by Marcia Zidle, Columnist & Featured Contributor
“The scene was memorable,” confides HBS professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter. “I was sitting in a Singapore ballroom when the British head of a global oil company told his top managers worldwide about what they needed to succeed in their company in the future. Like the other people listening, I squirmed in anticipation of the usual clichés about audacious goals, working in teams, and putting customers first.”
“Brains he said. You need brains. And he sat down. How unexpected. How refreshing. How appropriate,” Kanter marvels.
In order to succeed in the future, Kanter believes savvy leaders need to use their brains know to think across borders and through boundaries to create innovation in their companies. She calls this kaleidoscope thinking.
How It Works
In a kaleidoscope, fragments of colored glass form a pattern, but the pattern isn’t fixed. If you shake it, twist it, change angle, or change perspective, exactly the same fragments form an entirely different pattern. The same thing happens when you take the same elements of your organization and combine them in creative, new ways that can result in more effective methods to operate the company, to satisfy your customers, to engage your employees. It’s like turning a kaleidoscope to examine the same basic set of circumstances in a hundred different new ways.
How to Shake It Up
The problem with companies that resist change is that they are too internally focused and their leadership is not exposed to experiences that would cause them to “shake the pattern” a little, to see a new possibility.
Leaders can stimulate kaleidoscope thinking at all levels within their companies by promoting these kinds of activities:
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Rotate job assignments and create interdisciplinary project teams to expose people to fresh ideas- Require regular visits by different departments to other parts of the organization to discover new ways of doing things
- Send people outside the company to experience things quite different from normal practice, not just on field trips, but “far afield trips.”
- Schedule ongoing discussions with people you know and don’t know who hold different points of view and be open to learn from them.
- Provide budgets for people attending conferences on subjects that are new and unfamiliar – different industries, parts of the country or world
- Encourage people to ask dumb questions or brainstorm silly possibilities. Every innovation that works starts out as someone’s silly thought – silly only because it was previously unthinkable[/message]
Smart Moves Tip:
According to Kanter, kaleidoscope thinking is the ultimate weapon to help leaders meet the challenges of the 21st century. Creativity and innovation come when we can shake up our thinking and challenge conventional patterns. We need to treat our minds like the kaleidoscopes they are, and constantly ask both “Why?” and “Why not?”
When was the last time you shook up your thinking? Your team’s thinking? If it hasn’t been in the past six months; it’s time!
My Motto Is:
If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got. Therefore, MOVE outside of your comfort zone; thats where the MAGIC happens.” To bring that magic to your leadership and business, subscribe to Marcias monthly Execubrief: Business Edge Smart Growth Strategies with a insights, inspiration and intelligence on how to build great businesses that matter those that do well and do good.
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