inspiration. That often leads us to spend too much time and effort on the “fun parts” of innovation, and too little on the not so fun, more repetitive, and laborious parts of the process that execution essentially is comprised of. The reality is that for every minute you spend coming up with ideas, you’ll probably need to spend a day, a week, or even more implementing those ideas.
So, if your innovation team is primarily filled with, or led by, such “idea people”, which is quite common, then there’s a big risk of a systematic lack of respect for and capabilities in execution. This will lead to a very suboptimal culture for innovation, and ultimately disappointing business outcomes.
Getting Execution Right
As already mentioned, there are a lot of similarities between successful execution in “business as usual”, and in innovation. However, there are also clear differences between the two.
So, to help you navigate the differences, and to succeed at executing on whatever innovation you’re working on, here are the five most important factors to keep in mind whenever you’re trying to execute on an innovation and build something truly novel.
1. Take the path most likely to succeed, but keep your options open
As mentioned, with innovation planning and strategy work need to be done a bit differently than you would with an existing business.
Good decisions here make it much easier for your team to figure out how to move forward and can save a lot of time money going down the wrong path. Regardless, you’ll soon end up at another crossroads and need to make another decision. Heck, sometimes you might even come across a dead-end and need to backtrack to an earlier crossroads. Sometimes Plan C or D is the way to go.
The point is that no matter which path you choose, you won’t see what’s ahead all the way to the end.
Thus, good strategy work requires you to embrace uncertainty, test assumptions critically, and think deeply about the real-life feasibility of each path ahead.
And it’s certainly not a one-time project you do at the beginning, but more of a continuous learning process as you unravel the puzzle piece by piece.
If you keep an open mind and build your teams and products to embrace that uncertainty, you can quickly recover and learn from setbacks, as well as embrace new opportunities you couldn’t even think of before you set out. This is what’s known as cognitive and organizational flexibility.
2. Solve the biggest problems first
As humans, most of us have a bit of a tendency to go for the comfortable low-hanging fruits and procrastinate on the hard but important problems, as well as uncomfortable truths.
I’ve certainly been guilty of this on many occasions, even while writing of this article. Getting a number of small things done makes us feel like we’re making good progress, but unfortunately that’s often a bit of a false sensation as we might not really be any better off than when we began.
With the inherit uncertainty in innovation, that is naturally a bit of a problem. When you’re executing any given innovation, there’s countless things that need to be done so it’s easy to just start checking off boxes like building more features, creating marketing materials, getting compliance approvals, or whatever you may have on your agenda.
But, it’s the big things that make or break your innovation early on. For example: will a customer benefit from my product, how much are they willing to pay, can I even build the product I’ve envisioned, etc.
While you need to care about the details, it’s the big things that make or break your innovation early on. So, start from the big problems, even if it hurts!
The key is finding a way to figure out what these big problems or critical assumptions are, and then find ways to quickly test and address them. This allows you to quickly figure out if you’re on to something, which of course saves a lot of time and money for you in the inevitable case that you weren’t quite there from the get-go.
Also, if you get the big things right, you can already deliver most of the value, and that means you can more quickly start capturing some of that value to get a return for your investments.
Plus, if you tackle these early on when you still have a small team, changing course will be much quicker and easier, and you’ll have spent much less money solving the same important problems than you would with a larger team later on.
In most businesses, these critical assumptions revolve around how much value you can deliver to customers, and how valuable they see that to be. However, in certain circumstances, those can be related to something entirely different, such as the feasibility of implementation when developing a new breakthrough drug.
Solving for the hardest problems first does generally require a bit more of a leadership commitment as you won’t always be able to show quick wins as early on, but at least it can save you from an embarrassing and costly failure like CNN+.
3. Build the right team
It might be a bit of an obvious statement, but it’s still probably worth pointing out: innovation is a bit of a team sport. So, to do well at it, you need the right team.
However, what might not be as obvious is that ‘the right team’ means in practice. In our experience, there are two key parts to this:
Multidisciplinary team with talented individuals in each area
Leadership and individuals that share the right mindset for innovation
The prior is pretty self-explanatory. Innovation is almost always a cross-disciplinary effort. The specifics depend on what kind of an innovation you’re working on, but usually you need expertise in at least design, engineering, commercial and operational matters.
The most impactful innovations are actually comprised of a stack of innovations in many of these areas, each designed to work together to address a specific problem or ‘job’ for the customer. Thus, if you have talent at every position, the outcome will be much more than the sum of its parts.
The latter, however, is the part that many teams fail to appreciate. Innovation is, by definition, doing something that others haven’t succeeded at before, so the journey won’t be easy.
Your team will face a lot of uncertainty and struggles, and will still need to perform at their best, often under a lot of pressure. That requires a very specific type of culture within the team, but also the right mindset for each individual. You want people that can cope with uncertainty and are able to remain optimistic and overcome difficult situations while still being realistic and ruthlessly critical of their own capabilities. They need to have an innate passion to strive for excellence, and a lot of discipline, grit, and perseverance.
And, of course, because it’s a team sport, people need to be able to work well together and perform as a team. This, however, isn’t usually much of an issue as long as people can leave their egos at the door. The struggles you will face together as a team will build bonds and gel you into a team.
4. Make sure every decision and detail are aligned
As we already discussed, you don’t need (and usually can’t have) a clear and unambiguous plan for an innovation project where every role and task would be charted out in advance. However, as we also discussed, the devil is often in the details and seemingly small things can derail the project from its goals?
So, what gives?
Well, the point is that with innovation, you need to keep an eye on everything. As an innovation leader, you need to maintain excellent awareness of both the big picture and the details throughout the project. But, because the environment changes dynamically and you need to move fast, you can’t really do that work upfront.
Nor can you just look at some KPIs and financial reports to figure out if things are moving in the right direction because the important things won’t show up in these for quite a while, and at that point, it’s often too already too late to react.
As a leader, your primary job is to keep up with what’s going on both with the ever-changing big picture, and the details on the ground so that you can spot problems early and intervene before it’s too late, no matter where the issues might arise from. If you don’t understand how everything works in practice and know what problems everyone is working on and why, it will be pretty much impossible to do that.
Some might see the latter as micro-management, but it doesn’t mean you have to dictate what everyone does. It just means that as a leader, you need to be the person that connects the dots and then empowers the team to succeed. There’s a clear difference.
Which brings us nicely to our last point.
5. Take full ownership for the execution
As we’ve covered, execution is the make-or-break part in the lifecycle for every innovation.
It’s always a bit of an exploratory process where you need to remain flexible, while still moving forward quickly and executing at a high level.
And, at the same time, seemingly inconsequential low-level choices related to implementation turn out to become existential issues for any innovation project.
Again, you don’t need to decide everything on behalf of your team. In fact, often it’s best to let the experts solve problems and do their job, as long as you can give them the right guidance and constraints to work with. Instead, you need to think of every potential problem as your fault and then figure out a way to get past them together with your team.
The bottom line is that being an innovation leader isn’t easy. It takes a lot of time and work to understand and stay on top of things, but as already mentioned, that’s the one thing you can’t really skip, automate, or delegate. Essentially everything else you can.
The only way to succeed at that is to take full ownership and commit to the process.
Conclusion
We’ve covered a lot of ground, so let’s do a bit of a recap.
Innovation isn’t a linear project that you can plan out in advance and monitor progress with a Gantt chart. There will always be plenty of surprises. Many unpleasant, but usually some positive ones too. You’ll need to be flexible enough to react to these and alter course accordingly.
It’s an inherently messy and iterative process of figuring out a way to build new things and align all the pieces so that everything works out.
Fundamentally, an innovation leader’s job is to show direction and try to keep track of everything that’s happening, align those puzzle pieces together with the big picture while always being on the lookout for potential problems and then eliminate those before they derail the project, as there will be many.
It’s not an easy or comfortable job, but if you can get it right, it’s an incredibly rewarding one.
Ironically, despite all the talk about practical issues and attention to detail being vital, this has been a bit of a high-level overview on the topic. So, if you’re interested in learning more about the details related to what we’ve discussed today, I have a couple of practical recommendations for you:
First, the best way to learn to innovate is by doing. So, get your hands dirty, keep these tips in mind, do your best, and I’ll guarantee you’ll learn a lot.
But, if you currently don’t quite have the time to commit to an innovation project, a good alternative way to learn more about innovation management is with our Innovation System online coaching program. We’ve now made the program completely free of charge for the first 1000 readers to sign up for it.
This article was originally published in Viima’s blog.
Image credits: Unsplash, Viima
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It’s been a tough two and a half for everyone since the COVID-19 crisis began. Some of us have been hit very, very hard, by the impact of the pandemic exacerbated by the rate of exponential change and now, by the impact of the conflict in Ukraine.
As result, many of us are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and languishing in varying states of anxiety and discomfort. Some of us are struggling with “not knowing” how to deal with the extreme uncertainty existing within our business and personal environments, whilst many of us are optimistically seeking to prepare and manage for what might possibly come next.
At the same time, many of us are seeking collaborative partnerships to support us and explore options for keeping both ourselves, our people, and teams engaged in moving forward creatively in a constantly changing world. Where both the work environment and the nature of work are in a state of flux, where we are going through exceptional and extraordinary changes, and, where to both survive and thrive, we need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable with it all.
Safely stepping into the unknown
This creates an opening and a threshold to partner with others in resourceful and creative ways to support them, to safely and bravely step into the unknown.
To perceive this unique moment in time as an opportunity for growth, shape-shifting, and change – by empowering and equipping them to cautiously abandon and exit their comfort zones and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Because the patterned worlds of our “business as usual” existences, which traditionally kept us get comfortable and calm, and helped us stay emotionally and mentally even, free from anxiety and worry to a great degree, are no longer certain, predictable or stable.
Where constant and accelerating change, coupled with uncertainty are the harsh realities of today, and of tomorrow, in the decade emerging as one of both disruption and transformation.
Impact of our neurological survival mechanisms
As humans, we have an internal need for consistency, represented by our internally mapped, largely unconscious, neurological comfort zones, our own unique places for getting comfortable, and amenable to what we habitually do. When we experience cognitive dissonance, in an extremely uncertain and disruptive operating environment, we unconsciously encounter apparent inconsistencies between what is really happening and what we believe to be really true.
As result, we often, mostly unconsciously, slip into our auto-pilot range of varied aggressive and passive defensive, reactive responses: including avoidance, denial, anger, opposition, and resistance to change. Often described as the “retreat, freeze, or take flight or fight” reactions to what is “seemingly” going on. This is because we distort and generalize our thoughts or feelings into believing that have no control over events. Which is a normal and natural neurological, yet primitive, survival mechanism that enables us to cope with the situation.
However, when we operate this way, we lose our personal power and question our abilities to shape and manifest the outcomes we want, or feel we lack the ability to influence others or constructively impact our environments.
