Continuous innovation: unleashing and harnessing the creative energies of a willing and able community

Abstract

Purpose

In the recent book, Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation, a team of authors and researchers offer answers to the questions: How can leaders build an organization that can innovate over and over? And why, in spite of all we know about innovation, have companies not made more progress on this important question to date?

Design/methodology/approach

S & L interviewer Brian Leavy asks lead author Linda Hill about innovation misconceptions, planting the seeds of a willing innovation program and developing the innovation capability of an organization.

Findings

Exceptional leaders of innovation don’t focus on finding the answers or setting the vision, but rather on creating the environment in which others are willing and able to collaborate and innovate together again and again.

Practical implications

Repeat innovation requires that the leader be more of a stage-setter than the star performer.

Originality/value

Linda Hill’s team was the first to articulate the notion that the ability to innovate on a sustained basis requires the development of three key capabilities–“creative abrasion,” “creative agility” and “creative resolution.”

Citation

Leavy, B. (2015), "Continuous innovation: unleashing and harnessing the creative energies of a willing and able community", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 43 No. 5, pp. 24-31. https://doi.org/10.1108/SL-06-2015-0051