Qualities of Innovative Leadership
What are the qualities of good leadership, or better yet innovative leadership? According to Margaret Wheatley, author of many books on innovative leadership including, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, perseverance in the face of challenge is one quality that stands out. 
Another is the ability to motivate those around you and energize their work, maintain a disciplined approach and value your team. What stands out most, however, as one of the most critical components of good leadership when looking at innovation within your organization is the ability to avoid the marginalization of innovators. Part of a leader’s job is to create a firewall so that staff can operate free from the bureaucratic, change-resistant forces of the larger organization. Keeping innovators inspired and motivated is no small task for a leader when typically innovators are operating in ways that are counter to the larger organization.
In a recent interview with Strategy and Business magazine’s Art Kleiner, Meg Wheatley describes what can happen when leaders misunderstand the initiatives and motivations of their own people, innovators who are successful but operating in a way that is largely counter to way things are always done. It is natural for fear-based leaders to ignore and even marginalize these team members because they don’t desire to learn new ways of doing things and fear the impact of these new ways.
Fear-based leadership practices come in many forms but what they all have in common is an operational mentality of maintaining status quo. This creates toxicity within the organization for innovators who are all about pushing the bounds of status quo, bringing in new ideas and garnering change. One way to overcome fear-based practices is for leaders to acknowledge they don’t have all of the answers. Another way is to avoid feeling ill-equipped for change because this resistance to change is futile. Change is. Maintaining status quo is no longer relevant in the complex world we operate in today.
But, what is so unique about effective, innovative leaders?
Innovative leaders have elements of a spiritual life or a personal spiritual discipline. They take the time to cultivate quiet in their lives to reflect upon the people and the processes within the larger context, bringing an enlightened understanding to their work.
I have worked for a lot of different leaders in a variety of settings; education, consulting, large organizations, small non-profits, and those leaders that I felt the greatest respect and the most gratitude towards were those that had an element of contemplation. I could find a resonant frequency within them that depicted some element of personal strength and awareness that came from something greater than themselves. What they possessed was a vision for our organization, and created a belief among our teams that we could bring into reality ‘greatness’ within our organization. They embraced change and guided the organization through times of change with great thought. They valued innovators and saw their potential to enhance the way forward. They were a pillar of strength for innovators to flourish and built the necessary constructs for innovators to thrive. These leaders were authentic and inspiring to work for.
Emily Riley: Innovation Practitioner
Collaborative Innovation Strategy
At the core of any organization are people. This seems like a really non-profound statement. But, it seems as though leaders who strive to build innovation strategies, models, and plans within their organization often don’t involve the critical core of the organization in the process in effective ways. Without involving the people who implement and deliver solutions to the organization (expected at accelerated rates), how can innovation be achieved much less sustained?
There is an article titled, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning by Henry Mintzberg (1994). It is a bit dated. However, I concur with Mr. Mintzberg’s point about the difference between strategic planning and strategic thinking. The most successful strategies are those that arise from vision, not plans. This involves creativity and intuition,… and a gut check. Humanizing the process opens it up to creative insights and allows for a lack of formalities which can be barriers to true authenticity.
I recommend going on a hiking expedition! I think taking your core group to the hills and getting outside of the four walls of where you work offers an immediate challenge: how to survive in the wilderness with your team with a limited amount of gear, food and water. I like it! You have to sustain yourself and focus on the elements of survival while thinking about the strategic vision for the organization. What will emerge is a whole new way of thinking about your organization’s value and purpose. Group think will dissolve and people’s minds will ope
n up to new ways of viewing life and our intention for this life while filtering their water from the stream. What better way to enter into a journey of discovery and build collaborations among your team. This is the first step in understanding the criticality of collaborations for the organization. What better way to grasp this than to see the vastness of our planet from the slopes of the trail and our frailness and vulnerability in it.
What a big world we live in. In this big world there is tremendous potential.