Resistance is futile
Manifesting as feelings of discomfort, most of us will do anything to move away from – because we want to avoid pervasive, visceral, challenging thoughts and feelings, derived from our conflicting beliefs and values. Our auto-responses or neurological urges to remove the discomfort, and typically keep us in our comfort zones, where we procrastinate, make excuses, shift into denial, avoidance, and justification, resulting ultimately, in immobilisation and inaction.
The outcome is that we may feel paralysed, and become inert, inhibiting and preventing us from developing the mindsets, behaviours, and actions required to thrive in the future. Where our only “new normal” will depend on our abilities to flow with constant change, unpredictability, instability, and uncertainty and get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Hidden costs of resistance
Resistance to change prevents us from:
Adapting to the current and future environment is not the survival of the fittest, it’s he or she who is the most adaptive, who ultimately survives, and thrives!
Exploiting this moment in time as an opportunity and threshold to improve our confidence, competence, and emotional capacity to effectively transition through the range of professional and personal crises, brought on by uncertainty and disruption.
Exploring possibilities and unleashing opportunities available in this moment in time as a turning point to learn and grow, as a coach, leader, or team.
Strategizing in the new global, hybrid, and virtual work environment to improve, competitiveness, productivity, and innovation grow our practices and help our members expand their roles, and grow their teams and businesses.
Breaking down silos that add to many of our member’s current states of disconnection and loneliness, and inhibit connection and collaboration.
Creating permission, tolerance, and safety for members to safely download and let go of their fears and anxieties, share their negativity and pessimism, fears of failure, and co-create positivity and optimism towards thriving in an uncertain future, together.
Embracing the new world of digitisation and experimentation, from implementing change, enhancing individual and organisational agility, and developing the mindsets, behaviours, and skills to be comfortable in constantly changing contexts.
What can we do about it?
Being agile and adaptive
In normal times, creating a comfort zone is a healthy adaptation for controlling much of our lives. Yet having the boldness, bravery, and courage in extreme uncertainty, to step up and out of our comfort zones helps us be agile and adaptive in transitioning, growing, and transforming through the enormous challenges, disruptions, and adversities many of us are confronting.
Entering the learning zone
In fact, once we do take the first baby steps out of our comfort zones and into our fear zone (fear of loss, blame, shame, envy, punishment, retribution, opposition, being controlled, humiliation, being envied or made wrong) we can safely enter the learning zone. Being in the Learning Zone is the first stopping point toward generating creative energy and expanding our comfort zones.
Facing the fear
Doing this builds the foundations for being more comfortable with being uncomfortable by facing, feeling, acknowledging, and letting go of some of our deepest fears by dealing with them rationally and realistically, with empathy and compassion, and without bias and distortion.
Reducing our levels of anxiety
By withdrawing, discerning, and deciding to let go of the need to be constantly in charge and in control and be willing to enter the Growth Zone, where everything that happens is a resource for being tolerant, and accepting, of the possibilities for making positive change.
Stepping into being comfortable
This is a great opportunity to co-create a new playbook for ourselves, our people, and their teams by enabling and empowering the mindset shift to the Growth Zone, to transform cognitive dissonance, and use it as the creative tensions toward being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
This involves engaging in a set of consistent and regular practices, to build and support a willingness to embrace change, disruption, and uncertainty, to take on even the impossible.
Hit your Pause Button: retreat from activity, get grounded in stillness and silence, and be fully present to your energetic state. Be mindful and pay deep attention to recognise your patterns, attune to what is really going on, and get unhooked from any internal chatter, stories, and unconscious default patterns.
Label Your Thoughts and Emotions: be fully present and get connected to yourself and to others you are interacting with, feel the feeling, knowing that it is transient.
Acknowledge and Accept: allow yourself to accept and embrace the range of feelings, be empathic, compassionate, and open-hearted with yourself and with others.
Detach from and Observe your Thoughts and Emotions: be willing to create and sustain an open mind, be inquisitive and curious, explore the non-judgemental space between your feelings and how to effectively respond to them.
Identify difficult feelings: as you experience them and find more appropriate ways of responding instead of reacting, be willing to become a “detached observer”.
Be emotionally agile: learn to see yourself as the operating system, filled with possibilities, knowing that you are more than one part of it and flow with it
Be courageous and brave: challenge the status quo, and your habitual thinking, feeling, and decision-making habits and build your confidence to reboot, consistently disrupt yourself and be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Be imaginative and creative: reimagine your most desirable future state, be optimistic and positive about choosing the best ways to reset, and walk your way forward into the unknown.
Focusing your attention and being intentional
Being comfortable with being uncomfortable, enables us to re-think creates openings and thresholds for developing 21st-century superpowers, limitless possibilities for change, growth, learning, and innovation.
By empowering us to respond positively to uncertainty, and dynamic change that respects and engages people’s values and humanity, in co-creative and innovative ways that improve the quality of people’s lives in ways they value, appreciate, and cherish.
An opportunity to learn more
Find out about our learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 9-weeks, starting Tuesday, May 4, 2022.
It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of an ecosystem focus, human-centric approach, and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, and upskill people and teams and develop their future fitness, within your unique context.
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The value of intangible assets in organizations is nowadays five times greater than the one of tangible assets. In fact, 84% of value in S&P companies is currently represented by intangible assets, like intellectual property, knowledge, or brand recognition, compared to merely 16% for tangible ones.
Even so, some leaders still have difficulties in grasping the power of knowledge and how it can be leveraged and managed to drive more innovation in their organizations. One of the biggest challenges for these leaders is that the majority of knowledge that makes more innovation happen is tacit, and therefore it’s harder to tap into its full potential through the traditional methods: processes, procedures and policies available in databases and documents.
Unfortunately, companies that were not able to keep up with these changes in value distribution faced difficulties and were surpassed by those that leveraged tacit knowledge better. Now, the question that arises is how top companies tap into the full potential of tacit knowledge.
So, in today’s article we’ll explain how different types of knowledge trigger innovation, what is the true value of tacit knowledge, as well as some practical tips on how to make the most of tacit knowledge.
Explicit, implicit, and tacit knowledge and their role in driving innovation
Before diving into the practical things, we’ll go through some theoretical aspects which can help clarify the reasoning behind some actions. There’s a lot of literature on tacit knowledge and knowledge management which you can explore more in depth if you’re interested, but for the purpose of this article we chose the essential information which can serve leaders, managers and decision-makers who want to tap into the potential of tacit knowledge.
The goal of this article is not to offer a perspective rooted in cognitive science and we are aware that there are different interpretations and a variety of opinions on the topic. That being said, let’s get to it.
Knowledge, especially tacit, is hard to quantify and measure, which makes it elusive and difficult to capture, but its role in driving innovation is undeniable. To exploit its innovation potential, it’s essential to understand the different types of knowledge, how they can be managed and how they come into play in an organization.
For this, we’ll briefly explain the three main types of knowledge and their role in making innovation happen.
First, there is explicit knowledge, which is the easiest to manage and understand. It’s the most basic type of knowledge that can be collected and transmitted throughout an organization. It comes from organizing, structuring, and processing data and it’s usually stored in databases or files like internal documentation, reports, analytics and financials, process maps, handbooks, and so on.
For example, all metrics and KPIs are forms of explicit knowledge. Explicit knowledge supports everyday improvements which primarily leads to incremental innovations.
Next is implicit knowledge, which oftentimes is put under the same umbrella with tacit knowledge. However, we prefer to separate the two because there are small differences in how you should manage them in practice.
Implicit knowledge is essentially explicit knowledge applied: how we make use of existing information and put it into practice. Each of us has different past experiences and ways of thinking. As you’ve probably seen, that means that we can draw different conclusions from the same data, and thus apply the same explicit knowledge in very different ways.
This is true especially when we think of how people communicate and transfer information. For example, when we create a report or a presentation, even if we work with the same data points and results, different people may choose to focus on different pieces of information and tell a very different story.
Last, but not least, is the focus of this article: tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge refers to the wisdom we accumulate through experience but that is not codified or clearly expressed. These are the things we know but can’t really put into words. Think cognitive skills, mental models, intuition, and general know-how.
Different sources are citing various figures of how knowledge is distirbuted in an organization. From 80% all the way to 95%, tacit knowledge seems to be the bottom of an iceberg, hidden under water. Regardless of what the specific number really is, it’s probably safe to say, that the vast majority of information is tacit.
It’s believed that turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is extremely difficult because of its nature. Many times, when we think we articulate or codify tacit knowledge, we might deal with implicit knowledge instead. Why is it then so hard to capture tacit knowledge — and should we even try to make it explicit?
In practice, people often aren’t aware of the tacit knowledge they possess, and that’s a big part of what makes it so elusive. Transferring know-how and cognitive skills requires regular contact, interaction, and trust between people. When this can be turned into a conscious, systematic effort, that’s when we start to get its value and make the best of it.
The importance of tacit knowledge and how to make the most of it
In the era of information technology, it’s so easy to become obsolete, that retaining and acquiring knowledge has become a central focus for most organizations.
Today most companies recognize employees’ talent and knowledge as a major competitive advantage. We’ll explain later in the article why most innovations and breakthroughs don’t come from explicit, but from tacit knowledge.
Losing employees with the tacit knowledge that hasn’t been passed on can lead to the inability to complete projects or meet strategic targets. For example, an engineering company lost its dominant market position simply because it lost the experienced engineers that major clients were looking for. Typically, that relationship isn’t as obvious, but the same principles still apply. The most talented or experienced employees create dramatically outsized returns for the organization.
As already mentioned, explicit knowledge refers to the public information, which would be easily accessible if desired, because it can be codified and transmitted in writing. As we know, such knowledge generally contributes to incremental improvements, but breakthrough innovations require truly novel knowledge, and that usually starts at an individual level.
From a highly experienced floor worker who comes up with ideas to streamline processes to a researcher’s insights that help develop a new product, the key is to make this individual knowledge available to others. That is one of the main sources of competitive advantage in knowledge-centric companies.
How tacit knowledge impacts organizational performance
Traditionally, knowledge isn’t systematically measured against financial results, so some executives might not be aware of how knowledge loss impacts their performance. It’s understandable, given that it’s easier to measure and track the impact of tangible assets, so the focus usually goes in that direction.
However, nowadays we have plenty of research that supports the idea that losing knowledge has a significant negative impact on an organization’s performance. This helps us better understand how losing tacit knowledge affects the bottom line. At the same time, if leaders can articulate the role of tacit knowledge, they can also assess the real costs of managing it and raise awareness on the investments required to create, retain, and transmit it.
Losing knowledge capital can affect the performance of an organization in different ways.
From reduced organizational capabilities or ability to achieve strategic objectives, to disruptions, increased time to accomplish tasks, increased costs, or reduced customer satisfaction.
Let’s take the example of a company where a veteran sales executive who played a major role in dealing with important customers is leaving the organization. His strong customer relationships developed over the years could affect the firm, leading to a loss of up to $ 10 million. The business will not only lose significant revenue but its ability to acquire new ones will also diminish.
In such cases, the external social capital is useful for the organization at large. Having access to a diverse external network allows people inside the organization to tap into a wide range of information.
