Random Thoughts on Innovation at Work
LGL Leadership, an organization I’m privileged to lead, continues to grow and thrive in ways that are making us think about how that growth should occur, and what processes we must implement in order to sustain organizational health.
Inevitably, this leads us to consideration of business best practices – how to optimally link marketing and business development, how to structure roles and responsibilities in ways that leverage the collective talent while being clear about accountability, how to grow our internal talent, and how to find and attract new talents in a highly competitive “war” for talent (as well as identifying key performance indicators that signal us when we’ve decided correctly [or not]). Fortunately for us, select of our leadership have rich experience in business, far beyond my own. That experience often speaks to LGL’s collective with the mantra of “that’s how it’s done.” After all…we’re talking about best practices, right?
The intellectual dilemma I’m battling, however, is that “that’s how it’s done” seems to fly in the face of innovating in our business.
On the one hand, we certainly believe Santayana had it right when he shared that “those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Well…if we apply past lessons (best practices) correctly, things should go well. We also ascribe to the biblical philosophy that “there is no new thing under the sun.” Best practices are best practices.
But we’re all observing unprecedented change, an increasingly maddening life tempo (at work and in our personal lives); ubiquitous communication and awareness that not only contributes to that faster tempo, but that also challenges us to reconsider organizational structure and the means we use to direct action; and a workforce that is increasingly diverse in age, race and ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, gender, and global perspective (thankfully). Doesn’t this suggest we must look to new ways of doing things that best practices have yet to be developed for?
My preliminary conclusion is that we must first remain students of whatever we do (and of leadership). We must continue to evaluate how others have addressed challenges in business and how they’ve led their workforces. This arms us with the foundational knowledge required for innovative decision making. What we do with this knowledge is, I believe, the critical innovation differentiator.
Rather than blindly apply best practices, we should consider them against the business context we face, adopting those things that make sense, but “connecting dots” in new ways when past constructs fall short. The filters to be used in considering next steps should include:
- Is what we’re about to do consistent with our core values and organizational culture?
- Is what we’re about do do consistent with our why for being in business in the first place (see Simon Sinek’s discussion of The Golden Circle)?
- Does this approach accomplish what we need to accomplish and make us a stronger organization when we’ve completed the action?
We’ve got to be smart enough, not only in the knowledge of what’s been successful in teh past, but in how those best practices should be applied to the new business reality that continues to unfold in front of us.
Complicated? You bet. We haven’t figured it out yet, but are working to grow our business just as you are growing yours – one leader at a time.