Re:Mind™ is an integrated package of two leadership assessments that measure a leader’s ability to nourish agility and lead innovation:
- One report assesses a leader’s ability to create the culture and capabilities for innovation where employees are both willing and able to do the hard work that innovation and problem solving requires.
- A second report is based upon the fundamental paradox of innovation: The need to unleash the talents of diverse individuals and harness those talents to create an innovative solution to a challenge that the organization faces.
Creating sustainable innovation – Groundbreaking research in Collective Genius on some of the world’s most innovative companies discovered that innovation works best when it’s generated from the bottom up, not from the top down. The skills to manage sustainable innovation can be taught and coached.
Our assessment tools help innovation leaders get better faster – by providing a measurable guideline of where they are starting with regard to culture, capabilities, and managing the paradoxes of innovation. As they grow, leaders can assess where they have improved as well as where they still need to work on their skills.
re:Mind 1 – Creating the culture and capabilities of innovation
Why are some organizations more innovative than others? Leadership matters. Leaders in these organizations are able to create environments that enable people to be both willing and able to innovate.
Regardless of industry, geography, age, or size, we find innovative organizations have cultures in which people feel a sense of community that supports three capabilities for innovative problem-solving: creative abrasion, creative agility, and creative resolution. Each requires leaders who are themselves willing and able.
The re:Mind report on Creating the Culture and Capabilities of Innovation provides a snapshot of how effective a leader is in creating an environment where people are willing and able to innovate.
re:Mind 2 – Managing the Paradoxes of Innovation
Leading innovation requires that leaders act in what many experience as unaccustomed or uncomfortable ways. They must navigate six tensions— or paradoxes—inherent in creating the environment required for innovation. The fundamental paradox at the heart of innovation is the need to unleash the talents of diverse individuals and, in the end, to harness those talents to come up with an innovative solution to a challenge or opportunity that the organization faces.
Both processes are essential. Leaders need to be versatile in their behavior— continuously recalibrating what others need from them as they engage in innovative problem-solving.
The re:Mind report on Managing the Paradoxes of Innovation helps a leader maintain the right tension. It shows how a leader is rated by team members on specific behaviors and judgments relevant to each set of six paradoxes.
Does the leader need to prompt others to unleash more ideas to create a robust pipeline, or has the time come to harness those ideas, seek alignment, and move toward a solution?
Leaders who live predominantly on the “harness” side will never unleash the full potential of their people and their ideas. And those who overplay the “unleash” side will be unable to leverage others’ new ideas—the team will experience continual chaos and conflict, never aligned enough in their efforts to solve for the collective good.
Leading innovation requires judgment—knowing both when and how to adapt one’s behavior to meet the needs of a team or organization as they engage in the emotionally and intellectually challenging process of innovative problem-solving.
For more information about re:Mind, re:Route, or our Collective Genius experience, or to schedule a free demo, contact us, email info@paradoxstrategies.com, or call 617-939-0055.