notes from the front.
As a middle manager with my current employer, (and self identified creative personality), I currently manage creative personalities using a top down approach (me leading a team), and provide creative solutions from the bottom up (me as a member of a team).
I recently read Leading Clever People by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones as the subject material is useful for both responsibilities.
Overall, the article emphasizes that innovation is a critical facet to a business remaining financially sustainable, but that as a process it needs a tailored framework to flourish and be profitable.
The article acknowledged the inherent creative nature of, or reputation, of innovation, but that long-term, systemic innovation, can sometimes only emerge from a particular routine or practiced approach to identifying opportunities, proposing solutions, testing them, and either launching or prohibiting them from the market.
I believe that whether you are an employee practicing intrapreneurship, or an external consultant tasked with identifying and implementing innovation, one needs a particular
process to guide stakeholders with. And I guess this process is two fold:
· One, it relies on a process established by the company to foster innovation involving internal elements such as employing the right people, having the support and freedom from managers, having the right attitude and “message” from the CEO, and having the right attitude and response towards risk and failure; And
· Two, it relies on an actual process of how to innovate from stimulus available.
Having gone from running a small business of 10 people, to being an employee of 400, I know that often it’s the process and project management itself, and not necessarily the idea that is most important. That is to say that anyone can have a good idea. It’s the gaining of support from key stakeholders and decision makers that really counts. I’m sure none of Google’s 80/20 innovations would make it to market without a rigorous filter assessing certain criteria. Further more, as Peter Drucker highlighted, “De Havilland designed and built the first passenger jet, but due to not analysing what the market needed, two American companies, Boeing and Douglas, took over the commercial jet-aircraft industry.”
Great food for thought
