Changing Perspective

The mood at the World Economic Forum at Davos last week was cautiously optimistic, with most of the global leaders expressing hope that we are moving forward, if haltingly, to continued growth. Attendees pointed to positive signs in the United States, including new unconventional energy sources and renewal of manufacturing. One change I saw was a more visible presence of entrepreneurs and creative thinkers in Davos. It’s a very good sign.

Right now, business leaders at companies around the world are suffering from what we call “innovation vertigo” in GE’s annual Innovation Barometer study. Executives think innovation is essential for continued growth, but they are challenged with new models, collaboration and creativity – how to do it, scale it, make it last. Entrepreneurs and creatives can make a big contribution. Change and disruption is what they do. And some leaders are finding that harnessing different perspectives helps kickstart innovation.

But how to integrate different, more asymmetric kinds of talent into an organization to shake things up? And how to do it effectively while still retaining the strengths of a large company, like ability to scale, consistent culture and well-measured discipline? Several terrific thinkers (and doers) weighed these questions at Davos in several discussions about leading innovation.

Collaboration is key and bringing together different styles and kinds of people is essential for innovation – but not easy to do! Doreen Lorenzo, President of Frog Design, pointed out that cloistered corporate “innovation labs” don’t work well in the long term because eventually the best new ideas need to be integrated into the fabric of an organization. “Organ rejection” is too common in traditional companies. Although, according to Walmart CEO Mike Duke, they are seeing encouraging signs of success through efforts like @WalmartLabs in Silicon Valley, which is helping to drive new methods of collaboration and disruptive thinking.

It requires discipline. Jacob Weisberg, Editor-in-Chief of Slate, noted that a leader must find ways to allow creatives room to flourish while also keeping them focused and tethered to specific business needs. “Freedom in a framework” approaches seem to be best as even the most spirited creatives encounter chaos without a specific brief or mission to apply their energy. Many leaders note it’s rarely a lack of ideas that plague them, but too many ideas and dabbling for too little benefit for too long that present challenges.

John Maeda, the President of the Rhode Island School of Design, has found a “try it, you’ll like it” approach in placing design grads into traditional organizations, including the Department of Defense. Design thinkers deliver by integrating different perspectives and creating simple, elegant solutions. But often the concept of a “designer” sounds a bit soft or like someone who sketches images.

Sometimes it’s not about bringing in people with radically different backgrounds from the outside. Instead, rotating existing team members can go a long way to broadening everyone’s perspective. Sheila Marcelo, the CEO and founder of Care.com, told us that they shuffle everyone’s seat in the office monthly to keep routines from becoming ruts and groupthink from taking over any one section of the office. It’s an easy way to get everyone to learn a different perspective.

How does your organization inject a creative perspective?