Monograph - Innovation Leadership

Monograph: Innovation Leadership
Innovation Leadership
a monograph
Lawrence E Hiner III, Psy.D.

lawrence.hiner@jhu.edu
2007
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Monograph: Innovation Leadership Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction ..............................................................................5 Chapter 2: Intersecting concepts used throughout this monograph ...............8 Pre-modern, Modern, Post-modern ........................................................10 Appreciative Approach ..........................................................................15 Turbulence...........................................................................................18 Climate (vs. Culture) .............................................................................21 Chapter 3: Innovation ..............................................................................24 What is innovation? ..............................................................................24 The Continuum of Innovation ................................................................26 Ideation............................................................................................27 Invention ..........................................................................................28 Instantiation .....................................................................................29 Adoption...........................................................................................31 Innovation Management .......................................................................36 Innovative climate ................................................................................42 Operational Definition ...........................................................................50 Appreciative ......................................................................................50 Adaptation ........................................................................................52 Turbulence .......................................................................................53 Chapter 4: Leadership ..............................................................................61
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What is leadership?...............................................................................61 Modern view of leadership .................................................................62 Postmodern view of leadership...........................................................66 Pervasive leadership ..........................................................................80 Chapter 5: Innovation Leadership .............................................................84 The intersection of innovation and leadership .........................................84 Application of the theories.....................................................................87 Engagement Model............................................................................87 Survey ..............................................................................................88 Categories ........................................................................................92 Specific characteristics and survey statements........................................93 Individual..........................................................................................93 Organizational...................................................................................95 Glossary of Terms used in the survey statements ...................................98 Adaptive Challenges ..........................................................................98 Democratizing innovation...................................................................98 Double-loop Learning ........................................................................99 Effective use of peripheral energy and information ..............................99 Information Communities................................................................. 100 Innovate or Buy Decisions ............................................................... 100 Innovation Communities .................................................................. 101 Lead Users...................................................................................... 101
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Leadership ...................................................................................... 102 Learning Paradox ............................................................................ 102 Strategic points of change (Watsons SPA Model) .............................. 104 Theory-in-use ................................................................................. 104 Theory X and Theory Y .................................................................... 105 References ............................................................................................ 106
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Monograph: Innovation Leadership Chapter 1: Introduction

Innovation Leadership is the intersection of the best theory and practice in
each of the respective disciplines (that is, innovation and leadership) that, appropriately applied, will lead to the enhancement of the innovative climate across an organization. In 1994, Peter Drucker observed: "Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation... Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself - its worldview; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world. And the people born then cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born. We are currently living through just such a transformation. (p. 1) "Nothing 'post' is permanent or even long-lived. Ours is a transition period. What the future society will look like, let alone whether it will indeed be the 'knowledge society' some of us dare hope for, depends on how the developed countries respond to the challenges of this transition period, the postcapitalist period - their intellectual leaders, their business leaders, their political leaders, but above all each of us in our own work and life. Yet surely this is a time to make the future precisely because everything is in flux. This is a time for action. (p. 16) (Drucker, 1994) But, what action can be taken? What are the organizational constructs within which each of us can respond to the challenges of this transition period? What are the enabling factors that facilitate this change? As if in response to Druckers question, Klaus Schwab and Pamela Hartigan recently wrote: If there is one thing about which public and corporate leaders around the world today can agree, it is the ever-growing importance of innovation. The search for innovative solutions to the worlds myriad local, national and global challenges has become a clarion call rallying people
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across multiple borders defined by nation, industry, and academic discipline (Schwab & Hartigan, 2006).
Innovation is often introduced as an action in response to change.

Innovation in processes and products will, purportedly, enable organizations to cope with increasingly diverse and increasingly individualized markets. Innovation is a knowledge-based exercise, and fits snugly within the notion of the Western progress towards a desired knowledge society. Do we need, therefore, to become more innovative, more responsive to changes across our entire ecosystem? Many believe so (Christensen, 2003; Cloke & Goldsmith, 2003; DeMarco, Lesser, & Smith, 2006; Denning & Dunham, 2006; Drucker, 1985; Gladwell, 2002; Rogers, 2003; Sharma, 2006; von Hippel, 2006). And, by extension, does each of us need to become innovative within the frameworks of our own roles and responsibilities, as Drucker suggests?
Leadership, I propose, envisions the future and illuminates its path. What
role does leadership play in our ability to become, each of us, more innovative? Does the traditional model of command and control accommodate the flexibility that innovation especially in turbulent times requires? Or, does a more dynamic model of pervasive leadership (Weisbord, 2004; Wheatley, 1999) lend itself more readily to success in these transitional times?
Innovation and Leadership are widely discussed throughout the business

world. They have many definitions in and of themselves, already. What is the motivation, then, to fuse these terms together? What is the value in defining yet another aspect of these two concepts, by combining them? This monograph purports to answer these questions by proffering operating definitions of innovation and leadership, and generating value by leveraging
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both to understand the nature of innovative climate and how leadership principles affect it in a positive way.
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Chapter 2: Intersecting concepts used throughout this monograph

Intersections are important. On the geographical plane, intersections are where decisions are made as to direction and destination decisions involving tolerance for risk and ultimate goals. Intersections force us to evaluate our priorities and our energies. Intersections are where diverse cultures and ideas come together. It is where potential accelerates. John Sutter, founder of Sacramento, California, established his fort at the intersection of the Sacramento and American Rivers in what was then Mexican territory. The fresh, cold waters of the American River, fed by the snow melt of the Sierra Nevada, provided access to the timberlands and fur-trapping regions of those mountains. The Sacramento River ran from the north (all the way to Mt. Shasta in the Cascade Range) and emptied further south into a delta region and, ultimately, across the Bay to San Francisco and the trade routes of the Pacific Ocean. As fate would have it, Sutters dream of an agricultural empire was eventually trampled by the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills during a routine lumber milling operation leading to the Rush of 1849. However, the relevance of the intersection was not lost on subsequent entrepreneurs. The resulting influx of transiting miners and the commerce instantiated by the gold mining trade mandated the infrastructure of supplies and wider trade routes, ultimately leading to the burgeoning railroad industry with its western terminus (for many years) in Sacramento. The intersection of ideas is equally important as its topographical analogy. Concepts that follow an isolated, linear path of development may have enormous potential; however, that potential is customarily realized as that idea intersects with others and accelerates into a solution that addresses real
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needs. This is one of the reasons that collaborative innovation has enjoyed such demonstrated success, in that separately developed notions intersect in an environment that nourishes the joined concepts into viable solutions (Sharma, 2006; Tapscott & Williams, 2006). Boru Douthwaite compared the evolution of innovations to the evolution of species (Douthwaite, 2006). As ideas live and evolve, they encounter stages similar to those identified at work in natural selection: 1) Novelty generation; 2) Selection; and 3) Diffusion and promulgation (p. 96). A basic tenet of the evolutionary, natural selection model is the capacity for mutation of the genetic structure that yields Novelty generation in the first place. The recombination of the genetic structure takes place during the fertilization process in higher animals, the union of sperm and egg cells to form a zygote a definitive intersection event. Douthwaite also proposes that there is a Learning Selection Model that iterates through the innovation development and adoption process, resulting in the diffusion of innovations that successfully surmount the evolutionary firewalls: 1) Experience; 2) Making sense; and 3) Drawing conclusions; 4) Action" (pp. 96-8), and Ill take some liberty in extending this model by adding 5) Evaluating (or reflecting on) the results. So, rather than relegating innovation to the vagaries of genetic happenstance, it can be said that rational thought influences the innovative process. Except for Innovation and Leadership key terms which will be discussed in some detail later this section offers some definitions for the concepts that will be used throughout this monograph. Since many of these terms are used in different settings by disparate authors with divergent meanings, I set out here to provide my own perspective on them.
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Pre-modern, Modern, Post-modern

The terms, pre-modern, modern, and post-modern are used to describe historical periods of philosophy and the arts (literature and architecture in particular), but are also used as descriptors for eras of organizational styles.
Pre-modern refers to the command-and-control structure, wherein the top

leadership of the organization usually one person has the complete and ultimate authority for the corporate vision as well as its execution. Premodernism has its roots in the earliest days of our emergence from nonsocietal animals into social creatures. Indeed, a pre-modern attitude of acknowledging an Alpha leader and the lines of authority that stem from it may be hard-wired into our collective psyche. Beyond this physical aspect, certain savvy individuals may have learned along the way that invoking an even greater authority (the elements, nature, God, or other iteration of the unexplained) would trump even the Alpha leader. Eventually, entire organizations took on the authority of physical and metaphysical power religions, armies, governments, aristocracies, and in due course, businesses and corporations, leading to a naturally occurring (from a Darwinian perspective) and legitimate (from a status quo viewpoint) command-andcontrol power structure. Traditionally well-known magnates such as Carnegie and Rockefeller fit this model, as do some of their recent, holdover counterparts such as GEs former CEO, Jack Welch, although their practices also start to bridge into modernism.
Modern organizations are similar to their pre-modern predecessors in that

they are generally hierarchical in their authority structure, and that they are generally led by an individual or small group, such as a board of directors or executive team. The difference is that there is an innate operating assumption that most (if not all) business parameters can be measured and
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can be controlled. Traditionally-educated MBAs are trained to use financial accounting and other similar tools to provide these measurements in the anticipation of employing business models to control productivity, revenue, and, in the end, profit. Both pre-modern and modern organizations particularly those who are established to make a profit usually operate under the assumption that McGregors Theory X is at work (as opposed to his Theory Y, described in Weisbord 2004). Theory X states that most people are lazy, irresponsible, passive, and dependent, and must have their work broken into tiny pieces, tightly controlled, and supervised lest they make a mess of things.
Post-modern organizations, conversely, operate under the governance of

McGregors Theory Y, which states that most people will take responsibility, care about their jobs, wish to grow and achieve, and, if given a chance, do excellent work. A post-modern company relies on the assumption that all of the workers are capable and even anxious to, as Jim Collins puts it, ride the bus to collaborative success (Collins, 2001). That is, everyone understands, agrees with, and works to accomplish the corporate goals, and may often be part of the co-visioning process to establish and continuously reform the organizations projected horizon (Reynolds, 2007). Post-modern organizations generally have flexible lines of reporting, that are established
ad hoc in response to immediate needs, and then re-worked to accommodate

the next set of circumstances. While authority exists (anarchy might otherwise prevail), responsibility and accountability are distributed throughout the levels of the organization, along with the rewards of success. Postmodern workers invest themselves in the corporate mission and (to a great degree) design and execute their roles to support that mission, in whatever capacity the collaborative team deems appropriate. As Don Tapscott and
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Anthony Williams suggest, While hierarchies are not vanishing, profound changes in the nature of technology, demographics and the global economy are giving rise to powerful new models of production based on community, collaboration and self-organization rather than on hierarchy and control (Tapscott & Williams, 2006). Google may be the best known contemporary example of a post-modern company. During the expansion of the internet bubble in the 1990s, there were many highly-publicized reports of alternative business practices casual appearance, flexible work hours and locations, free food (especially high calorie snacks and highly caffeinated beverages), child- and pet-friendly environs, gentrified warehouse office space, lavish announcement parties, and loads of alternative music piped through the corporate PA system. Riding on the crest of that wave through the bursting in 2001, Google wisened to the excesses of the bubble and sought to find a balance of postmodern sensibilities with enough corporate structure to make it a viable business. In a recent interview with Wired magazine, Google CEO Eric Schmidt indicated that maintaining that balance is a constant struggle: Wired: Googles revenue and employee head count have tripled in the last two years. How do you keep from becoming too bureaucratic or too chaotic? Schmidt: Its a constant problem. We analyze this every day, and our conclusion is that the best model is still small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion. Attempting to provide too much order dries out the creativity. Whats needed in a properly functioning corporation is a balance between creativity and order. (Vogelstein, 2007) As Schmidt infers, a post-modern approach is essential to sponsor a climate of innovation that spawns the kind of creativity (and growth and revenue)
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that has come to be expected from Google and most, if not all, post-modern companies. A Talmudic proverb states, We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are. An important aspect of post-modernism is this issue of perspective reality is not fixed but rather interpreted and constructed through a social process. As Walter Truett Anderson frames it (Anderson, 1990): In recent decades we have passed, like Alice slipping through the looking glass, into a new world. This postmodern world looks and feels in many ways like the modern world that preceded it: we still have the belief systems that gave form to the modern world, and indeed we also have remnants of many of the belief systems of premodern societies. If there is anything we have plenty of, it is belief systems. But also we have something else: a growing suspicion that all belief systems all ideas about human reality are social constructions. (p. 3) Innovation, then, looks very different in a postmodern world than it did previously. In premodern times, the acknowledged experts were responsible for the introduction of innovations, and even very good ideas were left by the wayside if they were not derived from and driven through the sanctioned channels (see Everett Rogers Diffusion of Innovations for a compelling perspective on how this phenomenon impeded the now-obvious notion of using citrus fruits to manage scurvy aboard sea-going vessels for over 150 years (Rogers, 2003)). Similarly, in modern times, the future along with everything else was seen to be subject to laws and could thus be measured and predicted; if just the right combination of traits could be applied, a successful innovation would emerge. In a postmodern world, reality is being constructed and negotiated as we go along. This is not a predictable future, but one rife with possibilities. Individual consumers are modifying
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manufactured products (von Hippel, 2006) sometimes even during the manufacturing process1. As C. K. Prahalad and Venkat Ramaswamy discuss the necessity of involving the customer in the innovation process in The Future of Competition: Traditional business thinking starts with the premise that the firm creates value. Employees focus on the quality of the firms products and processes, potentially enhanced through internal disciplines, such as Six Sigma and Total Quality Management. Innovation involves technology, products and processes. Matching supply and demand has long been the bedrock of the value creation process. The co-creation experience depends highly on individuals. Each persons uniqueness affects the cocreation process as well as the co-creation experience. A firm cannot create anything of value without the engagement of individuals. Co-creation supplants the exchange process. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004) Or, as William Taylor and Polly LaBarre succinctly state, The big idea is that top-down development is out; bottom-up, distributed community involvement is the way to innovate your products and marketing concepts (Taylor & LaBarre, 2006). Patricia Seybold amplifies this thought, with a directive for companies who want to repond well to this dynamic: Customers will innovate with or without your help to create better ways to do things or to design products and services that meet their specific needs. If you want to harness the power of customers organic creativity, you need to support their creative processes with tools, resources and imagination. (Seybold, 2006)
See http://www.rbkcustom.com to customize your own pair of Reebok athletic shoes.
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In order to be responsive to the turbulent changes in the postmodern marketplace, companies will need to be agile. They will not have time to wait for a premodern authority to conjure the future and create the next Model T. They will not have time to engage in protracted modernist studies to predict market trends and introduce the next iPod. In the postmodern environment, innovations in products and services need to be generated at the point of service, and each employee is responsible for introducing innovations as appropriate to meet customer needs and corporate objectives.
Appreciative Approach
There is a familiar English nursery rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men Couldn't put Humpty together again. (Anonymous, 1810)
Throughout my consulting career, Ive often been involved in Humpty Dumpty projects; viz., the customer has hired our team to act as all the kings men to fix some problem or issue. Often, these problems have been as irascible as the shattered Mr. Dumpty, and all of the resources that were potentially available could never set things right. This Humpty Dumpty approach might be said to be using a deficit model;
i.e., one looks for the deficient or problematic elements of the current
operation, discovers what is broken, and proceeds to fix it. Why does this occur? Might it have something to do with an industrialized world wherein many machines exist to help us manage our daily tasks machines that are perfectly functional when they are first manufactured, but then break down? And the way to return to a state of functionality is to diagnose the malfunction and repair or replace the broken part?
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This deficit model of thinking has obviously made its way into the perspective we take regarding our own bodies. The Allopathic Medical Model is a specific approach to the diagnosis and treatment of illness: The medical model also describes the approach to illness which is dominant in Western medicine. It aims to find medical treatments for diagnosed symptoms and syndromes and treats the human body as a very complex mechanism The medical model drives research and theorizing about physical or psychological difficulties on a basis of causation and remediation. It can be contrasted with the holistic model of the alternative health movement and the social model of the Disability rights movement, as well as to biopsychosocial and recovery model's [sic] of mental disorder. (Collaborative, 2007a) Are business issues also, then, being perceived as results of machine-like processes that are perfect in their design, but falter in their execution? Is it the prevailing wisdom that the fix for this phenomenon is to diagnose the occurrence of the operational deficiency and remediate it? It would seem so. However, just as the medical model might be contrasted with the holistic health model, the deficit model that is applied to organizational issues may be contrasted with the appreciative approach. In the mid-1980s, David Cooperrider and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve University introduced the notion of Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider, 1986; Hammond, 1998) as an innovative alternative to the deficit models and practices of Change Management in vogue at the time (and still dominant today). Essentially, Appreciative Inquiry: suggests that we look for what works within an organization. The tangible result of the inquiry process is a series of statements that describe where the organization wants to be, based on the high moments of where they have been. Because
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the statements are grounded in real experience and history, people know how to repeat their success. (Hammond, p. 7) This model relies on two factors that I am compelled to modify in my own definition and use of the term appreciative in this monograph: 1) Cooperriders method relies on the use of inquiry the specific questioning of the organizations members to elicit memories of high points in their collective history for replication; and 2) the notion that the way things were successfully done in the past is worth emulating. Regarding the first factor, inquiry, I believe that the interactive dialog with all members of the organization that is represented by asking questions is vitally important to any process that will result in innovation. In fact, pervasive interaction among the social network is one of the key practices that I posit as necessary for becoming an innovative organization. However, it is not the sole procedure for responding to change, and so on its own is insufficient for meeting this need. With respect to the orientation towards past successes, it is certainly reasonable to build upon those successes (rather than acquiring a deficit orientation that focuses on blame, failures, and breakdowns). However, it is once again insufficient, in my opinion, to solely look to historical examples of successful behavior which may or may not provide an adequate response to the current situation that may require a novel, more innovative approach. As a result, I would like to affirm the strengths of the Appreciative Inquiry model and extend them into a more comprehensive Appreciative Approach. This approach embraces the concepts of inquiry and building upon prior success, but is more generic in its use of the appreciative idea. That is, the Appreciative Approach begins with the notion of appreciation of the value of the human element that each worker brings to the organization, and extends the concept beyond the inquiry into and specification of prior successes
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into the active visioning process that results in well-defined, positive objectives to build towards the evolution of a solution. The Appreciative Approach, then, is in direct opposition to the Deficit Approach. The deficit model identifies the malfunction of an existing system in an attempt to repair the system back to its level of original functionality. The appreciative model envisions a future state in which existing needs are being met, as the ecosystem evolves to achieve those objectives. The Appreciative Approach is one of the critical elements of innovation; that relationship will be explored more extensively in a later section.
Turbulence
As the discussion of change and especially the variable rates of change has become popular in business circles for the past few decades, the pundits have latched onto an analogy from the realm of physical science to help in the definition and description of change: turbulence. In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is a flow regime characterized by chaotic property changes. This includes rapid variation of pressure and velocity in space and time. (Collaborative, 2007b) As early as 1967, it was observed and reported in the literature that different systems within an organization function at different rates. Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch studied six industrial companies and delineated some of these structural anomalies (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967). They noted that departments within organizations were relatively adept at matching the rate of transactions with their respective constituents, but were not integrated with each other within the company. For instance, the marketing department is likely attuned to the needs of the target audience for the companys products including the rate of change of the customers needs but
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marketing may not be in sync with the new product schedule that is pursued by research and development. Further, both marketing and R&D are likely to be asynchronous with production. While not described by Lawrence and Lorsch in these specific terms, the dissonance between internal departments priorities and responsiveness rates can be seen as a direct contributor to
turbulence within the organization.

