“People make innovation happen through their imagination, willpower, and perseverance.  And whether you are a team member, a group leader, or an executive, your only real path to innovation is through people” states Tom Kelley, author of the Ten Faces of Innovation.  Building an environment fully engaged in positive change requires 360 degrees of innovation.  To be successful at creating this environment we must welcome new viewpoints and insights.  The 10 Faces is an exploration of the roles used at IDEO to combat the Devil’s Advocate, or negative perspective, and leverage the energy and intelligence of team members to generate a remarkably powerful force for innovation.   Consider these roles when you are creating your teams or designing new programs and projects.

The Anthropologist: Anthropologists have the ability to set aside what they know and observe with an open mind.  They are comfortable with the study of human behavior and genuinely love gaining insight from others.  Anthropologist role is not only the study of others, but the innate ability to hypotheses about the emotional underpinnings of human behavior.  As Kelley says, “Anthropologists have the ability to see what’s always been there but gone unnoticed-what others have failed to see or comprehend because they stopped looking too soon.”

Anthropologists use tools like “bug lists” or “idea wallets” to effectively do their work.  A bug list is a catalogue of the things that are being held together by tape, or a staple, some kind of fix to make something work better.  While an idea wallet is used to sharpen the powers of observation.  A good Anthropologist will look for insights where they are least expected such as before a customer arrives or immediately after they leave.  As Kelley says, “Seeing with fresh eyes may be one of the hardest parts of the innovation process.  You have to set aside your experience and preconceived notions.  You have to drop your skepticism and tap into a childlike curiosity and open-mindedness.  Approaching field observations with a spirit of curiosity can make all the difference in the world of identifying new opportunities or solutions to existing problems.”

The Experimenter: According to Kelley, “What Experimenters share is a passion for hard work, a curious mind, and openness to serendipity.”  At IDEO experimenting happens using prototypes to try out something new.  The IDEO culture embraces lots of little failures in pursuit of the big success.   The concept of presenting less-polished (less-expensive) prototypes is essential when wearing the Experimenter role.  At IDEO they have created an environment where it is okay to present basic prototypes to provide vision of the possibilities.

Kelley goes on to pose the questions, “When a creative individual shows their boss - or even their colleagues - a good idea that’s still a little rough around the edges, people pay close attention to what happens next.  Does the organization build on the idea or ridicule it?  Does management focus on the imperfections or the promise? Think about what happens in your organization.  
Kelley asks his readers, ”Could you come up with a symbolic way of letting go of mistakes in your organization, or within your division or team?  It can’t hurt, and just might turn your team into winners.”

The Cross-Pollinator: Cross-pollinators often innovate by translating clever solutions from one industry into another.    Kelley offers seven suggestions for cross-pollinating that has worked at IDEO:  

• Show-and-tell.  Share new insights on projects undertaken and showcase the newly invented projects across the globe.  Hire lots of people with diverse backgrounds.  Assembling people of diverse backgrounds and aptitude, yield a team with diverse points of view.
• Stir the pot with space.  Uses space to inspire creativity through such things as multi-disciplinary project rooms and leaving ample space for chance meetings and cross-pollination of ideas.
• Cross cultures and geographies.  Just like looking for people with diverse talents and aptitude, the same applies to cultural and geographic diversity.  It can create a mixture of international flavor.
• Host a weekly “Know How” speaker series.  Inspire the team with profound thought – keep the thinking continuously fresh.
• Learn from visitors.  Invite people into our environments with open-minds so we can expand our knowledge.  
• Seek out diverse projects.  Reality suggests that while we have to learn from the past, the future will have to look much different to meet the demands of our changing world.

The Hurdler: Hurdlers are the individuals in your organization who when confronted with obstacles, have the ability to approach the situation from new angles. Hurdlers are excellent problem-solvers and savvy risk-takers.  They have extraordinary resilience and oftentimes don’t take no for an answer. They have comfort in breaking the rules, or confronting the established paradigms in the pursuit of new solutions.  Hurdlers are the individuals who are good in a crisis and thrive on competition.

Constraints like a tight budget or a deadline seem to be fuel for the successful Hurdler.  As Kelley puts it, “Hurdlers love to turn lemons into lemonade.”  Obstacles present Hurdlers with the opportunity to excel. According to Kelley, “The Hurdler’s drive plays a major part in significant new innovations and can turn an organization’s greatest challenge into its greatest success.”

