Innovation without the eccentric creative leader
written by Taryn Mook, co-founder and Chief Kat at Meerkats.
My first real business innovation challenge was with a family-owned French biotechnology company.
Our task was to deliver a completely new digital business model to future-proof its microbiology testing hardware business model. After months of traversing between Grenoble and Geneva in field research and translating French interviews with microbiologists, we presented a 160-page innovation strategy to the senior management of the company. We got resoundingly positive feedback and received top grades for the work.
Today, I can’t really remember what was in that 160-page proposal, and my distinguished academic transcripts never saw the light of day.
Later in my career, in both the tech startup and agency world, I never used the bulk of what I learned about innovation, not even the much-revered design thinking school of thought.
One must think that with so many similar educational programs and innovation experts in the world, innovation is ubiquitous. In practice, it is really hard and rarely attainable.
This is why companies would pay a fortune to engage in consulting services. They also pay innovation and restructuring experts handsomely to invigorate companies encumbered by legacy issues.
When asked about what makes an organization innovative, many would concur that leadership plays a huge role. Think Henry Ford, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney and the companies they created in their times.
We concede that even on our best days, most of us are not like one of these consummate inventive minds.
Extraordinary leadership is game-changing, but is innovation impossible in its absence, and are the rest of us doomed to lead fabulously mediocre companies?
What if with all the money in the world, we could not find a bonafide eccentric creative genius to lead our company? How could companies led by mere mortal entrepreneurs stay agile, transformative and nimble?
The answers are not that grim.
Here’s what I learned after years of working on creative and transformation projects for clients who did not have the eccentric, creative leadership that has now become the precursor to innovation.
Build a Conscious Organisation
Consultants will tell you that one of the biggest roadblocks to innovation and transformation is not the lack of ideas, but the stubborn legacy-encrusted organizational opaqueness, a condition characterized by little self-awareness, inaction, inertia, and resistance.
This is why the importance of a conscious organization to lead a thinking existence — an existence that is driven by problem-solving instincts, experimentation, and risk-taking — ranks at the top of my criteria.
The conscious organization is one that has the ability to reflect on its value in the world through insights, data, and a feedback loop.
It has high self-awareness and possesses unique clarity and a deep understanding of its challenges, potential, and capabilities.
Such an organization has connected data, trends and correlational insights that power its ability to reinvent its business model, culture, brand, and strategy. It knows where it’s leaking profit, cash, and talent, and can also see where value is generated and by who.
This is why the conscious organization has great reinvention capability that allows it to stay agile and adaptive through the ages.
To truly achieve a conscious organization, everyone from the receptionist to the top management will have access and meaningful engagement with the organizational performance data.
So if you’re thinking of starting a company without the crazy, eccentric creative innovator, focus on building a conscious, thinking organization.
Identify the organization’s productive habits and activities
HR gurus and workplace designers tell us that employee engagement and workplace activities are important. I agree.
The problem though is that we don’t know how important, and to what extent they impact a company’s bottom line, innovative capabilities and culture.
We assume that the correlation must be a positive one — happier employees lead to higher revenue, a more collaborative workplace culture leads to higher productivity, less meeting time leads to higher efficiency, fewer emails mean more work-life balance, and so on.
But we don’t really know, do we?
I personally love emails because I’m so much better at writing than at verbal communication. Emails give me the time and space to fully express my thoughts coherently.
But there are people who simply dislike emails and find writing and reading a waste of time. They would rather pick up the phone for a quick conversation and be equally productive.
Every company has its own unique communication ethos and habits. Rather than following “best practices”, it’s better to get an internal pulse check on what works for the company.
Emails, Google Hangouts and other productivity tools are great for managing and interacting with teams of remote employees. For smaller teams under a single roof, over-digitalization of communication could take the human touch out of working relationships.
Similarly, in some companies, the ability to work independently is critical to productivity while in others, collaboration is the only way to get anything done.
The way to start the company’s self-realization journey is to analyze how various workplace activities like email open rates, meetings and other forms of interactions impact the company’s productivity metrics.
When a company has accurately identified its unique productivity habits, it optimizes its ability to channel and manage creative and innovative output.
Get employees to bring their whole self to work
Do you remember that rare super rockstar you hired who was passionate, engaged, self-motivated and eccentric as hell? These rockstars are great not just because they are talented, but because they have a very strong sense of self and purpose at work.
They are complex creatures who bring their unique combination of qualities to work. And they pour that same unique blend of energy into doing amazing work for the company. They are the first to see opportunities where others could not.
This isn’t a plug for the diversity and inclusion movement bandwagon. We hate bandwagons.
This is about accepting the whole individual and personhood of your employees so that they can channel all that they care about into superpowers that help you innovate.
People who bring only their ‘work’ brain to work, bring only half of their uniqueness to work. Instead, we encourage employees to bring their heart, mind, fire and soul to work. They may also bring their cats, children, plants or side hobbies to the workplace.
We know not everyone comes as a fully-formed rockstar, but we must know if we’re able to bring that out of them.
If we can’t, we shouldn’t hire them.
Instead, we should let them go elsewhere where they can be somebody else’s rockstars.
This is why we believe in a future where employees bring their whole self to work and be fully empowered with data that allows both peer and self-analysis of their own performance and goals.
These employees are the bedrock for an innovative and agile organization.
To truly achieve a conscious organization, everyone from the receptionist to the top management will have access and meaningful engagement with the organizational performance data.
Innovation is possible without the eccentric, creative and once-in-a-generation leader. We’re not doomed to run mediocre and encumbered companies that feed the multi-billion dollar consulting industry.
The key is to build self-awareness into your company and grow it into a thinking organization that has reinvention capabilities.
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Taryn Mook is co-founder and Chief Kat at Meerkats, a business innovation platform built for the service industry. She loves building brands, businesses and solutions. Other than the two cats and 50 plants she has at home, solving unsolvable problems is her tireless passion.
Say hi to Taryn on Twitter, or follow her on Medium for more musings.