On the other side, when these connections are exclusively internal, politics can get in the way and affect the transparent flow of information.
To summarize, losing knowledge capital can affect the performance of an organization in different ways. From reduced organizational capabilities or ability to achieve strategic objectives, to disruptions, increased time to accomplish tasks, increased costs, or reduced customer satisfaction.
On the other hand, if you focus on developing a knowledge-creating company that encourages continuous learning, interaction, and constant dialogue you will see additional benefits, as well as positive impact on the bottom line.
By now, you’re surely thinking what all this theory means in practice, so let’s take a look at that next by going through some methods that can help reap these benefits.
How to capture tacit knowledge
As already mentioned, turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge requires some work and effort, but by starting with baby steps like getting people to share thoughts, issues, or ideas on a regular basis you are already one step ahead.
We believe there’s no need to overcomplicate things and the good news is that something as simple as gathering ideas will force people to turn their tacit knowledge into something more tangible. Obviously, each organization has its share of bad ideas, but even so, it’s still a great way of bringing people’s insights to the table because it can uncover new opportunities, sometimes even unrelated with the idea itself.
It might not be the first thing that comes to mind when trying to access tacit knowledge, but an idea management tool can help you turn it into a systematic, continuous practice that on the long run, can lead to more innovation.
However, at the end of the day, a tool is just a tool. It helps you organize your processes better, automate tasks, and facilitates easy communication. The complexity and nature of such methods and processes varies greatly from one organization to the next.
If you are operating in an industry with higher risks, codifying tacit knowledge becomes even more complicated. A continuous ideation process could reveal new creative ways of accessing it as well as maintain communication and a constant flow of information.
To put things in perspective, let’s take the example of a maintenance technician who retired from a plant that produced soybean oil. After he left, the produced oil quickly started to go bad. It took the company two years and it cost them millions of dollars before they realized that the maintenance worker had been changing a seal on the machines that pressed the oil every week, instead of the eight weeks that was instructed in the maintenance manual.
The first reaction would be to blame the technician for not transferring that information before leaving, but in reality, it’s the company’s responsibility to have in place processes that ensure smooth transfer of information and knowledge.
Managers and leaders should be aware of these differences in procedures and in this particular case the mistake could have been easily avoided with a better process of documenting the steps taken to produce the soybean oil.
As this example shows, different organizations need different processes at various levels of complexity. Developing those processes that support knowledge creation and retention is still up to you, so let’s have a look at three simple steps that can make a big difference.
Bring to the surface the knowledge losses and the risk associated with that. What knowledge supports the strategic objectives and business goals? To run a diagnosis process you could, for example, start with a series of interviews that will help you surface potential issues.
Here’s where you want to identify the critical knowledge that might be lost and its impact, the interviewees perception of existing knowledge and the transfer processes and opportunities to leverage knowledge in case employees leave.
Map the employees and the roles whose knowledge is essential and play a key role in transmitting it. The previous step can also guide you in creating this map or list.
Create the environment and practices that encourage socialization and interaction. Since tacit knowledge is about the know-how and the skills we acquire through experience, these are best learned through emulation, imitation, and repetition.
There are many ways to go about this, and in the best practice section we go a bit deeper into these details.
Best practices for accessing tacit knowledge
These are three first steps that could be applied in any organization, regardless of their profile. They can become the foundation for a more thought-through process which you can develop in time. On a more practical level, the methods and processes you decide on, can be supported by some of these best practices:
It encourages contribution and collaboration between people. It enables networks of relationships that help the organization function effectively. When these connections are strong and built on trust and transparency, they facilitate the transfer of know-how and other skills that otherwise would be lost.
Encourage constant social interaction and exchange of ideas
As already mentioned, tacit knowledge is about the know-how and the skills acquired through experience. These skills are better transmitted through emulation, mentorship, and repetition. This knowledge is deeply embedded in people’s minds and human interactions are essential to facilitate the transfer of information.
This won’t help you just to find answers and solutions to specific problems but also to uncover opportunities that have an impact on the entire organization.
Collecting ideas systematically enables the entire workforce to get involved and build on each other’s knowledge. Moving from a traditional “suggestion box” to a more wholistic and transparent approach with an idea management tool can dramatically help in sharing and making knowledge more accessible.
Encourage storytelling in different forms
You can create a “lessons learned” database where people can learn about successes and failures that lead people to acquire their knowledge. The best way to tell these lessons, might be through stories.
Storytelling is a powerful tool because it allows people to reflect on their learnings. Essentially, you want people to share their (true) stories that serve as metaphors which make difficult-to-grasp information easier to digest and understand. Stories are powerful because they convey meaning and knowledge, not just unconnected bits of information. For example, you can put this in practice through internal newsletters, or casebooks.
Create succession planning, retirement policies, and mentoring programs
Retirement is one of the causes of knowledge loss and some companies don’t tap into the tacit knowledge of older employees. The loss of experienced employees can threaten core capabilities that rely on complex experiential knowledge. Organizations should have mentoring programs to train less experienced employees, as well as retirement policies and plans that help maintain the balance of the workforce.
Examples of codifying tacit knowledge:
As you’ve seen so far, there are different factors that can help you either capture tacit knowledge or turn it into explicit knowledge. And as mentioned, sometimes learning new things also comes from emulation and imitation. With that in mind, let’s see what other companies are doing to address the issue of tacit knowledge and think of what you could also learn from their experiences.
Matsushita Electric
The first example is one that helped popularizing the concept of tacit knowledge as well as the idea that it supports innovation.
In 1985 Matsushita Electric, now Panasonic, was working on creating a better home bread-machine. However, they lacked the knowledge a baker had. So Ikuko Tanaka, a software developer at Matsushita decided to learn from the best. He trained with the master baker at The Osaka International Hotel and observed the technique he had for kneading the dough.
The know-how of the baker, his special stretching technique, was the tacit knowledge that Matshushita was lacking, and that Tanaka was able to uncover and reproduce through imitation and observation. After working with the baker, experimenting, testing and developing the product, Matsushita created a final product that led to record sales.
Rolls-Royce
Even though it’s not a recent example Rolls-Royce is still a good case to look into. Rolls-Royce turbojet engines powered Concorde, the aircraft that introduced supersonic air travel to the world. The Rolls-Royce engineers held most of the knowledge on how to maintain the sophisticated supersonic jet engines and many of them were preparing for retirement.
Before the Concorde was retired in 2003 the company identified how the big number of retirements would impact their key capabilities. This helped them prepare for uncertainties and decide on future investments.
Bessemer
Last, but not least, an example that takes us even farther back into the history is Henry Bessemer and his patent for an advanced steelmaking process. Bessemer sold his patent, but he was later sued because they couldn’t make it work. So, Bessemer set up his steel company because he knew best how to do it, even though he wasn’t able to articulate it.
As you can see from these examples, tacit knowledge spans its impact in various areas and at different levels in each organization. So, it’s important to remember that tacit knowledge plays an important role in all stages of innovation.
It can be in the early stages, where there’s a higher degree of ambiguity so more knowledge to be harnessed. Or, it can be in the later stages of innovation, where execution and implementation require you to tap into the tacit knowledge of your employees to speed up the process and get better results
Conclusion
“We can know more than we can tell”, said Polanyi, the one to whom we attribute the concept of tacit knowledge. We couldn’t agree more. We can’t possibly articulate everything we know, so we need to find other means to go about it.
As leaders, managers, or someone with decision-making powers, you have to maximize the opportunities of expressing this knowledge. You can choose to develop a culture of innovation where continuous learning, improvement and knowledge exchange are encouraged and sustained. With a strategic and systematic approach, the flow of information will become more natural and easier to manage.
This article was originally published in Viima’s blog.
Image credits: Viima, Pixabay, Unsplash, Pexels
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The effects of cultural differences for innovation are an interesting and extremely multifaceted topic.
For most of us, it probably goes without saying that cross-cultural and multicultural capabilities are crucial in today’s globalized and hyperconnected world, and innovation is no exception. These capabilities are especially important if you’re working on it in a large international organization, as many of our customers are.
Such an organization must obviously think about how to adapt new innovative products and services to the cultures and unique characteristics of different markets and regions. But, in addition to that, they also need to manage the cultural differences within their organization while trying to innovate. Given that we have customers all over the world, it’s a theme we often get asked about.
And, of course, there’s also the age-old debate about the cultures of certain regions or countries being better suited to innovation to begin with.
So, in this today’s article, we’ll dive deeper on this nuanced topic and each of those three themes around cultural differences in innovation. We’ll also end by providing you with practical advice on how to look at and take these into account in your innovation work.
How can cultural differences be observed?
However, before we dive deeper, let’s first take a step back and consider the question of how to observe cultural differences in the first place.
I’m sure we all agree that there are significant cultural and behavioral differences between people coming from different backgrounds, be it based on geographical, ethnic, religious, or just the past corporate cultures people have been a part of.
As these differences are often hard to pin down, people usually have an innate urge to try to group people into specific buckets to make sense of those differences. There are significant challenges in doing that as it can lead to putting people into predefined boxes and reinforcing stereotypes, and then treating people based on those stereotypes instead of the individuals they really are. That is why these kinds of approaches shouldn’t be considered universal truths or used as recipes for making decisions even from a purely pragmatic point-of-view, let alone from an ethical one.
Still, with that major caveat, there are also benefits in using such frameworks since they can help us make sense of the world in a more structured way. They can help everyone get a better understanding of the big picture and can serve as a starting point for creating a shared understanding, as well as debating the practical implications of cultural differences.
There are many such methods available, but the general approach is always the same: to break a culture down into several behavioral and/or value-based dimensions ranging from one extreme to another, and then rating each culture on each of these dimensions to form an overview of their respective cultures.
The most popular and widely researched of these are probably the GLOBE project, and the Hofstede cultural dimensions model, but there are also other popular ones like the Culture Map. Each of these frameworks uses the above described approach, and most of the research on them is primarily focused on the differences between individual nations. Having said that, the same approaches have also been applied to other levels, such as gender, organizational, etc. often just with slightly different dimensions.
Next, we’ll briefly explain the Hofstede cultural dimensions model because it’s one of the earliest, and by far the most popular model in the field. If you’re already familiar with the model, you can skip the next paragraph and jump right into the takeaways.
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions
Geert Hofstede worked at IBM back in the 60’s when it was one of the first true global, multinational corporations. As part of his work on improving cross-cultural communication, he ran the same survey on values for more than 100,000 employees from different countries and analyzed the differences, which then led to the creation of his model some years later.
Initially the model consisted of four dimensions, but upon additional research, has since been expanded to six. I’ll briefly explain each of these next, and then share a few examples to illustrate how that works.
Power Distance Index (PDI) determines how equally power is distributed and how hierarchical a society is. High scores indicate a structured and hierarchical society, whereas low values indicate a more distributed power structure and willingness to question authority.