Stanley Gryskiewicz writes extensively on the topic of Positive Turbulence, especially as an effect of disruptive energy on a static system (Gryskiewicz, 1999). He compares the impact of external factors on a relatively static organization to the collision of warm, moist air with cool, dry air, creating turbulent weather (p. 21). His premise is that these disruptive events are often viewed negatively demanding a Darwinian adapt or die response but may be welcomed as positive agents for meaningful transformation. The relationship of this idea of positive turbulence and innovation is discussed in a later section. Note that the scientific notion of turbulence does not simply describe a steadily increasing rate of change, as is often assumed in discussions of changes in the business environment, but more completely reflects the fact that change occurs at varying rates across all aspects of the milieu. Just as a snowmelt-fed river flows at varying rates while making its inexorable way to the ocean forming pools, eddies, and rapids along the way organizational change occurs at varying rates. Bill Bergquist and Agnes Mura expand the analogy of turbulence, as observed in mountain streams, to describe its various aspects in 10 Themes and
Variations for Postmodern Leaders and Their Coaches (Bergquist & Mura,
2005). They define four components (or types of subsystems) that comprise turbulence:
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Rapidly flowing. This is the most commonly-imagined type of turbulence, and the one which is used most frequently to describe businesses that are attempting to navigate the needs of a rapidlychanging marketplace. As product innovation migrates from the research and development department to the consumer (see Von Hippel, et al.), the pace of developing and releasing new products and services into the marketplace accelerates to the point of creating unique experiences for each consumer, on demand. Whirlpool: As a rapid flow encounters resistance in the form of rocks, debris, and even other flows, certain portions began to slow in response to the drag. These slower parts of the flow begin to form pools, around which the faster streams of the flow begin to circulate, forming eddies or whirlpools. In organizations, when an initiative begins to encounter resistance in the form of resistant individuals, unsupportive management, incompatible processes and procedures, or other "rocks and debris," eddies and whirlpools in the workflow form. In terms of innovation, noting the position and etiology of the whirlpools is important in facilitating an innovative climate. Quiet pool: In river systems, quiet pools form as branches from the main flow. As hikers, we are warned against drinking from these quiet pools, favoring the clear water in the rapid flows. However, these quiet pools serve an important purpose as the generative factory of nutrients, such as blue-green algae, for the entire biosystem. In organizations, these quiet pools may, at first glance, seem stagnant and anti-productive; however, once their value is recognized, they may be cultivated to provide nutrients for the rest of the company and its vital initiatives.
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Boundaries between the other three subsystems: As mentioned in the previous discussion of whirlpools, there are places in the river where different flow rates encounter each other, producing drag on the faster and acceleration for the slower streams. In an organization, where different rates of change and innovation occur, there is a similar effect of slowing and accelerating. From a cultural perspective, it may be interesting to observe how the various flows within an organization impact each other; from a process standpoint, it may be where integration may be facilitated for the benefit of all involved initiatives. Turbulence is often associated with Chaos Theory, in that turbulence is observed to be chaotic and unpredictable. However, as chaos theory teaches us, what is apparently chaotic at one level of observation is simply part of a larger pattern, when seen from a different perspective. In organizations, what may seem to be chaotically turbulent could be part of an eminently discernable pattern; and, while changes in the marketplace may not be entirely predictable, they are both recognizable and manageable, with an appropriate strategy.
Climate (vs. Culture)

The terms climate and culture are sometimes mistakenly used interchangeably. Culture is an extremely broad, comprehensive topic. Culture, claims Geert Hofstede, Emeritus Professor at Maastricht University, is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster (Hofstede, Pedersen, & Hofstede, 2002). Fred Massarik and Marissa Pei-Carpenter, citing the 1963 work of Kroeber and Kluckhohn, help to illuminate the complexity inherent in the notion of culture.
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"Frequently noting that culture is a complex whole, the following sub-concepts are revealed in the comprehensive listing of definitions: Knowledge Belief Law Custom Acquired habits and capabilities Property Etiquette Industries Religious order Material objects and technique Tradition Instruments Buildings Things that people have Things that people do What people think.
This mlange of concepts, drawn from the work of a set of distinguished anthropologists and others, suggest both the strengths and weaknesses of the culture concept: It is very broad and complex and by its very comprehensiveness includes a vast agglomeration of detail." (Massarik & Pei-Carpenter, 2002) In its vastness, it is clear that any effort to change the culture of an organization would imply an enormous undertaking. The analysis phase, alone, might consume an entire consulting firm even if it were technically feasible to capture, in any significant way, the depth of understanding that would be necessary to design an effective intervention across all the dimensions of an organizations culture.
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Culture is deep, embedded, and reflective of core values. As T.S. Eliot observed, Culture cannot altogether be brought to consciousness; and the culture of which we are wholly conscious is never the whole of culture: the effective culture is that which is directing the activities of those who are manipulating that which they call culture. (p. 184) (Eliot, 1976) Perhaps what Eliot called effective culture might also be seen as what we now describe as climate. Climate, as juxtaposed to culture, can be defined more narrowly. It is the thread whereas culture is the fabric. Climate can be measured and manipulated affected and changed. Using an analogy from Personality Psychology to describe the relationship of culture to climate, Bill Bergquist has observed that, Culture is equivalent to personality, while climate is equivalent to mood (Bergquist, 2007). In the setting of this monograph, the innovative climate is being addressed. My assumption is that it can be directly viewed and measured, and that interventions can be designed to enhance an organizations climate of innovation.
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Chapter 3: Innovation
What is innovation?
Innovation has a variety of definitions, depending on the perspective of the one doing the defining. For instance, someone in the Research and Development (R&D) department of an electronics manufacturer might view innovation as the creative process required to respond to customer needs with new product ideas. To someone in the banking industry, innovation may mean a new process for customers to transact business using the banks accounts, saving operational costs or generating additional revenue. In the glossary of his definitive work on innovation, Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers, 2003), Everett Rogers defines innovation as, An idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption (p. 475). Now, this of course frames the innovation from the perspective of its adoption it is whatever is perceived as new by the adopter; but this definition contributes the universal innovation concepts of idea, practice, or object, novelty, and someone to adopt it. We commonly acknowledge the terms, practice and object with the services and products generated by innovative companies; the idea that an idea may be an innovation is somewhat alien to our current use of the term. However, Rogers began his investigations into innovation adoption in the 1960s as a sociological study; that is, he wanted to ascertain how new ideas transmitted themselves across novice populations. The pervasive concept that an innovation is actually a technological breakthrough is a more recent development. Robert Burgelman and Leonard Sayles (Burgelman & Sayles, 1986) define innovation as, a companys efforts in instituting new methods of production
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and/or bringing new products or services to market (p. 10), affirming the prevailing notion that an idea must be realized in some fashion to be considered an innovation. Some authors have further defined innovation as being either incremental (also called sustaining) or disruptive (Christensen, 2003; Christensen & Raynor, 2003; Moore, 2005). An incremental innovation advances the development of an existing product or service by extending its functionality without changing its basic structure, function, or purpose. As Christensen observes, What all sustaining technologies have in common is that they improve the performance of established products, along the dimensions of performance that mainstream customers in major markets have historically valued (p. xviii). The new version upgrades to software (e.g., from 1.0 to 2.0) might be considered an example of incremental innovation. While the basic function of the software is not changed, there are new features and functions, and perhaps some inadequacies or outright defects have been fixed in the new release. A disruptive innovation, on the other hand, actually displaces the technology that is currently in place or discovers an entirely new niche in the marketplace to either address existing market needs or establish new ones. Moore (2005) states that, This type of innovation creates new market categories based on a discontinuous technology change or a disruptive business model. An example is the cellular telephone; it may be seen as disruptive to pay phones (when was the last time you used one of those?) and possibly to mobile radio (citizens band, amateur, and professional) as a way to provide voice communications between individuals. Initially, the disruptive technology will typically not perform well in the market, but will eventually out-perform the existing technology it replaces, leading to
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Christensens Innovators Dilemma (Christensen, 2003) whether to survive on sustaining innovation or risk attempts to be disruptive. In order to migrate from an observation of market needs to an actual product or service, an innovation travels through various stages. Innovation may be seen as: 1. a ideation activity, where new product or service ideas are generated; or 2. the unique invention that results from that creativity; or 3. the instantiation process of actually constructing and prototyping the innovation; or even 4. the adoption of an innovation by the targeted users.
The Continuum of Innovation