Today’s visions have to incorporate an open mindset to operating business not in isolation, but a vision of connecting to strategic partners, universities, agencies and organizations. The connections need to be rooted in collaborations where the exchange results in value for both organizations and is more than merely communication. Managers need to lead from this vision with a level of commitment to the journey rather than the destination and that the journey is rooted in effective collaborations. If the collaborations are managed right it can lead to collaborative innovations where ideas are exchanged with a currency for exploitation in the marketplace once incorporated into the product and brand. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. The vision is in the mindset. Living in the wilderness for a few days will open up your mindset and bring you back to earth, the ground where things grow and where life happens. In this you may find yourself and hopefully a new appreciation for this world and your place in it. This is a key first step in visioning a future for your organization.
Emily Riley: Innovation Practitioner
Traditional R&D is Dead
Traditional R&D is dead. I like this moving media to articulate the ways in which R&D has changed in recent times. Check it out!
There is a force stronger than nature which is creating value from customer driven insights and meeting customers needs. R&D must start there, over and above what is interesting to pursue. Having a handy widget and trying to find value in the marketplace is futile. It is about identifying customer needs, and in some cases defining customer needs.
This topic led me to do some digging and in pursuit of understanding cutting edge research better, I found out some interesting things about an interesting organization, Stanford Research Institute, known as SRI International.
SRI, founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946, is a nonprofit scientific research institute formed under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue code. It was created by a group of industrialists along with Stanford University to conduct leading edge research. SRI formally separated from the University in 1970, and changed its name to SRI International in 1977.
The organization employs approximately 2100 scientists, researchers, inventors, engineers and staff throughout the world headquartered in Menlo Park, CA.
The mission of SRI is to discover and apply science and technology for knowledge, commerce, prosperity, and peace. SRI has a broad charter that encourages its people to make a difference in the world through basic and applied research, research services, technology development, and commercialization of innovations. The SRI vision is centered on being the premier independent source of high-value innovations and solutions in the world. Their strategy is to grow by building and leveraging assets; client relationships, intellectual property, and staff, in important markets.
SRI has built a foundation of broad and deep knowledge, including expertise, to serve clients in communications and networks, computing, economic development and science and technology policy, education, energy and environment, engineering systems, health, homeland security and national defense, materials and structures, and robotics.
The company is led today by Dr. Curtis Carlson, President and CEO, who is an active champion of innovation and embedding innovation best practices within the organization. He believes innovation is a means to meeting the needs of customers, and is now the only path to growth, prosperity, environmental sustainability, and national security. His belief in this is so strong that he teaches innovation to all new hires in two-day workshop intensive. And, he is the co-author of one of the top 10 best business books of 2006 by BusinessWeek, Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want. In his book he articulates how innovation is not merely about creativity, ideas, new products rather it is about bringing value to customers. Without this, there is no innovation.
As an organization, SRI has accomplished significant innovations over the last several decades and attributes its success to the ability to deliver ideas to customers in an impactful and value driven way. For example, Siri technology now owned by Apple was created by SRI based on decades of work in artificial intelligence for US defense. According to SRI, research in artificial intelligence, including SRI leadership of the largest known artificial intelligence project in U.S. history, led to the development of the groundbreaking virtual personal assistant technology. SRI spun off Siri, Inc. in 2007 to bring the technology to consumers and in April 2010, Apple acquired Siri. In October 2011, Siri was unveiled as an integrated feature of the Apple iPhone 4S.
The method for doing innovation within SRI involves five elements or disciplines outlined in great detail in Dr. Carlson’s book: 1) Focus on customer and market needs; 2) Create value by way of a thorough articulation of customer needs, the approach and benefit cost analysis; 3) Innovation champion driven projects to implement approach; 4) Leveraging open innovation to bring the best multi-disciplinary innovation team together of collaborators; and 5) Organizational alignment with customers and partners throughout the process.
According to Dr. Carlson, innovation is the creation and delivery of new customer value in the marketplace. And this plays out internally in how you structure the organization and where you place your focus. According to Norman Winarsky, SRI’s vice president for ventures, licensing, and strategic programs, “at any given time, SRI has around 2,000 projects in the pipeline, spread across five major divisions.” (CNET News, 2010) The divisions act as technology generators for the organization. 
They consist of information technology; engineering and systems; advanced materials, microsystems and nanotechnology; biotechnology; health, education, and economic policy. Within these divisions, core teams consider what the major important needs of the customers are. The focus is generated along the needs as opposed to what is most interesting to SRI researchers. This in the forefront serves as a driver for new ideas, technologies and products.