Individualism vs. Collectivism (IDV) looks at how heavily individuals are integrated into groups. This is mostly self-explanatory, but it’s worthy pointing out that collectivist cultures are highly loyal to the close-knit groups they belong to.
Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) determines how much ambiguity and uncertainty a society is comfortable with. High scores indicate that a society values clear, often strict, rules and guidelines and believes in there being a “singular truth”. Low scores mean that a society is more willing to explore new ideas and divergent thoughts and is less structured overall.
Masculinity vs. Femininity (MAS) is of a dimension that’s subject to some controversy, but here refers to values associated with traditional gender roles. A masculine society values achievement, assertiveness, and material rewards for success, whereas a more feminine one values cooperation, modesty, care, and quality of life.
Long-term orientation vs. Short-term orientation (LTO) is pretty self-evident. Long-term oriented societies tend to think more about the future and view adaptation and pragmatic problem-solving as important, whereas more short-term oriented one tends to value traditions and the current state and be less willing to change.
Indulgence vs. Restraint (IND) in turn refers to how much a society indulges and encourages freedom for individuals to “just have fun and enjoy life”. More restrained societies tend to have stricter social norms regarding such behavior as they see these indulgences as counter-beneficial for bigger, longer-term ambitions.
There’s been some research on how these tendencies affect innovation, and as you can probably guess, some tend to be more favorable for high innovation performance than others. Which brings us to the big question: are some cultures intrinsically better at innovation than others?
Are some cultures better than others at innovation?
Well, in short, the answer is yes. At least to some extent. As mentioned, there’s research that shows a relatively strong correlation between certain cultural characteristics and innovation performance.
However, here it’s worth pointing out that almost all of the research done on the topic would seem to focus on country level data as that is widely and freely available thanks to studies like the Global Innovation Index (GII).
While certainly useful, we should take these findings with a grain of salt due to a number of factors, such as the studies again being high-level generalizations based on correlations, and the indices like GII being predominantly focused on inputs for innovation such as education and R&D spending. Even the output focused parts tend to be a bit biased towards activity metrics, such as number research papers and patents, instead of the real value and economic impact of innovation.
What’s more, I think it’s important to point out that most natural cultures evolve much slower than the GII rankings change, so it should be quite evident that there are also many other factors than culture that affect these scores.
But with that out of the way, let’s now look at the actual findings.
Characteristics of top innovation cultures
Based on the available studies, there would seem to be a pretty good consensus on the ideal innovation cultures having the following characteristics on the Hofstede model, in rough order of importance:
Low power-distance
High levels of long-term orientation and pragmatism
High levels of individualism
High levels of indulgence
Low levels of uncertainty avoidance
Lower levels of masculinity
These findings are obviously mostly in line with what most of us think of as a pro-innovation culture, so there aren’t really that many surprises here.
If people can question authority, are comfortable with ambiguous and uncertain environments, and can think about the long-term instead of just the next quarterly results, innovation is a lot more likely to happen.
While there’s more to innovation performance than culture, certain characteristics are likely to lead to a culture being better at innovation.
In most studies, the level of masculinity seemed to make the least amount of difference of any of the variables for innovation performance. Some studies found no correlation, but some did find a preference for a feminine, more collaborative culture instead of the more competitive and assertive, masculine one.
However, in my opinion, the most interesting findings are that high levels of individualism and indulgence are favorable for innovation, when intuitively we might think that a culture that is more collaborative and favors restraint and delayed gratification would be preferable.
This can be explained with the way that the Hofstede dimensions are constructed.
A more collaborative culture is one where certain in-groups, typically your own family, come first, and where loyalty and obedience are absolute values. So, collaboration according to the Hofstede model isn’t so much for the “greater good”, but more about the benefit of that specific “inner circle” ahead of your own interests. More individualist societies, on the other hand, tend to be more comfortable disagreeing, exploring, and “letting the best ideas win”, which is what likely led to these cultures over-performing.
A similar explanation also applies for the preference for indulgence. According to the authors of the study linked above, people in indulgent cultures have a greater drive for improving things and making life more enjoyable, and are generally more optimistic, which they viewed as the primary factors driving innovation here, perhaps alongside a general willingness to just try new things.
So, in that context, I do think the findings make sense, but I think it’s also a good example of some of the challenges associated with more nuanced sides of these cultural frameworks.
Takeaways from country level innovation performance
Looking at the GII study, and the mapping of the top countries from that to the Hofstede model, there are a couple of points worth noting out.
First, the top countries in the GII are pretty much what most people would probably expect. The top 15 consists primarily of the US, the Nordics, as well as some Western European and East Asian countries.
However, the interesting part is that when we map these out to the Hofstede model, it’s immediately obvious that even the top performing countries are essentially all over the spectrum. Once we look a bit closer, it’s also evident that no individual country has the perfect innovation culture, as defined above.
To elaborate further, I think there are a few key takeaways from all of this:
There’s more than just one way to be a great innovator
While there are a few distinct types of cultures that generally do better, every culture has itsown strengths and weaknesses when it comes to innovation
You can improve your odds of succeeding at innovation by quite a bit if you recognize the biases of your culture that are likely holding you back
Top performing organizations should thus take these biases and cultural differences into account, and purposefully shape an organizational culture that is distinct from the average of any individual country and instead designed to drive more innovation. Here, diversity can be a real asset, but that’s another massive topic on its own.
Every culture has its own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to innovation. You can improve your odds of succeeding at it by recognising the biases that are holding yours back.
Having said that, there’s quite a bit more to creating this kind of an innovation culture than just what the Hofstede model captures, and we’ve written about that in detail in this earlier article.
However, one aspect that I’d like to highlight here is that innovation is requires a strong combination of both exploration and execution, so your culture should have a good mix of capabilities in both extremes.
With that said, let’s now move on to the more practical implications of cultural differences for innovation work.
Multi and cross-cultural innovation capabilities
Let’s start from the first and most obvious challenge innovators in a globalized world face: how can their products and services, as well as sales and marketing efforts be relevant when doing international business, especially in different, highly culturally diverse regions?
In certain situations, and for certain products, it can be completely fine to just do minor localizations like translations, and primarily use the same channels, models, and messaging across the world. This will keep things much simpler and there are situations where these benefits can outweigh the costs for both your customers and your business. For example, this is the route we’ve so far decided to take with Viima.
Having said that, if you don’t adapt your offering and operations to different cultural and market preferences, you often can’t reach your full potential. In some situations, it might even take a completely different approach to reach the same goal in different cultures.
P&G is these days often cited as an example of a multinational company that has been able to successfully grow in emerging markets, but one of the lessons they learned the hard way was that just operating with the same products and models as they did back home wouldn’t work.
For example, according to ex-CEO Lafley, when P&G decided to focus on the baby-care market in Asia, the initial approach was to just cut away material from the diapers sold in Western markets. The problem was that to get to a cost-level that was acceptable, they had to cut out so much that the products no longer worked as intended. Once they went back to the drawing board and created an entirely new product with a completely different design focused primarily on costs instead of the latest technology, they succeeded in creating an attractive product and eventually became the market leader in China.
However, in most cases, either extreme isn’t the way to go. You need to look for a solution that allows you to build on your strengths, but still cater to the different cultural preferences of those whom you choose to serve – and usually that isn’t everyone.
Of course, for most of us who are innovators, that isn’t really that different from what we do anyway: we know that whatever great ideas we have, many will never survive first contact with the real world.
Cultural differences and local preferences of different markets are just another variable that we’ll need to take into account in our innovation work. Still, if you’re aiming for international business, it is a topic that you’d be wise to consider during your development process as it can save you a lot of trouble down the road.
Now, if you already have team members that are intimately familiar with these different cultures, it’s just common sense that the whole process is likely to be quite a bit smoother. And the evidence backs it up: this is one of the reasons for diversity being an asset for innovation.
But with that, let’s finally cover the practical considerations of what all of the above means for our organization before we wrap up.
Managing cultural differences within the organization
This is of course another massive topic, so we’ll keep things focused and will seek to provide you with the three key principles we’ve generally found to work well for getting great innovation outcomes in an international, multicultural organization in our work with such organizations.
While many of these are quite practical, depending on your role, you might not be able to put all of them into practice right away. Still, I’d recommend thinking about ways you can apply the same core ideas within the scope of your innovation work.
Communicate about cultural biases and expectations openly
To illustrate this, I’ll share a story from No Rules Rules, which is a great book that I’d warmly recommend if you’ve made it this far into the post.
Before Netflix expanded internationally, it had a somewhat stereotypical US style task-oriented culture. It was quite common for employees to have lunch while working on their computers. However, as they expanded to Brazil, it quickly became obvious that this was a bit of a problem as, in general, Brazilians really value the relationships built over shared meals. As a result, early employees didn’t exactly feel welcome.
After some time, this came up in discussions, and while it was a trivial thing to fix, it still made a huge impact on morale. And not only did that help them adapt to local habits, but the changes also enriched the culture of the organization globally.
So, the takeaway here is that it’s important to pay attention to cultural differences and discuss them openly. Usually, the issues are easy enough to fix, but when they aren’t discussed, you easily miss them, and that’s what leads to many challenges down the road. The reality is that most people won’t be familiar with everyone else’s culture by default and expecting that to be the case just isn’t realistic.
Have core values and some norms, be flexible on the rest
Each organization’s culture is a result of its background. A sum of its parts, if you will. Be it the nationality of the company, past strategic and hiring decisions, and even simple practices and ways of working that have stuck around for one reason or another.
A few of these factors are core for the identity and competitiveness of the organization, and it’s these core values that you should hold on to. However, most of these factors are simple habits that are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
Making the difference between the two is key.
The core values and norms are something you simply need to succeed as an organization, and those you simply can’t compromise on. New employees, whatever their background or experience, do need to adhere to these few essentials. And for that to happen, you need to train them on these values and principles and tell why that is so important for your organization.
You should be adamant about upholding your core values, but be flexible and willing to give up or change the more inconsequential parts of your culture so that it can evolve and improve
On the other hand, the rest of inconsequential norms and habits you should be willing to give up or change when needed so that everyone can feel welcome and be the best version of themselves. Everybody doesn’t have to be a carbon copy of one another.
But there’s more to it than just that. The right changes can, in fact, make your culture better. This is essentially what “hire for culture add, not culture fit” means in practice.
Let’s again use the Netflix lunch example. Was it crucial for the company to have employees to eat at their desks? Of course not. It was just an inconsequential habit. However, it was vital to have the new Brazilian employees feel welcome, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it improved the company’s performance. Plus, introducing this conscious habit globally helped have a positive impact elsewhere too!
The same can be applied even within the scope of your innovation work. For example, if you’re working on a new medical device, quality and safety are much more important than absolute speed to market. On the other hand, for a consumer web app, it’s probably the other way around. The exact values mentioned here aren’t important, it’s that they should support your strategy and innovation capabilities.
Figure out what the true core values and norms are for your innovation efforts, and make sure to reinforce these – and then be flexible on the rest.
