The thing about innovation and setting out to create one is that you - as a leader - cannot tell the people you want to work on that particular innovation product what you want out of their effort, not in detail anyway. If you could - it wouldnt be an innovation, now would it? So instead, leaders need to create the boundaries within which the team can explore and create. Leaders need to set the stage, to frame the work.
Once the frame is set, the leader must (a) continuesly re-evalute and possible adjust the frame to its environment, (b) introduce a direction for the frame, tell the involved people where the company wants to go over time with this particular area/frame and where external circumstances might move it in the future - I guess this would be the strategy part of the innovation project - and (c) possibly - if its hands-on leadership we are talking about - facilitate the work inside the frame.
To facilitate a teams work it´s a good idea to create a common view of the process that the team shall follow along with defining roles for the involved so that they now what is expected of them. In this sense - although quite abstract - facilitating is also creating new frames inside the overall frame.
Based on my learnings from Index:Views Summit and other places in the past I would say that facilitation is about details. The details and how you as a leader handles them, is what makes or brakes a fruitful process. Its how you choose to intervene when you decide to do so or how you effect the group when you don´t. How you direct energy, focus, discussions within the group for different purposes in different stages of the process.
I guess its like riding a race horse. Although I never tried myself, I understand that while the jockeys go neck-to-neck, standing up, at mindblowing speed (if you take the safety conditions into consideration) they steer the animal with very, very subtile moves of their hands since to big gestures might drive them of the field.
Having read some business pshycology myself in the past on this particular subject I believe leaders of tomorrow - should they lead design/innovation processes themselves - have a lot to learn from this discipline, regardless if they are business scholars or designers by education.
What is your experiences with facilitation of collaborative creative work processes? How do you see the need for facilitation skills play out in innovation projects?
2 comments so far
“What is your experiences with facilitation of collaborative creative work processes? How do you see the need for facilitation skills play out in innovation projects?”
I think collaboration requires a mental closeness between a group of people that allows them to communcate their visions very clearly. This clear communication allows them to better understand the properties surrounding each members constraints and solutions, and successfully recombine solutions into new, innovative value generators.
I’m not sure where facilitation plays a part, beyond facilitating a place where this communication can occur.
To me the facilitiation of creative processes is very much about climate setting.
The leader’s/facilitator’s role is to diagnose the “dynamic” of the group by means of their professional experience combined with the use of “climate setting” activities that form guidelines for the group/team while engendering an environment where individuals feel safe to explore, play, contribute and build upon each others input.
Communication skills are paramount - especially active listening, empathy and disclosure. These ingredients, combined with physical environmental factors, all mix to create the kind of climate where creative thinking strategies and productive ongoing dialogue can occur. Strategic conversation is central to group creative processes.
So in essence Austin, I agree - you are right. The facilitator role is about creating a “place” where all this can take place.
Of course all this, as we know, is not a fail safe strategy for the creation of innovation environments. Personalities, extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, political issues, workplace culture all are undeniable factors. I suppose this is what makes it all so interesting 