The second fundamental discipline is value creation which is defined by a viable and well-articulated value proposition. All ideas are put through this innovation process rigor in what is referred to as “NABC” or need, approach, benefit and competition. Once the need is known and an approach is identified, customer stakeholder value is addressed through assessing benefit per cost to produce. Lastly, competition analysis is conducted for marketplace assessment. SRI conducts the full business analysis in forums called watering holes where the teams in place come together regularly to collect ideas, break down organizational barriers, and provide resources.
At SRI each new project is led by an innovation champion. They operate under a motto of ‘no champion, no project, no exception.’ Every project requires someone who believes passionately in innovation, understands the process, and will do whatever it takes to make it work. The right person has the values, respect for others, and operates with great ethics. According to Dr. Carlson, “we teach all of our folks these elements and we hire people who want to be a part of this.”
Project teams at SRI are designed specifically to the challenge. The belief is if you want to be successful in today’s world, the best ideas come from the best people. They teach their people how to select people who share the vision, have unique skills, and therefore the full team shares in the rewards. For them it is not just about assembling the best team, but also the right team. New possible innovations are managed by small teams of three to five with complementary skills and those who share the vision who can work collaboratively through the issues. Once the ideas are ready for implementation, bigger teams are assembled to move the idea to something meaningful.
The fifth discipline is about organizational alignment. SRI purports to implement scalable organizational plans that liberate creativity, enhance collaborations, and sustain continuous, successful innovations. Within SRI they have methods to incubate ideas collaboratively across the enterprise tied to funding dollars that motivates and incentivizes idea generation. In addition, leadership champions the innovation process across the organization rigorously through instituting workshops and trainings and communicating its value continuously.
Emily Riley: Innovation Practitioner
Ray Anderson and Climate Neutral Carpet
Climate Neutral Carpet, by Ray Anderson
Ray C. Anderson (July 28, 1934 – August 8, 2011)was founder and chairman of Interface Inc., one of the world’s largest manufacturers of modular carpet for commercial and residential applications and a leading producer of commercial broadloom and commercial fabrics. (source: wikipedia)
Mr. Anderson understood the issue with sustainability and the role business and industry plays. He reframed the problem of consumption and affluence to a problem of happiness. Perhaps there is a way to be happy to take from the earth only what can be renewed by the earth? He conceded that Interface was as a plunderer of the earth. But, did not leave it there. He conceded that by digging up the earth and converting natural resources to products for a profit, he himself was a plunderer. However, he discovered that through transformative technologies and unique supplier relationships his company’s product could be created from materials of the earth in a sustainable way. He called it ‘cool’ carpet. According to Environmental Leader article dated August, 2011, “Interface says that in the past 17 years, it has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 24 percent, fossil fuel consumption by 60 percent, waste to landfill by 82 percent and water use by 82 percent, while avoiding over $450 million in costs, increasing sales by 63 percent and more than doubling earnings.” That is some kind of cool.
How did they do it? They started by using less oil, using less energy overall and less material. They made products last longer and recycled old carpet into new. They worked deals with nylon suppliers to get pre- and post-consumer recycled content materials– including a 100% recycled content fiber by sending fiber from reclaimed carpet.
We could all stand to learn from Ray Anderson, an inspirational entrepreneur and environmental visionary and businessman. Cool indeed.
Emily Riley: Innovation Practitioner
Kinds of Innovation
Danny Hillis from Applied Minds speaks about the kinds of innovation: 1) Research, 2) Systems, and 3) Society.
Innovation occurs in research where new things are developed out of which systems can be built. For example, in government research labs (e.g. DoD) where deep knowledge of specific areas is known and cultivated. What may be lacking is knowledge of systems application or meeting the needs of customers (in the case of a government DoD lab, the warfighter). The second tier of innovation which he addresses is systems innovation. Putting building blocks together into a system and/or product technology. It is interesting to note what is key in accomplishing this: knowledge of people. I think this is where collaborative innovation or open innovation structures play a significant role. He brings up the apple story of the i-gadgets and the company’s ability to connect with many technology pieces and parts to build a system. This required not only an understanding of how people behave and the problems of the customer but how to connect with building block providers, suppliers in a way that revolutionized a market. The third level is society. He notes, “we change technology, but then technology changes us.” This kind of innovation is happening everywhere, but he comments that this happens more often outside of the US.
