Creative Leadership For Tough Times

Surely we just need good strong Leadership in tough times not 'airy fairy' Creative Leadership? If you share this view then I think we have our wires crossed already. Let me explain.

In the current economic climate we do need strong (or should I say bold) Leaders but traditional Leaders (and I include those who are up to date with such concepts as transformational and situational leadership here) often have a Leadership toolbox that is comprehensive but perhaps identical to those carried around by other Leaders. So if we all have the same tools and we all operate in the same marketplace then we still have a stalemate.

And now for the Creativity bit. I am not suggesting that our bold Leaders walk around with an armful of creative techniques and nothing else, just that they should supplement their Leadership toolbox with a selection of techniques that provide alternative ways of analysing and solving problems, decision making, planning and communicating. Leaders then have a larger repertoire of business tools at their disposal from which they can select the most appropriate and most effective.

But why are Creative techniques particularly good for the tough economic climate that we are now faced with? In short they can:

• Provide competitive advantage as their usage often relies on tacit knowledge
• Are more likely to unearth solutions that no one else has thought of or tried
• Allow Leaders more time to focus on real business issues - these techniques can save time
• Permit greater buy in from colleagues and employees and thus less resistance to change
• Build intrinsic motivation amongst the workforce

Even in highly regulated industries such as Financial Services, Leaders can enhance their capability in this way. Remember it is only the outputs of your processes that may be regulated. Internally there are usually alternative ways of doing things!

The future's bright - how do we get there?

In a previous article some of the benefits of using Futures were outlined. But you would like to know how to benefit from Futures wouldn’t you?

The first stage is a huge information gathering exercise (remember the analogy of a ship’s wake, we need all of this information). At the same time there needs to be some degree of focus. We cannot just generate the answer to the question ‘What does the future look like?’ A more reasonable question might be ‘What does the market for personal computers look like in 2020?’ or ‘What will the requirements for transport infrastructure in Wales be in 2025?’

Once these areas have been identified we then begin to look at the drivers that affect these areas and existing trends that are already apparent. We also look a little further afield and scan the time horizon as far ahead as we can. All the time we gather information, taking care not to filter it too much as the ‘signals’ that we are looking for easily get lost in the ‘noise’ and we never know at the start how much weight (or credibility) to attribute to the information we are gathering.

At this point we have an idea of what we wish to look at and the various factors that might affect it. Now we add the questions, what if oil prices trebled or the population halved, working through a number of scenarios and seeing how this changes the future. Then we throw in the wildcards, who predicted 9/11 in the USA or the bombings in London? Who foresaw the so called credit crunch?

And how can we make this tangible at the end of the exercise? There are two main ways of examining strategy, observing the future from the present and working out how to get there and the most powerful version which is to look back towards the present from the future and describing how we got here. This is where our storytelling skills come into their own and we generate buy in.

We can predict the future up to 30 years ahead in order to inform strategy making and investment decisions for public and private sector bodies by using:

• Information from expert groups
• Widely available information
• A number of carefully chosen scenarios
• Both existing knowledge and by introducing wildcards
• Storytelling and other creative techniques to facilitate information gathering and generating buy in

For further information on how Futures can be used to help your organisation please get in touch now.

Is your thinking really creative?

When people say they are creative or that they believe in creative thinking, what exactly are they talking about? Where is this creativity supposed to be?

There are many artists, sculptors, poets etc who produce material that is claimed to be creative. The reality is that they are not creative at all. Consider the artist who throws paint at a canvas to produce an abstract picture. The artist is more often than not trying to confuse or shock the public and in some cases use a form of intellectual snobbery. The next time they paint they may very well use the same technique - where is the creativity in that? This is even more relevant to the topic of design.

Today I read a very interesting article on the BBC website about the building of new fleet of nuclear submarines for the British Navy. My curiosity was aroused when there was a mention of Psychologists attending board meetings and so I read on.

A submarine is a large horizontal metal tube so think how hard it must be to install all of the heavy equipment and machinery. Not so here. The solution? Build the hull in sections but upright and then lower in the equipment with a simple crane. Next rotate the sections so that they are horizontal and then join them. It saves a huge amount of money and time and reduces risk.

Now who is the creative, the artist or designer who uses the same techniques, or the submarine builder who is constantly looking for new ways of seeing problems and then solving them? You decide!

