Nurturing the innovators within an organization is key to growth. An article in the December 2008, Harvard Business Review, Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators, by Cohen, Katzenbach and Vlak explores corporate America's inability to identify and utilize people in the workplace with these vital skills. The authors sum up the problem, "Most companies do a magnificent job of smothering the creative spark." They have studied 25 organizations over the last five years and have found that,"Companies usually develop leaders who are replicate rather that innovative."

Most large organizations utilize competency based leadership development systems. These systems create cultural understanding of what it means to be a leader within that organization and they provide a structure for appraisal and development systems. They offer consistency to the appraisal process and conformity to the development process. Is this what organizations need?

While there are benefits to competency systems, brilliant innovators rarely fit the mold and are stifled by the system. According to Cohen, Katzenbach and Vlak, only 5-10% of the high potential leaders within an organization have the skills and abilities to become innovators. These people rarely surface within organizations because they have unique skill sets.

Focusing on employee strengths is a solution to the innovation crush. Organizations with a strengths focus support the identification and nurturing of each employee's strengths. Leaders in these organizations work with employees to determine how to invest in and capitalize on their unique strengths. Employees who are natural innovators are given opportunities to put their strength to work.

Investing in employees' strengths is a generative solution; employees flourish and both the employees and the organization reap the rewards.

Labels: FInding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators, innovation, leadership, leadership development, strengths focus

The recent passing of George Carlin has meant the loss of one of our generation's sharpest observational critics. Many people mainly remember Carlin for his more notorious comedy bits, but I often found his jokes as insightful as they were funny.

I was recently reminded that he is credited with coining a term that has a unique value for business: "vuja de". The bit went something like this:
"Do you ever get that strange feeling of vuja de? Not deja vu, vuja de. It's the distinct sense that somehow, something that just happened has never happened before. Nothing seems familiar. And then suddenly the feeling is gone. Vuja de."

Doing a bit of internet research, I found that The Fast Company Blog commented on this a few years back. "Vuja de happens when you enter a situation you've been in a thousand times before, but with the sense of being there for the first time. As French novelist Marcel Proust said, "The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes."

It may be a bit of a stretch to put Carlin in the same class as Proust, but if vuja de is synonymous with seeing with fresh eyes, then it is a skill that should be taught in all MBA programs. It is a key prerequisite for creativity and innovation, and it is a central hallmark of healthy, adaptive corporate cultures.

Too often leaders can fall into the trap that "we have seen this all before...", effectively shutting down any opportunity for fresh analysis or innovative approaches.

The next time you find yourself in a familiar business situation, take a minute or two to see if you can summon up vuja de. Ask yourself what might be going on beneath appearances. See if you can see things from a fresh perspective, a new angle. George would love it.

Labels: innovation, leadership, seeing freshly, workplace culture