growth INNOVATION BY ED BERNACKI
Solving problems creatively and
Wakeup call
Are you part of the solution or the problem?
I LEFT a recent trip to Australia seeing
an innovation paradox found in many
organisations. I presented a programme to
public sector managers from government
departments at the Victoria State level. This
group of 30 is part of the Victoria Public
Sector Continuous Improvement Network
(VPSCIN) — a type of innovation ‘community
of practice’. Headed by Frank Connolly for the
past several years, the VPSCIN has harnessed
over 4000 people interested in making their
departments more innovative.
To open the session I asked what they
would like to achieve. Some had the job of
designing innovation strategies for their
departments. Others wanted to learn how to
be more innovative in their own work. Then
something interesting happened. One-minute
introductions turned into longer personal
confessions as people poured out their angst
about trying to be innovative. Their common
complaint was the lack of support from their
leaders.
Connolly summarised this concern for the
group: “Many senior executives have a way
with words. It is far too easy to say ‘no’ to an
idea without having to say no.” Many in the
group nodded in agreement.
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After a while, I began to feel it was a group
counselling session to help these mid-level
managers find strategies to survive in their
own organisations.
Then I picked up the latest issue of
Australia’s BRW magazine. A story reported
the findings of the Leadership Consortium,
a group of corporations that collaborated to
define leadership attributes missing in today’s
leaders. The essence of the report is that
these skills are not being taught in our MBA
programmes.
While MBAs focus on the technical
skills of finance and accounting, they do
not focus on managing people and their
ideas necessary to shape more innovative
organisations.
The leadership skills most in demand
include people management, fostering
teamwork, bringing about change and
innovation, and business ethics and
communication. From the full list of 10 skills,
over half relate to the tools of the innovation
work. These include:
Management of creative and innovative
people;
People management (recognising that
people do not think alike);
analytically;
Preparedness to question and test
assumptions;
Fostering teamwork;
Direct change and innovation.
These are the skills and attributes of
innovators. They reflect two elements:
Skills to make your personal work more
innovative through effective problem
solving.
Skills to manage people to engage their
full creative potential.
The lack of attention to these personal
skills means too many executives have too
few tools to solve the challenges facing their
organisations. This insight should put to rest
the false truism that the private sector is more
innovative than the public sector.
A key element of innovation work is to
sharpen our skills to solve our challenges
effectively. The more innovative we are in
shaping solutions that:
Target the actual problem, not a
symptom of the problem;
Explore for the best options, not just the
easy options;
Take notice of the implications of
potential solutions; and
Require decisions made in a timely
manner rather than waiting for a crisis;
the more productive and effective our
organisations would be.
So what of today’s executives?
A lack of executive-level staff at innovation-
related events over the past two years was a
significant finding from the VPSCIN’s recent
two-year impact evaluation. This, in effect,
means there are many middle-level managers
who have learned to think in new ways and to
apply new methods that the senior executives do
not understand, and as a result do not support.
Conclusions that may be drawn from this
include that the most senior executives are
too busy to continue to personally develop
themselves or they see little need to further
develop their knowledge and skills. In a world
that is changing and increasing in complexity,
this is a concern.
Without their leadership to send their
organisations in new directions, the result
will continue to be frustration and a lack of
engagement. No organisation — public or
private sector — can afford this.
info@wowgreatidea.com