So, one way to define innovation is to examine the stages along what I term the Continuum of Innovation:
Figure 1: Continuum of Innovation
As the various stages of this continuum are engaged, the notion of innovation applies. During Ideation, the aspects of novelty and uniqueness are evident. When actual Invention occurs, the creative ideas are realized in their earliest prototypical forms. As Instantiation transpires, the innovation moves along towards its commercial realization, and is modified by the prevailing needs of the target market. The final stage in the Continuum of Innovation is
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Adoption. The adoption of an innovation instantiates what some see as the
necessary final stage in making it a commercial success (Davila, Epstein, & Shelton, 2006) without which good ideas never really mature to true innovations.
Ideation
Often, these stages are perceived as isolated and complete definitions for the whole continuum of innovation. As mentioned earlier, the Research and Development department may view the Ideation stage as exclusively definitive of innovation, with little regard to actualization or potential commercialization of the product or service. However, ideation is often brought about by the realization of customer wants and needs. As Hagen Wenzek noted in an IBM Institute for Business Value report (Wenzek, 2006) on the emergence of the consumer influence on innovation, Since the advent of information technology, the typical flow of innovation has been from the enterprise to the consumer technology inspired innovation has now started flowing in the opposite direction, proving its worth with consumers first. (p. 1)
Figure 2: Consumer impact on the innovation process
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Ideation, then, becomes a process identifying needs in the marketplace and generating concepts for potential products and services to meet those needs. As Gerard Gaynor notes, The ICI [Idea-Concept-Invention] stage involves a kind of controlled chaos, as those involved try to keep multiple thoughts in balance at one time, making the right decisions. This stage ends when an idea has been translated into a well-defined concept and proof of concept has been established not just for the technologies involved, but also for the market and the system. The ICI stage is dedicated to activities that define the concept (and the technologies required to pull off the concept); knockouts (anything that might cause a no-go decision at some time in the future); market opportunities, customer base and needs; strategic fit; resources, infrastructure and confidence level; and deliverables. (Gaynor, 2002) The process of ideation that Gaynor defines responds directly to events in the market. If the gating process that evaluates the potential for the concept is successfully negotiated, the process flows immediately into the next stage of the innovation continuum invention.
Invention
While Rogers (2003) defines invention as, the process by which a new idea is discovered or created, the contemporary notion of invention emphasizes discovery less and creation more. That is, the approach to innovation seems to rely on an active response to the market, as opposed to the discovery of a valuable product or service that is simply waiting to be discovered. There is a popular (but unreferenced) story that Thomas Edisons successful invention was not so much the light bulb itself but the establishment of an infrastructure to deliver electricity to a wide area, which promoted the adoption of the electric lamp to replace the fire-prone gas lights. Here, we have creativity responding to a need in the marketplace. All of which began with the vision of electric-powered lamps, followed by years
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of testing a plethora of various combinations of filaments and gases to produce a workable model.
Invention, then, follows ideation as the process of developing the first

working prototype of the product or service. Edisons first electric lamps were invented on his workbench in New York, and were not initially in a form that could be produced in sufficient quantity or quality to be distributed to the general public. For this, another phase of development was necessary that which I term, instantiation.
Instantiation
James Brian Quinn states, "Innovation is the first reduction to practice of an idea in a culture (James Bryan Quinn, 1988; James Brian Quinn, 1992). While a good idea may occur to anyone thoughtful enough to be paying attention, and while an engineering individual may eventually prototype the idea into an invention, it is only when that invention be it a product or service is crafted into a solution that is deliverable to the customer that it is ready for adoption. In their work in 2001 on examining practices in the healthcare industry for the Institute of Medicine, Donaldson and Mohr leverage Quinns work (albeit from the manufacturing industry) to define the micro systems of effort that are required to deliver patient care. "Quinn approached a study of business performance by identifying breakthrough levels of successful performance in industries worldwide and asking how they accomplished it. Quinn found that many of the worlds best run organizations recognized the advantage of focusing on small functioning units to improve timeliness and cycle time, product quality, service, customer and worker satisfaction, as well as to reduce production costs. He described these small units as microunits of production, meaning that they were the smallest or minimum replicable unit, which for this study means a unit whose
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processes are repeatable with small variation in response to local conditions and that have available to them all the necessary resources to do their work. Although the approach originated with routine manufacturing and rules-based, automatable systems, it proved to be applicable, as well, to service operations where it led to large increases in customer satisfaction. Surprisingly, the larger the organization, the greater the leverage for gains [became] because of a larger information database and greater possibility for experimentation. (Donaldson & Mohr, 2001) Here, Quinn has defined the crucible of instantiation the microunit of production where creative inventions are defined as products or services in anticipation of testing in the internal or external marketplace. Interestingly, Donaldson and Muhr also noted the postmodern aspects of Quinns work, especially in that the business of innovation emanates from the point of contact between the producer and the customer not from the executive suite of R&D: Using these small units as a starting place, Quinn found that highly effective service technologies were connected in a variety of new organizational forms that seemed to have some common characteristics: they had much flatter hierarchies than their predecessors; they were built around core service competencies typically consisting of special depth in some unique technologies, knowledge bases, skills, or other systems; and they interacted with customers using excellent information technologies and organizational design. Organizations discovered that these forms also made their workplaces more personally challenging and satisfying places to work." Already, James Quinn had identified one of the basic tenets of Innovation leadership empowering the person or team responsible for the delivery of the product or service to be able to entertain the risks and rewards of innovation that will lead to more innovative behavior.
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Adoption
The diffusion of innovation has been realized as a sociological phenomenon for some time. Rogers opens his own classic volume on the subject (Rogers, 2003) with a quote from Machiavellis, The Prince (1513): There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things Whenever his enemies have the ability to attack the innovator, they do so with the passion of partisans, while the others defend him sluggishly, so that the innovator and his party alike are vulnerable. (p. 1) According to Rogers, diffusion is, the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system (p. 11). Further, he defines adoption as, a decision to make full use of an innovation as the best course of action available. Rogers may have instituted the use of the adoption curve, which has subsequently been used, modified, and referenced by dozens of researchers and pundits who describe and expound on the adoption of innovation (Burgelman & Sayles, 1986; Christensen, 2003; Christensen & Raynor, 2003; Davila, Epstein, & Shelton, 2006; DeMarco, Lesser, & Smith, 2006; Denning & Dunham, 2006; Donaldson & Mohr, 2001; Douthwaite, 2006; Drucker, 1985; Gaynor, 2002; Gladwell, 2002; , Harvard Business Review on Innovation, 2001; McGregor, 2007; Moore, 2002, 2005; , People and innovation: Getting
ideas on the table, 2006; James Bryan Quinn, 1988; Sharma, 2006; von
Hippel, 2006; Wenzek, 2006). Essentially, the adoption curve indicates that the rate of diffusion of an innovation across a population will happen over time, and that it will begin slowly, accelerate more or less rapidly, and then taper off slowly again. If you assume a normal distribution (bell curve) phenomenon of the adoption of a new technology, it would look like this:
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14
12
10
Rate of Adoption
0 1 4 9 17 27 38 50 62 73 83 91 96 99 100 Cumulative % Adoptions
Figure 3: "Normal Curve" Adoption Rate
The normal curve indicates that the adoption begins slowly, accelerates to a periodic adoption rate that peaks and then declines until all potential adopters have been reached. At that point, there are no further adopters in that identified market to purchase the product or service. Rogers introduced a cumulative (or S-shaped) curve, so that the acceleration of the rate of adoption became more graphically evident:
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Rates of Adoption
100%
90%
80%
70%
60% % Adoption Slow Medium Fast
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0% 1 2 3 4 5 6 Time 7 8 9 10 11
Figure 4: Rates of Adoption, using Rogers' curve
Note that I have included three separate curves, to demonstrate the visual effect of fast, medium, and slow rates of adoption. The middle (red) curve is one that is typically depicted as an adoption curve, starting very slowly (with early adopters), then accelerating fairly quickly through the mainstream adopters, and tapering off to something approaching but never quite reaching 100% adoption. A faster rate of adoption is depicted by the first (yellow) curve, which starts at the same point but accelerates much more quickly to reach 95% adoption in about two-thirds the time of the medium rate adoption. Finally, there is a slow rate of adoption, shown in the curve to the right (in blue), that eventually reaches the same 95% adoption, but does so in nearly twice the time as the medium rate. Given that there are expenses associated with sales, marketing, production, support, etc., you can see why companies are anxious to accelerate the rate of adoption to be as fast as possible.
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However, as Machiavelli observed nearly 500 years ago, the attempt to diffuse the innovation across a new population can be a frustrating experience, as it is a decision-making process on the part of the adopters and is completely under their control regardless of the benefits or technical quality of the innovation. Rudolf Diesel (1858-1913) seemed to agree with Machiavelli, as he was paraphrased and quoted by Boru Douthwaite in a recent article on Enabling Innovation (Douthwaite, 2006): Diesel distinguished between two phases in technological progress: the conception and carrying out of the idea, which is a happy period of creative mental work in which technical challenges are overcome and the introduction of the innovation, which is a 'struggle against stupidity and envy, apathy and evil, secret opposition and open conflict of interests, a horrible period of struggle with man, a martyrdom even if success ensues.'" (p. 93) Rogers speculated that there were five identifiable phases of adoption: 1. Knowledge of existing conditions into which the innovation would be introduced. 2. Persuasion, or the perceived characteristics and benefits of the innovation. 3. Decision of the adopter to try the innovation. 4. Implementation or the innovation to the adopters environment. 5. Confirmation that the innovation performed as expected and met the adopters perceived need. Rogers perhaps coined the term early adopter, referring to the individuals to whom the innovation first appealed, and who were willing to try the technology despite the fact that it was untested by the masses. It is interesting to note, when referring to early adopters, that those who eagerly try out one technology are not necessarily those who will be first adopters for a different technology, dispelling a common myth that there is a set of characteristics that typify an early adopter (von Hippel, 2006).
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Geoffrey Moore has further refined the stages of adoption and the characteristics common to each. In addition, he encountered what he termed a chasm between the early and mainstream adopters a place on the curve where the rate of adoption paused and sometimes even stopped (Moore, 2002, 2005; Wiefels, 2002). The thought is that all of the potential early adopters have accommodated the new technology, and yet the appeal to the mainstream users has not been clearly identified. The bridge across this chasm is to generate interest not based on the novelty that appeals to early adopters but on the practicality of how the innovation will result in actual gains in productivity, interest, entertainment, or whatever value the adopter might perceive. As the industry interest in innovation continues to escalate, so does the emphasis on adoption. As we have already seen graphically demonstrated via Rogers S-curves, the faster the adoption, the more rapidly the return on investment is realized. This emphasis on adoption has thus spawned an entire library of books and articles that cite innovation as the main topic, with some even alluding to the work of Rogers, Moore, Christensen, and others in an effort to focus on the rate of adoption as a measure of innovation success, or on creativity as the single point of innovation germination (Amabile, Hadley, & Kramer, 2003; Brown, 2003; Chesbrough, 2003; Christensen, Anthony, & Roth, 2004; Coburn, 2006; Craumer, 2003; Davila, Epstein, & Shelton, 2006; Drucker, 1985, 2003; Lester & Piore, 2004; Levitt, 2003; Peebles, 2003; Tuomi, 2002; Tushman & O'Reilly, 2002; von Oech, 1998; Wolpert, 2003). However, I believe that one of the most important lessons learned from studying innovation is that the rate of creativity or the rate of adoption is merely a symptom of the entire continuum of innovation. Trying to manage creativity or adoption is like treating symptoms instead of the disease; as in the case of infection, treating a fever with an ice bath instead
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of antibiotics. In my review of the literature, it is apparent that the entire continuum of innovation needs to be addressed when attempting to manage innovation.
Innovation Management
IBM periodically takes on the task of surveying hundreds of CEOs (and, separately, CIOs) to help determine and report on the trends across industries, across the globe. The most recent CEO study concentrated almost exclusively on innovation as a major emerging theme among the leaders of some of the most influential and successful companies in the world. Among the primary findings was the migration of considering innovation as purely an exercise in invention to the infusion of an innovative approach across the organization. In this regard, a synopsis of the CEOs suggestions yielded the following recommendations (IBM, 2006): Think broadly act personally and manage the innovation mix - Create and manage a broad mix of innovation that emphasizes business model change. Make your business model deeply different - Find ways to substantially change how you add value in your current industry or in another. Ignite innovation through business and technology integration - Use technology as an innovation catalyst by combining it with business and market insights. Defy collaboration limits - Collaborate on a massive, geography-defying scale to open a world of possibilities. Force an outside look every time - Push the organization to work with outsiders more, making it first systematic and, then, part of your culture. (p. 3)
This is obviously not an agenda for simply generating ideation, improving invention, increasing instantiation, or accelerating adoption it is a mandate for integrating innovation into every aspect of the business. As Thomas
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Kuczmarski puts it (Kuczmarski, 1995), Innovation is a mindset. Though you cant touch it, smell it, hear it, see it, or taste it, you can sense, think, and feel innovation. Innovation is best described as a pervasive attitude that allows businesses to see beyond the present and create a future vision (p. 3). How does one, then, attempt to establish and manage a pervasive innovation
mission and climate that fosters the fulfillment of the business future vision?
Bettina von Stamm and her colleagues at the London Business School have spent the last several years attempting to answer just that question. In The
Innovation Wave (von Stamm, 2003a), she states, There is no one right way
of infusing innovation into an organisation, it will depend on the companys specific context, including company size, what kind of innovation is sought, and which stage in the innovation journey the organisation is at (p. 123). However, there are guidelines with specific objectives that can be followed, based on the experiences of successfully innovative companies: Addressing the challenges associated with innovation necessitates a holistic approach that realises the importance of considering context and the need for aligning all aspects of an organisation to the innovation goal. The five key areas where innovative organisations do something differently from their less innovative counterparts are: strategy and vision leadership culture [viz., climate] processes (physical) work environment (p. 3)
As with most approaches that are declared to be holistic, it is an intentional blending of all of the elements that produce the desired result in this case, innovation. Without aligning strategy and vision with ideation and
