To build something of significance, first build a team
I asked DALL-E to generate art of 'Greek god Theia as an oil pastel conducting an orchestra' and this is the result

To build something of significance, first build a team

Everyone has had ‘that’ boss. The one who pits people against each other rather than doing the hard work of helping them work together. The one who shames when they could be encouraging. The one who doesn’t want to hear anything that isn’t about closing the next deal and meeting the next target.

As a consultant, I encountered more than my fair share of both good and bad: really inspirational leaders and others who made you grateful that your contract had an end-date in sight.

Based on that experience, I’d like to be able to say that it doesn’t work. That the borderline bullying, divisive and winner-takes-all approach to management is doomed to failure every single time. It would confirm every one of my biases to report that the bad guys can’t win. But it isn’t that simple. Because, though it pains me to admit it, I have seen managers like this succeed. Driving hard can drive results, even if your only friends will be in the finance department. Especially in a sales-focused environment, where the churn of people is high, incentives are paramount and the quarterly target is king, the kind of manager most people run a mile from can be a winner.

But the circumstances in which they win are limited.? Give that kind of person a complex problem, and all the bluster, bravado and brute force management in the world won’t yield an inch of progress.

Only a team can build

When you are trying to develop something that doesn’t exist, or piece together a puzzle that has already defeated others, it takes a team. If you actually want to build, as opposed to squeezing residual value out of a system that already exists, then you need the different perspectives, contrasting skills and collective purpose that only arises from a group of brilliant people, working in an environment that allows them to innovate.

To build the product, platform or service, you first have to build the environment for it to emerge.?

Creating that environment is one of the hardest things about innovation, because all of us have some of that archetypal bad manager in us. The urge to slap down obviously bad ideas and demand regular updates is strong, so much so that for many people it becomes irresistible. Creating a conducive environment requires leaders to fight some of their own most deep-seated instincts about how to get things done.

The problem with those instincts is that they erode the one thing that makes innovation teams tick – the sense of psychological safety that follows from a space where people feel able to take risks, to put forward ideas that might not work, and to know that they won’t be made to feel embarrassed for doing so. The nature of innovation is that it must involve plenty of hypotheses that lead to dead-ends and disagreements – often impassioned – within teams about how best to proceed. Progress will only happen when people feel safe to explore those possibilities and have those arguments within an environment of mutual respect.

Building the innovation environment

So how do we each play a part in creating the context to innovate? Here are three suggestions.?

  • Understand the difference between being negative and being a critical friend. On our team at Brink, we say that negativity is the easy job. Anyone can point out flaws or pitfalls in an idea that’s only in the early stages of being formed. Much harder is to be the critical friend, offering the feedback that helps to shape a concept while showing that you are open to it. Good innovation teams go out of their way to scrutinise each other’s work and be critical, but they are always looking to build the idea and not tear it down.?
  • Build a culture in which ideas compete, not people. You want to be heavy on divergence in your team – different perspectives, personal and professional backgrounds, skillsets – like orchestras need brass, strings, woodwind and percussion to make music people also need solo thinking time and moments to bounce and gain energy off each other – like a violin solo in the orchestra might precede a rousing wind and brass chorus. That demands team members whose mentality is more ‘yes, and..’ than ‘no, but..’: people who enjoy building up the ideas of others, rather than those who relish in tearing them down the moment they spot a flaw. The more people feel able to diverge, safe to get it wrong and like their unique contribution is of value, the more able a team is to put ideas at the centre, not individual egos.
  • Let people get on with it!? The role you play as a leader and as a good team member isn’t just about what you do, but what you choose not to do and ideally have the confidence in the team and yourself to take a back seat wherever possible. Our culture fetishises busyness, which can make being ‘busy’ feel good for the individual. When people start working at Brink they’re usually surprised that nobody is going to check their work before it leaves the proverbial building - but our goal is to foster a team that uses good judgement and make smart decisions quickly. Like a good orchestra conductor, the goal is to practise ‘less is more’ and trust the ensemble of brilliant people that they have so carefully assembled. And they trust that those people will holler if they need support. It’s more about being available to people when they need your help than constantly leaning over their shoulders to check and sign-off work.?