Emily Riley: Innovation Practitioner
Crowd Accelerated Innovation
Crowd Accelerated Innovation by Chris Anderson
Crowd sourcing says, let’s outsource our tasks, our needs from an employee or a contractor to a large group of people as an open call or challenge or need. (see wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing)
But Chris Anderson is saying something different! And, he is calling it Crowd Accelerated Innovation. Watch and listen for new ways of thinking about your stuff, your ideas, your teams ideas, and how you view your community and your life. It is great!
In a recent TED talk, (http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/955) Chris Anderson (who started TED) suggests a different way of interacting with people, different from what I understand crowd-sourcing to be about—and this intrigued me. This is about sharing creative ideas, connecting with these ideas and how these ideas stimulate your thoughts and ideas, your groups and teams thoughts and ideas. And, how new ideas propel your learning, your team’s learning, and accelerate ideas to innovations.
In Innovation in R&D, video is changing the game.
Examples include Jove (http://www.jove.com/); a peer reviewed, PubMed indexed journal devoted to the publication of biological research in a video format or UrWeb.Tv (http://urweb.tv/index.html) where Cyberpitches are video produced to demonstrate a technology and its capability in order to accelerate technology transfer efforts from government, university, emerging companies and research labs to commercial markets.
The ‘primal medium’ Chris refers to is simple, VIDEO connected through the internet, but it is profoundly demonstrated in its impact on accelerating innovation and transferring knowledge, information, ideas to people from people.
Emily Riley: Innovation Practitioner
Education and the Future of Innovation
Creativity is as important as literacy in education, according to Sir Ken Robinson.
Creativity is developing, generating something new of value and insight. I love this because Sir Ken states it spot-on in saying if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything new. And what an elegant way to state what is fundamental to innovation. In order to innovate you have to be prepared to be wrong, to fail. And, leadership has to be prepared to support failures. Those is innovation often say, fail fast and often.
I think we have to recognize that we have to be prepared to be wrong in order to innovate. What is sad is that as we grow and evolve we are trained to avoid failure, to be wrong as little as possible. What this teaches us is to learn what the box is and how to climb in. Don’t explore, stay within the lines. To create is to open oneself to scrutiny and judgement. But, what you see in stories of innovation is creativity and a preparedness for failure. Think of Edison, Einstein, the Wright brothers, and many others. What I additionally love about what Sir Ken Robinson purports is that we are all intelligent and there are many levels and facets of intelligence. The only hope for the future is understanding the richness of capacity within ourselves and within all people.
Emily Riley: Innovation Practitioner
Innovation in R&D
Wouldn’t it be nice to read about applied innovation at the R&D level, rather than one more story about the ‘disruptive’ razor blade solution or the ‘breakthrough’ car foam turned household cleaner?
What opportunities are out there for innovation practitioners to develop and collaborate with communities of practice on applied innovation processes in R&D? In my current knowledge, I know of none.
Much of what is out there in the public domain in written form (blogs, articles, tweets, etc.) is largely ‘case study’ oriented, written from a distance by educated journalists, reporters, business or innovation analysts….but not much out there from the people who actually DO innovation within their organizations. And by that I mean literally, the doers…not the upper management with visions of grandeur.
I think it would be great to have this practice-level work exposed beyond stories about solution seekers finding unlikely found solution solvers for big companies to pump into a product portfolio for billion dollar gains. Now, I realize that this proposition can bring all kinds of anxiety up. Innovation practices are proprietary and clearly confidential, for good competitive reasons within companies. And, the consulting firms that provide these services to corporations also hold close their methods and approaches. But, wouldn’t it be nice to read more about applied innovation at the R&D level, rather than one more story about the ‘disruptive’ razor blade solution or the ‘breakthrough’ car foam turned household cleaner?
Just asking.
Seeking opportunities for non-academic, rather hands-on learnings, that can be shared collaboratively with peers developing and conducting innovation and open innovation processes and practices within their organizations for advancing R&D in meaningful and value-add ways that supports long term, complex research efforts.
