People is the core of innovation. Without it, it will just be a body without a soul.

I would say people is the most important yet difficult part of the equation in making innovation happen. Most people would say that you need the right kind of people for innovation to happen. What I believe is that everyone has the ability to innovate. Each individual have their own unique strength and they look at things differently from you. The challenge will always be on how you motivate them to start thinking differently.

The following are some ideas of mine on managing people for your innovation initiative.

Job description is the first step

It’s important to set the expectation right the moment they step into the company. Those who are selected to join your organisation need to know that part of their responsibilities is to find ways to improve the organisation and it can be anything from products to processes or maybe environment.

Furthermore, job description is another way to convey the kind of culture that your organisation has. And I don’t mean having ” We have an innovative culture ” kind of statement in the company introduction. I will discuss more later as this will require an entire article of its own.

Even Pessimist plays a part in innovation!

In the article “The 6 People You Need in Your Corner“, Jessica Hagy wrote that nothing incredible is accomplished alone and you need certain kind of people in your team to do that. And one of them that she listed is “The Doubter”.

Relating back to innovation, you cannot have a whole team of believer and work on every ideas that seem remotely feasible. You need “The Doubter” to ask all the right question to make sure (at least) all major risks are considered.

The point is to look past whether this person can innovate. Bear in mind that everyone can play a part in the innovation process. Use culture-fit as your beacon to see if he/she is the right person for your team/organisation.

Diversity is the key

In an article from HBR blog network, “Want a Team to be Creative? Make it Diverse“, the author, Beth Comestock said that tension is required to produce breakthroughs and tension comes from diverse points of views.

If you are building a team to come up with innovative solutions to solve certain problems, you need to involve people from other departments who can look at things differently. Depending on the situation, it might be good to involve people from a totally different background or discipline. For example, in a marketing ideation session, a philosopher might give ideas which will induce consumers into thinking the way the marketer wants them to think.

Keep the core team small

To move fast and to remain focused at all time, the core team needs to be small. Depending on the situation, 3 to 5 people is a good number. But do involve a bigger audience at different stages of the project to gather feedback and also to keep essential people in the loop on what’s going on.

The above-mentioned points are in no way an exhaustive list of how to select/manage people to make innovation happen. But it’s a start and I welcome opinion or more ideas on it.

But to me, what really drive the organisation is when the mid-level managers are able to inspire their team. All too often the team or department crumple just because the mid-level managers dont know how to lead and inspire.

Depending on your personality and management style, there are many ways that you can inspire your team. But I believe the following are the basis of being an inspirational manager.

listen and observe

This is a critical skill and most managers know about it yet they dont do it. Before you can inspire your team, you need to know and understand your team. Not just their first name but also what make them click.

And when come to solving your team’s problems/issues, you must have the patience and time to listen and observe. Most of the time, your team will not tell you directly the problems or issue that are bothering them but they will show it through other means (e.g. group conversation or even body langauge).

Those observation will help the manager to give out well-informed advice or instruction which might lead to problems/issues being resolved faster.

You will be surprised by how much they appreciate you if you show them that you are listening.

In most cases, managers will listen for the first minute and start giving advice or instruction based on the assumption that they make from that one minute. The team might get frustrated because the advice or instruction usually doesnt make sense at all. And in the end, both side will went away disconnected.

be great in what you do. solve problem.

Dont be those manager who got their senior level role, just because they are great in selling themselves to the management.

You have to be good if not great in your functional skill. Your team will come to you with problems and they will be looking at you for solution or direction on where they can find the solution.

People will definitely be inspired by manager who know their stuffs.

do what you promise.

Or dont make promise that you cant keep. Accountability is the word. Your team will lose faith in you, let alone inspire by you, if you cant do what you have promise them.

If there are unforeseenable change of event that prevent you from fulfilling your promise, take extra effort to inform your team and tell them what else can you do for them.

lead by example.

If you have read enough management or leadership book, you will know that this is crucial. If you dont do it, no one will work for you whole-heartedly.

