THE INNOVATION IS IN YOUR COMPANY

I am here with an encouraging message to you, who are a leader in a company that right now is challenged by the corona crisis.

This challenge indeed requires flexibility and the ability to look beyond the immediate problems, see the bigger picture and create a new reality that will also work in the long run.

The encouraging message is, that the innovation you have been longing for and you have known will be necessary to thrive in the 21st century is available in your company right now.

How do I know that?

I know because I have talked to many of your employees. I have talked to the pioneers in your organization and I talked to them before they leaved. Because be aware - there are so many pioneers in your organization that are actually opting out. They report to me that there are so many blocks for real innovation in traditional companies.

This is pinpointed by a research report from 2018 developed by the worldwide management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Their research reveals a wide gap between the aspirations of executives to innovate and their ability to execute. 

The hierarchical systems and the old-fashioned ways of doing things – the traditional architecture of companies that are predominantly masculine or yang-oriented in its rigid structures doesn’t leave much room for the yin part that is so necessary now.

The yin part being the creative, flexible, agile and intuitive ways of working. The co-creative and collaborative ways of working.

There have been blocks to this new yin integrated leadership that is so necessary to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

But the good news for you is that there are many people who have not opted out yet. You can actually harvest the wisdom of the resources that are already in your company, if you invite those resources to share their wisdom. This way you will for free get the recipe for innovating your company, so that it not only survives this crisis, but so that it also comes out of it much stronger.

These upgrades to the 21st century have been calling for so long. But as long as we go fast, we are not really able to change the structures that are not working.

Now we have an opportunity to quiet down and listen to the change that wants to happen. This fase is also what the author of Theory U, Otte Scharmer, calls presencing.

The Presencing Institute describes the essence of presencing as "The capacity to connect to the deepest sources of self—to go to the inner place of stillness where knowing comes to surface."

All people in your company have the ability to go into this state of presencing. Some have been doing it naturally for a long time already.

So, the message to you is: listen to the people in your company. Listen to the people who have been trying to get through with their messages about that we need, to do things differently. We could work smarter. We could achieve more with less. We could work in more sustainable ways. We could create more sustainable solutions for the world.

Time has come to listen to their messages now and to collectively create businesses that work better – both for people at home, for people at work and for the world.

What good news is that? We can transform this crisis into a quantum leap.

Let’s go for it.