Beyond Leadership: Balancing Economics, Ethics and Ecology, Revised Edition

Innovative Management: Actualizing a Vision

Now that the individual and organizational vision, as the culmination of the learning process, has been developed, it has to be communicated. The innovative manager has the task of articulating his or her personal sense of mission, so as to indicate how, in actuality, the vision will serve to solve a universal problem. Moreover, by illustrating how such a vision can transform the world, the innovative manager taps the imagination of all those involved. Finally, and quite obviously, this is not a once-and-for-all process but – like each aspect of organizational learning – needs to be reinforced and renewed continually.

Comino's vision was of a self-governing learning community, spread around a world that had become increasingly “slotted angle conscious.” He saw the company as a constructive element of proven value, offering not a take-it-or-leave-it product, but something that people could fashion for their own ends, something fundamentally simple and progressive.

The vision was at the forefront of the company's activities in the 1960s, once Comino had created the new industry. Dexion's products were being used around the globe to build houses for earthquake victims, to construct grandstands for independence celebrations, and to equip explorers for expeditions to the poles – quite aside from its more everyday uses. Toward the end of the 1960s, Comino the innovative manager began to take a back-seat role in the business, devoting his attentions ...