Not to dampen your spirit but doing what’s mentioned in this article will mot make you an inspirational manager instantly. Being inspirational is a 4 dimensional thing. Time is required to build it. But do it right,  you will be able to call upon your most capable team to go the extra miles for you when the needs rise.

Innovation is not just about process. It involves a whole lot more. I believe the following areas are crucial in making innovation happen.

1. People
2. Culture
3. Environment
4. Process

In the coming weeks, I will discuss further on each area and provide advice which might be able to help you in your quest in making innovation happens. So stay tuned.

“When you enter into them, they impel you to get started”

Creativity is a state of mind. And it’s not an easy task to get into it when you have thousand and one things going on in our life and in your work. I believe there are times that you wish you can enter in that state at a snap of your finger.

According to Twyla Tharp, creativity can be made into a habit where you can summon it any time that you want.

In her book ” The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life“, she talked about ritual of preparation where you performed a ritual to prepare yourself to be creative.

The ritual consist of a series of movement which you performed before you go about your daily routine. The ritual can be a walk around the neighbourhood, listening to certain songs, e.t.c. For Twlya, it’s the whole motion of going to gym that set her off to her day of creativity.

On top of the ritual, try the following as well.

Association with Music or Smell

When going through the ritual, associate it with music or smell (not your odour, please). Remember there are times where certain smell or music remind you of some experience in the past. It might be your happy childhood or some painful incident. That’s what you want to create here.

After long period of association, you can use that particular music or smell to trigger your creativity.

Association with Feeling

When you are in your creative zone, what are you feeling? Happiness?, excitement? Inspired? Arousal? Remember that feeling.

When going through the ritual, feel that feeling. Immerse yourself with it.

Visualization

To expedite the whole process, you can visualise the whole process. The ritual. The music or smell. The feeling. Do it as often as you can. Best time will be just before you sleep and right after you wake up.

Even with ritual, it’s not going to be easy to be creative all the time. Dont just focus on process to be creative.
Focus on what you want to be creative about. Focus on your passion.

The first time that I was asked on what’s my leadership style, my mind was blank. I have no idea on what’s my style is.

When I was tasked to lead any team, there wasn’t any specific style that I have in mind, which I will use. In fact, there was no style at all. I just lead based on what I think is right (see extract). But there are a lot of times when I was wrong and I have to learn it the hard way.

As long as the following are achieved….
– The job get done and on time
– The team is happy working on the job and also together
– Care not only the job but also the one doing it (even their career life)

Come to think about it now. My style of leadership is very much like “Servant Leadership” which was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf .

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.”

“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?”

Robert K. Greenleaf
The Servant as Leader, 1970

For me, it’s always about the one doing the job. If they do not perform up to standard, the work that they produced will be junk. And only with the proper environment and sufficient resources, then they can do their job well.

It’s just like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s only when their most basic and fundamental needs are fulfilled, then your team member will put in the extra effort to make sure the job are done well.

So what’s your style?

1) Be the mentor

A company need talents in every department. So it’s either the company hire the talent, which often going to be expensive. Or, the company can train and develop those who deem to have potential. And the company will need the manager to take on the role of a mentor who can guide the employee.

2) Be the voice of the company’s values

Company need manager to be a firm believer of the company’s values. The manager is the bridge of communication between the senior management and the ground people. Therefore, it’s essential to the company that managers are regularly spreading the importance of the values to the employee.

3) Be the cheerleader

Especially in a team-structured environment, when the going get tough, the manager has to play the role of a cheerleader to boost the morale of the team. And usually, team members will put in their best once they see how much the manager cared for them.

I bet there are more roles that a company would like the manager to play. Still, the manager himself has to look at the workload and what’s expected of him from senior management. So that, he will not spread himself too thin and in the end, neglect his core responsibilities.

So what other roles of a manager do you think he/she should also play? Drop your thoughts in the comment section or share with us through my twitter.

“Everyone now is also a leader”

That’s what caught my attention when I read Seth Godin’s latest books ‘Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us’. It’s a powerful statement, which I always believe and try to cultivate it in any team that I lead.

