Leading an innovation culture can be a messy business. Or, maybe that should be: Leading an innovation business can be a messy culture. However the notion is phrased, the point is the same. Innovation is not a tidy process.
By its very nature, innovation is unpredictable, even though your business requires predictability. It is full of surprises, even when you believe your biggest enemy is surprise. And, frequently, innovation delivers more failure than success, even when your future (both your organization’s and yours as an individual!) demands a track record of success. Innovation is intrinsically a contradiction, offering significant improvement to your business, just as it offers up disruption and change. It can dramatically enhance your competitive advantage, while at the same time putting your existing market advantage at risk. It can create sustainable growth, while at the same time threatening known, existing growth elements.
It seems axiomatic that positioning innovation as a core value or business model is a high-reward, high-risk proposition. And that means that creating an innovation culture may very well require a different approach to leadership, a different way of thinking about yourself, and a different way of being mindful of your own development as a leader.
Read more about leading an innovation culture here.
