Team or Dictator Driven Innovation?

One of the places on the Internet that I spend time at is LinkedIn. If you know about it and use it, great. If not, you need to think about using this great professional networking tool.

A section on the site is called “Answers”. Members can post a questions, or a thought provoking statement, and other members can post answers or comments. There are other places on the site that have somewhat the same function and are much freer about what you post, but this area is reserved for professional questions and answers.

The title of this posting is the title of a question that caught my eye last month. I wanted to share it and my answer with you. I think that the question is very appropriate to our current times and the forces that are shaping our business environment.

Question:

Team or Dictator Driven Innovation?

Steve Jobs taking a leave of absence has brought this question to the forefront. Most companies use the team approach to new design and innovation. They bring in their engineer, someone from marketing, a consultant or two, with a manager piled on for good effect and tell them to go. Why aren’t more people handing their innovation process over to one person and letting them run it.

Even a mediocre dictator may provide creation better than the output from a team oriented process. Is it fear of responsibility or simply management taking the easy way out that leads to so many blah innovations?

My Answer:

There is an old saw: "A camel is a horse designed by committee" (Alec Issigonis).

Large projects require many people, but really just a few leaders. Those leaders start with a singular vision, and the successful ones retain that vision throughout the project.

There are groups of creative genius, and there are singular creative geniuses. Singular ones are the famous painters and sculptors for example, people that have a vision but do not have the talent or skill to tell others "how" to execute the vision, so they execute the vision themselves.  Are they anti-social?  No, they are just limited in their ability to lead, and compensate with a huge talent to communicate in a specific form of art. 

Some singular creative geniuses are able to communicate their vision via word or written music, that others can follow the instructions and animate the creative fruits from the instructions. This group would include composers, writers, story tellers.

Groups of creative genius are like the creative management team at Pixar Studios, who collaborate and play off of each other to create wonders.  Rock bands are another example of these groups.  Each has their specific talent that they bring to the table.  And their relationship is interdependent in nature.  But they still need a leader.

In business, there are leaders who are appointed, and leaders who just step up and lead. The ones who step up have a vision, are able to communicate that vision so that they are able to gather followers to "see" that vision and execute the creations of that vision.

The best are rather demanding, and expect their followers to be demanding. Steve Jobs is a leader who had clear vision of the "experience" he wants the users of Apple products to have, and he does not compromise on the vision of experience. If someone suggests something that makes it better, good, include it.

Too often the "group" is preferred over the "individual" in the vision process. That is where the camel enters the room. The BS about there being no "I" in team is used against the creative soul that is attempting to change the way of the timid uncreative leader. While there is no "I" in team, there is in "Win" (Michael Jordan) and there is a "ea" (as in each) in leader.

Every team needs a leader, not one who is appointed, but one that the group naturally follows because that leader has a clear vision of what to create. Mediocre leaders will lead a team to develop a mediocre solution.  An ego driven leader driven by an out-sized "self-vision" will drive no solution.  A leader who has a clear vision, and can express that vision with persuasion and accommodation will lead a group of creative people to create great things.

Creative people who think do not follow who they are told to follow; they follow leaders that they respect, that can articulate a vision that can be followed.