In my previous job, it’s one of the things that I look for when I’m interviewing any candidate. It’s not necessary that they must have that kind of leadership qualities to lead a multi-national company. But at the very least, they must recognize that when it’s time to step up, either to salvage a project that goes horribly wrong, or to lead a new initiative, they must voluntarily take up the responsibilities and make it happen.

Especially in an online agency where things move in a flash to keep up with the newest trend in the industry and also the never-ending demand of a client, every individual should know that they have an unwritten KPI (Key-performance indicator).

And yes, you are right. They must lead. It might be a little bit overwhelming. But again, neither do they need the mindset of a Harvard graduate, nor the foresight of a war hero to lead. All that is expected of them is to show a little bit of initiative and to be proactive in solving the problems that exists within the organization.

Too many times, problems can be solved, project can be salvaged but it didn’t happen and all because of people standing in one corner, thinking that’s not part of their job scope.

As a manager or a team lead, it’s therefore important to cultivate a leadership mindset in every members of your team. And it’s only when all your team members have the mindset, then the work will seem a whole lot easier.

We all have been through it. We scheduled a meeting. The attendees arrived late. The meeting interrupted by the attendees walking in and out, answering their mobile phone. And worst of all, the meeting got sidetracked and everyone walked out of the meeting, more confused than ever.

I’m sure productive meeting exist. And I’m also pretty sure that you want every meeting, that you chaired, to be productive as well.

Here are 10 questions that you can ask yourself to ensure your meeting, a productive one.

1 ) What’s the specific purpose of the meeting? What do you want everyone who attended your meeting to gain from it?

Is it for:

– sharing information?
– issuing instructions?
– training?
– brainstorming for new ideas?
– solving problems?
– evaluating proposals?
– making or implementing decisions?
– addressing grievances or arbitrating?
– promoting team spirit?
– consulting vested interests?

2 ) What kind of meeting it should be?

Considering the following and once you decide on the format, sticks to it.

Frequency—A daily meeting is different from a weekly one, and a weekly meeting from a monthly one. Irregular, ad hoc, quarterly, and annual meetings are different again. On the whole, the frequency of meetings defines—or perhaps even determines—the degree of unity of the group.

Composition—Do the members work together on the same project, such as the nursing and ancillary staff on the same ward of a hospital? Do they work on different but parallel tasks, like a meeting of the company’s plant managers or regional sales managers? Or are they a diverse group—strangers to each other, perhaps—united only by the meeting itself and by a common interest in realizing its objectives?

Motivation—Do the members have a common objective in their work, like a football team? Or do they to some extent have a competitive working relationship, like managers of subsidiary companies at a meeting with the chief executive, or the heads of research, production, and marketing discussing finance allocation for the coming year? Or does the desire for success through the meeting itself unify them, like a neighborhood action group or a new product design committee?

Decision process—How does the meeting group ultimately reach its decisions? By a general consensus, “the feeling of the meeting”? By a majority vote? Or are the decisions left entirely to the chairman himself, after he has listened to the facts and opinions.

Mr. Jay, “How To Run a Meeting”
Harvard Business Review, March-April 1976

3 ) Who should attend the meeting?

Make sure there is a reason for everyone to be in the meeting.

4 ) How long should the meeting be?

With your specific purpose of your meeting in mind, decide how long your meeting should be and stick to it.

Respect your attendees’ time. And they will respect yours.

5 ) Have you send out the agenda to whoever are attending your meeting?

If you want people to contribute in the meeting, make sure that they know what’s the meeting all about.

6 ) Before the meeting, have you read all the background papers?

One of the worst things that can happen in your meeting is to be unprepared for it. Your attendees will lose confidence in you once they know about it.

7 ) Have you consider how attendees are likely to respond to whatever you have to say in the meeting?

Always consider your attendees’ response, especially so if you are getting an approval or consensus from them on certain issues. The last thing that you want is to be caught off-guard by their response.

8 ) Have you decide how you might need to handle your attendees in order to get most appropriate outcomes from the meeting?

By understanding how your attendees behave in a meeting, you can act according to it and get the outcomes that you want.

For example, you know that some of the attendees are shy. Therefore, it will be good to chat with them encouragingly just before the meeting to put them at their ease.

