90 Days to Level Up Your Teamwork

Week 9Shooting for the Moon

Benchmark goal: Aim high: Discover how to choose a worthy goal.

Leaders seeking to inspire, enhance, or revive innovation in their organization often wonder what to do. They understand that just asking for innovation will not produce it. They recognize that cross-disciplinary groups do not always come up with terrific new ideas, and synergy is not a necessary outcome of collaboration across boundaries. In fact, without an unusual mix of openness, humility, talent, drive, and creativity, innovation may not occur. It is clear that leadership is needed to nurture these qualities in fluid groupings of people—often both inside and outside the organization—and channel them toward desired ends.

Teaming for innovation is dynamic. It involves identifying (often temporary) collaborators and getting up to speed quickly on what needs to be done and what role each collaborator can play. This kind of flexibility is needed more and more in workplaces across many industries. A growing portion of the work itself—whether product design, patient care, custom software, or strategic decision-making—presents complicated interdependencies that often have to be managed on the fly.

But no matter how flexible and willing one’s colleagues may be, effective teaming rarely happens spontaneously. It takes effort. Teaming requires letting down your guard to work interdependently with others. It requires offering your ideas and skills thoughtfully while being equally, if not ...