Putting the I in Your Team

I read about this very cool premise and book from Apryl Motley, CAE, who was the managing editor of ASAE's ASSOCIATIONS NOW, published in February 2006. Thanks, Apryl!

At your next staff meeting, ask all of the innovative people in the room to raise their hands. Chances are you'll be met with confused stares and perhaps a few cautiously half-raised hands. Most people associate innovation with the next big idea or some invention that will change the world as we know it. Get a grip!

"Innovation is not about discovering fire or reinventing the wheel," says Breakthrough Management Group CEO David SilversteinSilverstein. "It is a core competency that can be taught and measured within your association."

Silverstein is a co-author of Insourcing Innovation: How to Transform Business as Usual Into Business as Exceptional (Breakthrough Performance Press, 2005), which argues against the common practice of organizations looking externally rather than internally for innovative capabilities.

An organization's best innovators are usually in your staff, but they must be empowered to take risks and make their ideas known. Silverstein talks about the importance of organizations cultivating their ability to innovate from within.

He draws a clear distinction between creativity and innovation. In his blog http://www.leadershipandbusiness.com/, Silverstein writes the equation for innovation success as follows: "creativity + structure = innovation success.

Most organizations do not have an infinite amount of time to explore infinite ideas. There must be a process for sharing ideas in an organization. However, organizations that engage employees in brainstorming with no end-game in mind cause frustration for staff. There must be a process in place for ideas to be evaluated and put into action.

Silverstein recommends a convergent approach to idea generation. "It's important to take staff through the process of narrowing the universe of ideas and then converging on the best--perhaps the most economical or time-sensitive--ones," says Silverstein. Within this structure, staff is empowered to bring ideas to life.

One of the first steps toward insourcing innovation is to free staff of intellectual baggage--help make people feel comfortable taking risks. Silverstein emphasizes the importance of understanding that everyone in an organization has the potential to create. But creativity must be fostered among the entire staff. The job of leaders who want innovation in their organizations is to let people make mistakes and learn from them.

Silverstein suggests some additional strategies for leading an organization out of inertia and into innovation:

**Know when to step in and when to step back.

**Focus on one or two people. Make them your top idea generators or innovation athletes. They can help motivate the rest of the organization.

**Help people understand their own psychological inertia or 'comfort zone'. Become more aware of your own limitations. You'll be more conscious of them, and this will help you think more freely.

**Establish more frequent staff rotations. Move people around so they have fresh perspectives.

**Reward people who take risks.

What does the future look like for organizations that fail to innovate?
According to Silverstein, failure to innovate throughout your organization is "a formula for commoditization of whatever you do." Competitors will converge around the same ideas that you have. You must have a self-preservation motive: Grow or die.

ASAE's Online Resources: Case Studies, Models and Samples, Whitepapers, Ideas and Recommendations

I highly recommend these great resources:

http://www.centeronline.org/knowledge/

Welcome to the Knowledge Resource section. Here you'll find association case studies, models and samples, articles and whitepapers, book reviews, the Ten Cool Ideas collection and expert recommendations covering all aspects of association management. Additional resources are available onsite at the Results Direct Knowledge Center located at The Center for Association Leadership.

Strategic Planning and Leadership - My Thoughts

What Makes a Leader, by Colin Powell (and he should know!)

Strategic Planning Templates:

A) The Contract

B) The Survey

C) Flow Chart

D) Outline

E) Balanced Scorecard Approach

Critical Success Factors for Business and Industry in 2005 per Survey

Types of organization DNA, plus a quiz!

Business Development Certification with Peter Brinckerhoff

Friendship Ambassadors Program

Putting the I in Your Team

What Makes a Leader? By Colin Powell

Make people mad. "Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity. You'll avoid the tough decisions, you'll avoid confrotning the people who need to be confronted and you'll avoid offering differential rewards based on differential performance, because some people might get upset. Ironically, by procrastinating on the difficult choices, by trying not to get anyone mad and by treating everyone equally "nicely", regardless of their contributions, you'll simply ensure that the only people you'll wind up angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization."

Find and fix problems. "Many leaders build so many barriers to upward communication that the very idea of someone lower in the hierarchy looking up to the leader for help is ludicrous. Corporate culture often defines asking for help as weakness or failure, so people cover up their gaps, and the organization suffers accordingly."

Trust those in the field more than experts. "As companies get bigger, they often forget who 'brought them the the dance'. Policies that emanate from ivory towers often have an adverse impact on the people out in the field who are fighting the wars or bringing in the revenues."

Embrace change. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the scared. It's an excuse for inaction. It's a mind-set that assumes (or hopes) that today's realities will continue tomorrow in a tidy, linear and predictable fashion. Pure fantasy."

Check your ego. "If people really followed organization charts, companies would collapse. In well-run organizations, titles are pretty meaningless. At best, they advertise some authority. But titles mean little in terms of real power, which is the capacity to influence and inspire. Have you ever noticed that people will personally commit to certain individuals who on paper possess little authority, but instead posssess pizzazz, drive, expertise and genuine caring for teammates and products?"

Encourage growth. "Effective leaders create a climate where people's worth is determined by their willingness to learn new skills and grab new responsibilities, thus perpetually reinventing their jobs. The most important question in performance evaluation is not 'How well did you perform your job since we last met?' but 'How much did you change it?'"

Promote positivity. "The ripple effect of a leader's enthusiasm and optimism is awesome. So is the impact of cynicism and pessimism. Leaders who whine and blame engender those same behaviors among their colleagues. I am not talking about stoically accepting organizational stupidity and performance with a 'What, me worry?' smile. I am talking about a gung-ho attitude that says 'We can change things here, we can achieve awesome goals, we can be the best.' Spare me the grim litany of the realist. Give me the unrealistic aspirations of the optimist any day."

From Selling Power, September 2005