Innovation – the way it works

This is not the definitive guide to innovation. It is just one way, and it works. The process outlined below is for a single innovation project, not continuous innovation. That is a step too far for a newsletter.

To start with there will be some sort of startup event in which key stakeholders are seen to give approval. The traditional rallying call to troops is not appropriate here. Next you are likely to take stock of where you are in terms of skills and capabilities. Our Innovation Toolkit can help you to do this. The ‘end of the beginning’ is to set up the necessary infrastructure, define objectives etc.

If there are any skills or capability gaps then these need to be covered with appropriate training before entering a research phase. This includes market research, feasibility, trend spotting, reviewing legislation etc.

Next comes the idea generation phase. Although it sounds like chaos, the aim is to produce a number of options for products, services or processes but to then filter them down to a manageable number.

There will then be a period where ideas are prototyped, tested and refined. At this point (and not before) you can produce a plan for your new business venture and work with production and operations people to implement and roll out your idea.

Although you will be sitting down pleased with yourself at this point you need to do one more thing, ensure that the lessons learned (from success as well as failure) are captured for future use.

The pleasing thing about all this is that it is possible to successfully plan your innovation project. Good luck with yours.

Innovation - how long is a piece of string?

This is a question that children and parents often ask each other when playing and is of course a trick question. Why then do people ask the question 'how long will my innovation project take' when it too is a trick question? The reason it is a trick question is that rather like the piece of string we tend not to know where one (or both) ends are. Still, this is a question that I would like to answer, so that many of the SME owners can at least have an attempt at creating a budget for next year.
Here I am concerned with an innovation project run in isolation, not several running concurrently or an ongoing rolling programme. First of all let us identify the phases that the project must go through along with the number of people involved.

• Startup
• Audit
• Setup and training
• Research and idea generation
• Testing and refining (including prototyping) if necessary
• Implementation (possibly pre production if manufacturing)
• Roll out

These seven phases can be further broken down or amalgamated as necessary. They outline a process for taking stock, gaining support and laying down rules before taking a hard look at your current starting point. You will need some training and development as you are about to enter into areas that you might not have been before. Have you often wondered why brainstorming works with and external facilitator but not with your own team?

The period of research and generating ideas is one that I term the 'Ideas Lab'. It is a period of intense activity but one where the greatest number of results are observed. Finally we come to the tough bit, actually turing ideas into reality so that the boss can see he has not been wasting his money.

If you are in a mature (as opposed to startup) business then such a cycle is likely to take 12-14 weeks to get to the point where you are ready to launch a new product or service. This gives business owners an idea of how long resources need to be committed for. Now here comes the really big problem, how many resources?

As a rule of thumb you might need some full or part time external help but you will need some internal liaison or project management and a number of people that cover all of the functional area within your company (marketing, sales, production, stores, finance) and possibly at different levels. This could easily be 6-15 people in a medium sized company but could be only 2 or 3 in a much smaller business.

So now you know you might need 6-15 people for around 12-14 weeks and some equipment/office space. This will give a very rough 'finger in the air' estimate, enough for you to be able to answer the question 'is this worth doing?' In today's economic climate you may very well be trying to decide the future of your business.

Commercialising your ideas - PRD Partnership

Keen eyed blog readers will have noticed a link to PRD Partnership from this blog but I thought I'd write a little about who PRD are.

PRD Partnership brings together myself (Creativity and Innovation), Roger Croft (Strategy and Entrepreneurship) and Peregrine Nicholls (Sales, Marketing and Direct Marketing). We believe that this brings together a powerful combination of skills that can help organisations who are Innovating in some way. Creative techniques underpin all of our offerings which allows us to view business issues from an alternative perspective and hence provide alternative solutions. For some FREE tools see the downloads section of our website.

To define the offerings we have based our Commercialisng Your Ideas matrix upon the Ansoff matrix. The four quadrants we use are:

• Venturing
• Product Development
• Market Development
• Performance Improvement

Clicking on the links will take you to the PRD website where these terms are more fully explained. Organisations may actively seek to enter into or move between the first three states but the last is one a place that organisations do not wish to remain in for long in the modern business climate.

PRD offer a range of tools and techniques that enable companies to commercialise their ideas (products, services or processes). These range from Strategy, Innovation and Culture audit throught to planning and workshops. For a full range of Products, Services and to meet the team, visit the PRD Partnership website.