In the recent blog ‘Innovation through collaboration’ some important conditions were presented how people with different expertise can work together to develop innovative ideas, such as: being open to innovative work, respecting others and willing to learn. It is also important to understand how to create such an environment. Leavy (2015) shows that it is most important for innovation leaders to create an environment where people are willing and are able to collaborate. Innovation leaders should however not focus on finding the answers to innovation challanges or setting the vision, as innovation requires creativity and room for passionate disagreement as well as support. Innovation leaders are much more stage-setters to create the setting for idea generation, trial and error experiments and openness for breakthrough learning and results.
Although the results from the academic studies are clear, in modern business and society there are however always multiple issues that need attention. This makes stage setting for innovation even more important to create the right circumstances when people are working on innovation projects besides their other work. Perhaps the future lies in creating companies that are ‘the stage’ for innovative collaboration, because most businesses are in a continuous process of competition, business improvement and innovation.
Literature
Leavy, B. (2015). Continuous innovation: unleashing and harnessing the creative energies of a willing and able community. Strategy & Leadership,43(5), 24-31.
Norbert Bol 