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invention, for instance, innovators may generate a whole host of novel product and services concepts, but have no ability to execute and bring them to market especially if they dont correspond to the core competencies of the company. In this light, aligning innovators thinking with the organizations strategy and vision will likely result in more efficient expenditure of innovator ideation and invention cycles. This drive towards alignment with corporate strategy and vision must be balanced with a penchant for out of the box thinking, so that ideas dont always result in me too, incremental innovations while ignoring disruptive possibilities. As Tony Davila, Marc Epstein, and Robert Shelton suggest in Making Innovation
Work (Davila, Epstein, & Shelton, 2006), Manage the natural tension
between creativity and value capture Creativity without the ability to translate it into profits can be fun but it is unsustainable; profits without creativity is rewarding but only works in the short term (p. 11). Continuing with von Stamms recommendations, leadership as it relates to innovation is the one of the key concepts of this monograph. Leadership can be framed in terms of the named management of the company, from the C-level to the line management. In this light, Davila et al recommend the following responsibilities for a Chief Innovation Officer, who is sometimes also the CEO: Provide a long-term view for innovation via the innovation strategy and portfolio. Sensitize key leaders and managers to the dynamics of innovation. Nurture key creation projects. Manage relationships with external partners. Assess innovation implications of corporate, strategic initiatives.
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Provide expert opinion and crucial judgment. Manage the balance between business and technology innovation, such as organizational dynamics, portfolio, resources and processes. (p. 114) Leadership can also, as described more fully later in this document, be discovered and developed pervasively throughout the organization (Raelin, 2003; Weisbord, 2004). While some of the responsibilities suggested by Davila et al, above, require the perspective of the C-suite (e.g., balancing resources in support of pervasive innovation), most of them can be accomplished by line-level employees working on specific innovation initiatives. This dynamic will be explored later. The third guideline enumerated by von Stamm has to do with the management of the innovation culture (we will call it, climate as per the previous discussion). As part of the Innovation Management process, the innovation climate regulates the organizational tolerance to ideation, invention, and instantiation efforts. Since all of these require significant investment of worker time and other resources, it is important to foster a positive innovation climate, so that the expenditure is well-received (from a process standpoint) and well-rewarded (from a personal perspective). Assessing and enhancing the innovation climate is the subject of the next section, and will be further explored there. The fourth area suggested by von Stamm as relevant to managing innovation is process. In order for innovations to proceed from ideation to invention and instantiation, the processes must be in place to support those transitions. As a case in point, I have been witness to the developing instantiation of a good idea to manage one aspect of innovation at IBM. In the timeframe of 20042005, a process and a tool to support it was invented at IBM to solicit, capture and assess good ideas from throughout the 320,000+ global
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employees. The concept was elegant in its directness: a database would be created to store ideas for product, process, and services innovations (both internal and customer-oriented), so that IBMers would have a single repository for these ideas. An intranet front-end was also implemented for the peer and executive review of the innovations for selection and potential implementation. The program was called, ThinkPlace, in reference to IBM founder Thomas Watsons one-word admonition to all employees: Think2. As described on the IBM intranet, ThinkPlace is an innovation ecosystem that enables IBMs value related to innovation. It is comprised of a world-class idea generation and refinements application, and a network of the most innovative minds in our company and in the world. This program is designed to gain competitive advantage by leveraging IBMers creativity and collective expertise into tangible actions which can improve every aspect of our products, services, workplace, and company. ThinkPlace enables every IBMer around the world to be an innovator by providing a common forum for sharing, refining and recognizing ideas. Through ThinkPlace, IBMers can collaborate to: Surface opportunities to grow our business.
When Thomas J. Watson joins the Computer-Tabulating Recording Company - the forerunner of today's IBM - in 1914, he brings with him the "Think" motto he coined when he managed the sales and advertising departments at the National Cash Register Company. "Thought," he says, "has been the father of every advance since time began. 'I didn't think' has cost the world millions of dollars." Soon, the one-word slogan "THINK" appears in large block-letter signs in offices and plants throughout the company. In 1915, Watson was quoted in an audio broadcast to IBM employees as saying, And we must study through reading, listening, discussing, observing and thinking. We must not neglect any one of those ways of study. The trouble with most of us is that we fall down on the latter - thinking because it's hard work for people to think, And, as Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler said recently, 'all of the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think.' Hence, the IBM laptop was called the ThinkPad in reference to its manual predecessor an ubiquitous 3x5 paper notepad with the word THINK inscribed into its leather cover.
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Identify solutions for critical client and business needs. Offer improvements for existing problems or internal inhibitors. Suggest changes to improve our culture and succeed in our jobs. (IBM, 2007b)
However, within a few months of its launch and subsequent internal marketing, ThinkPlace was challenged with the sheer volume of employeegenerated ideas. There was no issue with the technology the system worked flawlessly to record each idea. The process of reviewing and evaluating the ideas, however, was strained beyond capacity. Volunteer peer reviewers, called Catalysts (I was one) were to monitor and evaluate ideas, with the objective of selecting one or more to assist in taking the idea to invention and instantiation. The deluge of ideas, which ranged in scope from incrementally simple to disruptively complex, was more than the dozens of volunteer Catalysts (who also had their regular full-time duties to perform) could reasonably handle. Of the tens of thousands of ideas that had been posted in ThinkPlace, only a small percentage were able to be evaluated or taken towards invention, instantiation, or adoption. Unintentionally, then, most contributors received little or no peer or executive feedback on their ideas during the initial rollout of ThinkPlace. Over the past two years, additional processes have been established to give contributors more focus in the intent of the ideas, aligning them with corporate strategy via Executive Challenges. Also, procedural and technological linkages to related ideation, invention, and instantiation efforts throughout the company have enabled the ThinkPlace program to more successfully accommodate the contributions of talented and generous IBM employees, demonstrating the significance of process to the management of innovation.
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Lastly, von Stamm cites the work environment, especially physical work spaces that support collaboration and information flow, as a key differentiator for organizations recognized for being innovative. While I can certainly understand that the work environment is a contributor to innovation, I see it as less of an independent factor than perhaps a reflection of a positive innovative climate. That is, people who are in a positive climate for innovation find ways to both overcome barriers and create work spaces that support the processes and activities that contribute to innovation. Establishing an innovation-oriented physical environment does not, by itself, contribute to enhanced innovation. There are many heavily matrixed, globally mobile companies relying on networks of leading innovators in their respective industries, which further diminishes the idea that physical work environments impact innovation. As Ronald S. Jonash and Tom Sommerlatte state, Innovation networks are the arms, legs, eyes and ears of the next-generation organization. They involve people from different hierarchical levels in your company, each of whom is accountable to contribute a critical capability so that the network as a whole reflects the organizations insight and experience. (Jonash & Sommerlatte, 1999) In short, I propose that an innovation-adjusted physical work place is more a by-product than a cause of a positive climate of innovation.
Innovative climate
As previously discussed in this document, it is the climate of innovation that will be explored here, as opposed to the culture within which innovation may occur. In this context Im positioning climate as a tangible that can be
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intentionally influenced, whereas culture is indicative of core values and closely held beliefs that are more difficult to modify. A 2006 IBM world-wide study of 750 CEOs indicated that the most significant inhibitor to innovation is unsupportive culture and climate (IBM, 2006). In a subsequent customer presentation (IBM, 2007a), a Climate for Innovation3 is defined as, A working environment where inspiration thrives and creativity flourishes. Further specifying that work environment, the authors go on to enumerate the characteristics of the people who comprise that working environment: Intellectual curiosity Scan for trends & risks Accept accountability for results Responsible risk taking Decisive (Acts/reacts with speed) Complex thinking to predict & act Comfortable with ambiguity Creativity skills Innovation in action Critical Thinking Global/broad perspective, short & long term thinking Ability to follow through to completion Conflict resolution & mediation Conviction to challenge boundaries Collaboration skills - developing productive relationships Seeks best solution
The actual IBM presentation uses culture, climate, and culture/climate interchangeably. For consistency, and in keeping with the discussion elsewhere this document regarding climate vs. culture, I will only use the term, climate.
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Act local, think global Intelligent risk taking Proactive decision making Open mindedness Curiosity & inventiveness Mistake tolerance Willingness to learn and grow rapidly Co-operative, collegiate and inclusive Flexible in practices Manages/seeks diverse perspectives Emotional maturity to deal with and manage change
In an effort to define an approach to modifying the innovation climate, the IBM team synthesized the list of characteristics to define six areas of focus for designing an intervention: IBM has identified the organisational4 levers that are most likely to provide the greatest opportunities for successfully driving change towards a more innovative and collaborative culture. Vision, Strategy & Alignment - defining a clear ambition and organisational agenda for innovation. Ensuring that the innovation strategy aligns individual team - organisational and market across a set of innovation values with clear ownership for innovation Leadership (for innovation) - establishing the right blend of leadership styles and mindset that ensures the
The work effort for this concept was performed in the UK; the native spelling of organisation is preserved in the quoted reference.
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organisation is capable of dealing with the inherent tensions associated with innovation and creativity as defined in managing the AND (see slide 47) [This refers to another part of the presentation where Opportunity for innovation AND the Discipline to deliver on that opportunity were posited as necessary for successful innovation]. Collaboration - employing mechanisms that promote collaboration within the organisation and with external participants. Establishing a collaborative mindset and practices that embrace and thrive on diverse perspectives. Use technology to connect formal and informal groups and provide opportunities for individuals to contribute in a creative manner. Diverse constituents - ensuring a richness of team members to encourage diverse perspectives that can drive creativity through tension. Freedom (and opportunity) - Ensure that individuals have the freedom to innovative within a defined framework that provides accessible innovation expertise. Ensure that policies, processes and systems do not inhibit innovation. Engagement - ensure that leaders and employees are engaged through a common vision and values. Provide appropriate incentives, reward and recognition for the contributions that individuals make to the organisations innovation effort.
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Skills and Mindset - Establish an innovation mindset that encourages risk taking, entrepreneurial approach, trust and permission to fail. Ensure people have the skills and capabilities to manage the AND. (pp. 49-50) Vision is integral to the innovative climate in that the ideation process needs to be aligned with the core competencies and strategic execution of the company in order to be invented and instantiated successfully. While innovation may lead to new market areas for the company to pursue, incremental and even disruptive innovative ideas will usually be more readily accomplished within the general boundaries drawn by the strategic vision. Leadership is, of course, the intersecting concept with innovation as a thesis for this monograph. In this context, the authors are looking at management efforts to help maintain the tension that is inherent in trying to be creative, yet focussed on outcomes. As with the vision discussion, keeping ideation aligned with corporate goals while encouraging novel responses to turbulence is a matter for leadership at all levels of the organization. The tenor for how this will be accomplished is usually set by the identified leaders the occupants of the C-suite and their managerial reports. Collaboration is mentioned here in its first iteration in this monograph. It is often overlooked in the literature on innovation, which retains the fantastical notion of the independent inventor from the legends of folk heroes like Thomas Edison and James Watt. The post-modern observation is that innovation occurs in an intensely collaborative environment, where teams are working on their responses to changes in the market not just individuals. While this dynamic certainly makes room for individual contributions, it relies
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on the multiple talents of the entire team to ideate, invent, and instantiate meaningful innovations. This leads to the next point, Diversity. Diversity is a key component for innovation. This tenet has been known and implemented for ages. Innovation during the Renaissance in Europe was, in part, due to the diversity of ideas that erupted from the network of nation-states that developed during the Dark Ages; during this same period in China, the ubiquity of Confucianism may have contributed to a oneness of mind that suppressed the diversity aspect of innovation. While I was at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore as a student and instructor during the 1980s, it was standing policy to never hire its own graduates into tenure track faculty positions, opting for the diversity of new blood from other schools to fill those key positions. These examples acknowledge the role of diversity in innovation. In a proactive way, organizations are encouraged to seek members with a variety of backgrounds, approaches, and opinions to work collaboratively on innovation projects, pulling in the energy of diversity from what Gryskiewicz calls, the fringe (Gryskiewicz, 1999). Freedom to innovate is expressed in both negative and positive ways. From the negative standpoint, when potential innovators are encumbered by organizational constraints say, an overly risk-averse administration that actively punishes failure they will likely not venture attempts to ideate or invent outside the box. This will result in incremental improvements to inflight products and services, but will not generate disruptive ideas that are inherently unproven and take time to mature into revenue producers. Freedom, in this context, would be the suspension or removal of those constraints. From a positive perspective, freedom is the encouragement to experiment, and even to fail as a necessary part of discovering success. In addition, positive freedom engenders a spirit of innovation throughout the
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organization, provides access to human and technological resources to pursue invention and instantiation, and rewards innovative efforts (whether or not the product or service is a commercial success). Thomas Watson, Jr., of IBM had the right approach to risk. He once said, while discussing IBMs competitive challenges, We dont have enough people out there making mistakes. (Hesselbein, Goldsmith, & Beckhard, 1996). Engagement, as used here, entwines vision and leadership. It is the process of aligning innovative thinking with corporate goals, and sets up the processes to reward those whose innovations support those objectives. Skills and mindset represents the iteration of engagement at the individual level as the individual starts to own the capability to innovate and is accountable to corporate goals, with the risk of failure minimized viz., not the level of risk, but potentially negative results of failure. Both of these concepts engagement and skills and mindset are not necessarily exclusive characteristics of an innovative climate, but do contribute to its overall definition. Another IBM effort also subsequent to the 2006 CEO study, and reported in the Institute for Business Values publication, People and Innovation (DeMarco, Lesser, & Smith, 2006) provides perhaps an even more direct approach to the development of an innovative climate in an organization. The authors recommend a two stage process: Setting the stage and Taking
action:
Stage one: Setting the stage for innovation
Paint a picture for your people that provides strategic

