It’s not difficult to recognize a seasoned serial innovator or change agent. Just look for a track record of successful changes and innovations.
But what if someone is a fledgling innovator, just getting started? How can you identify those on your team who have the potential to become serial innovators but haven’t yet had the opportunity to amass an impressive portfolio? And how can you make sure that they are freed up to do what they do best, creating the future, without blindly authorizing them to chase after every harebrained idea they can think of?
Frankly, that’s not so easy to do.
First of all, most leadership teams and boards have a negative initial reaction to change and innovation. They’re typically so busy dealing with the concerns of the present that they don’t have the time or energy to think deeply about the future. The vision and passion of an innovator often come off as distractions rather than as windows to the future.
People who are knee deep in a sea of alligators don’t have much interest in hearing someone’s creative plan to drain the swamp someday. They just want another shotgun, and they want it right now.
That is why it’s hard for most innovative ideas to get a fair hearing. Unless the innovator is also the primary leader (or someone near the top of the organizational food chain), most leadership teams and boards won’t take the time to listen. This explains why most innovators have to leave and start their own organizations in order to try out their ideas. They have no other option.
Second, most leaders and boards have a strong bias to protect the past. That’s not all bad. Someone needs to protect the gains of yesterday or they’ll be lost.
But healthy organizations — those that remain healthy for the long haul — can’t just focus on protecting the past. They must also think about creating the future, because if they don’t, someone else will. And when that happens, all the gains they’ve worked so hard to protect will be lost.
Consider IBM. As a company, they held the future in their hands. They had the key patents, technology, manufacturing know-how, and sales force to bring the personal computer to market. But their top leadership decided to hamstring the development and sales of personal computers so they could protect the high-margin profits of their existing mainframe business. They essentially gave away the right to produce an operating system, preferring to focus on what was working for them at the time. All of this worked out rather nicely for Bill Gates and Microsoft, if not so well for IBM.
Or consider an example from the world of churches. Some churches insist on maintaining the same programing, ambiance, and worship style that helped them grow thirty years ago. While this protects the past and keeps their aging members happy, it also guarantees that their nursery will remain empty. And it explains why so many of them end up as feeder churches to newer churches with ministries that match today’s date on the calendar.
The only way a leader and a leadership team can overcome this natural tendency to protect the past at the cost of the future is to find ways to identify and release the gifted innovators in their midst.
But how do you do that?
It starts with identifying them. And to do that, it’s helpful to understand how genuine innovators (as opposed to mere dreamers and idealists) think and see the world. Three telltale traits set them apart from others. If you hang around them long enough, you’ll see these traits cropping up in the words they use, the decisions they make, and the ideas they beg you to let them try. Here are the three traits to look for:6
Let’s take a brief look at each one.
A SPECIAL KIND OF INSIGHT
Genuine serial innovators and change agents have a special kind of insight. They have an uncanny knack for predicting what will and won’t work and how large groups of people will respond to a new idea. At times it seems as if they can see around corners.
But it’s not magic or clairvoyance. It’s simply the way their brain works. They have a God-given ability to mentally model various outcomes, and to do so with blinding speed and uncommon accuracy.
They are a lot like a master chess player who sees several moves ahead (and the potential results of each move). Serial innovators size up a situation and quickly extrapolate what will happen if and when various options are taken. They not only see the natural consequences; they also see the unintended consequences that most people miss.
Yet if you ask them how they know these things, they’ll often tell you that they “just know.”
In reality, they don’t “just know.” They’re actually processing a great deal of data at lightning speed. But since they do it subconsciously, they seldom have a clue what’s going on between their ears.
If asked to defend their position or explain why they did something, they can usually give very good reasons. They make it sound as if they came to their conclusions in a highly linear fashion. But that’s not what actually happened. When they explain their thought processes, they are usually reverse engineering something that came to them in a flash of insight.
