Iconoclastic leaders: how to execute digital innovation | TrainingZone

An error frequently made by executives in trying to change their organisations, is that they focus too much on setting out and pursuing new directions, new organisational structures or ways of working, transformed processes and so on. There is nothing wrong in this per se, but if executives strive only for the new without inflicting, as I set out in my latest book The Leadership Crash Course, ‘constructive damage to the status quo’, then they are leaving barriers that will be a drag on change and innovation.

Too often today we see leaders of businesses and IT functions and innovation teams committing huge effort and investment to digitising old processes, rather than transforming into a digital way of operating – a digital business model. 

John Chisholm was the chief executive who transformed the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency from a costly and bureaucratic snail in British defence technology to a profitable, world-class tiger, later called QinetiQ. He described the issue succinctly, saying: “innovation is inherently iconoclastic: it’s something that breaks rules”.

Iconoclasm – the tearing down of the old, the smashing of rules, and the overturning of conventional wisdom – is at least as important a set of leadership actions as those of a positive, constructive intent.

Not doing constructive damage permits old ways of operating to retain their force and for people to stick to them and avoid opportunity, innovation and risk. This is known as the ‘sunk cost effect’, the tendency for humans to persist in something that clearly isn’t working because they have already invested something in it (time, effort, money) and they want to avoid both waste and failure.

Learning to ‘fail fast’

The new idea from the software and tech development world of ‘failing fast’ was based on being pragmatic about failure. The knowledge teams gain from a failed attempt actually increases the probability of ultimate success. Author Eric Ries, in his 2011 book The Lean Startup first championed this approach.

Doing constructive damage, therefore, means forcing or triggering new, innovative behaviour at the individual level by:

Each of these tactics is aimed at triggering in people, faced with the imminent demise of many of the old ways of working, the urgency to find or create alternative, innovative solutions – critically, solutions that are not simply reiterations of the old, conventional ways of operating.

Too often today we see leaders of businesses and IT functions and innovation teams committing huge effort and investment to digitising old processes, rather than transforming into a digital way of operating – a digital business model. This is simply a slow way to spend a lot of money but still remain fixed into traditional ways of running the operation.

Doing damage to the status quo should never happen in a vacuum, however. As a leader, your crystal clear articulation of the value you are trying to create through purpose and context is what will supply the steer to your people. It will set the parameters within which they need to operate, the guidance that ensures that whatever innovations or changes they create are aligned towards the shared objectives you want them to pursue.

Doing damage to the status quo is, of course, difficult and uncomfortable for leaders. Some leaders can become so risk-averse on the basis of a single uncomfortable experience that they allow the experience to bleed into the culture of the enterprise.

Formalising innovation: tactical, radical, and exploratory

Adherence to the status quo and clinging onto conventional ways of operating are very natural human behaviours. They provide stability, clarity of understanding and lower stress. If innovation is a high priority, you will need to raise the bar on investment and activities that change the context and therefore encourage experimentation, challenge and novelty. This will not be achieved purely through exhortations or influence.

Too many CEOs and departmental leaders are guilty of innovation ‘virtue-signaling’ when trying to prove to the market or shareholders – or even their own employees – that they are committed to innovation.

Firstly, be clear that innovation in a business context is the process of developing novel ideas that are commercialised (i.e. that can be monetised in revenue or profit or that result in value that is measurable, such as speed, fewer errors, lower cost and so on).

Secondly, you need a framework. As an executive, one of the ways I have used to kick-start and embed innovation is to commit investment and resource at three levels of innovation:

The emphasis of this approach is to ensure that investment and activity is taking place in all three of these innovation levels at the same time. This is very important because it maximises the opportunities for both tactical improvements (which help short-to-medium term efficiency gains or profitability uplift) and radical change (which drives medium-longer term business model transformations that secure strategic competitive advantage or defenses against market erosion and commoditization).

Real world lessons in successful innovation

There is a great deal of misunderstanding of how to innovate in businesses. Too many CEOs and departmental leaders are guilty of innovation ‘virtue-signaling’ when trying to prove to the market or shareholders – or even their own employees – that they are committed to innovation.

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Fortunately, there are real-world lessons to make the innovation framework set out above really effective. Leaders should implement the following guidelines:

Deliberately aim to build close connections between the innovators and the front-line business people, even if this means appointing someone in a role to force integration and collaboration. Organisations frequently make the error of developing great innovative initiatives with strong leadership from the top that fail to gain traction because teams in the businesses do not have the time, inclination or buy-in to execute the initiative.  

This article is an excerpt from The leadership crash course: creating leadership impact in the digital world by Paul Taffinder.