Leading innovation, creativity and enterprise

Abstract

Purpose

Less than 50 per cent of global Chief Ecology Officers believe their enterprises are adequately prepared to handle a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. The purpose of this paper is to examine how leaders encourage ideas that turn into profitable and sustainable innovations in a VUCA world, especially in what the author calls “Brain Based Enterprises” (BBEs).

Design/methodology/approach

Through case studies, focused interviews.

Findings

BBEs need more leadership than management and they use more collaborative approaches to business, working with colleagues, customers, even competitors in some areas to produce ingenious ideas for a sustainable world.

Originality/value

The research from which this paper is written has matured for nearly 20 years, having written my first book on the topic in 1996. This represents tens of thousands of hours of diverse experience, working as a business practitioner across a wide range of sectors. The author has accelerated my thinking via the work as an MBA academic and mental adventurer, working on the flagship creativity, innovation and change programme. During that time, the business environment we live and work in has become more VUCA. This demands that individuals and enterprises become more ingenious to ride the turbulence that this produces, in order to be resilient and antifragile when challenged.

Citation

Cook, P.J. (2016), "Leading innovation, creativity and enterprise", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 48 No. 6, pp. 294-299. https://doi.org/10.1108/ICT-01-2016-0006