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Leading innovation: Responsibility (week 5)

To lead innovation with responsibility, be personally invested in your team ‘s success and the organization’s success.

Traditional leadership:

The conventional view has been that, as a leader, you are personally invested in the team’s success and doing one’s work.

A fresh approach:

Our research shows new-era leaders can better inspire innovation when they are personally invested in the team’s success AND the organization’s success.

Bring it to life: 

• Possitive Accountability. Feel accountable to the entire organization, not only your team’s performance
• Standards. Set and maintain high standards for follow through and accountability
• Modeling. Model responsibility by holding yourself to the highest professional standards
• Negative Accountability. Hold individuals accountable for actions that go against the organization’s values
• Go Beyond. Be willing to go beyond your job requirements to get important work done.
• Think Big. Feel personally responsible for the organization’s success. When solving problems, consider what’s best for the whole organization, not just what’s best for yourself.

Next week: Respect

Establish rules of engagement that focus on mutual respect for all.

Innovation solutions from Paradox Strategies

Our Collective Genius simulation and learning journey is designed to help leaders inspire action, nourish creativity, and build a culture of innovation. We also offer keynotes and our proprietary innovation diagnostic assessments re:Mind™ and re:Route™ as first steps in developing the mindset, culture, and capabilities of innovative organizations. Contact us via the form below if you would like to know how to bring these great tools to your organization.

Leading innovation: How to Use learning (week 4)

To lead innovation with learning, focus on developing broad skills through the flow of work.

Traditional leadership:

The conventional view has been that, as a leader, you see learning & development as an individual endeavor with the focus on improving technical skills.

A fresh approach:

Our research shows new-era leaders embrace learning as a collective activity with the focus on acquiring and developing broad skills through the flow of work with others.

Bring it to life:

• Model life-long learning and share trends and insights with your team; keep apprised of happenings in other industries; live on the cutting-edge.
• Be curious about your employees’ interests and their work. Connect them to people and knowledge (e.g. books, articles, resources) that can catalyze their interests and work.
• Create stretch assignments and opportunities for employees to rotate or work in different areas.
• Provide your employees with exposure to learning opportunities beyond the organization, sector, or geography
• Create forums for intellectual exchange, to explore fresh ideas and share resources
• Bring new knowledge into the organization. Be connected to other parts of the ecosystem (e.g. private sector, public sector, academia)
• Encourage employees from across the organization to experiment and pilot projects together

Next week: Responsibility

Be personally invested in your team ‘s success and the organization’s success.

Innovation solutions from Paradox Strategies

Our Collective Genius simulation and learning journey is designed to help leaders inspire action, nourish creativity, and build a culture of innovation. We also offer keynotes and our proprietary innovation diagnostic assessments re:Mind™ and re:Route™ as first steps in developing the mindset, culture, and capabilities of innovative organizations. Contact us via the form below if you would like to know how to bring these great tools to your organization.

Leading innovation: Collaboration (week 3)

To lead innovation using collaboration, focus on rewarding the team, not star performers.

Traditional leadership:

The conventional view has been that, as a leader, you reward star performers who get the job done well.

Here’s a fresh approach to leadership*:

Our research shows new-era leaders should reward teams who get the job done well together.

Bring it to life:

• Model collaboration, Deomonstrate what collaboration looks like. e.g. with your senior team and other colleagues or groups; limit taking action in isolation and/or showing up with fully-formed thoughts.
• Appoint diverse, cross-functional teams to work together on difficult problems.
• Allow working groups the time, autonomy, and head cover to work on solutions to problems.
• Allow yourself to be influenced by asking questions, presenting new data, and offering feedback, but refrain from directing a result.
• Make space for employees at every level of the organization to give feedback on work in progress
• Highlight teamwork in town halls, companywide emails, etc.

Next week: Learning

How to smoothly integrate continuous learning into your company’s ongoing operations.

*Fresh means up-to-date, modern, based on fresh research, ideas, real-world application.

Innovation solutions from Paradox Strategies

Our Collective Genius simulation and learning journey is designed to help leaders inspire action, nourish creativity, and build a culture of innovation. We also offer keynotes and our proprietary innovation diagnostic assessments re:Mind™ and re:Route™ as first steps in developing the mindset, culture, and capabilities of innovative organizations. Contact us via the form below if you would like to know how to bring these great tools to your organization.

Leading innovation: Bold Ambition (week 2)

Challenge your team to think about what the organization could be doing to tackle a problem that has never been solved.

Traditional leadership:

The conventional view has been that, as a leader, you place the focus on what you think your organization should be doing.

A fresh approach:

Our research shows new-era leaders of innovation should focus not only on what the organization should be doing but also on what the organization could be doing. To innovate, challenge your team to look at problems that have never been solved.

Bring it to life:

• Communicate aspirations for your organization that exceed current capabilities
• Show your unyielding faith in others to achieve these aggressive goals and ideas
• Ask employees to consider where they want the organization to be 5, 10, 20 years in the future, and what they need to do now to achieve that vision
• Connect your organization’s business and mission to large-scale problems in need of solutions
• Encourage employees to tackle problems that industry competitors can’t or won’t
• Set goals and benchmarks that are tied to your organization’s purpose, as well as performance
• Seek to generate excitement and commitment around tackling big problems

Next week: Collaboration.

Focus on the team, not star performers.

Innovation solutions from Paradox Strategies

Our Collective Genius simulation and learning journey is designed to help leaders inspire action, nourish creativity, and build a culture of innovation. We also offer keynotes and our proprietary innovation diagnostic assessments re:Mind™ and re:Route™ as first steps in developing the mindset, culture, and capabilities of innovative organizations. Contact us via the form below if you would like to know how to bring these great tools to your organization.