Using Purpose to Unlock Innovation (Part 3): From Team Purpose to Growth
Roger Grant
Helping leaders scale impact in Asia | Leadership Development | Executive Coach | Co-Founder of PERSONNA
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Purpose sets teams in a “stay ready” mindset, and hard work leads, with the least resistance, to innovation.
When I was with Nokia in 2002, I joined an internal innovation project to improve IT services experience by leveraging self-service.
I felt like Bill Murray in the movie, Groundhog Day, reliving the same meetings repeatedly.
Not only was the project team in meetings all day, we were addressing similar issues dressed up in another meeting. It would take three weeks of discussions to agree on one slide.
Nothing got done.
Lack of Clarity
Change is tough when there’s no clear answer. The lack of clarity led to silent infighting and internal resistance to fight the status quo. The team genuinely cared for each other. However, in wanting to be nice, we swept problems under the carpet instead of addressing them directly.
Shortest Path to Innovation
As Bill McDermott, SAP CEO, shared in an interview with Imperative, “None of us are as smart as all of us”. A team purpose brings your team’s best ideas on the table and creates a sense of ownership and urgency.
When a team lead themselves through change together towards a shared purpose, they will fight the status quo to innovate rapidly, engage customers better and deliver results faster. This puts them in a “stay ready” mindset, and hard work leads, with the least resistance, to innovation.
In the end, Nokia failed to hit its business outcomes. Our silent infighting, internal resistance to fight the status quo became our competitor’s advantage.
Don’t wait for bolts of inspiration to hit you from above. The inspiration is lying dormant within your team, waiting to be unleashed.
Part 1: Why Aligning Purpose Matters for Innovation
Part 2: From Personal Purpose to Impact
Part 3: From Team Purpose to Growth
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About Roger Grant, CEO of PERSONNA
Roger helps people unleash the force for positive change to deliver transformational business growth.
He has more than 20 years of experience leading small highly empowered teams to create innovative customer-centric tech services, including the launch of Nokia’s first enterprise mobile device support service.