context, both giving direction and setting boundaries for innovation.
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Stamp out fear by creating a culture that embraces risk

and eliminates the stigma associated with failure.
Encourage diversity: Value and leverage the ideas

residing within the diverse cadre of your employees.
Stage two: Taking action
Connect the dots within your organization by

understanding and leveraging the informal networks that can improve innovation effectiveness.
Reach outside: Collaborate with external organizations,

including partners and suppliers, and with customers to complement existing competitive advantages, speed up time to market, or spark new insights.
Make ideas visible using a variety of practices designed

to elevate ideas from all corners of the organization.
Motivate for results: Provide incentives and recognize

your peoples innovativeness through programs that carefully complement both the passions that drive employees and a well-crafted organizational vision. (p. 4)
These recommendations are in keeping with those that have been presented elsewhere in this monograph. Painting a picture denotes sharing the vision with potential innovators throughout the organization. Stamp out fear helps to eliminate the risk of failure during ideation and invention. Encourage diversity uses the energy from the edge of turbulence. Connect the dots leverages the processes and networks inherent in the organization to create opportunities for ideation and complete the invention and
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instantiation cycles. Reach outside is the external version of Encourage diversity, to bring in new concepts and ideas from as many sources as possible. Make ideas visible is an effort to reach pervasively across the organization to encourage innovation in all aspects of the corporate work. And, finally, Providing incentives demonstrates appreciation to innovators for their efforts. Several strong themes have been developed in this discussion of innovation. To create a successful innovation climate, the concepts of organizational vision, tolerance of risk, incorporating energy from the various aspects of turbulence, and rewarding and efficient processes must all be in place and functioning well. These functions have traditionally fallen to the named leadership of the organization management. In the subsequent section on Leadership, the case will be made for the integration of leaderly behaviour into all levels of the organization to promote a pervasively innovative climate.
Operational Definition
For the purpose of discussion in relation to Innovation Leadership, innovation is defined as the appreciative adaptation to turbulence. What does that mean?
Appreciative
As previously mentioned, the notion of Appreciative Inquiry comes from the work of Cooperrider and others (Cooperrider, 1986; Hammond, 1998). While this is yet another important aspect in the development towards a climate of innovation in that individuals need to define and focus on positive, goaloriented objectives it is somewhat limited as a universal component of pervasive innovation. That is, the inherent supposition in Appreciative Inquiry (identifying and replicating successful prior behaviors) does not
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accommodate the creative visioning process that is needed to create and sustain a climate of innovation. My mentor and colleague, Bill Bergquist refers to the three common uses of the term appreciation: We appreciate other people through attempting to understand them. We also appreciate other people through valuing them and often seeing them in a new light. A third way of appreciating another person is by being thoughtful and considerate in acknowledging their contributions to the organization. He goes on to describe the ways in which the common understanding of appreciation has been extended to application in organizations: The term appreciation is now being used with regard to not only individuals but also organizational settings, and have [sic] become more closely aligned with shifts in organizational attitude. There are three ways in which the attitude of appreciation is exhibited in an organization. An organization is considered to be appreciative if one finds a positive image of the future within an organization, especially if this image infuses strategic planning in the organization with meaning and purpose. The organization is also appreciative if a concerted effort is being made to recognize the distinct strengths and potentials of people working within the organization. Finally, an organization is appreciative if its employees consistently value and seek to establish cooperative relationships and recognize the mutual benefits that can be derived from this cooperation. (Bergquist, 2003) The transition of appreciation from an interpersonal to an organizational process is indeed important in the development of a post-modern company. Without an appreciation for the individual worker as the essential organizational component, the organization will fall into modern or premodern leadership practices, obviating any sense of pervasive innovation.
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Adaptation
In practice, it means that the adaptation is not a knee-jerk reaction of retreating to old habits in the face of change, but that change and its variations known as turbulence (Bergquist & Mura, 2005) is embraced as a factor and motivator in the innovative process, leading to pro-active plans for its repercussions. As Peter Drucker has iterated over the last few decades (and others have echoed and elaborated), post-modern businesses are based on an information economy, especially in the United States and the Western world (Drucker, 1985, 1994, 2003; Leadbeater, 2000). Where once the produce of the land - and then the products of invention - governed the revenue generation of the economy, new product concepts (manufactured elsewhere) and new services ideas are now at the forefront of economic growth. Even computer software one of the hallmark products of the information economy is often conceived and designed for specific customer requirements in the U.S. and then coded to completion by programmers in China, India, Eastern Europe, and states of the former Soviet Union (Friedman, 2005). In an information economy, ideas rule. As Charles Leadbeater observes, Knowledge capitalism is the drive to generate new ideas and commercialize them. This process of creating, disseminating and exploiting new knowledge is the dynamo behind rising living standards and economic growth. Collaboration is the driving force behind the creativity reflected in knowledge capitalism. (Leadbeater, 2000) Being able to generate these ideas is a defining aspect of innovation. In my operating definition of innovation, the ability to adapt to turbulence in the market is significant.
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Turbulence
J. Peter Duncan uses the concept of turbulence to describe the possible responses to the changing needs of the market (Duncan, 2004): Everyday your rivals try to offer something better that will attract more customers to their services or products. Everyday you try to hold them off. You hope your offerings are better, but that can only last so long. Eventually competitors can find a way to surpass your current offerings unless you innovate and further raise the challenges they must overcome. It's a Darwinian game where the victors are allowed to continue on to innovate again and move their industries forward. For the losers, irrelevance, obsolescence and ultimately business failure is all too common a fate. If you were to examine the Fortune 500 list from 1955 (the first year it was published) there would be some companies that you would recognize, but many more (well over 25% of the list) that went the way of the dinosaurs and became extinct, dying of changes in their environment or being gobbled up by more aggressive carnivores. This is frequently the fate of the largest organizations in the business world, and the challenge for survival is even greater for the small and midsized companies. To survive, a company must be aware of its environment and alert to change. Change - it is everywhere. It is the current of business, sweeping over all like a flooding river. When it rages, it is frightening: bumping, bruising and even drowning those with its power. When it is calm, change is tolerable, and we build structures - systems, models and policies - that try to control and resist it. If we get a good thing going, instinct tells us to lock in the gains - to keep doing more of the same to capitalize on our success. But it is a fine line between capitalizing on success, and getting stuck in a rut while clinging to a dream of a past when business was easier. But there are companies that get tired of clinging and embrace change. They prefer the adventure of moving with the current of business over clinging and dying of boredom. Letting go, they embark on a voyage into an unknown future where they are often tumbled and smashed into unknown obstacles. For some it is too much and they stop and cling again. But for those who refuse to hold on, they soar with the currents appearing to magically fly above those who try to resist the current of change. (pp. 8-9)
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In this bold narrative, Duncan infers the various subsystems that are described by Bill Bergquist and Agnes Mura (referenced in the earlier description of turbulence in this document). In turbulence, there are rapids, whirlpools, places of calm, and the edges among them. As organizations and the individuals comprising them navigate the turbulence, they may choose to attempt to exert control over the market forces; or, as Duncan suggests, they might go with the flow and ride the currents of energy. In this way, he implies, companies can respond (adapt) to the varying rates of change (turbulence) by successfully generating new products and services that are in keeping with the changing market. Whitewater rafting, though, is inherently risky. Part of the adrenalin rush from the experience, I imagine, is due to recognizing that risk, embracing it, and successfully maneuvering and living through it. While I am sure that the professional whitewater tour guides take every precaution to ensure against major injury, it still happens. Similarly, letting go and riding the market rapids is not a job for the risk-averse among us. Standing securely on the shoreline or staying in the calmer side channels would be much safer but also much less rewarding. Innovation is a risky business. That is, an innovative organization must be willing to tolerate a certain level of failure along with success. Those who attempt to mitigate against failure from the outset viz., a zero tolerance policy will set up a situation which punishes anything but staying within a pre-defined safe zone of incremental improvements to the status quo, and precludes the opportunity of a breakthrough product or service. So, why should turbulence be embraced instead of simply resisting it? As Stanley Gryskiewicz expounds on the positive influences of turbulence on an organization that embraces it:
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Positive Turbulence is a paradoxical process: you invite an energizing, disparate, invigorating, unpredictable force into your organization so that you can use its chaotic energy and direct it toward continuous renewal. You create an environment that upsets the status quo and impels people toward change. (p. 21) Although this statement employs circular reasoning, by definition, turbulence
is a state of change; so, inviting change to impel change is really selfdefining. Gryskiewicz goes on to clarify the relationship between turbulence and innovation by stating, When different ideas are brought into an organization or new information is presented, there could be as many different ways of viewing it as there are individuals looking at it. Then again, there could be just one way - the company way, the way such ideas and information have always been viewed, a way not likely to uncover new directions or new processes needed for renewal. The many ways of viewing the ideas may well lead to renewal because the more possible viewpoints there are, the greater the likelihood is that one will lead to the appropriate interpretation on which people can act in positive new ways. The reason that multiple perspectives are so critical is that Positive Turbulence depends on making sense of new and different information that by its nature is not fully clear. It is by taking the low-frequency, low-amplitude, static-filled signals from the periphery, examining them from different angles, and interpreting them in fresh ways that we are able to amplify them into something useful. It enables us to see solutions in a different light, act in unanticipated ways, and uncover new possibilities. (p. 24) In this way, turbulence spawns innovation by offering new perspectives. Turbulence gathers viewpoints and ideas from the periphery and deep beneath the surface places where the central stream may not travel and introduces them to the main organization. In this way, new answers to business needs can be explored and developed. For instance, the turbulence caused by the fragmentation of identifiably large market segments into micro
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and individual markets has carried the needs of the consumer directly to manufacturing, where a connection had not previously existed (von Hippel, 2006). Gryskiewicz emphasizes this relationship by observing: Inviting multiple perspectives is a central part of organizational change. It is the way that forward-thinking leaders can gently coax (or violently wrench, if that is what is needed) their organization out of its traditional perspective. The sparks that come about when old frameworks scrape against new perspectives ignite creativity. (p. 27) In this analogy, it is actually the dynamic intersection of new ideas that not only produce a single new idea, but also generates a cascade of new approaches for decision making and problem solving throughout the organization. He concludes this line of thinking by charging identified leadership with the responsibility to introduce Positive Turbulence, in the same fashion that other executive decisions are imposed. Business leaders can impose a reorganization on a company. They can impose a dress code. They can also impose Positive Turbulence, but unless they have taken care to develop receptivity to this process, it runs the risk of failure. If employees do not learn to value and use Positive Turbulence, all that energy will just dissipate or, worse, cause disarray. Receptivity to anything is in large degree a function of one's sensitivities and sensibilities, so the different styles that individuals have impinge on how they adapt to and work with Positive Turbulence. People may differ in their style of defining a problem and finding creative solutions to it, in their reaction to uncertainty and ambiguity - some are motivated to reduce ambiguity, while others tolerate and even enjoy entertaining itand in their ways of thinking - whether they take a linear or nonlinear approach. Sensitivities and sensibilities, personality and proclivities, are factors that can affect receptivity to Positive Turbulence. It is important to value differences for effective utilization of the
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knowledge coming in from the periphery while maintaining ongoing operations. (p. 31) While I am not an advocate of the command and control structure implied by Gryskiewicz call for imposing Positive Turbulence, it is important to note that leadership can set the tone for the interpretation of turbulence positively or negatively and how the organization will respond. In fact, Gryskiewicz distinction between positive and negative turbulence has nothing to do with the inherently neutral essence of the turbulence itself, but the attitude with which it is encountered by the leaders in the organization. From this perspective, a positive attitude towards turbulence will yield positive (efficient, profitable) responses. It is important to note that, typical of most authors approaches to the concept of turbulence, both Duncans and Gryskiewicz concepts refer only to the first of Bergquist and Muras subsystems of turbulence the rapid flow. What of the other three subsystems (the whirlpool, the quiet pool, and the boundaries between)? What is the relationship of these types of turbulence to innovation? Within whirlpools, drag is created by solid objects in the path of the flowing stream (see figure, below). As the faster moving part of the stream begins to curve to accommodate the drag (1), it circles back on itself (2), picking up renewing energy from the flow and creating a whirlpool behind the stationary object (3).
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Figure 5: Formation of a whirlpool
In this physical whirlpool of water and rocks, the outer edge (where there is renewed energy) moves faster than the center (the location of the most significant resistance). In a typical mountain river, there are numerous obstacles, creating large and small whirlpools. This is true in organizations. Whirlpools are the places in the stream where innovations are likely needed. Assume, for the sake of this analogy, that the flow is the pace of some segment of the market. A relatively small obstacle to one organizations ability to keep pace with the market may be a particular feature that makes one of their products less desirable to the adopters. An incremental improvement in the product may likely remove that obstacle, reducing the drag, and enabling the organization at that particular point in the stream to maintain pace with the market. However, a larger obstacle downstream may be a manufacturing process that is inhibiting responsive adaptations to changes in the market; this will likely require a more significant, disruptive form of innovation to rework the companys approach to manufacturing, or
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possibly necessitating a switch to a completely different product line or other source of revenue. With respect to Bergquist and Muras quiet pools, these are areas where the physical stream collects and processes organic debris5. This process serves as a metaphor for the functions of rest, recreation, and reflection in an organization. These activities are often interpreted as being unproductive uses of time, in that they do not fit into the typical flow of work effort that results in revenue-producing output. However, it is certainly my own experience as an Executive Coach and observer of organizational process as well as the anecdotal reports of my peers that these quiet and refreshing times are necessary to the ideation segment of innovation. This is an area of interest that warrants further research. Finally, Bergquist and Mura describe the intersection points of rapid flows, whirlpools, and quiet pools as a subsystem of turbulence. As described earlier in this document, I view intersection points as inherently contributive to innovation. They are where business as usual encounters something novel, where new possibilities are conceived and tested. As Everett Rogers et al described the effect of complex systems on the diffusion of innovations, Diffusion occurs most often in heterogeneous zones, i.e., transitional spaces where sufficient differentiation among network members comes to obtain. Such heterogeneous network connections, which comprise the innovation-diffusion system, occur among innovators and other engaged members of target populations who, in Rogerss original formulation, are called cosmopolites. Cosmopolites are locally networked system members with heterogeneous weak ties to outside systems. (Rogers, Medina, Rivera, & Wiley, 2005)
Even though this almost sounds like the river has intent, I do not mean to imply that there is an active intelligence inherent in the process. The discussion of that possibility and divine design is subject matter for a different venue.
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Indeed, the intersection of static, dynamic, and chaotic flows of organizational energy and their impact on innovation is also an area of immense interest that requires further study.
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Chapter 4: Leadership
What is leadership?
Perhaps, as Robert Greenleaf espouses (Greenleaf, 1998), Part of my excitement in living comes from the belief that leadership is so dependent on spirit that the essence of it will never be capsulated or codified (p. 112). That has not kept a legion of pundits from trying. Prefacing the work of the MIT Developmental Leadership Model (http://sloanleadership.mit.edu/r-dlm.php), Deborah Ancona captures an essence of the contemporary attitude towards defining leadership (Ancona, 2005): The Romans wondered whether force or inspiration was more effective as a motivator. Our own culture glorifies the charismatic while preaching participation. Interest in this question has only intensified as we watch a new world order unfold in the aftermath of September 11th, and as we are bombarded with images of corporate corruption and attempts at reform. We all hunger to know what leadership is, yet the concept remains amorphous. The history of leadership theory started with an emphasis on traits the notion that it is the make-up of the leader that makes all the difference. This approach dominated research up to the late 1940s. Current research suggests that our admired leaders today are honest, inspiring, self-confident, and adaptive. But traits do not always predict leadership effectiveness, and so researchers have shifted to look at the behavior or style of the leader. (p. 1) There is an ongoing tension between the erudite camps of those who believe that leadership can be defined by delineating the personality characteristics of leaders, and those who think that leadership is more a matter of dynamic roles, behaviors, and attitudes. In my analysis, one differentiator of these schools of thought has emerged: the character contingent describes (and
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encourages emulation of) modern leaders, while the faction favoring eclectic roles and behaviors connote postmodern leadership principles.
Modern view of leadership

In his 1935 tome, The Art of Leadership, Ordway Tead offered this definition: Leadership is the activity of influencing people to cooperate toward some goal which they come to find desirable (Tead, 1935). This attitude pervades the modern view of leadership that it is the leaders responsibility to come up with a brilliant idea and then convince everyone to execute on it. Indeed, about the only distinction between premodern and modern leadership, in this regard, is the source of authority to encumber followers to fulfill the plan; for premodern leaders, it is the invocation of a higher power, for modern leaders it is the invocation of the scientific method and the well-designed pro forma.
Heralding the leader

In the modern view, leadership is tautologically defined in terms of the behavior and characteristics of identified leaders (Gabel, 2001). Much of the literature supports this notion, in that it encourages learning about leadership by reviewing the activities and opinions of CEOs and other corporate role models who have been successful, as typically measured in financial terms. Mike Freedman and Benjamin Tregoe define the CEOs responsibilities: In the 21st Century it is more critical than ever that CEOs provide clear strategic leadership. In the ever-changing business landscape leaders must master both the art of strategy creation and formulation and the discipline of strategy implementation and review the Kepner-Tregoe five-phase model for strategy formulation and implementation [will] show how your company can develop a strategic vision and action plan, communicate the vision, implement it, and monitor it to ensure ongoing success. (Freedman & Tregoe, 2003)
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This role definition is the essence of modern leadership: define, communicate (convince), implement, and measure. Each of these activities can be planned and measured, befitting the modern organization. Classically-trained MBAs thrive in this environment, given their inculcation of the tools to plan objectives and measure results, as is profusely explained in Henry Mintzbergs critique of traditional MBA programs (Mintzberg, 2004). The leadership literature overruns with examples of calling out the characteristics of leaders that support this modern approach. David Dotlich
et al submit their addition in Head, Heart and Guts: How the world's best companies develop complete leaders (Dotlich, Cairo, & Rhinesmith, 2006).
Gary Hoover (founder of Hoovers Inc.) analyzes the characteristics from several key leaders and adds his own observations: Great businesses succeed because of their leaders ability to see things that others do not see. These leaders ask questions that others do not ask, then chart their own course, combining insights and strategies into the blueprint for a uniquely focused enterprise. Weve seen this leadership in entrepreneurs like Sam Walton, Michael Dell and others who do not follow a formula, yet find a way to succeed. They listen to their customers and, most importantly, they follow their own visions of success. (Hoover, 2001) Jack Welch, former GE CEO, adds his contribution in Jack: Straight from the
gut (Welch & Byrne, 2002). It is not a coincidence that internal organs are
mentioned so frequently in this body of literature a pervasive opinion is that leadership originates within an individual, and that it requires singular strength and courage to execute on ones vision despite the many obstacles to its fulfillment (including ones employees). Remember that we are still operating, in the modern frame, under McGregors Theory X, which states that employees need coercion to comply with corporate objectives.
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Leadership does not always have to be boisterous and full of obvious bravado, but must be executed with political aplomb (Badaracco, 2001). Furthermore, as Theodore Kinni and Donna Kinni illuminate in No Substitute
for Victory: Lessons in strategy and leadership from General Douglas MacArthur, leadership is often very public, and involves unerring commitment
to stated goals (Kinni & Kinni, 2005). Warren Bennis goes to great lengths to document what he has observed as primary characteristics of modern leadership from his hundreds of interviews with named corporate and government leaders (Bennis, 1999). Similarly, Peter Krass has set out to offer the wisdom of key leaders in his work (Krass, 1998). Common to these authors are the concepts of integrity, courage, honesty, morality, intelligence, and other characteristics that are seen as positive and upright throughout modern Western culture; these are exemplified and magnified in the leaders very public role. Despite the corporate shenanigans at Enron and other similar occurrences (or perhaps
because of them), these characteristics are necessarily amplified in the

named leadership in order for them to maintain the trust and moral turpitude to legitimately call for execution on their vision. From that larger than life perspective, Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal enumerate their list of characteristics by classifying them as traits of either
Wizard or Warrior (Bolman & Deal, 2006). Lou Gerstner, former IBM CEO,
focuses on passion and visibility as key characteristics of the successful leader (Gerstner, 2002). Warren Buffets approach logically follows models for financial growth (O'Loughlin, 2003).
Maintaining the hierarchy

