Innovation Heroism
Does innovation require heroic acts? It shouldn’t. In fact, it’s a sign of a problem in an organisation if innovation is considered heroic, or requires heroic acts to begin with.
There is a relation between ease of innovation and free flow of knowledge (the article mentions it as well). A while ago, I’ve had the pleasure of delivering a training session on knowledge management to managers at different levels of seniority from across the company. The model I described in the talk (not my idea, but that of greater minds) encourages many things that I love to see as well: free exchange about knowledge, documentation and abstraction of knowledge, collaboration to derive new knowledge, and prototyping to test new knowledge and make it practical.
Back to the heroics problem: a group or company that tends to rely on a Sole Glorious Figure to address problems - be it in innovation or decision making - does not tap into the collective wisdom of the team. That, however, is buried and needs to be brought to the light by allowing it to emerge. Which, in turn, is only possible by allowing - no: encouraging, maybe enforcing - collaboration.
Thank you, no silos please. Let’s build bridges to cross, communication channels to talk, windows to observe.
Tags: work