Sustaining Innovation - Reflection
I found this reading to be very useful and insightful both in looking at the public institution (the University) that I currently work within and in thinking about the type of organization I would like to have in the future. This reading has helped to tie many of the questions I have had during this class together regarding leadership, innovation, and organization: How do you nurture and grow an organization of innovation? Once you have established the intent to innovate within your organization, how do you maintain that intent and solidify it in to the culture? What really qualifies as innovation? And, as always, what are the skill sets, qualities, and characteristics of a great leader? Another question that came up as I read: What are the differences between a “learning organization” and an “innovation organization?” Can you have one and not the other? They seem quite similar to me and tend to foster a very similar culture within an organization.
The department I work within has tried to maintain and/or achieve a spattering of the ten practices Light discusses (p.135) to help “achieve preferred leadership.” One of the issues in my department is that they want to create and environment where ideas are welcome but have never clearly define the department’s values. People initially tried to offer ideas that they thought could improve the organization, but were frequently refused. The problem, as Light points out (p. 141), was that the values of the organization had never been defined. People were initially eager to offer suggestions for. The leadership, receiving suggestions that were totally off-base from the direction they envisioned the department going, almost always refused the suggestions. The suggestions stopped coming in. I find this incredibly frustrating. There was good intention from both the leadership and the other employees and yet the result was quite damaging to the cohesiveness of the organization.
I especially related to Lights section on keeping “faith and intuition alive.” (p. 159) Whatever your basis of faith or wherever you pull your sense of intuition, I would think one thing is true: It plays a large part in driving the decisions you make and how you interact in life. I began thinking about the “delicate moments” around Light’s questions of faith to employees of the various organizations. I realize that our culture has become very guarded about discussing their personal faith or sense of intuition. However, I think that can be a disservice to the development and nurturing of quality organizations. When something so fundamental and defining to how one lives their life and makes decisions cannot discussed, what affect does that have on the organization? According to Light, most of the people he interviewed exhibited some basis of faith or intuition that they relied upon in difficult situations. While the perspective of faith might be different, many people have them and utilize them in their daily lives. I am certainly not asking employees to share everything, and maybe belief, faith, spirituality, intuition, or whatever else you want to call it, is too personal. I simply think that organizations could benefit from at least some degree of comfortability and openness in discussing any values that drive their decisions.
Something that this course has done for me is to illustrate all of the areas where my department could use improvement. I have spent a bit of time writing about that on this blog. I like my organization and the people in it. I think we are trying to do many things right and I occasionally catch glimpses of things working well. It has been impressed on me how difficult it is to create a finely-tuned, effective organization. I have always thought that creating or leading an organization is complex. However, that does not stop me from being blown away every time I process another reading on leadership and the organization. An organization truly is a complex living organism.
- Nick Deffley
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Comments
Nick,
I was particularly caught by your paragraph on faith the value identifying what people believe in can bring to an organization. The intuition side reminds me of the "stirrings" more than faith, but even Tyler identified the stirrings as in some respects being faith-based. Perhaps they are more intertwined that I previously considered.
Back to the point, I agree that discussions of religious faith have become almost taboo and one is left to try and discern what holds others together by picking up bits and pieces of information from random conversations. I do think that if an organization does the work to let others find their voices, identify their values and develop a mission statement that is representative of all stakeholders, faith will be reflected in the values each person chooses as his or her own. What an organization chooses to do with these insights may have a direct bearing on the success of their attempt to develop and maintain a leadership strategy.
Sarah Waldemar
Posted by: Sarah Waldemar | April 6, 2008 10:12 PM
Nick raises some good questions about nurturing and growing a culture of innovation that Light addresses in this article. I've personally had some challenges with grasping innovation in this course, but Light made the concept of innovation much more accessible to me. In one example of innovation, Light writes about how an organization created clear boundaries between their staff and board. The defining of internal governance was not particularly innovative, but the clarity of roles then allowed for innovative ideas to take root.
I was surprised to read about how often the organizations Light researched concentrated on the mission, vision, and values, which was ultimately what allowed them to strip away the superfluous projects and hone in on the essentials for their organizations. If all organizations were committed to focusing on their true purpose in this way, there would be an abundance of fertile ground for innovation. Light says, "Of course, one can make mission the centerpiece of the organization only if one knows what the mission is." How true that is! But, how many organizations aren't really mission driven? Many, I'd say.
Finding an understanding of an organization's purpose could speak to Nick's question of "how to maintain the desire to innovate and solidify it in to the culture?" The mission/vision/values work guides the next questions for an organization, such as when considering new initiatives, asking questions like, "Is this faithful to who we are?" and "What will we do actually make a difference in outcome?" etc. Light also emphasizes how planning and analysis is critical to innovation, revealing that innovation is most successful when organizations have clarity about what they are doing and are rigorous about assessing what they do and why.
Posted by: Jackie Starbird | April 8, 2008 06:17 PM