Leadership for Innovation. How to Organize Team Creativity and Harvest Ideas

Citation

Bigliardi, B. (2010), "Leadership for Innovation. How to Organize Team Creativity and Harvest Ideas", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 185-186. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437731011024420

Leadership for Innovation, dealing with innovations and how leadership affects the innovation process, helps to explain how to foster a culture of innovation. The author, John Adair, is recognized as the world's leading authority on leadership and leadership development, by continuously contributing, with his over 50 books on the subject, to the development of management thought and practice.

Based on the premises that “innovation is the key to winning and keeping leadership in world markets” and that “innovation calls for a team creativity”, the book starts with the observation that only those organizations that practice team creativity will survive and prosper. Adair looks at the links between leadership, creativity and change, and by means of several case studies (Google, Honda, 3M, and many others), he covers topics such as the characteristics of innovators, organizing for team creativity, the expectations of creative people, creative leadership, managing the criticism of ideas and overcoming resistance to change.

The book is structured in ten chapters that bring the reader from the main innovation issues to the way to develop team creativity. Specifically, Chapters 1 and 2 introduce in a clear and succinct way the theme of innovation, by highlighting the (well‐known) differences between invention and innovation and by providing the conditions for the development of successful innovation. The author proposes six factors as successful for the development of innovation:

1. 1.

   management commitment;

2. 2.

   positive strategic thinking;

3. 3.

   long‐term perspective;

4. 4.

   appropriate responsiveness to change;

5. 5.

   acceptance of risk; and

6. 6.

   a right internal environment.

Chapter 3 introduces the team creativity. The key points there are order and freedom, good communication of ideas, right balance between creativity and productivity, and innovative leadership. The next two chapters report two short as well as useful practical case studies, specifically the case of DNA Laboratory, about an organizational environment that fosters innovations, and the case of Honda, about an innovative leader. The former case study offers to the reader the organizational factors that, if replied into an organization, may bring it to the success in terms of team creativity building (for example, a flat organization, rules kept at the minimum, decentralized decision making, as well as some suggestions about the recruitment). The latter, is an example of how a leader has successfully developed an entrepreneurial and innovative philosophy into his company.

Chapters 6 and 7 provide the reader with some simple guidelines to motivate the creativity of each individuals: a fundamental element in this process of motivation is the real commitment from the top management. Chapter 7 in particular, describes to the reader the main characteristics and expectations of creative people:

• •

  recognition and appreciation;

• •

  freedom to align their work with their interests;

• •

  contact with stimulating colleagues;

• •

  encouragement to take risks; and, above all else

• •

  creative leadership to inspire them.

Chapters 8 and 9 regard the development of team creativity: specifically, they propose simple but useful instruments to be used to develop and to foster team creativity, that are the brainstorming technique and the suggestion schemes. The author concludes with a brief mention to the way to overcome the resistance to change (Chapter 10), and provides the reader with five principle to be followed. At the bottom of this chapter is the notation that change is generally easy to accept if and when it is life‐affirming. By summarising these last chapters, it is possible to state that a team is creative if it: build on existing ideas rather than trying to reinvent the wheel; brainstorm regularly; and is active, organized, and critically constructive.

This book offers practical advice for any manager or responsible for the development of innovation. The book clearly outlines the characteristics of creative individuals, and what creative people expect from the organizations they work for. It helps leaders to meet the challenge of innovation, and achieve profitable growth through team creativity. I found the book very easy reading and covering all the issues on innovation and team creativity development for innovation. Each chapter offers useful practical examples, that help the reader (a manager rather that an academic) to understand how these techniques work and how to translate the theory into practice, and without which the book would be less comprehensive.