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Hello,
Welcome to Connecting Dots, the monthly newsletter on Innovation Leadership by Brett Macfarlane.
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Everyday Innovation and Cooperation
I’ll start by setting the scene.
I’m on a sunny Austrian train platform. The white capped mountains of the Arlberg tower to each side. A friendly bus driver brought us here ahead of the official schedule. It was his suggestion. He insisted that the wait would be more relaxed, in the sun and only take 3 minutes of his time.
I love these moments of micro-leadership. The driver taking up his role as a professional, citizen and ambassador. As I board the ÖBB Railjet to Zürich I can’t help but start seeing the results of micro-leadership all day. The little things someone has done to make things better in everyday life.
It’s not the big and hyped, rather the small and mundane that catch my eye all day. Improvements in the dining car offering to reduce waste, at-seat delivery, instant digital ticket validation with the conductor and automatic real-time ticket rerouting.
These are just the little innovations I see, I can only imagine each improvement requires significant behind-the-scenes updating, reconfiguring and reimagining how the company runs and the technologies they use.
Just like with my bus driver each is a little act of leadership. In the case of innovation, it won’t just be one person but a team working cooperatively to make it happen. Cooperation, in my experience, is key - it’s the result of people who want to work together.
It’s different from the oft-touted ambition of collaboration, which is more forced cooperation in many companies. A definition of collaboration is “traitorous cooperation with the enemy”. That’s not a great state. It’s why every little innovation makes me smile as I imagine it’s the product of a team cooperating to make something better in a new way.
A challenge with innovation is that for most employees it’s optional. Even if it’s in your job title it’s likely optional for those you need to work with. That’s why empathy for colleagues is so important for innovators. To understand what’s in it for them and why they would want to play your innovation game.
There are many reasons why a colleague might “want” to play your innovation game. We know carrot and sticks tactics often don’t work so try a little peer empathy. To do just that, here’s a colleague empathy cheatsheet. It helps us identify what’s in it for them at a human level.
The inspiration for this cheatsheet came from The Inner Game of Golf by Timothy Gallwey. He worked with elite golfers and elite businessmen noting each projected a game while either playing golf or doing business. I like how he takes “why we play” down to a human level and leaves room for each person’s own individual twist.
Why we play the innovation game:
(1) Competition: Played primarily to beat others; the score is only important relative to how others do. A sense of "reality" is often added to this game by prizes, patents, PR, promotions and bonuses.
(2) Perfection: Played to attain a personal ideal. Feelings rise and fall relative to how one's score or form approaches perfection.
(3) Image: Played purely for the image we create for others. It's not so important to score well as to leave the impression that we can and sometimes do.
(4) Friendship: Score and form are unimportant compared to companionship.
(5) Fun: The game is played purely for the fun of it.
(6) Expectations: A very common game, played simply to do as well or slightly better than one's expectations. It has a built-in interference because it's an easier game to win with low expectations, which are attained only by poor performance.
As we pull alongside lake Zurich I bet the teams behind the innovations I’ve seen all day are a mix of people with different projective games. I see them in a project kick-off sharing what motivates them to be part of the innovation. Each member gains data to empathize with others and see the project from their shoes. They are each motivated differently and at the same time together motivated for the challenge at hand.
We’ve arrived in Zürich and are striding out of the Banhof to check out the new Aesop counter in the Jemoli department store. Downstairs I come across Monocle’s latest news kiosk innovation attempt. It’s handsome yet a few things like the drinks fridge and tobacco displays seem incongruent. I imagine long discussions, deep legal reviews and thoughtful reflection of competing values. Like any innovation, it’s not perfect to start but it’s born and through cooperation, I’m sure it will mature as the team plays the innovation game.
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