"Innovation is a lonely art," believes Robert Grudin. In his book, The Grace of Great Things, he suggests innovation is a lonely art because: "the leader who looks out to the frontier must face away from the people who follow."
The decision to look forward and invest the time to create strong visions for the future is something that many executives either avoid or relegate to strategic planning retreats. Perhaps it is time to take a hard look at the critical issues of leading creatively on a day-to-day basis. At the very heart of creativity and innovation are three basic skills that business leaders must master.
- They must actually see what is going on around them.
- They must interpret what they see for meaning.
- They must decide to do something with what they see and interpret.
In each case there are two different stages. The first is to explore the issue in terms of asking the right questions that lead to new insights. The second stage is having the confidence to act on one's decisions and insights.
To explore this issue, I asked Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a lawyer and former Prime Minister of New Zealand to consider one simple question: How do you know a good idea when you see it?
He believes, that:
"...analysis and thought are critical to the recognition of a good idea, but they are not enough. They are a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition. In the end, good ideas often come from instinctive flashes of insight. Often the best ideas are very simple. But when you have a good idea you know it with conviction even if other people do not recognize it."
Leaders uncomfortable with their ability to recognize innovation when faced with it must measure the impact on their organizations if they fail to act.
We found that employees found little need for creativity due to their perception that the work was mundane and routine. They lacked challenge. To introduce workshops on brainstorming and creativity without addressing the need for people to feel a sense of purpose, would have been wasteful.
This is particularly acute for the knowledge industries such as accounting, law, public relations, computer services, advertising and so on. People with university degrees, good resumes and unique skills are well rewarded but often bored, exhausted and lacking a true sense of purpose. Business leaders need to ask some hard questions about the impact of their decisions. When large local organizations earn a reputation for paying well but treating people like a figure on the balance sheet, we have to question the impact of our fixation on short-term profitability. The second element of Sir Geoffrey Palmer's concern is vision. He said: "One important feature of good ideas consists of having a gift or ability to see how things may turn out, how parts of the future may unfold."
He reflects the leaders need to recognize the status quo and to have the belief that they have the power to change it. Creative leaders must distinguish between raw materials and the potential products and services that can be created to produce business growth. The leaders of the most successful companies become masters of this.
But we are also surrounded by organizations whose strategy for growth is to buy someone else's assets. This transfer of ownership has little to do with innovation or creativity. It rarely leads to business growth, new jobs or new innovation. The ability to see opportunities and have the confidence to act are the keys for creative leadership. People will make some mistakes. But, from the mistakes, the creative leader gets insights to fuel new ideas.
Grudin recognized that leading in creative ways does not always lead to new discoveries. "Inspiration may be the revelation of something completely new, but it is also the rediscovery of something always true."
To realize that something is always true is also a powerful conclusion in an era of management fads. In societies much older than New Zealand and Australia, we find many businesses using principles that are essentially the same today as they were in the 1800s when such companies were founded.
At the very heart of creative leadership are people who look around their environment, interpret what they see and act on it - regardless of how lonely this may seem at times.
