How to Lead an Innovative Team - first draft

How to Lead an Innovative Team

The importance of innovation to a company

Innovation is the live blood of modern corporations.  In the past, authority, capital, natural resource, efficiency, or monopoly can keep a company prosperous for generations. Today, if a company stopss innovation, it will disappear in a short period time.  There are numerous examples: WoolWorth, 3Com, SUN, SAAB, Digital, Kodak, Silicon Graphics, etc.  Innovation, defined as the process of generating, selecting and implanting new ideas to useful products, make or break a company, especially in high-tech industry.

The challenges of leading innovative teams

Today, new products might be started with one single individual, but a successful innovation requires a highly effective team.  How to manage such team, keep their innovative juice flowing, but keep the project aligned with the corporate vision, keep the cost under control, a manager has to be skillful and well versed in best management practice. Over 80 percent of executives surveyed believe innovation is important for their companies’ future success, but less than 30 percent are satisfied with their current level of innovation. This is referred as the “innovation gap.”  Leading innovation can be especially hard for former successful engineers and professionals which excel in carefully following standard operating procedure and focus on his/her individual achievements.  Since most our students are from professional backgrounds, it is particularly important for you to learn and practice skills leading innovative teams.

Five secretes of leading innovative teams

Mangers directly influence whether a team is innovative or not.  They set and communicate the strategic direction, allocate resource, incentivize desirable behavior and hire the team members.  Innovation will not happen unless the management provides it with sustained tangible and intangible support. 

While there are copious advises on the web on this subject, from my own experience and research, I summary them into the following five strategies:

1.     Create a clear and flexible vision

People need vision to work hard.  A team needs vision to work effectively together. It is difficult to just tell the team members that “think outside of the box”, or “sky is the limit”, and expect them to produce something coherent.  A team or a company need a vision, clear and flexible, for example, Google’s vision is “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, Amazon’s vision is “to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” Our vision is “to educate the next generation of globally connected, ethical, effective high-tech leaders.” With a clear and flexible goal, team know where is apply their innovative ideas.

2.     Build and support an innovative culture

Companies’ operations usually focus on precision, efficiency, planning, and risk avoidance. Yet most these great values of operation excellence often hinder innovation.  To be successful in innovation, the manager should let the entire organization know that innovation is encouraged, trying new approach is be celebrated, failure is acceptable as learning experience.   The senior managers should know that innovation more than often are generated by younger, in-experienced members, so the manager’s role in innovation should be support, monitor, mentor, but probably not drive it or lead it.  The executive should regularly and clearly praise the innovative projects.

3.     Provide and promote innovative support

Having a Culture of innovation is crucial to start the innovation process, but it is not sufficient to complete the circle.  Innovative company allocate tangible resource to support innovation.  Many companies, including Google, let all employee spend 20% of their time on any projects that support the company vision.   They set up separate innovation or “intrepreneur” funds, allow any department to proposal new ventures. They let small teams to work on innovation separate from their typical location and avoid standard accounting and efficiency and stand operating procedures. Many company include innovation as part of their executive development curriculum.

4.     Attract and keep innovators

While anyone and learn to be more innovation, there are people that have innate capability and drive to be innovative.  These people, usually in their twenties or early thirties, seek company that allow them to have certain level of autonomy even the financial compensation might not be the highest.  They are looking for organization where innovation, learning, diverse ideas and flexibility are valued above efficiency. They flock to metropolitans that support rich social connections.  That is why many fortune 500 companies set up R&D center, filled with fresh college graduates, in major cities away from their head quarters. 

5.     Empower the innovation team

Once an innovative project is formally selected, a diverse, closely nit, mutually trusted, dedicated team is required to implement.  The innovation team should be running similar to a start-up, allowed to change ideas, work flexible hours, explore new markets, revise team-members roles, establish strategic alliance.  They should have do-or-die and strong team spirit.  Their accountability should be reviewed on a start-up venture basis, not from an established operation point of view.  When IMB started the PC project, they empowered the 12 people team fully, sent then as far away as Florida so they won’t be bounded by establish corporate rules.

Why it is important to US

We not only teaches innovation and discuss innovation in many of the courses.  We also practice the innovation strategies. It is import to our students and graduates to learn and practice these strategies also, even while they are still studying for their degree. To be a high-tech leader, is to be a leader of innovation.