Steven Sample, University of Southern California President, electrical engineer, musician, professor, and inventor describes a modified set of
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characteristics that border on postmodern roles and approaches (thinking in the gray areas between black and white aspects of issues, thinking free, artful listening, and gathering input from the fringe); however, he urges maintaining the hierarchy and executing these behaviors only with ones lieutenants (Sample, 2002). Similarly, Saj-nicole Joni encourages looking outside to improve the diversity of the pool of possible ideas for a leader to consider, but confines this activity to an inner circle of confidants (Joni, 2004). Sample introduces another definitively modern theme: the reliance on the hierarchy of the organization itself to provide an efficient vehicle for execution of the leaders vision. Paul Dolan, CEO of environmentally-conscientious Fetzer Winery, encourages the relationship between the leader and the systems of the organization and the surrounding community (Dolan & Elkjer, 2003), and Calhoun Wick et al describe the impact on the bottom line when employees are properly trained and retained in the company (Wick, Pollock, Jefferson, & Flanagan, 2006). Jim Collins urges leaders to clear the boards of employees who are not compliant with the corporate vision, only allowing those who want to sign up for the ride to be on the bus (Collins, 2001). This emphasis on the people in the organization forays into postmodernism, but there continues to be an element of viewing the employees as assets (especially in Collins and in Wick), rather than colleagues in the business (though that attitude is more prevalent in Dolan).
Towards an integrative theory of leadership

For a thorough review of various modern approaches to leadership, see Martin Chemers An Integrative Theory of Leadership. Chemers own synthesis of these various and often contradictory viewpoints concludes with these postmodern-leaning recommendations (Chemers, 1997):
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Effective leaders must accomplish three functions: Leaders must project an image of competence and trustworthiness. They accomplish that projection by matching their behavior to commonly held prototypes. Leaders must establish a relationship with followers that guides, develops, and inspires them to make meaningful contributions to group goals and the organizational mission. Such relationships must match the needs and expectations of followers, which leaders discern through nondefensive judgments. Leaders must mobilize and deploy the collective resources of self and team to the organizational mission by matching operational strategy to the characteristics of the environment. (pp. 172-3)
Postmodern view of leadership

Stephen Covey, among others, has criticized the way in which leadership has played out through modern times, and questions its validity as a paradigm for the 21st century organization (Covey, 2004): Our basic management practices come from the Industrial Age. These include: The belief that you must control people; Our view of accounting (People are an expense; machines are assets.); The carrot-and-stick motivational philosophy; and Centralized budgeting, which creates hierarchies and bureaucracies to drive getting the numbers a reactive process that produces kiss-up cultures bent on spending so we wont lose it next year.
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As people consent to be controlled like things, their passivity only fuels leaders urge to direct and manage. Theres a simple connection between the controlling, Industrial Age, thing paradigm that dominates todays workplace and the inability of managers and organizations to inspire peoples best contributions in the Knowledge Worker Age: People choose how
much of themselves to give to their work, depending on how theyre treated. Their choices may range from rebelling or
quitting (if theyre treated as things), to creative excitement (if theyre treated as whole people). [On the other hand] Greatness involves transcending the negative cultural software of ego, scarcity, comparison and competitiveness, and choosing to become the creative force in your life. Recent theory regarding the nature of leadership has progressively bridged toward postmodernism. Frances Hesselbein et al, in their 1996 The Leader of
the Future, intone the thoughts of Peter Drucker when they suggest that
there is no particular leadership personality, no set of characteristics innate or learned that define superior leadership. They report that it is the behavior, attitudes, and roles of the leaders wherein exemplary leadership emerges. In support of this premise, they cite Coveys Three Leader Roles: pathfinding, aligning, and empowering (Hesselbein, Goldsmith, & Beckhard, 1996). In the 10-year update on The Leader of the Future, (Hesselbein & Goldsmith, 2006), one of the co-authors, Marshall Goldsmith offers that: It is important to reverse the pyramid and look at leadership from the perspective of the wants and needs of the professional, as opposed to the perspective of the skills of the leader. Encourage their passion. Enhance their ability. Value their time. Build their network. Support their dreams.
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Expand their contribution.
Leaders will need to go beyond looking at the work to be done and consider the human doing the work. This thinking represents a significant shift away from the modern concept of nominal leader as all mighty (or the premodern notion that the leader represents the Almighty) and acknowledges the worker as the source of productivity and, by inference, innovation. Leadership becomes a role that is assumed by any one at any time, depending on the needs of the moment. Hesslebein again quotes Covey: Leadership in the Knowledge Worker Age will be characterized by those who find their own voice and who, regardless of formal positions, inspire others to find their voice (Hesselbein & Goldsmith, 2006). Throughout the literature over the past decade regarding leadership, key trends have emerged in this shift towards postmodernism: An appreciation of employees as colleagues and collaborators. Empowerment through processes and rewards for successful management of the innovation process. Flattening of the organizational hierarchy, especially with respect to accountability and responsibility for activities within the employees defined role. Servant leadership. Postmodern decision making; that is, the rapid response to changes in the market driven by enabling leadership throughout the organization. Appreciation of all members of the organization Laurence Ackerman describes the benefit of valuing individuals in the organization (Ackerman, 2000). In his model the Laws of Identity actually
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generate value for the organization, both as a source of customer revenue as well as of internal energy that supports functionality and stability of the company itself: The Laws of Identity can light the path to greater value creation. The Law of Being. Any organization composed of one or more human beings is alive in its own right, exhibiting the distinct capacities of the individuals who make up that organization. The Law of Individuality. An organizations human capacities invariably fuse into a discernible identity that makes that organization unique. The Law of Constancy. Identity is fixed, transcending time and place, while its manifestations are constantly changing. The Law of Will. Every organization is compelled by the need to create value in accordance with its identity. The Law of Possibility. Identity foreshadows potential. The Law of Relationship. Organizations are inherently relational, and those relationships are only as strong as the natural alignment between the identities of the participants. The Law of Comprehension. The individual capacities of the organization are only as valuable as the perceived value of the whole of that organization. The Law of the Cycle. Identity governs value, which produces wealth, which fuels identity.
From a systems perspective, Patrick Lencioni criticizes the fallacy that simply matricizing an organization will necessarily contribute to a positive climate of innovation: Matrix organizations are forums for confusion and conflict. They have certainly not contributed to the breakdown of silos; theyve merely added an element of schizophrenia and cognitive dissonance for employees who are unlucky enough to report into two different silos... The real problem with matrices is that
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they put employees in difficult situations by asking them to please two leaders who are not aligned with one another. By achieving clarity about the number one priority in an organization, and by clearly identifying the defining and standard operating objectives that contribute to it, an employee will have far less reason to fear being pulled apart at the seams. (Lencioni, 2006) Lencioni posits that alignment with organizational goals will achieve more along these lines than maintaining managerial enforcement of task-related behaviors. Empowerment David Sirota et al fuel this discussion with the notion that employees are more than functionaries in particular roles; they can be called on to support the overall goals of the organization by providing skills and knowledge that exceed the well-defined parameters of their job descriptions. The empowerment to traverse those boundaries is what they term Participative leadership. Participative leadership is an active style that stimulates involvement. In an effective, participative organization, no one is in doubt as to who is in charge. But that person expects employees to think, to exercise creative judgment, and not just do. That is the environment in which impediments can be removed and in which employee enthusiasm can flourish. (Sirota, Mischkind, & Meltzer, 2005) Sirota goes on to define which goals (when successfully met) contribute to a competent, participative organization. They call this The Three Factor Theory of Human Motivation in the Workplace: There are three primary sets of goals of people at work: equity, achievement and camaraderie. This Three Factor Theory of Human Motivation in the Workplace maintains that: 1. These three sets of goals are what the overwhelming majority of workers want.
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2. No other goals are nearly as important for the vast majority of workers. 3. These goals havent changed over time and cut across cultures. 4. When your organization works to achieve these goals, the result will be high work-force morale and firm performance. Ken Blanchard, whos gifted the corporate world with his One Minute Manager titles since 1982, took an in-depth look at leadership (Blanchard, 2007), and came up with some decidedly postmodern observations: Empowerment Is the Key How do the best-run companies in the world beat out the competition day in and day out? They treat their customers right. They do that by having a work force that is excited about their vision and motivated to serve customers at a higher level. So how do you create this motivated work force? The key is empowerment. Empowerment means letting people bring their brains to work and allowing them to use their knowledge, experience and motivation to create a healthy triple bottom line. Leaders of the best-run companies know that empowering people creates positive results that are just not possible when all the authority moves up the hierarchy and managers shoulder all the responsibility for success. Researcher Edward Lawler found that when people are given more control and responsibility, their companies achieve a greater return on sales than companies that do not involve their people. Scholar Thomas Malone believes that empowerment is essential for companies that hope to succeed in the new knowledge-based economy. Blanchard continues by proposing a methodology for empowering employees, which he calls The Three Keys to Empowerment: To guide the transition to a culture of empowerment, leaders must use three keys: 1. Sharing Information. One of the best ways to build a sense of trust and responsibility in people is by sharing information. Giving team members the information they need enables them to make good business decisions. High performing organizations continually look for ways
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to incorporate knowledge into new ways of doing business. 2. Declaring the Boundaries. In a hierarchical culture, boundaries are really like barbed-wire fences. They are designed to control people by keeping them in certain places and out of other places. In an empowered culture, boundaries are more like rubber bands that can expand to allow people to take on more responsibility as they grow and develop. 3. Replacing the Old Hierarchy with Self-Directed Individuals and Teams. As people learn to create autonomy by using newly shared information and boundaries, they must move away from dependence on the hierarchy. Self-directed individuals and Next Level teams highly skilled, interactive groups with strong self-managing skills replace the clarity and support of the hierarchy. In this model, authority clearly shifts from management to worker. Accountability and responsibility for decisions are anticipated to be owned by this well-informed, empowered staff. By doing so, the capacity to innovate accelerates. Blanchard terms the approach that named leaders take to achieve this level of empowerment, Situational Leadership: Situational Leadership: The Integrating Concept If empowerment is the key to treating people the right way and motivating them to treat your customers right, having a strategy to shift the emphasis from leader as boss and evaluator to leader as partner and cheerleader is imperative. Is the direct report new and inexperienced about the task at hand? Then more guidance and direction are called for. Is the direct report experienced and skilled? That person requires less hands-on supervision. All of us are at different levels of development depending on the task we are working on at a particular time. To bring out the best in others, leadership must match the development level of the person being led. Giving people too much or too little direction has a negative impact on peoples development. Situational leadership is based on the belief that people can and want to develop, and there is no best leadership style to
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encourage that development. You should tailor leadership style to the situation. Further, Blanchard suggests four styles of leadership: directing, coaching, supporting and delegating, which correspond with what he proposes as the four basic development levels of employees: enthusiastic beginner, disillusioned learner, capable but cautious performer and self-reliant achiever. Enthusiastic beginners need a directing style, disillusioned learners need a coaching style, capable but cautious performers need a supporting style and self-reliant achievers need a delegating style. Blanchard goes on to suggest that Self Leadership is a function that can be taught to all members of the organization. By doing so, aligning decisions with corporate goals becomes a pervasive responsibility. Self Leadership: The Power behind Empowerment Managers must learn to let go of command-and-control leadership styles, because soon they will have no choice. In the 1980s, a manager typically supervised five people in other words, the span of control was one manager to five direct reports. Today, companies have more mean-and-lean organizational structures, where spans of control have increased considerably. Now it is common to find one manager for 25 to 75 direct reports. Add to that the emergence of virtual organizations where managers are being asked to supervise people they seldom, if ever, meet face to face and we have an entirely different work landscape emerging. The truth is that most bosses today can no longer play the traditional role of telling people what, when and how to do everything. More than ever before, companies today are relying on empowered individuals to get the job done. Blanchard concludes by declaring that developing Self Leaders positively impacts the bottom line, proposing that the three skills of the Self Leader are: 1) Challenge Assumed Constraints; 2) Celebrate Points of Power (position power, personal power, task power, knowledge power, and relationship power); and 3) Collaborate for Success. Relating Blanchards Self Leader
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skills to the concepts discussed throughout this monograph: Challenging Constraints equates to creative thinking outside the box; Celebrating Power is an acknowledgement of empowerment, responsibility, and accountability; and Collaboration leverages the diversity of thought and skills in any organization. Blanchards notions are underlined by Stephen Covey (Greenleaf, 2002) when he says, "In order to get the kind of trust in a culture that enables an empowerment approach to thrive, we must not only have individuals who are trustworthy and whose vision is shared with the organization, but we must have a trustworthy organization one that fosters and supports empowerment. Again, unless systems and structures that foster empowerment are institutionalized, there will be no reinforcement." (p. 3) In that same vein of empowering employees to greatness, John Sosik suggests an approach he calls Transformational Leadership (Sosik, 2006). He states that, Transformational leaders act in ways that turn followers into leaders. By empowering their followers, they build excitement around an appealing vision that creates performance excellence in challenging economic and political times. Sosik proposes that there are four behaviors inherent in Transformational Leadership that he calls, The Four Is: Idealized Influence: Leaders display pro-social and positive behaviors to model organizational values such as high levels of ethical and performance standards. Inspirational Motivation: Leaders use this behavior to energize their followers to do more than is expected. Intellectual Stimulation: Leaders use this quality to get followers and constituents to re-examine assumptions, seek different perspectives, look at problems in new ways and encourage nontraditional thinking.
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Individual Consideration: Leaders use this behavior with their followers to recognize their unique potential to develop into leaders themselves. These leader behaviors also map well to the concepts already discussed, in that they serve to transfer knowledge, skills, and accountability from traditional (modern) management to the employees, who have the responsibility for innovating at the point of contact with the customers. Of course, the shadow side of empowerment is the element of risk the further down the management chain the responsibility is pushed, the less centralized and less controllable the inherent risk in innovation becomes. One of the functions of named leaders, then, is to manage the impact of this risk on the valuation of the company. Constant communication on the status and goals of the organization will help maintain the alignment of worker efforts including innovation with those objectives. However, another important leaderly function is to help insulate the employees from chronic anxiety over risk, assuring a proscribed level of tolerance for failure. As Frances Hesselbein et al quoted IBMs Thomas Watson, Jr. (Hesselbein, Goldsmith, & Beckhard, 1996), the postmodern leaders attitude when recognizing opportunity for growth might be, We dont have enough people out there making mistakes. Flattening the hierarchy No discussion of employee empowerment and high functioning environments would be complete without exploring from the perspective of Emotional Intelligence. Daniel Goleman et al speculate that: The best, most effective leaders act according to one or more of six distinct approaches to leadership. Four of the styles visionary, coaching, affiliative and democratic create the kind of resonance that boosts performance. The other two pacesetting and commanding should be applied with caution. (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2002)
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These approaches - especially affiliative and democratic are compliant with the developing notion of innovation leadership, generating the kind of environment in which ideation and invention can occur. Other leader and authors echo this empowerment and creativity theme. Randall Tobias and Todd Tobias opine regarding leadership: Leadership is about far more than producing results through ones own initiative its about producing results through others. Leadership is as much about listening, about building relationships, about providing encouragement when its needed, as it is about communicating ones own ideas. Leaders almost always think out of the box. They listen, observe, share ideas and shamelessly borrow from the experiences of others. (Tobias & Tobias, 2003) Roger Martin calls this infusion of empowerment and the associated accountability to all levels in the organization, The Responsibility Virus. He claims that it is the responsibility of named leaders to spread the virus through inspirational infection: Two of the most cherished leaders of the 20th century, Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy, are revered for asking their followers to take responsibility even more than they are revered for taking it on themselves. Churchill, promising blood, sweat and tears, exhorted his country to hold firm and not give up during the darkest days of the Battle of Britain. Let us brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for 1,000 years, men will still say: this was their finest hour. Kennedys most memorable line was not a call for the government to take more responsibility. Rather, it was the admonition, Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. In both cases, the call for greater responsibility on the part of the followers created a closer bond between the leader and his constituency, as well as a collective heightening of capabilities, resourcefulness and engagement in the task at hand. Churchill and Kennedy are both guaranteed their place in the pantheon of great leaders.
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Servant leadership As early as 1970, at least one voice began to question the role of the modern leader. Robert Greenleaf led off his bellwether volume, Servant Leadership (Greenleaf, 2002), by asking, Servant and leader can these two roles be fused in one real person, in all levels of status or calling? If so, can that person live and be productive in the real world of the present? My sense of the present leads me to say yes to both questions. (p. 21 in the 25th Anniversary Edition) Greenleaf continues by referencing the Hermann Hesses novel, Journey to
the East, in which a group on a mystical journey is confused by the duality of