A UNIQUE FORM OF COURAGE
Successful serial innovators and change agents also exhibit a unique form of courage. But it’s not the wild risk-taking kind of courage that you might expect. They’re serial innovators because they don’t take crazy and wild risks.
Instead, they take carefully calculated risks.
Their courage is simply a matter of trusting their mental model. While everyone else is clamoring for more proof, they already have enough proof. They know there will never be enough evidence to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that something that hasn’t been done before will work. After all, it hasn’t been done before.
But based upon the clarity of their mental model, they step out and take a risk that is in reality no more courageous than stepping out on new ice after you’ve watched a couple of trucks drive across it.
It may look like they take giant leaps of faith, but they don’t. They don’t hope their new ideas will work. They know they will work, because they’ve already seen the end game played out in their mind’s eye.
In fact, I’ve found that most serial innovators and successful change agents are actually risk-adverse. They don’t value risk for risk’s sake. They know the reward is not in the size of the risk. It’s in the quality of the risk. Like a card counter in Vegas, they’re willing to place a big bet. But only when they know they’ll win.
EXTRAORDINARY FLEXIBILITY
The third telltale trait of a successful serial innovator and change agent is extraordinary flexibility. I don’t mean yoga-like flexibility. I’m referring to the ability to quickly change course. When things don’t turn out as expected, they can turn on a dime. They’re masters of the midcourse correction.
No one gets it all right all of the time. Life is too complex for that kind of perfection. But the same ability to accurately model outcomes on the front end also enables serial innovators to mentally model changing outcomes midstream, and to readjust in light of the new data.
Serial innovators are the ultimate realists. Contrary to what many people think, great innovators are not marked by a stubborn, hell-bent, I’ll-let-nothing-stop-me devotion to their dreams and vision. They’re marked by a stubborn devotion to the truth, even when it’s not what they want to hear.
The idealist and dreamer will stubbornly go down with the ship. The serial innovator and successful change agent is not so stubborn. When the waves get too high, he grabs the rudder and changes course. Or as Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, has pointed out, people who are right a lot of the time are the same people who change their minds a lot of the time, especially when the facts prove them wrong.7
HOW DID THEY GET THIS WAY?
I once believed that almost anyone can learn to mentally model outcomes in much the same way that most people can eventually learn to see the picture behind the picture in a Magic Eye drawing (even if it takes awhile). I assumed that all it takes is a teachable spirit, a willingness to work at it, proper training, and exposure to the right experiences.
I was wrong.
I now realize that serial innovators are born, not made. Just as someone with perfect pitch hears what others can’t hear, innovators see what others can’t see. It’s in their DNA. They can’t help it. They’re weird.
RELEASING YOUR INNOVATORS
This doesn’t mean that if you weren’t born with these traits that you’re shut out from innovative and creative leadership. Far from it. But it does mean that if you are going to foster a spirit of innovation and an openness to change within your organization, you will have to find ways to identify the fledgling innovators and change agents in your midst and then find ways to support some of their seemingly crazy ideas.
And that can be scary for a leader.
It’s one thing to throw stuff against the wall to see what sticks when you’re in startup mode. But it’s another thing when you have a past to protect and existing congregants or customers you can’t afford to ignore or drive away. Or to put it another way, it’s easy to bet the farm when you have no farm to lose. It’s not so easy when you have an actual farm with lots of mouths to feed.
I’m convinced this is why so many mature congregations, nonprofits, and businesses opt to leave the cutting edge of innovation to startups and entrepreneurs.
It seems safer.
In the short run, it usually is.
But in the long run, it’s a death wish. There is no long term safety in the status quo.
So how can we know when it’s time to let our innovators make a major change or innovate and when it’s time to hunker down and protect the gains of the past?
To be honest, there’s no way to know for sure. Only time will tell if we’ve made the right choice. After all, no one can predict the future. Which is why the key to making the right decision doesn’t lie in soothsaying or risk assessment. It lies in something most leaders never think about, something that serial innovators never leave home without.
It lies in a viable exit strategy.