9 ) Just before the end, have you sum up the meetings and actions to be taken?

This is to make sure everyone understand what need to be done.

10 ) After the meeting, have you follow up with minutes to make sure the action agreed upon is taken?

Again, this is to make sure everyone is on the same page and hold everyone accountable to what have been discussed in the meeting.

The questions are easy, and straight-forward yet most people do not ask themselves to ensure a productive meeting. More will be discussed on productive meeting in future post.

From the Latin, it means “whether unwilling or willing”.

In everyone’s career life, there will be times when your immediate supervisor had quit unexpectedly or going to take 3 months leave. And you will need to step up and lead, nolens volens. This can be a chance to excel as well as a chance to fail.

Here are five things that you can take note when the heat is on you to lead your team.

1) Don’t panic and don’t let fear take over

Don’t collapse and fake death when your boss informed you that you need to take over and lead. Be calm and tell yourself that you can do it just by taking one step at a time.

If you need further convincing, list down what’s working for you and what’s against you. And you will discover that most of your fears and worries are just a fragment of your imagination.

2) Ask and clarify

Your expectation of your new role might not be the same as your boss’s expectation.

So talk to your boss and ask him/her what’s his/her expectation of you in the new role. Understand their expectation and translate them to your objective/goals.

And don’t forget about the expectation of your team. Whether you succeed in your new role, it depends largely on your team’s performance. So clarify with your boss on the team’s performance goals as well.

3) Plan, plan and plan………. and plan again

It may seem a daunting task. But, once you understand what’s expected of you and the team and identify th challenges involved, it will be a lot easier.

List down the goals, next step to achieve the goals and the challenges involved. Keep referring to the list to make sure everything is on track.

4) Communication…….but listen first

It’s a tendency to start giving orders and expect everyone to behave like bees and start working without thinking.

They are equally confused like you when there are changes in the management. So communicate the team’s goals and your plan to them. Once done, stop talking and start listening for feedback.

To succeed, you will need the whole team’s efforts. So do involve the whole team in your planning.

5) Leadership style. Your own or stay as it is

You may not like how the last manager run the whole show. And you are eager to change everything since you firmly believe that a certain leadership style will work for the team.

Don’t do it within the first 2 months of your new role. People are generally resistant to changes. Too many changes will only confuse your team, and any plan will backfired.

Use the 2 months to observe and listen. There is a different view now that you are at the top.

Most importantly, gain the trust of your team first.

Summary

Always remember, there are reasons why you are chosen to take over. You must have some talent or do something right for your boss to make that decision.

So stop saying you can’t do it and starts doing it.

But, leadership is something that it’s always happening around our daily life. You see it everywhere (oh ok, it’s not as frequent as news on Justin Bieber)

What triggered my thoughts is an extract from Daniel Goleman’s article (as shown below) in On Mission and Leadership: A Leader to Leader Guide

“Some years ago my wife and I were driving out of Manhattan on a wet winter afternoon. We were crawling in bumper-to-bumper traffic up the West Side Highway, when I was amazed to see a man in a wheelchair between the lanes of traffic, begging. I was so shocked and touched by his plight I automatically reached into my pocket as my car went by and dropped a $5 bill into his cup. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a gust of wind catch the bill and drop it on the roadway. I watched a drama unfold in my rear view mirror: the man couldn’t bend down to get the money; he had no legs. To my amazement, a passenger in the car behind me got out of the back door, walked along with the car so as not to hold up the traffic, picked up the bill, put it in the cup, got back in the car, and rode away.

That person was a true leader: he recognized a human problem and stepped in to create a solution. He showed both the qualities of leadership and qualities of the heart, which I believe are largely the same. The competencies that distinguish someone as human being also distinguishes him or her as leader. People in leadership roles seldom lack credentials. Yet, we all know- and probably have worked for- individuals with obvious intelligence, ambition, and skill who were incompetent n the human arena.”

So what does it mean to you?
You need to understand that to be a leader is not something out of your reach. You can be one as well. You just need to realize it and embrace it. And once you recognize the fact that anyone has the capabilities to be a leader, your next role to lead a team or a department will be a lot easier emotionally.