Behind successful innovations are great teams. Here’s a very brief guide to help you develop your team be their best, especially in these times.
The dreaded drift
Innovation is about solving problems. Specifically, finding better ways to meet needs in the context of a changing environment. Without innovation, any organisation is subject to strategic drift – the gradual departure from the initial match it had with its stakeholders’ expectations. Leaders and innovators therefore need to keep a close eye on what is going on beyond their team’s activities.
A great, though challenging, question for you and your team to address is “How are our stakeholders’ needs changing – and how should we change to meet them?”. This is better than “How do we persuade our stakeholders to take more of what we’ve already provided?” – though more difficult to answer.
Moving chairs and shifting sands
Who, in fact, are your stakeholders? The landscape is unlikely to be static, especially in these times. Relationships take time to build so it’s best to make sure they are with the right people and organisations. The focus of effort may need to adjust periodically, though it will be tempting to stick with the familiar. This can require some skill and diplomacy, as we are talking about historically valued connections with people you and your team have invested in, and vice versa.
Big ears
Listening carefully to your stakeholders, whether external or internal, should help you to see your team (and even your organisation) with fresh eyes. This may even lead to significantly reframing your purpose, and in turn, cascade into necessary changes in processes and systems. Such changes can be exciting but also deeply uncomfortable – some team members may feel it more than others.
Emotional smarts
Because change is inevitable, much “emotional labour” is involved in leading an innovative team.
Firstly, there is the need to conceal your own stress about difficult decisions you have to make or that have been imposed upon the team. “Emotional contagion” is a real phenomenon where your anxiety as a leader can leak out in non-verbal signals, amplifying in your team.
And secondly, helping individual members manage their anxieties around uncertainty takes caring and patience. This may not be your strong suit, and in the process you may fail to come across as authentic, and you might absorb some of their stress.
Your equilibrium
You’ll want to be a rock for your team, modelling calm and the capacity to reframe issues constructively. So finding effective ways to regulate your own emotional state is very wise. Coaching can be of great support in this.
Diverse minds
Diversity in your team is crucial though not always something you can address easily, especially if you inherited the team. A mix of different cognitive styles, life experiences, and professional disciplines in the team has the potential to powerfully enrich ideation and decision-making, and balance any personal biases and attachment to certain ways of doing things.
So bear that in mind when hiring. The “Great Resignation” may work in your favour here.
Safety
Evidence shows that psychological safety is a key determinant of any team’s capacity to innovate. Those leaders who create safe climates typically have set a clear and meaningful purpose for the team. They give everyone a voice and make sure everyone is listened to. And mistakes are seen as learning opportunities. Very importantly, the leader protects the team from external flak!
Ambassador
A subject not often referred to, is the important role of the team leader as an ambassador for the team. Speaking with counterparts across other silos is essential to building camaraderie and trust across the organisation. Understanding and respecting different agendas, is a natural precursor to of team leaders collaboratively figuring out ways to help one another. This is a powerful yet often invisible way to up the ante of innovation in any organisation. It’d be great if more job descriptions stated this more overtly and if the valuable time it needs was encouraged and validated.
Strategist
Then there’s striking an appropriate balance between operational delivery and strategic planning. True, a little strategic thinking can go a long way, but if insufficient, can hasten that dangerous drift from delivering what your stakeholders really need.
The optimal frequency of a strategic review will be strongly influenced by the pace of the markets you’re in. It’s also likely to be influenced by your personal preference –be aware that if you are natural “doer” you might not feel inclined to take enough time out to think. And if you’re a natural thinker there’s a danger you could indulge a little too much! Either way, it requires a definite “time out” to lend the perspective needed and to consider genuinely creative options for moving forward.
Your “Why”
Behind all of this, the successful innovation leader is likely to have a motivating personal vision for their role that guides them and keeps them going through tough times. This may need revisiting after major events, whether in one’s life, or career.
Perhaps now is a good time for you? If so, make that inner realignment a priority.
The prize
Get all these right and you’ll also be building team with tremendous confidence and the willingness to learn and experiment. In all probability, when they fail it will be ,less painful than it might be in another team, they will bounce back quickly. In fact the whole team will likely have built a cohesive, collaborative
spirit, and the sum will be greater than its parts
What now?
Hopefully this has prompted some useful thinking for you. Feel free to share any lessons you’ve had from your experience. And if you are keen to have a boost to get you going on anything, do get in
touch: siobhan@active-insight.com.