I’ve spent all week in Chicago and this is a photo taken from my 46th floor suite at the Four Seasons. This is a wonderful view of the city. My friend said this is the kind of view that helps people like Barry Diller makes some of his big decisions. I think the view helps.
I want to come back to the topic that why innovation is so hard. Innovation often means fundamental change. The decision to act may be triggered by various circumstances: a disruptive competitor, a shift in market structure (caused by market forces or regulation) stagnant in growth and share price, accelerated intensity of competition. Whatever the motive, senior executive seldom meet greater demands on their skills than they do when they embark on a major change effort.
Innovation doesn’t stop after the big ideas are developed. In fact, that’s just the beginning. Innovation goes hand-in-hand with transformation. A true transformation is often characterized by aspirations, the integration of technology, organizations, operations, and an extended effort of change. There’s a myth that innovation can only be driven from the top and the mid-level managers are to follow up on execution. This doesn’t have to be the casen, mid-level manages can play a key role in making innovation happen. This may be contrary to popular belief. Change heroes don’t sit in the executive suite and they’re not on the margins, either. They’re consummate insiders who get things done by working through other people. They are the people who will make or break your organization’s innovation initiatives. Senior executives and their innovation consultants can come up with the most brilliant game-changing strategy , but if the people who develop products, manage channels, talk to customers, and oversee operations don’t foster innovation in their own realms, none of that things will make any difference. It is also common to see that many mid-level managers resist to participate in innovation projects because their job security are threatened and this is the start of a chain reaction of negative feelings towards the managers.
Interestingly enough, my experience on large scale innovation projects that involved many mid-level managers showed me that they these are the key characteristics that make them good innovation partners: 1/ comfortable with change, 2) thoroughness, 3) participative management style and 4) persuasiveness, persistence and discretion. Here’s what I look for: 1/ a strong sense of how to look at a current job and come up with innovative ways in which to complete the them. 2/ understand that one of his/her strongest assets is the ability to use creativity to bring performance to the next level (André Galhardo nailed it “… creative people need them to implement and turn ideas into revolutions”.) There is another factor that is highly regarded in the implementation of ideas by the mid-level manager is reward and recognition of their ideas. Senior executives must be able to share the reward and recognition with their mid-level managers.
The CEO/CMO may be the center of the idea, but his/her directors and managers are a significant part of the final outcome. Mid-level managers who fostered innovative accomplishments shared a very similar set of personal qualities: persistence, persuasiveness, and comfort with change. Most important, they have the ability to work through existing networks to break down barriers, build coalitions, and make change happen.
An interesting point from Rory MacDonald's post, “I agree with Bart: innovation has as much of an internal role to play in HR and in making people's job more interesting and more fulfilling. It is very closely connected to the Japanese management theory which I think is called Kaizo, whereby all employees are constantly encouraged to refine what they do to innovate.
Here's a picture of our creative minds in action.