See discussion in the IDEA Lab group on linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=3048930&trk=anet_ug_hm&goback=.anh_3048930
Emily Riley: Innovation Practitioner
Maxims to consider from John Wooden
I was walking through a book store about a month ago and came across the following maxims on a page within a recent release of a book about and by John Wooden, the classic and classy coach of UCLA from back in the day who passed away in June of this year.
Here’s what he wrote:
1. Do not mistake activity for achievement.
2. Things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out.
3. A player who makes the team great is better than a great player.
4. The best way to improve the team is to improve yourself.
I like his maxims. He claims fondness for maxims because they convey so much with so little. I think they are very applicable to innovative teams.
I think that while activity and ‘doing’ is important and even for managers who are moving towards higher and higher levels of leadership; doing is important in order to continue to understand the reality on the ground. However, activity for the sake of activity is not effective or helpful within the high performance team environment. Collaborating effectively with your team members is a much better use of your time and will move the team to greater levels of unified, collective intelligence and therefore impact on the company or organization’s objectives.
I think that we all take ‘hits’ in our work lives, particularly those of us who stand out from the crowd and ‘push the envelope.’ I think that we are often taking negativity, or what many people are calling attacks from the antibodies, within organizations that are inherently resistant to change. So, it requires thoughtful examination, evolutionary approaches to our work life and positioning with respect to issues and concerns within the company, and we make the best of certain situations when the forces and powers that be are much greater than our individual influence. The ability to reposition, to stand again, and to continue to be innovative despite set-backs is what I look for in mentors, is what I aspire towards, and what I think makes great leaders in the end.
Hands down we must all have the ability to play within the team environment and know when to pass the ball. I had the dean of engineering at University of Dayton whom I view as a mentor say to me, you played basketball so you must know how to think in the moment and with all five fingers or players in mind (like Phil Jackson’s metaphor of the hand making a great team with all five fingers in synch) . He’s right that in sports and particularly basketball, although I am probably biased since this was my love, is where we have an opportunity to learn to be about the greater whole and that even a loss can be a win if we as a team played together and built trust, comraderie, and communication needed to succeed. Even though we lost the game, we won as a team.
Finally, I love the fourth maxim because it challenges us at our core. The best way to improve the team is to look in the mirror and work on the things that we have before us as our own personal and professional challenges to overcome. In doing so, we take responsibility and we contribute to a better team by working on those parts of ourselves and our practices that need polish, or need re-positioned, or need to acknowledge the greater whole or our team members whose work we rely on. In all, this is #4, and yet to me the greatest of them all and represents the greatest rate of return for a team. Truly awesome teams are built by individuals who have the courage, the strength and the determination to take on themselves and their challenges to make themselves better and therefore the team better.
Best wishes in your pursuits for innovations, higher performance within your teams and collaborations, and for a better world.
PS: John Wooden’s book is called, The Wisdom of Wooden: My Century On and Off the Court.
Emily Riley: Innovation Practitioner
Knowing what you don’t know….
Currently sitting at National Innovation Conference in Dayton Ohio at the Hope Hotel.
Getting energized by the creative energy, the openness to learning, and the courage of people.
What sticks out in my mind is a question for the ‘problem space’ of innovation: If you don’t go where you don’t want to go, how will you know what you don’t know?
This was something I used with my students years ago (back in the day as a high school science teacher in the southwest of Ohio) who were resistant to learning something new that by appearance seemed to have nothing to do with their life, and nothing to do with their future.
What happened through consistent presence was ‘trust’ that if we collectively go together, something awesome could happen to them:
For example: Ms. Riley what does an atom have to do with me?
we found that the way an atom lives and how it lives in balance and dances with other atoms to make molecules was instructive to us in our lives and our life’s challenges. Not to mention that the obvious was learned—I am atoms that are compressible to the head of a pin, and together in unison with energy makes me a human ‘being.’ Talk about a gee-whiz moment!
Where is it that you feel resistance within? What or who do you feel resistant to? What is it that you don’t want to learn?
Steve Goubeaux from Goodwill and Easter Seals asked us this morning: Do you know how to think BIG, and try small? Do you try stupid things and turn something into stupendous? Can you accept being challenged?
Emily Riley: Innovation Practitioner