The Collaborator: Collaborators are those rare individuals who value the team over the individual.  They are proactive leaders who can coax people out of their silos to work together in multidisciplinaryways.  Collaborators often lead from the middle and can hold a team together with superior diplomatic skills. The Collaborators within our organizations are the one’s you can count on to put their own work aside to help someone with a tight deadline.   

As Kelley puts it, “Collaborators know that the race is won in the baton pass.  They excel in the handoffs between departments and team members.”  Collaborators see things from multiple perspectives and are able to build bridges to people on opposite sides. Collaborators are excellent at tearing down the walls that limit creativity and synergy among the group.  The Collaborator can play the role of connector and can help facilitate interdepartmental collaboration.

The Director: Directors are the planners in our organizations, they set the stage, hone the project, build chemistry among the actors and ultimately get the project done. According to Kelley, the Innovation Director is a critical role to the long-term health of an organization.

Good Directors have contagious enthusiasm and can bring out the best in their team.  They are apt to encourage team members to take intelligent chances while providing them the opportunity to recover from their failures.  In short, they don’t lose much sleep worrying about failing.  Directors have an understated confidence that leaves room to appreciate the achievements of other leaders.

The five traits of successful directors are: they give center stage to others, they love finding new projects, they rise to tough challenges, they shoot for the moon, and they wield a large toolbox. Directors have to get the project started, maintain its momentum to conclusion, inspire people to do their best, develop the chemistry of the team, target strategic opportunities and generate innovation energy.  

The Experience Architect: The Experience Architect is the shepherd of the customer experience.  They seek to engage the senses in search of opportunities to improve the experience. Experience Architects look at interactions with customers as a journey.  A journey that is ordinary is a missed opportunity to capture the attention of a customer.  

According to Kelley, Experience Architects have a talent for finding the experience in everything, even the seemingly mundane.  They also have the vision to bring the service to the customer rather than the passive alternative. Kelley says, “When you’re in the zone of being an Experience Architect, you view the world with a simple lens, searching out experience elements that are negative or neutral, and looking for ways to fine tune them.”

The Set Designer: Do you want your office setting to be boring or dull?  When we walk into most offices, our senses are often underwhelmed by the lack of personality the space presents.  Set Designers are dedicated to exploring “inner space” - the space we spend most of our waking hours.

Kelley suggests that far too few organizations grasp the importance of a carefully crafted work environment in helping to foster an innovative organizational culture.  Kelley says, “Space is among that last things managers think of when trying to revitalize team attitudes and performance.” Kelley also thinks that providing the set for innovation to take place is an important aspect of your organizational space.  He suggests the use of brainstorming rooms and project rooms that are places for new ideas to germinate.  These rooms can help the organization build and maintain momentum to do new things.

The Caregiver:  According to Kelley, The Caregiver is the foundation for any human-powered innovation.  The best Caregivers exude confidence and competence, but more importantly they demonstrate the ability to listen and treat you as if you matter.   A great Caregiver helps the “patient” ease their fears. Caregivers take the time to understand the customers point of view.  The best care is tied to individual wants and needs rather than a one size fits all approach.  

One way to aid customers with their experience is to break down the steps so the customer is able to understand the process.  Another way might be to identify every barrier that keeps a customer from engaging and tackle each one with simplicity, clear communication and customer-centered design.

The Storyteller: According to Kelley, “Stories persuade in a way that facts, reports, and market trends seldom do, because stories make an emotional connection.” The art of storytelling, isn’t just about the tale, it is actually about the skill of the teller.  The ability to be witty, to deliver the details and to appeal to the audience are all things that a good storyteller find very natural.

Kelley says that the lore of an organization is an important tale to tell.  It is an influential way to communicate values and objectives.  The HP tale of how they began in a garage is a well-known mantra for the organization, but also an inspiration to entrepreneurs throughout the world.

According to Kelley, regardless of the size of your organization or the industry, you are constantly collecting and spreading stories about your activities, values and achievements.  Kelley says, ”Mythic stories endure because they become shared symbols.  Passed along from person to person and generation to generation, myths do not always preserve all their factual detail, but the best myths have a ring of authenticity and tell an underlying truth."