The Innovation Formula

PART III LEADER-LEVEL FACTORS

A few years ago Inventium was engaged by a global accounting firm to run some innovation capability-building programs. The vast majority of partners were very conservative — from what they wore to work through to their views and attitudes. However, there was one partner who was different from the rest. His ‘uniform' was jeans and a t-shirt, he had very liberal views, encouraged people to ‘seek forgiveness rather than permission' (that is, just go out and try something rather than waiting to get approval) and was seen as a bit of a maverick by his peers. His style was strongly reflected in his team. Out of all the teams in the firm that we got to know, his was by far the most innovative. They felt free to experiment and try new things out and, by doing so, produced some of the most groundbreaking innovations the firm had ever seen.

Leaders play a critical role in driving innovation. People are hard-wired to take their cues from those ‘above' them — a behaviour that starts when we are children and continues through to how we behave at work. The Chinese proverb ‘the fish rots from the head down' describes the notion that all problems in an organisation can be traced back to the top. Leaders (particularly the most senior leaders) in an organisation set the tone for how we should behave at work.

This section of the book describes ways in which leaders can deliberately create a culture of innovation. The first chapter in this section examines what supervisors ...