Building Innovative Teams

Building Innovative Teams

BUILDING INNOVATIVE TEAMS Strategies and Tools for Developing and Integrating High Performance Innovative Groups Chris Harris

Chris Harris 2003 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 978-1-4039-0386-0 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-50909-6 ISBN 978-0-230-00114-5 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230001145 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harris, Chris. Building innovative teams : strategies and tools for developing and integrating high performance innovative groups / Chris Harris. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Teams in the workplace. 2. Creative ability. I. Title. HD66.H3744 2003 658.4'02 dc21 2002193097 Editing and origination by Aardvark Editorial, Mendham, Suffolk 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03

In loving memory of my grandmother, Lillian Blore, whose love and compassion inspired me to truly choose what I want to be, what I want to do, what I want to know, and where I want to go

CONTENTS List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Aim of the Book 1 Why a Book on Building Innovative Teams? 1 The Need for Constant Innovation 2 The Need for Public Service Innovation 5 Innovative Teams: A Key to Future Success 5 Outline of Building Innovative Teams 6 Part I The Dynamics of Innovation 7 Chapter 1 The Unique Nature of Innovation 9 Leading Definitions of Innovation 9 What Innovation Is 11 What Innovation Is Not 12 What Successful Innovation Can Be 13 Failed Invention and Deep Uncertainty 14 Innovation Uncertainty Matrix 15 Successful Innovation and Accelerated Learning 17 Chapter 2 The Unique Nature of Innovative Teams 20 The Difference Between Innovative and Steady-state Teams 20 Multifaceted Change and its Impact on Innovation 22 Examples of Complex (Q4) Systems Innovation 24 Difficulties with Complex Systems Innovations 25 The Need for Innovative Teams 26 The Seven Cs of Innovative Teams 27 Part II The Dynamics of Building Innovative Teams 31 Chapter 3 The Brain, Learnt Behaviours and Human Interaction 35 The Basic Structure and Physiology of the Human Brain 35 The Ideas and Habits We Learn 37 The Emotions and Reflexes We are Born With 37 x xi vii

viii Contents The Fight/Flight Response 40 Uncertainty and the Fight/Flight Response 41 Shaping Up the Individual s Mind for Teamwork 41 Control and the Fight/Flight Response 45 Tolerance Building and Communication Stress Scenarios 46 Example of a Tolerance-building Exercise 47 Chapter 4 Creativity and Innovative Teams 49 Creativity and Creative People 49 Left and Right Brain Functions 51 The Whole Brain and Creativity 52 The General Nature of Creative People 52 Individual Autonomy and Teamwork 53 Surfacing Conflict as a Source of Learning and Innovation 56 Chapter 5 Developing an Innovative Team s Whole Mind 63 Mental Models 63 Dominant Mental Models 66 Transforming Mental Models 67 The Sharing of Great Minds 69 Getting to the Heart of the Matter 74 The Wheel of Reinforcement 75 Stopping and Opening the Wheel of Reinforcement 77 Perception Orientation 79 Chapter 6 Collaborative Learning Beyond Knowledge 81 The Limits of Innovation Possibilities 81 Design-space 82 Accumulative Design Work 84 Synergy: The Nature of Collaborative Learning 85 How Learning Reduces Risk and Uncertainty 88 Team Dialogue Development 89 Supercool Dialogue 90 Practice Games for Collaborative Learning 93 Chapter 7 Innovative Team Values 97 The Idea of Core Values 98 Values and a Team s Meaning 98 Values and a Team s Purpose 99 Values as a Management Control Mechanism 100 Conflicting Values and Teams 100 The Seven Most Important Values an Innovation Team Holds 100 Developing and Reinforcing Innovative Team Values 105 A High Performance Innovation Culture 108 Chapter 8 The Need for High Performance Goals and Metrics 109 The Idea of High Performance 109 The Need for SMART High Performance Goals 110 Attainable Stretch Goals 111 Integrated Systems Goals 111

Contents ix Why Set Metrics? 112 Principal Characteristics of Effective Performance Metrics 113 Targeting: What to Measure 114 The Basic Design of Key Performance Metrics 116 Where to Measure: Divergent Creativity or Convergent Results? 116 When to Focus Metrics on Creativity or Results? 117 Chapter 9 Organising Innovative Teams 118 Smarter, Simpler, More Agile Organisations 119 Organisational Structures and Content 119 Balancing the Top-down, Bottom-up Organisation 119 Optimising the Size and Structure of Innovative Teams 120 Multidimensional Roles 122 Where Possible Collocate the Team 123 Innovative Team Project Rooms 124 Distributed Teams and Collaborative Technologies 125 A Virtual Trip into the Future of Distributed Teams 126 Chapter 10 Innovative Team Leadership 130 Innovative Open Team Leadership 130 Characteristics of an Innovative Team Leader 132 Key Roles of an Innovative Team Leader 135 Building and Selecting Team Leaders 138 Part III Innovative Team-building Performance 141 Chapter 11 Designing and Executing a Team-building Programme 143 The Need for Accelerating Team Performance 143 The Team-building Programme Template 144 The Classic Sigmoid Curve and Team Performance 145 Putting Together the Team-building Programme 148 Executing the Team-building Programme 153 Escaping the Diminishing Returns Performance Trap 156 Embedding Team Building into the Organisational Culture 156 Chapter 12 Profiling and Selecting Team Members 158 Identifying Core Competencies for Systems Innovation 158 Competency Chart 160 Understanding Personality and Behaviour Profiles for Innovation 161 People Power: The Tom Peters Quiz 164 In Pursuit of Optimising an Innovative Team Mix 167 Team Profiling and Personnel Selection 171 Overall Team-building Strategy 172 Part IV Appendices 173 Appendices A G 174 Bibliography 239 Index 241

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figures 1.1 Innovation uncertainty matrix 16 3.1 The basic structure of the human brain 36 4.1 Conflict matrix 58 5.1 Wheel of reinforcement 76 5.2 Objective wheel of reinforcement 78 9.1 Team-based organisational structure 122 11.1 The classic sigmoid curve 146 12.1 Key stages of innovation 168 Tables 12.1 Core competency chart 160 x

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank the long line of people who have influenced or directly helped me to build innovative teams over the years: Bruno Bettelheim, Charles Handy, Gary Hamel, the late Soichiro Honda, Douglas Hofstadter, Fumio Kaodama, Stuart Kauffman, Kevin Kelly, Vincent Nolan, Marvin Minsky, the late Akio Morita, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ken Ohmae, Tom Peters, Howard Rheingold, Peter Senge, Dennis Sherwood, George Stalk, Jim Taylor, Alvin Toffler, Jim Utterback, and Watts Wacker. I d like to thank the companies I have worked with over the past two decades for their generous time and support in the development of the content of this book: American Airlines, British Airways, the BBC, Boeing, Bank of America, Capital One, Cisco Systems, A.P. Besson, Concord Lighting, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, McDonnell-Douglas, Matra Satellites Systems, Rockwell-Collins, General Electric Corporation, Raytheon and Toyota. Many thanks to Aardvark Editorial for their diligent work in the book s overall layout and editing (once again your work is outstanding). Last, but by no means least, I am indebted to my publishers Jacky Kippenberger and Steve Rutt at Palgrave Macmillan, whose guidance during the completion has been invaluable. xi