The Optimistic Leader: The Unveiling Of Positive Concepts That Contribute To The
Effective Leadership Of Innovation
Working Paper
Barnes, Stewart; Watts, Gerald
Keywords:Creative Problem-Solving, Innovation, Innovation Leadership, Knowledge, Optimism, Positive Psychology
Abstract
This paper focuses on the experiences, beliefs and behaviours of business owner-managers with respect to their roles and responsibilities in the effective leadership of innovation and change.
The research discussed here derives from a study conducted by the lead author as the first stage of data collection during his doctoral research, which has in its own right yielded some interesting data and insights. Given the complexity of the variables and the paucity of literature in this field, the research is exploratory in nature and a qualitative methodology is used, involving semi-structured interviews with a sample of owner-managers in small/medium and larger organisations.
The research involved semi-structured interviews with three experienced leaders of innovation; one the founder and owner of an established market leader in the provision of special effects to the film industry,one the owner of a consultancy with many years’ experience of innovation management and the third the founder and owner of a supplier of components for heating systems. The interviews were broad-ranging and were designed to explore the respondents’ beliefs about the nature of innovation, their accumulated experience of managing innovation, their beliefs about good practice in innovation management, their personal views on leadership, their beliefs concerning the role of leaders in innovation processes and how their experience of their involvement in innovation processes informs their behaviours with respect to the leadership of innovation.
The analysis and interpretation of the interview data generated a large number of issues and insights, which are discussed in depth here. Eachof the interviewees saw innovation processes as complex, involving many variables and uncertainties and requiring very careful management. Although none had formally studied innovation, there was a remarkable congruence of their views of success factors with those highlighted in the literature. Each saw creativity and creative problem-solving as essential throughout an innovation process and could reflect in depth on their personal role in their facilitation. Each of the interviewees saw the human organisation as critical to innovation success and placed great emphasis on subtle leadership and cultivating a culture that was supportive of innovation. In different ways, each stressed the importance of knowledge and took a proactive role in its management. All emphasised the importance of taking a long-term view of innovation projects and their outcomes.
Perhaps the most striking findings were those concerning the attitudes, values and motivations of the interviewees. Most notably, all of them highlighted the importance of optimism in the leadership of innovation, in the sense of a sustained belief in a successful outcome. All were able to discuss the foundation for this optimism, seeing it as deriving not only from many years’ experience of both innovation successes and failures but from the accumulated reflection and insightswhich formed the basis of the ‘meta-skills’ that they clearly possessed. These findings are related in the paper to concepts from the emerging discipline of Positive Psychology, which seems to have interesting and valuable application to the field of innovation practice and to the Leadership of Innovation in particular.
The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for policy, support interventions and future academic research.
Introduction
The leadership of innovation involves many complex and challenging issues but many of these have not been widely researched and are not fully understood, even though there are rich worlds of literature in the fields of leadership, innovation and change. Goffin and Mitchell (2005) argue that “there has been far less [innovation] research conducted at the organisation level … the vast majority … lacks the general perspective of executive-level managers” (p.324). This appears to be borne out in the treatment of leadership in texts on the management of innovation, which tends to be narrowly prescriptive and without sufficient recognition of the complexities of context or empirical grounding in the experience of those in leadership roles.
The broad aim of the research discussed here is to address this lack of empirical research and thus to contribute to a richer understanding of the critical role of leadership in the management of innovation, through a focus on what leaders think and do when managing innovation.
Theoretical Contextualisation
The nature of innovation
Goffin and Mitchell (2005) argue that “there is no commonly accepted view of what innovation means in a business context” and people often confuse innovation with invention (p.7). Many commentators (Tidd, Bessant and Pavitt, 2005; Hargadon and Sutton, 1997) tend to agree that it is broadly about the new but recognise that this “can lead us to overlook the fact that innovation can be based on modifying existing ideas” (Goffin and Mitchell, 2005, p.8). Curran and Blackburn (2001) argue that “innovation is extremely difficult to conceptualise clearly enough to use reliably in research” suggesting that individuals will have their own implicit definitions of innovation (p.15). Another problem of conceptualisation lies in the fact that there are different degrees of innovation in the sense of distance from the familiar and rate of change, from the gradual through the incremental to the radical (Dewar and Dutton, 1986).
Success factors in innovation
The organisational context for innovation is a critical factor in its success (Kanter, 1988). Finding effective ways to manage people, culture, teams and organisation is one of the most challenging aspects of innovation management and many senior managers do not recognise the importance of linking leadership and people management to their innovation strategy (Drucker, 1985; Slappendel, 1996; Oliver and Memmott, 2006).
