Leadership for Innovation: How to Organize Team Creativity and Harvest Ideas
Article Type: Suggested reading From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 18, Issue 6
John Adair Kogan Page2009ISBN: 9780749454791
Leadership for Innovation, dealing with innovation and how leadership affects the innovation process, helps to explain how to foster a culture of innovation. The author, John Adair, is a leading authority on leadership and leadership development, having written more than 50 books on the subject.
Based on the premises that “innovation is the key to winning and keeping leadership in world markets” and that “innovation calls for team creativity”, the book starts with the observation that only 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) 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 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: management commitment; positive strategic thinking; long-term perspective; appropriate responsiveness to change; acceptance of risk; and a right internal environment.
Chapter 3 introduces team creativity. The key points here are order and freedom, good communication of ideas, the right balance between creativity and productivity, and innovative leadership.
The next two chapters report two short as well as practical case studies,specifically the case of DNA Laboratory, about an organizational environment that fosters innovation, and the case of Honda, about an innovative leader. The former case study offers to the reader the organizational factors that, if incorporated in an organization, may bring it to the success in terms of team creativity building (for example, a flat organization, rules kept to 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 in his company.
Chapters 6 and 7 provide some simple guidelines to motivate the creativity of each individual: a fundamental element in this process of motivation is real commitment from top management. Chapter 7, in particular, describes the main characteristics and expectations of creative people: recognition and appreciation; freedom to align work with interests; contact with stimulating colleagues; encouragement to take risks; and, above all, 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, which are the brainstorming technique and suggestion schemes.
The author concludes with a brief mention to the way to overcome resistance to change and provides the reader with five principles to follow. At the bottom of this chapter is the notation that change is generally easy to accept if and when it is life-affirming. By summarizing these last chapters, it is possible to state that a team is creative if it: builds on existing ideas rather than trying to reinvent the wheel; brainstorms regularly; and is active, organized and critically constructive.
The book offers practical advice for any manager responsible for the development of innovation. It 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.
The book covers all the issues on innovation and team-creativity development for innovation. Each chapter offers useful practical examples, which help the reader (a manager rather that an academic) to understand how these techniques work and how to translate the theory into practice.
Reviewed by Barbara Bigliardi, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Parma, Italy.
A longer version of this review was originally published inLeadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 31 No. 2, 2010.
