#executive teams

I recently had the privilege to hear Gary Hamel speak at a conference.  Apart from being an enthusiastic, dynamic speaker his views on current business practices are revolutionary and refreshing.  In an era of fast moving change and innovation we appear to globally still be stuck in archaic styles of management designed to deal with the issues of the industrial revolution.  But modern day responses to challenges appear to be even more and more measurement, streamlining and structuring resulting in what Gary refers to as 'core incompetencies'!

He argues that management structure is built for conformity not for innovation and asks 'When were you trained as an innovator?  How would you get funding for your idea? How is your innovation performance measured?  What if you had a Steve Jobs or a Mark Zuckerberg working in your organisation - would you want to harness their creativity and reward them handsomely for it or pay them a salary, tie them up in rules and process and have them leave to do their own thing?  In a world where innovation is so high on the agenda (way above satisfying basic needs) we are constantly stifling innovation.

Innovation does occasionally show its head - often brought in from the outside to rebirth an organisation when the share price is slipping into oblivion and desperate measures are needed - Nokia is an example.  So what if organisations were set up for innovation?  What would KPI's look like if innovation was high on the agenda and reward systems reflected this?  What if everyone in the organisation was asked to think strategically not just the top few?  How would our organisations look if we developed a more co-operative environment with consesus being the guiding line rather than a top down pyramid?

What if we introduced new words to our value sets - joy, truth, justice, beauty, love honour, equality.  What if we started to employ people who really enjoy what they do, get excited about coming to work because they know they have the mutual respect of their colleagues and their ideas will be given air time?  What if we had teams of self-managed professionals, colleague letters of co-operation and understanding, responsibilities not jobs and opportunities not promotions?  What about eveyone in the company taking responsibility for finance through joint co-operation?

Innovation takes courage, a prepareness to stand out and be different, sometimes a clean slate and definitely skills to influence and communicate both to individuals and groups.  Senior teams everywhere need to wake up to talent stifling that is rife in their organisations and start to actively encourage ideas, innovation and comfort zone exit!

Pat Hutchinson - Quadrant 1 International

Top Team Tune Up