The uniqueness of any organisational context is another key issue. Goffin and Mitchell (2005, p.1) observe that “the challenges with managing innovation are also compounded by the fact that many ideas that are effective in one organisation cannot be easily transferred; managers must adapt them to the situation their company faces” and argue that “best practices in people management are particularly difficult to transfer because how they are viewed and accepted is subjective”(p.278). Context is clearly important and leaders must find ways to ‘fit’ ideas about best practice into the context of their own organisation.
Many authors, (e.g. Mumford, Scott, Gaddis and Strange, 2002; Ford, Sharman and Dean, 2008) highlight the criticality of organisational creativity and ideas together with effective teamwork and idea-sharing.The interaction of people with different perspectives is often an important source of innovative ideas within organisations. Amabile and Khaire (2008, p.102) warn of “the ‘lone innovator myth’ where past breakthroughs may have come from a single genius” as most innovations draw on many contributions.
Effective knowledge and learning processes are widely held to be central to effective innovation. Tidd et al (2005) argue that “innovation is about knowledge – creating new possibilities through combining different knowledge sets” (p.15). Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) emphasise the importance of making use of tacit knowledge, both inside and outside the organisation, and recognising the time at which new knowledge is required. Leiponen (2006) warns that “relying solely on tacit knowledge may hamper innovation” and Goffin and Mitchell (2005) discuss the importance of embedding experiential learning into the organisation, arguing that “this kind of learning is too valuable to be left only in the memories of those who were there at the time” (p.253).
A long-term perspective is often held to be important to realising the full benefits of innovation. Tidd et al (2005) state that “since much of innovation is about uncertainty, it follows that returns may not emerge quickly and that there will be a need for ‘patient money’” (p.253).
The management of innovation processes is therefore both challenging and critical (Sim, Griffin, Price and Vojak, 2007). Goffin and Mitchell (2005) add that “managing the implementation of innovations requires all the normal techniques of project management augmented with some specialist processes to control the high levels of uncertainty often encountered” (p.260). Jelinek and Schoonhoven (1990) proffer that a strategy of innovation is contained not in “plans”, but in the pattern of commitments, decisions, approaches and persistent behaviours that facilitate doing new things.
Leadership of innovation
Because of its inherent complexity, it is arguable that successful innovation is critically dependent on leadership. Innovation is essentially about change and is often disruptive, risky and costly. Goffin and Mitchell (2005) recognise that the criticality of leadership increases with the degree and rate of change required, arguing that a leader of innovation in radical innovations “must act as a real champion…when the project requires more support or encounters resistance” (p.295).
Both Imai (1997) and Oliver (2001) suggest that leaders must first introduce the appropriate management style and get the organisation in a state of readiness for innovation. Both also argue that a tolerance of mistakes is necessary, as is a positive and supportive management attitude, even when problems inevitably arise.
It is important to recognise that by no means all innovation is driven by senior management and that another way of conceptualising the leader’s role is as a subtle facilitator. Tidd et al (2005) argue that “leadership and commitment should not be confused with always being the change agent and that there are many cases where innovation occurs in spite of senior management. The message for senior management is as much about leading through creating space and support within the organisation as it is about direct involvement” (p.471).
It was acknowledged above that successful innovation requires effective learning and this must apply to those in leadership roles. Kempster (2009, p.15) suggests that “leadership is a contextually shaped process...and that there is consensus that managers learn informally within their contexts and through the activities they participate in” ... “but there is a lack of in-depth understanding of the underlying causes shaping such learning” (p.22).
It would seem that leaders have an all-pervasive and perhaps even impossibleresponsibility for the success ofinnovation. The leader must first create an organisational context that is supportive of innovation, facilitate creativity and a flow of ideas, take the lead in knowledge-building and learning and manage the innovation process effectively, achieving all this in a dynamic context while the organisation grows and changes. Clearly, not all leaders see all these things as important and most may make implicit or explicit choices as to where to focus their energy.
There has been very little research that addresses innovation from a leader’s perspective and there remains a significant conceptual space to fill, as illustrated in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Conceptual Model of Leadership of Innovation
(PP = Positive Psychology; see Conclusion)
The Research
The study reported and discussed here is the first stage of a stream of research whose aim is to explore the reality of how leaders conceptualise and execute their roles in the management of innovation.Semi-structured interviews were carried out with three senior managers who have substantial experience in the leadership of innovation:
- Andy: the owner of a consultancy with many years’ experience of innovation management, currently working as a full-time advisor at board level to a global market leader in the electric home appliance industry.