Push decision-making down whenever possible
We’re a strong advocate for decentralized innovation. I won’t recap the whole topic here, but in a nutshell, it’s people who are closest to the market and the real work that often come up with the best ideas. Also, a decentralized approach allows you to dramatically scale your innovation work, which is key for long-term results.
While we’d argue that this is usually the preferable approach, it’s even more important when you’re operating in a multicultural and international environment, as we pointed out earlier.
Not only is this likely to lead to better decisions, but it’s guaranteed to improve the accountability and motivation of the employees making those decisions, which will lead to better results.
This is a key characteristics of the Netflix culture, and CEO Hastings prides himself in doing as few decisions as possible. And, at large, it’s seemed to work really well for them.
However, a market where they are struggling is India. And, at least on the surface, it looks like the problem has been that they’ve tried to adapt the same success formula to India as most other markets: using local top talent to produce new hit TV shows. The problem is that apparently Indians value sports and movies much more than they do TV shows, which has led to competitors focused on those areas dominating the market and a big commercial disappointment for Netflix. From the outside, it’s hard to say if they didn’t really live up to their values here, or if the mistake happened regardless of that. Still, I’m sure there were people on the ground in India that knew of these cultural preferences beforehand.
In practical terms, there are naturally some opportunities and capabilities that make sense to work on centrally, but in an international organization there are also plenty that would be best tackled by empowering people further down the organization to make decisions that best drive the key interests of the organization.
For example, some of our customers have launched big international innovation campaigns or other initiatives and struggled. They might find it difficult to engage people in the field because the centralized effort just doesn’t feel relevant for many of these people, or they might not be able to implement enough good ideas with that same centralized approach.
While there are others that have succeeded in similar centralized efforts, our most successful and advanced customers have nearly without exception evolved the way they work to really embrace innovation at the scale of the organization at large.
…and make sure innovators have the support they need
However, for that decentralized approach to work, you need to guide and support the people innovating across the organization. This is of course not specific to just an environment where there are cultural differences, but for innovation in general.
You likely have plenty of smart and capable people working for you who’d be more than capable of driving innovation, but if they don’t have the right resources, tools, and mindset, they might struggle.
So, in practice, you should:
share strategic priorities, and make sure people continue to work towards those
provide tools and resources that help people with the innovation process
communicate and oversee the above-mentioned core cultural values and norms of the organization
help people with challenges in being heard, understood, or taken seriously by others
help facilitate discussions and share innovation best practices between different parts of the organization
Often, the most convenient way to accomplish the above goals is to make these efforts a priority of your centralized innovation team, instead of having that small team try to drive innovation themselves.
The right approach and specific methods, tools, and frameworks obviously depend on the situation, but the point is that with the right support, you’ll find that people will often surprise you with the innovations that they’re able to create. The key to success with this model is to proactively invest in improving capabilities and supporting innovators across the organization.
Anyway, with this kind of an approach, you can move from just trying to manage cultural differences, to embracing and using them to drive value for your organization.
Conclusion
The topic of cultural differences is such a complex and nuanced topic that we’ve barely scratched the surface on here, even though this has been a pretty long article.
But to summarize, if ignored, cultural differences can become a big challenge for innovators. Yet, if embraced and properly managed, it can turn out to be a real advantage for you.
The first step is to understand that these differences exist in the first place, and that teams and people from different backgrounds are likely to have certain strengths, but also certain weaknesses, when it comes to innovation.
Then, reflect on what the ideal culture for innovation looks like in your specific business, and discuss these differences openly with your team.
And finally, try to approach the whole process systematically, with the help of tools like our Innovation Culture Scorecard, one by one addressing challenges that are holding your team back from reaching its true innovation potential.
As mentioned, when embraced and properly managed, cultural differences can turn out to be a real competitive advantage for an innovator.
This article was originally published in Viima’s blog.
Image credits: Viima, Pixabay, Unsplash, Pexels
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I recently read a couple of excellent articles by Nick Skillicorn, and Prof. Rita McGrath where both discuss the challenges and intricacies involved in structuring and governing innovation within a large organization.
This is a classic topic that every corporate innovator has without a doubt come across, and it’s also one where “the right approach” is often quite elusive.
Inspired by those articles, we’ll present the most common archetypes and then dig a little deeper on the topic and share our thoughts and experiences to help you figure out how innovation should be structured within your organization.
Why organizing innovation is challenging
Before we dive into the different models for governing and organizing innovation, it’s important to understand why this is such a challenging topic to begin with.
That’s of course quite a lengthy and nuanced topic, but in short, there is no such thing as a perfect organizational structure or governance model. The bottom line is that a large organization is simply such a complex entity that structuring everything perfectly so that there aren’t any kind of bottlenecks, misaligned incentives, or any duplication of work just isn’t very realistic. If you’ve ever worked in large organization, you’ve certainly come across some of these challenges.
Now, most of these challenges are likely to be worse with innovation than with “business as usual” as, by definition, innovation means introducing changes. And most organizations simply aren’t designed for constant change.
What’s more, businesses are naturally very different from one another. A structure that works for a single product software company probably isn’t ideal for a CPG manufacturer or a house of brands because not only are their industries different, so are the innovations they are going after. So, what works well for some organization probably won’t be ideal for you.
This means that benchmarking and then applying “best practices” likely won’t work too well. Unfortunately, there just isn’t a single correct way to organize innovation.
Exploring the organizational archetypes for innovation
Having said that, there are a handful of common approaches, which we like to call archetypes, that most organizations use as the foundation for their efforts to organize and govern innovation.
Both McGrath and Skillicorn have done an excellent job in presenting many of these approaches, so a lot of credit for the following descriptions goes to them and I’d warmly recommend you read their takes too. Regardless, we’ve summarized their main points and combined them with our own experiences to create the following archetypes.
We’ll next explain each of these briefly, along with a quick summary of the key strengths and weaknesses for each.
No in-house innovation
The first and simplest way to organize innovation is to not do it, or to completely outsource it. Perhaps the most common method here is to simply keep tabs on promising startups and then acquire them, or to have tight collaboration with universities and other research institutions.
While this obviously keeps things simple organization-wise and minimizes fixed costs, it also means that you no longer have control over your own destiny, and are instead reliant on third parties, which puts you in a very vulnerable position long term. Furthermore, in the last decade, we’ve seen a huge inflow of capital to fund startups, which means that valuations for promising startups have skyrocketed and acquiring them on the cheap is simply no longer a very feasible strategy.
Suffice to say, if you want to build an organization that thrives in the long run, I wouldn’t recommend this approach.
Pros
Low fixed costs
Structurally simple
Cons
Lack of strategic control and ability to build the future of the organization
Lack of differentiation
Reliance on third parties for both execution and especially exploration
Acquisition of promising innovations has become expensive
Centralized
Perhaps the most common way large organizations set up innovation is by creating a centralized department that serves the innovation needs of the entire organization including each business unit and support functions, such as IT or HR. This can be a subdivision within R&D, but these days it’s typically a separate cross-departmental unit serving the innovation needs of business units.
Either way, such a unit is quick and easy to set up, and the approach has some other obvious advantages too, such as innovation expertise being built and managed centrally, which speeds up learning, as well as management and reporting being easy to organize.
It’s these advantages that make centralization the obvious choice for many who are just starting out with innovation. This is also an especially common approach for large industrial companies that typically have a strong R&D tradition.
If all of the innovation has to go through a single team, that team will inevitably become a bottleneck for innovation, no matter how skilled or large it is.
However, in the long run, this approach is also one that is likely to significantly limit your innovation potential. The reason is simple: if all of the innovation has to go through a single team, that team will inevitably become a bottleneck for innovation. No matter how large or skilled the team, they’ll never have enough resources. What’s more, this will also disincentivize everyone else in the organization from innovating and that prevents you from creating a true culture of innovation.
Pros
Quick, easy, and cheap to set up
Dedicated resources for working on innovation
Easy to govern, manage, and report on the overall innovation portfolio
Centralization can speed up learning
Cons
Poor scalability as centralized team will inevitably become a bottleneck for innovation
Likely to be pulled into too many projects, which leads to poor execution
High risk of degenerating into a support function serving business unit requests instead of strategically building the future of the organization
Likely to disincentivize others in the organization from innovating
Conflicting interests between business units can make prioritization difficult
Typically lack authority to make important, hard decisions
Dedicated
Popularized by Clayton Christensen as a solution to the Innovators’s Dilemma, dedicated business units for innovation have become increasingly popular in large organizations that are looking for the next stage of their growth. Sometimes these units have proper P&L responsibility, and they might even report directly to the CEO or others in senior management, but at times they can also be innovation labs responsible primarily for testing and piloting new ideas before they are to be integrated into the core business.
Regardless of the particularities, these approaches have some specific strengths, but also clear weaknesses. The good thing is that because the unit is independent, it can usually avoid being held back by the restrictions of the business as usual and can build their talent and approaches from scratch.
If innovation is the job of a select few, it will be incredibly hard to build a pro-innovation culture.
The downside is that they also don’t necessarily play to the strengths that the organization has already built. Without strong and clear leadership, these kinds of innovation efforts are likely to have an equally poor success rate as your average startup – but without the asymmetric upside.
The reason is simple: if you already have hundreds of millions or billions in revenue, most new businesses just don’t move the needle enough – unless they can quickly grow to a massive size or be combined with the strengths and competitive advantages of the core business.
And just like with the centralized model, this model again limits innovation to one part of the organization. As before, that will likely prevent you from creating a true culture of innovation, and thus lead to the unit becoming a bottleneck down the road.
Pros
Freedom to operate independently from processes of existing business units, which is essential for trying new things and creating disruptive innovations
Ability to hire and organize specifically for innovation
If led well, ability to focus on the long-term instead of short-term performance
High profile innovation unit can also be used for marketing and employer branding purposes
Cons
Conflicts of interest and lack of cooperation between core business and innovation unit likely to lead to politics, tension, and other challenges in integrating innovations into core business
Independence and lack of communication between business units might hurt strategic alignment and prevent the innovation unit from benefiting from the existing strengths of the organization
Can easily degenerate into a cost center performing innovation theaterwithout a clear strategic focus, strong leadership, and evidence-based processes
Likely to disincentivize innovation in other parts of the organization and thus prevent the creation of an innovation culture
High initial investment with lots of uncertainty can make the business case for investing in innovation look bad
Embedded
Many organizations have relatively independent business units or product and brand teams, and for them it can often make sense for innovation to be embedded within these units.
Traditional examples of such an approach are companies like P&G and other CPG companies with strong brands. These companies are working hard to keep up to date with evolving trends and consumer needs to innovate and create new products for the consumer. However, the same can also be true for many other kinds of businesses, such as software companies with multiple products.
Depending on the industry and organization, these units might have varying levels of control over their innovations once they are on the market. For example, in CPG companies manufacturing, logistics and many other functions would likely be managed by core business operations instead of this unit.