a main character, Leo, who at first is presented as servant and then again later as leader. Leo suffers no schizophrenia, in that he is, at his core, a servant, and the ultimate service he can perform with his tribe is as its leader. But the modern travelers are mystified how someone in such an elevated role can be so inherently servile. In a 1998 sequel to Servant Leadership, Greenleaf intones the greater good that would be brought about by universal iteration of servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1998): "I believe that caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is what makes a good society. Most caring was once person to person. Now much of it is mediated through institutions - often large, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built., one more just and more caring and providing opportunity for people to grow, the most effective and economical way while supportive of the social order, is to raise the performance as servant of as many institutions as possible by new voluntary regenerative forces initiated within them by committed individuals: servants." (p.17)
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Greenleafs admonition encourages a leap into postmodernism for organizations. The idea that a major (if not sole) function of business institutions is to serve as a conduit for social development is a progressive concept. While we all acknowledge that, to one degree or another, we engage in social relationships at work, and that those interactions both reflect and contribute to the formation of our personalities and our lives in general, we often attempt to segregate our work lives from out home lives, as if we are different people in those different settings. We even try to reach a balance between work and life, as if each were an entity that could be equally weighted over some ideal fulcrum. As Paul Baffes suggests (Baffes, 2005), achieving a state of balance is an illusion it is the activity of moving agilely between different environments that provides a sense of fulfillment in all of them, while maintaining a secure, core self. The frustration in not sustaining a centered self results in what Robert Kegan calls, multiphrenia, an anxiety producing condition of trying to respond distinctively to the variety of cultural demands of who we are to be across the constantly shifting circumstances of everyday life in the 21st century (Kegan, 1994). In a foreword to the 25th Anniversary Edition of Greenleafs Servant
Leadership (Greenleaf, 2002), Stephen Covey offers a postmodern

perspective on how servant leadership has reached a level of value in todays corporate environment: "I love this statement made by Stan Davis, 'When the infrastructure shifts, everything rumbles.' Well, everything is rumbling because the old rules of traditional, hierarchical, highexternal-control, top-down management are being dismantled: they simply aren't working any longer. They are being replaced by a new form of 'control' that the chaos theory proponents call the 'strange attractor' - a sense of vision that people are drawn to, and united in, that enables them to be driven by motivation inside them toward achieving a common purpose. This has
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changed the role of manager from one who drives results and motivation from the outside in, to one who is a servant-leader one who seeks to draw out, inspire, and develop the best and highest within people from the inside out. The leader does this by engaging the entire team or organization in a process that creates a shared vision, which inspires each person to stretch and reach deeper within himself or herself, and to use everyone's unique talents in whatever way is necessary to independently achieve that shared vision." (p. 3) Coveys 8th Habit (of highly effective people) is Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs (Covey, 2004). This is a clarion call for leaders to abandon the notion of totalitarian authority and be servants first. It requires not only awareness of self but empathy for others, to help them discover their own special abilities their voices. This is no easy task. Charles Manz actually dedicates his guidebook, The Leadership Wisdom of Jesus, To all those brave persons who have taken up the quest for a wiser and more compassionate form of leadership that seeks to unleash the inner leadership and value of each person (Manz, 1999). Manz observes from this New Testament-based perspective: "Great trees grow from tiny seeds. Wise leadership involves planting good seeds in good places at the right times, and then letting great things grow" (p. 149). Postmodern Decision Making In a postmodern organization, the process of making decisions is recognized to be a multi-layered function as opposed to the modern precept that most decisions are made by management and implemented by the workers. This difference between modern and postmodern decision making is enumerated by Michael Roberto as the distinctions between myths and realities, in the following table from Why Great Leaders Dont Take Yes for an Answer (Roberto, 2005):
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Myth The chief executive decides.
Reality Strategic decision making involves simultaneous activity at multiple levels of the organization. Much real work occurs offline, in one-on-one conversations or small subgroups. Strategic decisions are complex social, emotional and political processes. Strategic decisions unfold in a nonlinear fashion; solutions often arise before managers define problems or analyze alternatives. Strategic decisions often evolve over time through iterative choices and actions.
Decisions are made in the room.
Decisions are largely intellectual exercises. Managers analyze systematically and then decide.
Managers decide and then act.
Table 1: Myths and realities of strategic decision making, from Roberto (2005)
Pervasive leadership
Perhaps one of the most direct and progressive authors on this topic of postmodern leadership is Joseph Raelin. While he acknowledges that he did not invent the term, leaderful, he has taken the concept of being leaderful to reflect a pervasive paradigm; people can be leaderful throughout the entire organization, at every level. Opening his book on the subject (Raelin, 2003), he educates us on the basic tenets of the Leaderful Practice: I would like to introduce you to an alternative paradigm of leadership: leaderful practice. It directly challenges the conventional view of leadership as being out in front. In the twenty-first-century organization, we need to establish communities where everyone shares the experience of serving as a leader, not serially, but concurrently and collectively. (p. 5)
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Raelin proposes that leadership practices fall on a continuum from conventional to leaderful or what we might call modern to postmodern across four characteristics. The leaderful end of the spectrum defines Raelins Four Cs: Concurrent, Collective, Collaborative, and Compassionate. Conventional Serial Individual Controlling Dispassionate
Leaderful Concurrent Collective Collaborative Compassionate
Table 2: The Continua of Leadership (Raelin, 2003)
Serial Concurrent: In the serial environment, the role of leader passes from one named individual to another, and there is only one identified leader in the group at any time. In a concurrent leadership setting, there may be several individuals who are capable of leading the groups efforts at any given time, and the role is shared among all of them, depending on the needs of the group at the moment. Individual Collective: Further, rather than having only one individual serve as leader at a time, the leaderful organization will have two or more leaders serving simultaneously, usually reaching decisions by consensus. Controlling Collaborative: In a conventional setting, one of the functions of the leader is to control the work effort (in anticipation of dictating the outcome); in a leaderful group, the members contribute their best efforts in alignment with group goals to achieve a successful, collaborative outcome.
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Dispassionate Compassionate: Finally, in a conventional work place, the workers are treated as equipment, whose job it is to take certain input and generate defined output; they are treated without compassion for their needs or their other potential contributions to the organization. In a leaderful environment, all members are considered to be stakeholders, adding their full potential to the realization of the organizations goals. It is important to note that, as Raelin indicates, any given group at any given time will fall on the continuum somewhere between conventional and leaderful or modern to postmodern. It is evident that innovation which requires agility and best-efforts in appreciatively adapting to turbulence would benefit from leadership practices that more closely adhere to the principles of leaderful organizations. Perhaps this is exemplified by the success of Nordstroms in its reputation for customer service. This is the elegant instruction given to each new employee (Tushman & O'Reilly, 2002):
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WELCOME TO NORDSTROM. Were glad to have you with our company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them. Norstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use your good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules. Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time. (p. 131)
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Chapter 5: Innovation Leadership

The intersection of innovation and leadership
To date, most of the literature has used the intersection of the terms
innovation and leadership to modify one with the other; viz., Innovation
Leadership equals either a new (innovative) approach to leadership via the authors particular methodology (Pomerantz, 2006), or an approach to lead innovation efforts in your organization (New & Improved, 2006). These are, of course, legitimate uses of the combination of the two terms. However, I propose a more synergistic integration of the concepts; that is, Innovation Leadership is a pervasive style of working to enhance the organizations
climate of appreciative adaptation to turbulence.

The power of this concept occurs in its intersection. As previously discussed in this monograph, I believe that intersections are the locations of the greatest activity, and the greatest interest to organizational psychology. As we have seen in discussing the concept of turbulence and its physical analogy, it is the intersection of whitewater and objects that create whirlpools, and the intersection of the main flow in a river that carries and deposits flotsam to the quiet pools, where nutrients are then formed and returned to the ecosystem (yes, through the intersection and back into the main stream). It is at the intersections of roads, rails, and rivers that commerce flourishes, and the interaction of individuals leads to the interaction of ideas, contributing to innovation. The complete intersection of Innovation and Leadership results in much more than the two separate concepts simply complementing each other. Implementing the progressive ideas of postmodern leadership actively enhances innovation by enabling workers, who live at the intersection of
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customers and production, to respond efficiently to changes in customer requirements. Implementing progressive innovation practices (e.g. think broadly, act personally; create substantial change; ignite technology innovation; defy limits; and force an outside look (IBM, 2006)) supports and relies on the practice of postmodern leadership principles.
Figure 6: Innovation and Leadership are mutually supportive
Following this definition of Innovation Leadership (a pervasive style of
working to enhance the organizations climate of appreciative adaptation to turbulence, above), everyone in the organization has the opportunity and the
responsibility (leadership) to appreciatively adapt to turbulence (innovation). Postmodernism recognizes that line workers are constantly making decisions that impact the functioning of the organization. In that innovation requires decisions at the transition points from ideation to invention, invention to instantiation, and instantiation to adoption, this recognition is crucial to empowering innovation at the point of its generation. As Ronald Heifitz and
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Donald Laurie observe (Heifetz & Laurie, 1998), Solutions to adaptive challenges reside not in the executive suite but in the collective intelligence of employees at all levels (p. 173). Decisions made by innovators and adopters, if the resulting innovations are to be aligned with corporate goals and contribute to the bottom line, must be recognized and integrated into the innovation management process. As Bettina von Stamm observes (von Stamm, 2003b): "Leadership can take place at any level within the organization, and whereas 'management' is about directing people, about efficiency, structuring and organizing, leadership is about motivating people and about inspiring them to go the extra mile - something that is often required in innovative projects..." (p. 381) In all of the recent, separate writings that focus on the concepts of innovation and leadership, is there a direct path of reasoning that arrives at Innovation Leadership? Starting with the interest in generating more innovative responses to market trends, we ask, What is the measure of a successful innovation? This is, in part, answered by Rogers, Gladwell, and others discussions of diffusion if an innovation is diffused across the population to a significant extent, it can be considered a success. The next question is, How can we increase the rate and extent of diffusion, to make it a commercial and economic success? Answering this requires the breakdown of innovation into the Innovation Continuum and the management of the various aspects of innovation: ideation, invention, instantiation, and adoption. Management then implies leadership, and the discussion of the forms of leadership that support appreciative adaptation to turbulence ensues. Lastly, How do we measure successful Innovation Leadership? The qualification of what constitutes effective Innovation Leadership is assessed
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by examining the Innovation Climate when the Innovation Climate is qualitatively good, Innovation Leadership is at work.
Application of the theories

These theoretical constructs are interesting from an academic perspective; however, how do these theories and anecdotes translate into corporate practice? As an employee of the IBM Business Consulting Services contingent, I became interested in this question on behalf of our customers. How can we use all this speculation to actually enhance the innovative climate of organizations? Specifically, how can Innovation Leadership be inculcated in a clients company to promote their ability to be more innovative? The IBM BCS general approach to these types of customer-driven questions is to define an Engagement Model that will contain the necessary consulting elements to help the customer arrive at particular outcome; in this case, an improved Innovation Climate via enhanced Innovation Leadership.
Engagement Model
At IBM, consultation offerings are defined in an Engagement Model. This model covers every aspect of the relationship with the client around the defined concept of the consultation, from needs assessment through work breakdown structures of consultation activities, through evaluation of delivery excellence. The effort that has led to this monograph focused on the needs assessment component of the engagement, and the initial instrument for this assessment will be detailed in the following sections. The additional processes that I have conjectured to support the subsequent phase of the consultation would include one or more consulting activities: specific training and education workshops; executive coaching; information technology to
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support social networking and collaborative innovation; human resources transformation; and other interventions, based on the outcomes of the analysis.
Survey
The proposed Innovation Leadership survey is a device to begin the iterative assessment of innovation climate, to identify growth areas that would be addressed in the consultation. It has also served as the constructed repository for the collection of concepts from my research, forming a foundation of research-based statements that would eventually contribute to the concept of Innovation Leadership. The survey was designed to be administered by the Capabilities Assessment Tool (CAT), which is currently under development by Matt Callery at the IBM Thomas Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, New York. The CAT has been used internally for IBM projects, and experimentally with customers, to help assess a variety of issues. It has to-date been deployed primarily as a readiness assessment tool, to determine how prepared an organization is for the implementation of a particular technology. A CAT survey is administered via web interface; that is, a respondent is presented with a questionnaire through a typical web browser (like Microsofts Internet Explorer) and submits answers to individual questions by clicking on multiple choice responses, or typing in responses to open-ended questions. The responses are stored and then analyzed and reported to the survey author through a separate, web-based interface. A pictorial representation of the CAT workflow follows:
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Figure 7: CAT Workflow Diagram 2006 IBM Corporation
To prepare the Innovation Leadership CAT survey, I developed a list of survey items (profiled in a following section) that were organized by category. As defined later, the survey items were segregated into characteristics within two overall categories: Individual and Organizational. The screen to input the question and define the response type is illustrated here6:
Note that the original term used to describe one category was Culture; this has been changed to Climate in this monograph in keeping with the discussion on Climate vs. Culture, above.
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Figure 8: CAT Questionnaire Builder 2007 IBM Corporation
Each of the survey items was entered, named, and assigned a response type. In the illustrated example, the statement This organization helps me meet my personal goals was entered, named Personal Goals (to help track responses reported later), and assigned a Multiple Choice Single Select type of response. In keeping with the acknowledged value of an appreciative approach, each of the statements is framed in a manner that leads the respondent to contemplate the desired objective, according to the theorist being represented7. The respondent is then asked to rank each statement on a
The survey is meant to be a dynamic tool; it was designed to be delivered via web browser so that items can be added, deleted, or modified as new information is considered. The
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Leickert-like scale, from Strongly Disagree (having a value of zero) to Strongly Agree (having a value of four). The resulting score is mapped, according to its category, to a graph known alternatively as a radar or spider web chart. This graphic representation provides an interpretation of how certain characteristics relate to each other, within an organization.
Figure 9: CAT Radar Graph 2007 IBM Corporation
This survey approach (viz., using all appreciative statements) obviates the use of this particular instrument to validly compare the innovative climate of
original survey its current iteration is based on works from 17 authors, which is only a subset of those referenced in this monograph. However, these items are entirely representative of the intent and direction of this tool.
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one organization versus another, or even within the same organization across time, as it is not compliant with psychometric principles that would be needed to use the device in that manner. There are individuals and organizations that do have such instruments and processes (CCL, 2005; CPSG, 2002; Hosseini, Azar, & Rostamy, 2003; Lnsisalmi & Kivimki, 1999). However, this appreciative approach was conceived purposefully as way to begin a conversation with the members of the organization regarding the principles of a positive innovation climate, simultaneously serving assessment and educational purposes. The following sections detail the survey categories, sub-categories (i.e., characteristics), and statements. A Glossary of Terms used in the survey follows the list of specific statements.
Categories
All of the statements fall into one of two major categories: they represent either Individual or Organizational characteristics. The following paragraphs explain the distinction between these overarching categories.
Individual
Individual characteristics are those that are recognized most readily in individuals (as opposed to the organization as a whole). Individual characteristics are: Integrity, Dedication, Respect, Virtue, and Support.
Organizational
Organizational characteristics are those that are most readily recognized in the organization as a whole, rather than individuals. While some characteristics may be evident in individuals, this group of survey items should be evaluated across the entire organization and not simply in one
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individual. The organizational characteristics examined in this survey are: Climate, Learning, Systems Approach, and Empowerment.
Specific characteristics and survey statements