The idea that innovation leaders should see themselves as facilitators may strike some as odd. For years we have been fed the narrative of the innovation hero: the entrepreneurial genius who forges success and overcomes obstacles through sheer force of vision and personality. It’s a seductive idea, and great visionaries do exist, but even the most compelling of them would have got nowhere without the team. The problems that require innovative solutions are too difficult for individuals alone to solve. It always takes a team - led by people with both the wherewithal to build that team, and the confidence to set that team free.

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This article is part of a personal project to unpack and share the logic behind Behavioural Innovation, the approach we use at Brink. Behavioural Innovation combines classic innovation methodologies and behavioural sciences. It is a framework for designing a context fit for innovation and cultivating the calm, resilience and grit for human beings to do hard things.

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Read more…?

  • Brink a team of psychologists, strategists, designers, creative thinkers and technology optimists. We use a framework we call behavioural innovation to shape our work and our worldview.
  • Behavioural Innovation a methodology that applies classic innovation approaches along with psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors. It allows for irrational behaviour and attempts to understand why this may be the case.
  • Deconstructing the Lone Genius Myth : Toward a Contextual View of Creativity by Alfonso Montuori and Ronald Purser
  • Teaming and Fearless Organisation both by Amy Edmonson
  • Yes, And : How Improvisation Reverses "No, But" Thinking and Improves Creativity and Collaboration--Lessons from The Second City by Kelly Leonard, Tom Yorton

Brilliant! Would love you to have a read of my chapter on ‘facilitating team consciousness’ ??

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?? Mark Hankins

Principal Engineer at TELUS

2 年

Couldn't agree more. Well written Lea Simpson . I would also add in that while hard-driving leaders can succeed, they succeed at the expense of people, not with them. Something that's too common in consulting is the acceptance that it's ok to push people until they burn out, they're replaceable. "They know the score, that's just consulting". But it doesn't have to be that way. Like you say, the bottom line will be affected by not driving people until they drop, but in its place, you'll have built a sustainable culture. There's a place for scepticism too, all ideas need balance. But there's a difference between unfounded cynicism bred from lack of trust and a willingness to dismiss the tried and tested in favour of the never-done. Innovation is about acceptance. The acceptance that not all great ideas come first time around. There has to be a culture of safety, where the fear of retribution has been removed, to allow people to truly shine. Ultimately, innovation is about people. Without them and the culture they can thrive in, there is no change.

Christina Leaver

Freelance Creative Director / Lead ~ Mentoring newly graduated and seasoned creatives ~ available for FL bookings end Oct / early Nov 2024

2 年

Personal ego really needs to be stripped out of leadership. Love the thought of leaders as facilitators ??

Nicholas Russell

Strategic Advisor at Axiom Space

2 年

"If you actually want to?build, as opposed to squeezing residual value out of a system that already exists, then you need the different perspectives, contrasting skills and collective purpose that only arises from a group of brilliant people, working in an environment that allows them to innovate." ^ This is great, and so true. How many organisations have we met individually and collectively with a need to do something different? To do something new. For some, change and innovation becomes imperative for survival. Then the usual playbook. Change out teams. Fire and hire. Trade institutional knowledge for an inevitable 'blank sheet of paper' plan. Hire experienced heroes to lead new charges. End up failing to make progress. A somewhat different team repeats the same results. They have entrenched and proscriptive cultures. Cultures that survive multiple reorganisations of teams, of systems, of incentives, of management, even of ownership. "The idea that innovation leaders should see themselves as facilitators may strike some as odd." Big topic. Especially in cultures that think previous performance is because of strong top-down hierarchies of leadership, rather than that performance being in spite of those hierarchies.

Laura Kennett

People, Culture, Community

2 年

Nice. sounds similar to something i've said before - develop culture of hard problems, not hard people. There is a fair bit of communication design to architect how you explore knotty, complex systemic challenges. I didn't do this, but wanted to, mapping our the emotional journey of an innovation team would be such a useful exercise to normalise all the feelings that come with navigating uncertainty, complexity and ego. Brett Macfarlane has done some amazing work on innovation leadership and emotions.

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