Pros
Better able to focus innovation on things that matter for each business, be they strategic projects or emerging customer needs
More control over innovation resources and ability to get talent that meets specific needs
Parallelization over different units can increase innovation throughput of the organization overall
Easier to align innovation with business needs and plans within the unit
The business case for investing in innovation is typically easy to make as you can start from low-hanging fruits that provide immediate value
Cons
Innovation likely to be biased towards more applied and incremental projects due to focus on immediate business needs
Some efforts may be duplicated between teams, especially if more long-term R&D work is being done
Can lead to a silo-effect, extra need to focus on facilitating knowledge transfer between units
Ambidextrous
Our fifth approach is usually referred to as the ambidextrous organization. We’ve also seen it be referred to as the Hybrid model, and it’s quite a natural evolution from the previous archetypes as it seeks to combine the best of both worlds.
In a nutshell, the idea is that innovation should happen across the organization with existing business units focused on exploiting their current position through incremental innovation, and a separate dedicated unit being responsible for exploring and building the future of the organization through more radical or disruptive innovation.
In the ambidextrous model, existing units use incremental innovation to exploit the current position and new units are set up to explore and build future.
In practice, a new P&L responsible division will be setup for new non-core businesses, and the more incremental innovation will then be organised either as Embedded or Centralized.
If an organization does successfully implement such an approach, it can lead to exceptional long-term performance, but that’s of course easier said than done. For most organizations, this is likely to require a significant transformation, and it can be challenging to get everyone onboard, build the right processes, as well as to align goals and incentives the right way across the organization.
Pros
Easier to build a balanced innovation portfolio with both strong short and long-term performance
Enables building an innovation-oriented culture across the organization
Enough resources for key projects across the organization
Makes it easier to communicate the innovation strategy with clear roles and responsibilities for each part of the organization
Can customize governance models to meet the needs of different types of innovation in different parts of the organization
Cons
Expensive and difficult to build, as well as to maintain
Requires clear leadership and a commitment to a transformation from the top
Can demotivate innovation-oriented employees that are in the core business
Usually requires extensive changes to processes and the re-skilling of managers and employees across the organization
While easier than with most other models on paper, prioritization and division of responsibilities can still be challenging in practice
Decentralized
Our final model is the decentralized approach. If you look at any of the best innovators in the world, be it Apple, Tesla, SpaceX, or Amazon, this is closest to the model they use. None of these organizations has a centralized or dedicated team responsible for all innovation in the organization.
Instead, the organization decentralizes the responsibility for innovation to happen in individual teams (which are typically cross-functional and relatively small) across the organization. Each team is focused on figuring out how they could help the organization better reach their strategic goals, and innovation is just one of the key tools in that process.
If a team (or an individual leader or employee) comes across a big idea that shows promise but would require significant additional investments, they’ll apply for additional resources from management via a quick and streamlined process. If approved, that typically leads to another team being set up to pursue that idea.
This approach is sometimes called the permissionless model due to the significant freedom each team possesses to make decisions affecting their own work. The obvious advantages are that they usually know the problems intimately and have the resources, incentive, and know-how to solve them, and have fewer dependencies to other parts of the organization. That leads to an extremely high pace of innovation and innovation throughput for the organization, which together create a tremendous competitive advantage.
Having said that, this too isn’t exactly an easy model to implement for most organizations. Typically, this would require a fundamentally different mindset, leadership philosophy, and a significantly higher talent density. For the average organization, that means a full-blown transformation where most fundamentals in the organization would need to change, which of course isn’t feasible for many.
Pros
Extremely high throughput and pace of innovation
Ability to adapt, re-organize and meet changing demands quickly
Strong focus on execution and value creation
Clear roles and responsibilities
Cons
Would require a fundamental transformation for most organizations
Requires strong communication and strategic clarity from management
Active management involvement required to remove barriers and to organize teams so that the portfolio remains balanced
Requires high talent density across the organization, which can be very challenging to achieve in practice
Continuously evolving and rapidly changing landscape might be too intensive for some employees
Some work often initially duplicated across teams, but can be managed by creating horizontal support teams
Choosing the right approach for your organization
As you can see, every approach has their benefits, but also their disadvantages.
In our experience, the Hybrid and especially Decentralized are the likeliest approaches to lead to sustained levels of high innovation performance in the 21stcentury but implementing either isn’t exactly a walk in the park for a large organization. If you have the luxury of meeting (or are close to meeting) the prerequisites, these are the models I’d personally go for.
However, for many, that just isn’t the reality. Even if you’re like most organizations and don’t quite have the talent, leadership, or other prerequisites needed for these approaches, I’d keep either the Hybrid or Decentralized approach as your eventual goal to build towards.
Move control and decision-making down in the organization to be able to move faster, make more informed decisions, respond to changes quicker, and to simply innovate more.
However, instead of a major overnight transformation, you should be prepared for a set of smaller, gradual steps that build your capabilities and culture towards that future while solving the current problems with your processes and structures.
While not ideal in theory, in practice the journey towards becoming a mature top innovator typically first leads towards centralization for most incumbent organizations. They need to build their innovation strategy, knowledge and capabilities before they can successfully decentralize and move control and decision-making down in the organization to be able to move faster, make more informed decisions, respond to changes quicker, and to simply innovate more.
With that background, if such an approach is used, it’s crucial that this centralized innovation function understands and embraces their temporary role so that they are willing to relinquish control and power over innovation to others. All too often we see these leaders clinging on to the team, budget and power they’ve built long after it would’ve been in the organizations’ best interest to re-organize.
Best practices for organizing innovation
As we’ve discussed, if you’re planning to make changes to the way you organize innovation, most decisions will depend on your context. Still, there are a few things that are good to keep in mind regardless of the approach you end up choosing. Here’s my top three:
The best innovators continuously evolve
The first, and perhaps the most important point to remember is that the best innovators continuously evolve and improve the way they work. They don’t just pick one organizational structure and go with that forever. Instead, they are constantly looking for ways to re-organize their efforts so that they work on whatever is likely to best help them reach their goals. This is of course one of the fundamental strengths of the Decentralized model but applies to other approaches too.
This is also in line with how the most successful organizations approach re-organizations in general. They don’t just wait until the old structure is burning, they act proactively to position themselves for the future they want to create.
Clear roles and decision-making structures
It’s pretty obvious, but if people don’t know who can make a decision on an idea that they may have, or even who’s responsibility it would fall under, odds are that not a lot of innovation will happen.
The reality is that there will always be some ambiguity and overlap, especially in fast moving environments, but clear roles and decision-making structures are regardless important for an organization that wants to innovate.
If projects or decisions seem to get stuck, or turf battles seem to consistently pop up in your organization, unclear roles and ambiguous decision-making are likely to be the main culprits.
Organize according to strategy and plan for the execution
Again, it might sound obvious, but especially with innovation, the differences can be dramatic. Organization is the link between your strategy and your execution, so make sure it isn’t detached from the realities of what it will take to reach your goals with innovation.
To use a bit of a simplified example, if your strategy is focused on creating new business from emerging disruptive technologies, then the Embedded model probably won’t cut it as your innovators will be kept busy by the priorities from the core business.
Plan for the execution, on the other hand means that each team should have the resources and the freedom needed to reach your goals. If, using our previous example, you allocate just a few engineers to the team and then hope that sales will magically turn those technologies into booming businesses, odds are very much against you.
In other words, try to allocate resources so that the team has everything they need to reach their goals. While this sounds super basic, we still see these mistakes frequently when innovation is a bit of an afterthought for management.
Conclusion
As is probably evident by now, no structure or approach to governing innovation is ever going to be perfect, at least for long. As your goals change or your business and industry keep evolving, you will need to change and evolve too.
Even though organizing innovation doesn’t seem to get the same kind of attention as innovation strategy or culture, it’s extremely important, nevertheless. Get it wrong, and it will be almost impossible for your organization to succeed at innovation. Get it right, and you’ll at the very least have a realistic shot at that.
Hopefully this article has provided you with more thoughts on the topic, and some views on what to do and not-to-do.
As many of my colleagues are aware, I am at heart, a maverick, an unorthodox or independent-minded person. Who is curious and inquisitive, and finds change and challenging the status quo exciting, fascinating and stimulating. I am also, considered, by some, as a misfit, someone whose behaviors and attitudes sets them apart from others in an uncomfortably conspicuous way, that often rocks the boat. There is a range of consequences for people like me, who dare to think differently, especially now that I have also achieved the status of a Modern Elder – “the perfect alchemy of curious and wise, with curiosity leading to expansive inquiry while wisdom distills what’s essential.”
Coupled with both the challenges and constraints of the currently disrupted Covid-19 and digitized world, I am finding that the consequences of being different have intensified, become more impactful, and are often, quite confronting. Where differences cause resistance to change, divisiveness, and conflict, rather than maximizing differences in ways that embrace our humanity, diversity, to harness collective intelligence to make the organization, or world a better, more inclusive, and safer place.
Which exists in the home, in the street, in our workplaces, communities, and countries where we constantly encounter groups and cultures whose ideas and ideals are unlike ours. “That can be experienced as a profound threat to identity. Identity divides.” Considering that “the world is not a single machine, it is a complex, interactive ecology in which diversity – the biological, personal, cultural and religious – is of the essence.”
“When difference leads to war, both sides lose. When it leads to mutual enrichment, both sides gain.”
As is currently being evidenced by the tense and tentative Ukrainian and Russian border confrontation, with its potentially tragic consequences. Where Yuval Noah Harari states in a recent article in The Economist – “At the heart of the Ukraine crisis lies a fundamental question about the nature of history and the nature of humanity: is change possible? Can humans change the way they behave, or does history repeat itself endlessly, with humans forever condemned to re-enact past tragedies without changing anything except the décor”?
People Who Dare to Think Differently
Adam Grant, in his book “The Originals – How Non-Conformists Change the World” describes an original (n) as “A thing of singular or unique character; a person who is different from other people in an appealing or interesting way; a person of fresh initiative or inventive capacity”.
The book goes on to explain strategies, through studies and stories how to champion new ideas and fight groupthink, in constructive ways that maximize diversity and differences and promote dissent, as the basis for cultivating original thought to effect positive change.
Ray Dallio, in his book Principles explores this further, suggesting that “if you are like most people, you have no clue about how other people see things and aren’t good at seeking to understand what they are thinking because you’re too preoccupied with telling them what you yourself think is correct.” Often causing divisiveness rather than inclusion, resistance to change, and as a consequence, missing the possibilities and opportunities that may be present.
This also impedes our overall adaptiveness and creativity in an exponentially changing, world, to make real progress, and constructively change and limits the potential for innovation, growth and ability to contribute to the common good.
Change Management Has Changed
In a recent article from the Boston Consulting Group, they stated that “Effective change management requires leaders to shift away from one-size-fits-all approaches and develop an expanded set of context-specific strategies”.
Which are truly adaptive, collaborative, energize, catalyze change, harness, and mobilize people’s and customers’ collective intelligence, in ways that are appreciated and cherished by all, and contribute to the common good.
