Lead People, Manage Processes … What About Innovation?
We still struggle to understand whether innovation is process, people, mindset, or some combination of all of those.
We know innovation is a lot about exploratory action and leadership that empowers action. There’s still room for managing innovation and risk, particularly in corporate settings. There’s also a lot written about leadership vs. management — and leading vs. managing people, processes, and businesses. Some of that, when viewed through the lens of innovation, looks like this:
Innovators – Solve complex problems
Innovation Managers – Control complexity in development
Innovation Leaders – Transform companies, industries, and ecosystems
Innovators – Develop new products and services
Innovation Managers – Deliver to the roadmap
Innovation Leaders – Create vision, strategy, and roadmap
Innovators – Create the future they conceive
Innovation Managers – Predict the future based on trends
Innovation Leaders – Prepare for the unpredictable future
Innovators – Deploy their expertise to resolve situations
Innovation Managers – Organize, staff, and manage resources
Innovation Leaders – Align expertise and offerings with markets
Innovators – Create new outcomes
Innovation Managers – Prevent negative outcomes
Innovation Leaders – Promote positive outcomes
Innovators – Be creative and explore
Innovation Managers – Control creativity and experimentation
Innovation Leaders – Empower people to experiment and learn
Innovators – Develop their expertise
Innovation Managers – Assess the expertise and fill the gaps
Innovation Leaders – Proactively fill gaps with the required expertise
Innovators – Build relationships of value
Innovation Managers – Restructure to accomplish goals
Innovation Leaders – Create relationships to be highly effective
Innovators – Do it the way they know best
Innovation Managers – Do it the right way
Innovation Leaders – Do the right things
Innovators – Defend their viewpoint
Innovation Managers – Sell solutions to get everyone on board
Innovation Leaders – Acknowledge and surface healthy conflict
Innovators – Collaborate, learn, and produce
Innovation Managers – Motivate but control collaborative practices
Innovation Leaders – Inspire collaboration and learning
Innovators – Strive for excellence
Innovation Managers – Maintain a Center of Excellence
Innovation Leaders – Build a Network of Excellence
Innovators – Want to feel important
Innovation Managers – Want to look important
Innovation Leaders – Make others feel important
Innovators – Compete and collaborate as required
Innovation Managers – Create competitive strategies to win
Innovation Leaders – Create collaborative strategies for win-win
Innovators – Focus on the Innovation Value Chain
Innovation Managers – Focus on the Innovation Framework
Innovation Leaders – Focus on the Innovation Purpose and Mindset
An innovation-focused organization needs all three roles — leaders, managers, and innovators. I emphasize the term role, not title. I’ve seen CTOs actively engaged in technical discussions. I’ve seen engineers creating a vision and collaborating with competitors for a win-win.
A successfully innovative organization allows a bit of all three roles across all of its staff members – from technicians to the C-suite. Through working meetings and casual chats, in person or virtual, that crossover promotes sound teamwork, transparency, integrity, and internal empathy — all of which are required to be adaptive and agile.
If you like this blog post, please consider looking at my books:
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!