These are the specific characteristics for each of the Individual and Organizational categories. Each of the characteristics is further comprised of statements that I have gleaned from the literature that are appreciative goals for an organization that aspires to cultivate a climate of innovation across the organization. Each survey statement is followed by the reference for the source on which it is based. Further explanations of the terms and the intent of the statement are detailed in footnotes and the Glossary of Terms.
Individual
Integrity
Management's actions match their statements. (Bennis, 1999) In this organization, there is no 'blame' for failed attempts to improve. (Senge, 1990) Leaders in this organization base their decisions on moral and intellectual honesty. (Bennis, 1999) Leaders in this organization are consistent in their foundational words and actions across time. (Bennis, 1999) Leaders are self-referential. (Wheatley, 1999)
Dedication
Leaders in this organization are dedicated to the success of the organization. (Bennis, 1999) Leaders in this organization step up to take responsibility for the direction of the organization. (Heifetz & Laurie, 1998)
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Respect
In this organization, leaders respect the work of all individuals. (Bennis, 1999) In this organization, workers respect the leaders. (Bennis, 1999) Leaders in this organization inspire trust. (Bennis, 1999) Leaders in this organization are like orchestra conductors8. (Bergquist, 2003)
Virtue
Leaders are viewed as heroes. (Bennis, 1999) Leaders are noble of mind and heart. (Bennis, 1999) Leaders are open to trying new ideas. (Bennis, 1999) Leaders are creative. (Bennis, 1999) Leaders in this organization inspire loyalty. (Bennis, 1999) Leaders are the ultimate servants. (Bergquist, 2003) Leadership is a sacred trust. (Bergquist, 2003)
Support
Leaders promote self-supporting teams within the organization. (Wheatley, 1999) Leaders in this organization regulate the balance between stasis and chaos. (Heifetz & Laurie, 1998) Leaders protect the voices of leadership from below. (Heifetz & Laurie, 1998)
Orchestra conductors rely heavily on the individual talents and performances of the members of the team. The conductor is the acknowledged group leader, responsible for providing the vision for the music, communicating via physical expressions of timing and mood.
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Organizational
Climate
This organization helps me meet my personal goals. (Knowles, 1980) This organization helps me meet my professional goals. (Knowles, 1980) This organization considers everyone's opinions and needs when making decisions. (Cloke & Goldsmith, 2003) Development activities are closely linked to identified business needs. (Sharma, 2006) This organization sets the environment for open collaboration. (Sharma, 2006) This organization recognizes when "slow" is appropriate. (Senge, 1990) This organization invests in initiatives that may take months or years to realize their full benefit. (Senge, 1990) Boundaries among various departments in this organization are flexible and dynamic. (Senge, 1990) Amid turbulence, this organization seeks to find balance between resistance and chaos. (Senge, 1990) This organization tolerates and positively uses dissent. (Bennis, 1999) Change in this organization is promoted across all 3 levels of structure, process, and attitude. (Bergquist, 2003) This organization leans into the future. (Bergquist, 2003) This organization leverages the best skills employees have to offer. (Bergquist, 2003) This organization differentiates between "culture" and "climate" when referring to the organization9. (Bergquist, 2003) This organization makes changes that are meaningful and not superficial for the sake of change. (Weisbord, 2004)
The distinction between culture and climate was discussed earlier in this monograph (Chapter 2). If an organization persists in attempting to implement changes at the culture level, it will be frustrated and will not be effective in its transformation efforts, losing the alignment that would contribute to effective innovation.
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This organization identifies and works to embrace adaptive challenges. (Heifetz & Laurie, 1998) This organization maintains disciplined attention to issues. (Heifetz & Laurie, 1998) This organization guides cultural evolution rather than attempting cultural change. (Schein, 1999) This organization is able to articulate the business value of innovation. (Spitzer, 2007) This organization forms and supports user communities as psrt of the innovative process. (von Hippel, 2006)
Learning
There are opportunities to critically review the results from prior innovative efforts. (Mavrinac, 2005) This organization promotes perpetual learning for individuals. (Schein, 1992) This organization promotes perpetual learning for teams. (Schein, 1992) This organization actively seeks out and leverages industry trends when defining new products and services. (Senge, 1990) This organization is willing to move out of its comfort zone. (Senge, 1990) This organization views business processes from a 'global' perspective but enables 'local' action. (Senge, 1990) This organization leverages existing processes that work well to develop new processes. (Senge, 1990) This organization provides time and resources to develop new employee skills. (Bergquist, 2003) This organization tends to learn valuable lessons from its mistakes. (Senge, 1990) This organization routinely engages in double-loop learning. (Argyris & Schn, 1996) This organization works to overcome the learning paradox. (Argyris & Schn, 1996) This organization identifies and polls its lead users to help discern future trends. (von Hippel, 2006)
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Systems Approach10
This organization promotes examining issues from a systems perspective. (Senge, 1990) This organization takes a long-term approach to problem resolution. (Senge, 1990) This organization avoids commoditizing its products and services by measuring non-standard performance indicators. (Spitzer, 2007) This organization establishes "what success looks like" and measures to determine achievement to that goal. (Spitzer, 2007) This organization looks to its customer community to discover how products and services are being modified to suit their needs. (von Hippel, 2006) This organization is aware of its customers' decisions to innovate (create themselves) or buy decisions. (von Hippel, 2006)
Empowerment
I have the opportunity to tell my story to the organization. (CrawfordCook, 2006) This organization provides me with appreciative feedback on my performance. (Bergquist, 2003) This organization appreciates the human spirit in employees. (Bergquist, 2003) Employees develop the plans they implement. (Wheatley, 1999) This organization supports open, collegial, fluid networks for the free flow of information. (Wheatley, 1999) This organization assumes Theory Y as opposed to Theory X. (Weisbord, 2004) This organization promotes holding responsibility for the work by the people working the task. (Heifetz & Laurie, 1998)
10
Taking a systems approach includes a perspective that includes customer as well as internal viewpoints, and the capability to establish and measure appropriate performance indicators across the organization.
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Employees have the authority to implement innovative responses to deficits. (Spitzer, 2007) Employees have continuing personal involvement in creating their own performance measures and are empowered to take action on their measurements. (Spitzer, 2007) This organization makes an effort to democratize innovation. (von Hippel, 2006)
Glossary of Terms used in the survey statements

Adaptive Challenges
Heifetz & Laurie (1998) o Changes in societies, markets, customers, competition, and technology around the globe [that force] organizations to clarify their values, develop new strategies, and learn new ways of operating.
Democratizing innovation
Von Hippel (2006) chap. 9 o How can or should manufacturers adapt to users encroachment on element of their traditional activities [i.e., designing and manufacturing consumer products]? There are three general possibilities: (1) Produce user-developed innovations for general commercial sale and/or offer custom manufacturing to specific users. (2) Sell kits of product-design tools and/or product platforms to ease users innovationrelated tasks. (3) Sell products or services that are complementary to user-developed innovations. Firms in fields where users are already very active in product design are experimenting with all these possibilities. (p. 15)
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Double-loop Learning
Argyris & Schn (1996), p. 21 o Learning that results in a change in the values of theory-in-use, as well as in its strategies and assumptions. The double loop refers to the two feedback loops that connect the observed effects of action with the strategies and values served by strategies. Strategies and values may change concurrently with, or as a consequence of, change in values. Double-loop learning may be carried out by individuals, when their inquiry leads to change in the values of their theories-in-use or by organizations, when individuals inquire on behalf of and organization in such a way as to lead to a change in the values of organizational theory-in-use.
Effective use of peripheral energy and information

Gryskiewicz (1999) chap. 5 o The periphery is a prime source of turbulence. Whether one brings it in or not, that pool of potentially catalyzing information and ideas flows past an organization. It is up to the astuteness of a groups leasers as to how well or poorly the turbulence will be used. (p. 81) o Sources of peripheral energy and information: Recruiting new talent Bringing in outside experts Seizing opportunities for cross-fertilization Hiring a diverse workforce
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Merging companies Forging alliances Sparking energy among employees Holding internal trade shows Promoting informal information exchanges Creating informal meeting spaces Encouraging free-ranging ideas Being open to off-center perspectives
Information Communities
Von Hippel (2006) p. 165 o I define information communities as communities or networks of individuals and/or organizations that rendezvous around an information commons, a collection of information that is open to all on equal terms. o Many of the considerations I have discussed with respect to user innovation communities apply to information communities as well a much more general category of which user innovation communities are a subset.
Innovate or Buy Decisions

Von Hippel (2006) chap. 4 o Consumers, especially Lead Users, will sometimes decide to build their own solutions when the products or services offered on the market are not adequate to meet their needs. There is a continuum from outright buying to building, including the
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licensing or purchase of products with the right to modify them to ultimately meet the consumers needs.
Innovation Communities
Von Hippel (2006) chap. 7 o Innovation by users tends to be widely distributed rather than concentrated among just a very few very innovative users. As a result, it is important for user-innovators to find ways to combine and leverage their efforts. Users achieve this by engaging in many forms of cooperation. Direct, informal userto-user cooperation (assisting others to innovate, answering questions, and so on) is common. Organized cooperation is also common, with users joining together in networks and communities that provide useful structures and tools for their interactions and for the distribution of innovations. Innovation communities [italics added] can increase the speed and effectiveness with which users and also manufacturers can develop and test and diffuse their innovations. They also can greatly increase the ease with which innovators can build larger systems from interlinkable modules created by community participants. (p. 11)
Lead Users
Von Hippel (2006), chap. 3 o Lead users are potential consumers who are expert in their domains, to the point that they often customize commercial products or construct their own. Von Hippel often refers to the
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mountain bike enthusiast who more often than not performs several modifications to purchased bikes.
Leadership
Taffinder (2006) o The easy answer: leadership is getting people to do things they have never thought of doing, do not believe are possible or that they do not want to do. o The leadership in organizations answer: leadership is the action of committing employees to contribute their best to the purpose of the organization. o The complex (and more accurate) answer: you only know leadership by its consequences from the fact that individuals or a group of people start to behave in a particular way as a result of the actions of someone else.
Learning Paradox
Argyris & Schn (1996) pp. 281-282 o The essence of the learning paradox is that the actions we take to promote productive organizational learning may actually inhibit deeper learning. The steps that lead to this learning paradox can be summarized as follows: 1. Problems are identified in discussable domains, for example, organizational structures or information systems. The domains that are not discussable are bypassed, and the bypass is covered up. Variables in the undiscussable domain (associated with generic defensive patterns) may be
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recognized privately and discussed informally, but they are considered as externalities. 2. Solutions are generated to deal with discussable features of
the problems. Important features in the undiscussable

domain are excluded. This act of exclusion is covered up and often explained away by reasons ("human nature," for example) that fall outside the responsibility of the participants, or go beyond what they can influence. 3. During the early stages of intervention, the solutions do
appear to correct some organizational errors. Most of the

solutions are single-loop in nature, and most of the participants have (or can readily be taught) the skills necessary for their implementation. But as error correction falls short of expected results, the importance of the undiscussable issues becomes increasingly apparent. 4. The participants begin to experience a double bind. If they face up to the issues they have treated as undiscussable, they will also have to make public how they have bypassed them or covered them up. If they do not make these issues public, they will know that they are preventing the correction of the errors they have detected and that they are doing so by design. If this becomes transparent, they could be accused of violating their managerial responsibility. 5. The participants may deal with their personal causal
responsibility by denying it or by assigning it to the domain of externalities.
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Strategic points of change (Watsons SPA Model)
Watson, in Bergquist (2003) o Structure is all of those organizationally defined parameters and connections within and through which persons and processes in an organization carry out the purpose of the organization. It is the formal and dynamic architecture defined by the organization within which the mission of the organization is carried out. o Process is inclusive of functions and activities that are needed to achieve the results of an organization. It concerns the day-today interaction among those who work in and for the organization. o Attitude is the individual and corporate mental and emotional landscape upon which decisions about the organization and its process are navigated. It concerns the foundational culture of the organization, as well as the assumptions, beliefs, values and personal aspirations that animate and guide those engaged in the activities of the organization.
Theory-in-use
Argyris & Schn (1996) p. 13 o Theory of action, whether it applies to organizations or individuals, may take two different forms. By espoused theory we mean the theory of action which is advanced to explain or justify a given pattern of activity. By theory-in-use, we meant the theory of action which is implicit in the performance of that pattern of activity. A theory-in-use is not a given. It must be constructed form observation of the pattern of action in
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question. From the evidence gained by observing a pattern of action, one might construct alternative theories-in-use which are, in effect, hypotheses to be tested against the data of observation.
Theory X and Theory Y

McGregor, in Weisbord (2004) o Theory X states that most people are lazy, irresponsible, passive, and dependent, and must have their work broken into tiny pieces, tightly controlled, and supervised lest they make a mess of things. o Theory Y states that most people will take responsibility, care about their jobs, wish to grow and achieve, and, if given a chance, do excellent work.
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