To ultimately collectively co-create a set of different, empowered future-fit leaders, teams, and organizations – who courageously, compassionately, and creatively contribute toward an improved future, for customers, stakeholders, leaders, teams, organizations as well as for the good of the whole.
Welcoming Dissent and Thoughtful Disagreement
At ImagineNation™ we dare to think differently and teach train, and coach people and teams to maximize their potential to lead, manage, coach, through implementing and embedding change and innovation, differently.
We enable people to lead in the imagination age by empowering, enabling, and equipping them to be and think differently to:
Flow with some people’s need to be “right” and in control, when they are being defensive, abusive, and divisive, even when disagreement and conflict occur.
Artfully and skillfully use cognitive dissonance and creative tension to pull people towards a new possibility and envision a new and compelling future.
Be inclusive to support mutual enrichment, through co-sensemaking, that helps them create “order” (in their own context) and simplicity from complexity and change.
Self-regulate and self-manage emotionally in the face of uncertainty and volatility.
Be relatable, empathic, inspiring, and artfully and skillfully influential in helping people open their minds and hearts toward co-creation, collaboration, and experimentation that ensures a shared contribution for mutual gain.
In ways that engage deep generative listening, inquiry, questioning, and differing that uses cognitive dissonance to unleash the creative energy that triggers and generates thinking differently.
When people are trusted and empowered to think differently, they co-create a frequency that allows, awakens, and activates their adaptive and innovative leadership qualities, consciousness, states, and qualities of mind and heart, to effect positive change.
Taking wise and intelligent action
It also enables them to wisely choose the most intelligent actions that result in adaptive and innovative outcomes.
This helps creativity to flourish and disrupts and interrupts those people, whose complacency, conformity, and rigidity create divisions, and feelings of desolation and exclusion that kill our capacity and competence to collaborate, create and invent.
Leaving me to wonder and inquire;
What if the “strangers” among us simply listen, with open minds and open hearts to the thought, feelings, and opinions of others, with both curiosity and detachment?
What if we could collectively co-create safe containers and collective holding spaces, that maximize our differences and diversity, and simply share a creative conversation about what could be possible?
How might we maximize our diversity of thought, to enable us to think differently about the issue, opportunity, or problem in ways that supported differences for mutual enrichment?
There is no wisdom on one point of view
Might this result in a deeper connection when there is polarization between people?
Might it be possible to co-sense and co-create a sense of inclusion, and an opening for a deeper philosophical exploration and discovery for thinking differently about the role, nature of and impact prescriptive points of view on how people truly feel, really think, and deeply act in our globalized and connected world?
Might it help us collectively to co-create making it a better place?
Find out more about our work at ImagineNation™
Find out about our learning products and tools, including The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 9-weeks, starting Tuesday, May 4, 2022. It is a blended and transformational change and learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of an ecosystem focus, human-centric approach, and emergent structure (Theory U) to innovation, and to upskill people and teams and develop their future fitness, within your unique context. Find out more.
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Moving into a new year is always a time for retreating and reflecting to accelerate growth and harvest new ideas from our feelings, thoughts, and learnings gleaned from the last two years of disruption, extreme uncertainty, and instability. Whether you are actively seeking to disrupt yourself, your team, and your organization to effect sustainable success this year, or not, we all have the opportunity to adapt, innovate and grow from the range of challenging events that impacted us in the past 24 months. This is why it might be useful to see these disruptive events as positive, powerful, and impactful forces for creating new cracks in your own, or your team or organizational soil – to sow some imaginative, creative, and inventive seeds for effecting positive change in an unstable world.
To see them germinate the desired changes you want for yourself, your team, and organization and deliver them, to survive and thrive in 2022.
We are all being challenged by disruption
Our status quo and concepts of business-as-usual have all been significantly disrupted, resulting in a range and series of deep neurological shocks, that have shaken many of us, our teams, and our organizations, to our very cores. Some of us adapted to a sense of urgency and exploited the opportunity to reinvent, iterate, or pivot our teams and organizations, towards co-creating individual and intentional “new normals” and just “got on” with it. Some of us have continually denied, defended, and avoided making changes, where many of us have sunk deeply into our fears and anxieties, falsely believing that our lives, and our work, would eventually go back to “normal”.
This is because a significant number of our habitual, largely unconscious mental models and emotional states, were disrupted, largely by events beyond our individual and collective control. Causing many of us to experience “cognitive dissonance” (a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors that produce feelings of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance) from the chaos, discomfort, confusion, and conflict.
Which saw many of us, disconnect cognitively and emotionally, from the current disruptive reality, where some of us secretly hoped that “it will all go away” manifesting and festering fundamentally and unconsciously, as inherent neurological immobility, (freeze, fight, flight) resulting in many areas as resistance to change.
Why disrupt yourself, your team, and organization?
Yet disruptive change is inevitable, the speed and pace of exponential change cannot be stopped, the range of complex and wicked global and local problems that need to be solved collectively, aren’t going away.
Job security and full-time employment, as hybrid and virtual work, and technology accelerate, are becoming “things of the past” as the workplace continues to destabilize through digitization, AI, and automation.
Whilst the war for talent also accelerates as the great resignation sets in and people make powerful, empowered life balance decisions and are on the move globally.
Taking the first steps to disrupt yourself, your team, and organization
In this time of extreme uncertainty, we have a unique moment in time, to disrupt ourselves, teams, and organizations by:
Hitting our individual, collective mental, and emotional pause buttons, to retreat from our business-as-usual activities, and take time out to reflect upon paying attention and qualifying:
How specifically have I/we been disrupted?
How have our people, teams, and customers been disrupted?
What are some of the major collective impacts on our organization’s current status and how might these impact our future growth potential and overall sustainability?
How connected are we to an exponential world, how can we ensure that our feelings, thoughts, and actions, connect with what is really happening to us, our teams, and our customers?
What causes disconnection and how might we manage it to be more mentally tough and emotionally agile in an extremely uncertain future?
What really matters to us, our teams, organizations, and customers – what do our people, teams, and customers really want from us?
What are some of the key elements of our organizational strategy to enact our purpose and deliver our mission?
Generating safe, evocative, provocative, and creative conversations, that evoke deep listening and deep questioning, about how to individually and collectively reconnect, revitalize, rejuvenate and reenergize people, teams and organizations to survive and thrive through asking:
How can we engage and harness our people and teams’ energies in ways that mobilize their collective intelligence to evoke new mindset shifts and new ways of thinking and acting?
What are some of the key mindsets and traits we need to disrupt, shift, and cultivate to be successful to adapt and grow through disruption?
What skills do our leaders and teams need to learn to think and act differently to shift the organizations culture to deliver our strategy?
What does it mean to us, our teams, and organizations to be creative, inventive, and innovative – How might we shift our teams and organizations to be more creative, inventive, and innovative?
What are the new behavioral norms that will support and enable us to execute agile and innovative changes?
How might becoming agile and innovative help our people, teams co-create a healthy, high-performing, and sustainable organizational culture?
How might becoming agile and innovative add value to the quality of people’s lives and help our customers flourish?
Creating safe environments where people and teams are allowed to experiment, have permission, and are trusted to practice, make mistakes as they move through difficult emotions, and take little bets in low stake situations.
Intentionally breaking organizational routines and habits, to create space in people’s brains for new neural pathways to be developed.
Enabling people and teams to become mindful of their triggers, to interrupt their automatic reactions.
Equipping people and teams to thoughtfully and intentionally respond to situations, that make them uncomfortable and risk-averse, by knowing how to think differently.
Bringing more play into the way people work, encourages people to be imaginative, inquisitive, curious, and improvisational, to seek different ways of thinking and acting, that really make a difference in how work gets done.
Support people and teams to learn by doing, and failing fast, without the fear of blame, shame, and retribution, despite it being risky to do that.
Why not disrupt yourself, your team, and organization?
The future is going to be full of disruptive events and circumstances that will impact is our families, communities, team, and organizations, and the conditions of extreme uncertainty and disruption are not going to go away. In fact, they are fundamental to what might be described as our collective “new normal” and it’s up to you to disrupt yourself, your team, and organization, to lead, adapt and grow, to survive and thrive through it.
Find out about The Coach for Innovators Certified Program, a collaborative, intimate, and deep personalized innovation coaching and learning program, supported by a global group of peers over 8-weeks, starting May 2022. It is a blended learning program that will give you a deep understanding of the language, principles, and applications of a human-centered approach to innovation, within your unique context. Find out more.
Contact us now at mailto:janet@imaginenation.com.au to find out how we can partner with you to learn, adapt, and grow your business, team and organization through disruption.
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According to McKinsey & Co, in a recent article The new roles of leaders in 21st-century organizations they say that the focus of leaders, in traditional organisations, is to maximize value for shareholders. To do this effectively, they say that traditional leaders typically play four different roles – the planner (developing strategy and translating it into a plan); the director (assigning responsibility); and the controller (making sure everyone does what they should minimize variance against the plan). Whilst these represent the core and foundational business management and leadership roles essential to successful organisational performance, the world has changed significantly, and traditional organisations are being severely disrupted. Requiring the development of new, adaptive, and supplementary, and new leadership and team roles, which embrace the set of 21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams – strategically supported by digital technologies, and an ecosystem focus to thrive in the face of exponential change and a VUCA world.
Maximizing the dormant space
This creates a space of unparalleled opportunity towards reshaping the world anew by activating what might be considered the dormant space, between traditional leadership roles and the possibility of a set of 21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams.
To be embraced, enacted, and embodied by conscious leaders and collaborative teams in more purposeful, meaningful, and innovative ways that serve people, customers, and the common good.
The new roles of leaders and teams in the 21st century
Taking the stance that in an open system, everyone must win through co-creation, collaboration, experimentation, and innovation that results in delivering great customer experiences. To retain and sustain current customers, and to attract and attain new ones in an increasingly competitive global marketplace!
Making the key “leadership challenge of our times” as one which cultivates transformative eco-system-led learning and change, nurturing connections, exploration, discovery, creativity, collaboration, experimentation, and innovation at all levels of the system.
To co-create new “holding spaces” for igniting, harnessing, and activating people’s collective intelligence to embrace and execute change and deliver the desired commercial outcomes their organisation wants.
Openings for unparalleled opportunities
It seems that we not only survived through the emotional and mental anxiety and overwhelm of living in “a world of disruption, drama, and despair” we also saw the range of disruptive events as a “crack” or opening in our operating systems, for unparalleled opportunities.
Deepen the learning cycle (from head-centric to the whole person: heart, head, and gut-centric).
Broaden our perspectives and actions (from an individual focus to an eco-system focus).
A moment in time – taking a deep breath
One of the many challenges our collective at ImagineNation™ faced during the Covid-19 pandemic-induced lockdowns (we had six long ones here in Melbourne, Australia over 18 months) was the opportunity to slow down, hit our pause buttons, retreat and reflect and take some very deep and slow breaths.