- Barry: the founder and owner of an established market leader in the provision of special effects to the film industry.
- Derek: the founder and owner of a globally successful manufacturer of components of heating systems.
(Names have been disguised to protect the identities of the respondents and their companies).
The interviews were broad-ranging and were designed to explore the respondents’ beliefs about the nature of innovation, their accumulated experience of managing innovation, their beliefs about good practice in innovation management, their personal views on leadership, their beliefs concerning the role of leaders in innovation processes and how their experience of their involvement in innovation processes informs their behaviours with respect to the leadership of innovation. The interviews were carried out in the participants’ own offices and each lasted approximately two hours.
Interview 1 – Andy
Andy is the owner-manager of a consultancy business with many years’ experience of innovation management. He has a broad professional background, having worked in technical, production and senior management roles in various businesses in Australia and Europe, both large and small. He sees innovation as an essentially collective process: “a collection of people looking at a particular problem from all different perspectives and all different angles and there is a collision of those ideas over time that gives a solution”.
Andy believes that “in order to innovate you need to change and in order to change you need to innovate. You’ve got to do something differently. There is a difference between change and improvement because not all change is improvement but all improvement is change. So a lot of people will talk about ‘we need to change…we need to change…we need to change’. I don’t think that change for change’s sake is necessary. What we need to do is improve and you can’t improve without change and you can’t improve without innovation”.
Andy places a strong emphasis on the organisational context, believing that “an innovative culture embraces trust, confidence and shared values”. In his current client relationship, he facilitates sessions with the board of directors to discuss employees’ well-being as well as to discuss the business’s performance.
Andy’s determination to change the strategic direction of his current client’s portfolio, coupled with his aptitude at acting as a venture champion, contributed to his drive not to write a project off when key influencers around him in the organisation were either negative or strongly inclined to “kill” a new product. Andy confirms, “I have been involved in many failures in many aspects of my business life. What I have learned from that are sometimes you have to let go and realise that enough is enough… but what creates success and innovation is the ability to see things through to an end”.
Andy placed a lot of emphasis on market intelligence, carrying out market tests, investigating and understanding new technologies and new markets which contribute to his understanding of the relationship between change and opportunity. Andy believes that “with a lot of innovations there is no substitute for market feedback. However, it’s a double-edged sword because on the one hand your innovation might well need a lot of market education. So when you take it out in its early days the market will say, ‘We don’t need that, we don’t want it, or we can’t see the benefits of it’, and you could become disillusioned”.
Andy believes the leader’s role is to give direction and communicate and when people follow, that makes a leader effective. When prompted Andy stated that “leadership is about ownership, it’s about giving direction…everything about innovation is generated through leadership. Commitment, drive, energy, passion, communication are all qualities of leadership”.
Andy summarised his view of the role of a leader of innovation as follows:
a)Pulling knowledge and bringing people and teams together.
b)Realising where history is a limiter thus acknowledging the need for external knowledge and the use of a network of contacts.
c)Leading the knowledge transfer process.
Interview 2: Barry
Barry has very broad experience of innovation as he has not only led innovations in products and services, he has innovated by moving beyond the film industry into new marketsand has led the training and development of the special effects industry in the UK by creating a training standard that is externally accredited and is now taking that to the United States.
Barry enjoys problem-solving and defines innovation as finding the simplest solution to problems. He added that not all problems can be solved that easily but was reluctant to accept that some problems are insoluble, which he felt to beincorrect. He suggested that “you have to be willing to dump ideas and move on but equally you have to be willing to persevere with ideas and not dump ideas too quickly”. Barry emphasised both the need for a long-term view: “not to expect answers too quickly - be patient” and for careful preparation and investment: “you have to do the ground work to get the results”.
Barry describes himself as a “highly practical technologist” and he uses this, his product knowledge and close working relationships with clients to guide product and service development. He maintains a close relationship with users of his products and many are either trained at his firm or are regular visitors to try out different products and equipment.
Barry does not know how many innovation projects hehas going at any one time, “but a number of them have just sat there with absolutely nothing happening to them at all. One day a newspaper article will come in and that will be the trigger and the whole thing will start moving again”. Barry believes it is easier to develop two or three products at a time rather than one in isolation because there are so many things that frustrate progress and cause delays. Barry can see this may be mitigated if there are twelve projects on the go at the same time in which case perhaps two may be realised in a year. Barry does not want to write off any project unnecessarily.He does notuse a project management system and says that although he knows that having one is the right thing but that is not how he and his firm work.