To make time and space to rethink, respond, regroup, experiment, and play with a range of wondrous, imaginative, and playful ideas, to unlearn, learn and relearn new ways of being, thinking, and acting to sense and actualize a future that is wanting to emerge – even though, then and right now, it was and still is unclear how.
Acknowledging that whilst many of us, and the majority of our clients were experiencing the range of significant emotional reactions, mental stalling, and the anxiety and overwhelm of living in “a world of disruption, drama, and despair” as well as sensing and perceiving the world that is emerging as one of unparalleled opportunity”.
Stepping up and into new spaces of possibility and learning
Individually and collectively, we focussed on a range of rethinking, responding, and regrouping strategies including adopting new 21st-century leadership roles.
Initially by taking responsibility for sustaining our own, our partners, and our families, emotional energy, mental toughness, engagement, and overall wellness.
Then consciously enact and embody the new set of emerging 21st-century leadership roles as visionaries, architects, coaches, and catalysts:
Being visionaries: by co-creating a collaborative and global collective of aligned ecosystem partners with clear accountabilities within a virtual, profit share business model.
Being architects: by iterating, pivoting and sharing our IP and learning programs to close peoples’ “knowing-doing gaps” to help them unlearn, learn, relearn, reshape and develop their 21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams.
Being coaches: by exploring working with the range of innovative new coaching platforms, including BetterUp and CoachHub to better democratize, scale, and share our strengths, knowledge, and skills to help a significant number of people deal more effectively with the impact of virtual hybrid workplaces.
Being catalysts: by focussing on partnering with clients to break down their self-induced protective and defensive “silos” to support them to become aware, acknowledge, accept, and resolve their feelings of loneliness, isolation, and disconnection, and overall anxiety.
21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams
It seems that these are just some of the 21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams which act as the foundations necessary to survive and thrive through the emerging decade of both disruption and transformation.
Summing these up into more concrete actions for leaders and teams include cultivating and sustaining these five superpowers:
Transformational Literacy: The ability to increase our capacity to collaborate and co-create across institutional and sector boundaries through “shifting consciousness from ego-system awareness to eco-system awareness.” to pioneer solutions that bridge the ecological, the social, and the spiritual divides existing in the 21st
Nimbleness and Agility: The ability to shift and re-think and re-learn in changing contexts, to quickly experiment, iterate and pivot to adapt and move forwards collaboratively through mindset flips to emerge creative ideas and innovative solutions that are appreciated, valued, and cherished.
Scalability: The ability to rapidly build desired and most relevant internal capabilities, to shift capacity and service levels through increasing creativity, invention, and innovation in ways that meet changing customer expectations, and satisfy their demands and future requirements.
Stability: The ability to maintain “action confidence” and operational excellence under pressure that frees people from the constraints of “getting it right” and allows them to continuously unlearn, learn, relearn and change through “failing fast” or forward, without being blamed or shamed.
Optionality: The ability to “get out of the box” to build and develop value chains, stakeholder engagements, or an ecosystem focus to acquire new capabilities through external collaboration.
Walking the path forward
According to Otto Scharmer, in a recent article “Action Confidence: Laying Down the Path in Walking” the leadership qualities we also need to nurture in order to lean into the current moment and to source the courage to act are: Humility. Vulnerability. Surrender. Trust.
It might be time to hit your own pause button, retreat and reflect, inhale a deep breath in this precious moment in time to develop your path forwards and develop an ecosystem focus and an ecosystem focus and a human-centric, future-fit focus.
To embrace, enact and embody a set of 21st-century superpowers for leaders and teams and reshape your innovative learning systems by developing the action confidence to adopt an ecosystem, whole person, and a whole perspective that contributes to the good of the whole.
Join our next free “Making Innovation a Habit” masterclass to re-engage 2022!
Our 90-minute masterclass and creative conversation will help you develop your post-Covid-19 re-engagement strategy. It’s on Thursday, 10th February at 6.30 pm Sydney and Melbourne, 8.30 pm Auckland, 3.30 pm Singapore, 11.30 am Abu Dhabi and 8.30 am Berlin. Find out more.
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In our last blog, we proposed, rather than living in a world where everyone hates to fail, why not adopt a rethink, respond, regroup, thrive pattern, and experience failure as an opportunity for change, unlearning, and re-thinking? Adopting this approach supports your human-centricity and enables you to become future-fit through developing your set of 21st-century superpowers in the face of the acute disruption of COVID-19. This is reinforced by Adam Grant, in his book “Think Again” (the power of not knowing what you don’t know) where he states that we are living in a time vital for re-thinking to help us become adaptive and agile and develop our future fitness to thrive in a disruptive, uncertain world.
Critical Art of Re-Thinking
The critical art of re-thinking involves being actively open-minded, hearted, and willed:
To learning, and possibly re-learning how to effectively question your own beliefs, mindsets, assumptions, opinions, and habits;
Through connection, association, detachment, and discernment to these qualities in other people’s minds and hearts;
And to then put our “mental pliability” and “emotional agility” to the test by creating the time and space for re-thinking with a new “set of goggles” and revising our views based on what we learn.
This potentially benefits everyone because it allows us to upgrade and update our points of view and expand our understanding of the world, we are all living in today and build our future fitness.
It also positions us for change innovation and excellence in the way we transform our approach to work and share our wisdom in life.
Making time and space for re-thinking
The vital role of unlearning
Embracing human-centricity and a future-fit focus involves unlearning and letting go of many of our old beliefs, mindsets, assumptions, opinions, and habits embedded in our habitual feeling and thinking systems.
Being able to discern which of these are now incomplete, ineffective, and irrelevant as we adapt, and serve people, teams, and organisations to survive, grow, and develop future fitness to thrive in the post-Covid-19 world.
Unlearning is not about forgetting, it’s about paying deep attention and developing the awareness to see, and safely and courageously step outside of our old thinking systems, mental models, biases, and paradigms.
Being intellectually humble
Being intellectually humble involves “knowing what we don’t know” and being inquisitive and curious enough to explore new discoveries, and pay deep attention, and be consciously aware of the rich and valuable rewards to be found in the “unknown”.
Most of us are unconsciously motivated to move away from change and learning as a result of “blindness” to our learning or survival anxieties (Schein), and the need to cover up our “learning incompetence” (when people pretend to know things they don’t).
The willingness to be actively open-minded, hearted, and willed and embrace intellectual humility helps us see things clearly and moves us towards overcoming our blind spots and weaknesses.
Re-Thinking in a Disconnected and Disruptive Era
Thinking, fast and slow
Daniel Kahneman, in his book “Thinking Fast and Slow,” describes the “machinery of … thought,” dividing the brain into two agents, called System 1 and System 2, which “respectively produce fast and slow thinking.”
For our purposes, at ImagineNation™, in our group, leadership, and team coaching programs, these can also be thought of as intuitive and deliberate thought.
Introducing System 3 thinking
My colleague, Peter Webb (www.peterjwebb.com), has added to this work by researching and validating a System 3 which he describes as considerative, which is complementary to our approach to thinking differently at ImagineNation™.
System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. it is intuitive, quick, and emotional.
System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration. It is deliberative in that is rational and calculated.
System 3 thinking is more considerative, thoughtful, and consequential in that it enables you to focus on what really matters, discern what makes common sense, make small decisions and take small actions to find out what works best, be compassionate, regulate your emotions and develop a tolerance for divergent values.
You can explore more these three thinking systems, and initiate your own re-thinking process by contacting Peter at https://www.peterjwebb.com/
Initiating Your Re-Thinking Strategy
Developing a habit of reflective practices
Our innovation coaching, leading, and teaming learning programs involve developing a regular reflective practice –which according to Turner, Lucas & Whitaker, in the learning and coaching context is:
“the ability to step away from your work and identity patterns, habits, strengths, and limitations in your work, and/within the system you work in.”
Pause-retreat-reflect cycle to catalyse re-thinking
At ImagineNation™ to initiate the re-thinking process, through partnering with clients to be actively open-minded, hearted, and willed through our “pause-retreat-reflect-reboot” cycle.
To support the development of the new habit, we include:
A personal reflection practice involves initiating or continuing a mindfulness activity.
A set of regular reflection activities which include different sets of reflective and generative questions.
Journaling processes, incorporating the CCS Cards for play and critical reflection for our clients to experiment with.
This involves practicing a set of regular retreat and reflection activities involving safely and intentionally enabling people to deeply listen and question and paradoxically dance across the 3 thinking systems simultaneously.
Enhancing your own and your team’s capability to do this will transform your approach to work, harness people’s collective intelligence to share their wisdom in life with the world, and develop future fitness to master challenges and solve problems as they arise.
Shifting to re-thinking
Interrupt their habitual “do-feel-think” cycles (doing stuff that may not deliver the results you want, feeling the awful emotions that result from mistakes, imperfection, and failure, then thinking what to do about it).
Create “stop signals” to affect a pause, long enough to stop doing stuff and become present to the range of emotions to calm down their nervous system.
Connect, associate with and acknowledge how they might be feeling at this unique and specific moment in time.
Pay deep attention to observing their operating thought patterns, with detachment and discernment.
Intentionally choose a desired future state or outcome.
Consider the impact of their feelings and thoughts on the results they are getting.
Deliberate, consider and quickly choose more resourceful visceral and feeling states that compels (pulls) and mobilise them to achieve the desired future state or outcome.
Finally, deliberate, consider and quickly choose more resourceful thought and feeling patterns to choose the most intelligent actions to take to achieve the desired future state or outcome.
The result is usually the development of a re-thinking process that has evolved from “do-think-feel” to “feel-think-do” (connecting to a desirable outcome, feeling present, thinking about the most intelligent thoughts and actions to embody and enact to get there, saving both time and money on wasted activities, avoiding mistakes and failures, to get to their desired future state.)
A Final Word on the Benefits of Re-Thinking
Taking just a moment to pause-retreat-reflect catalyses our rethink, respond, regroup, thrive pattern and creates opportunities for change, unlearning, and re-thinking. It is also a vital ingredient towards developing peoples’ future fitness.
Enabling us to appreciate the value of tuning into ourselves and into others, to leverage our emotional and mental muscles, towards actively creating the space for evoking and provoking different options and creative choices. Which better enable and empower us to re-think about being, thinking, and acting differently in a new age, impacted by the technologies created by accelerated digitization.
We can then perform at higher levels, achieve our desired outcomes and goals, interact, lead and team more effectively and develop functional and highly valued collaborative relationships with others, as well as with stakeholders and customers.
To leverage the current turning point, and develop our 21st-century superpowers, to co-create a more equitable, resilient, sustainable, human-centric, and future-fit environment, within an ever-changing landscape.
Join Our Next Free “Making Innovation a Habit” Masterclass to Re-Engage 2022!
Our 90-minute masterclass and creative conversation will help you develop your post-Covid-19 re-engagement strategy. It’s on Thursday, 10th February at 6.30 pm Sydney and Melbourne, 8.30 pm Auckland, 3.30 pm Singapore, 11.30 am Abu Dhabi and 8.30 am Berlin. Find out more.
Image credit: Unsplash
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