In Part I of the Ten Faces of Innovation book review we explored Kelley’s description of the three learning personas.  In Part II we delve into the Organizing Personas that Kelley describes: The Hurdler, The Collaborator and The Director.

The Hurdler
According to Kelley, Hurdlers like a challenge.  These 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.”

Hurdlers are not only important for problem solving, but they can be critical team members to successfully navigate internal obstacles.  There are three main ways that Hurdlers can help to outmaneuver bureaucracy within an organization:

Hurdle #1: Overcoming the Pressure to “ Just Do Your Job”
Hurdle #2: Circumventing Company Bureaucracy
Hurdle #3: Seeing Beyond Your Initial Failures

When we think of the great hurdlers in history like Olympic athlete Edwin Moses, they have this incredible ability to make it look easy.  They seem to be able to run nearly as fast with the hurdle than without it.  As Kelley suggests, great Hurdlers do not let obstacles slow them down, which points to the notion that hurdles are only as high as we make them.

At the essence of a Hurdler is the ability to persevere.  When we talk about breakthrough innovation (innovation that changes the way we live, ie. the Internet), we can recognize that it was anything but inevitable.  Time is most often the critical element to breakthrough innovation.  As Kelley states, the biggest new ideas take time to upend the status quo.  It is important to stay the course in order to have innovation occur.

Hurdlers are a great asset in this way, they have an innate ability to find the silver lining in every cloud.  

In government, we can be resistant to risk.  But what Kelley suggests is that it is our ability to take risk, celebrate our setbacks and learn from them that is required in  order to innovate.  

In the Ten Faces, Kelley asks the reader to nurture and cherish the Hurdlers in your organization.  While Hurdlers can be stubborn, it can be good for the organization.  Their sticktoitness can result in new paths and a breakdown of the walls that previously limited innovation to occur.
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 multidisciplinary ways.  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.  Organizations that are split into silos, display patterns of behavior that are a barrier to the breakthrough innovation that today’s times require.

The Collaborator can play the role of connector and can help facilitate interdepartmental collaboration.

Today many organizations use cross-functional teams for problem solving.  These teams need “glue” and this is the role of the Collaborator.  

In the Ten Faces, Kelley offers a number of ways to unleash the skills of collaboration.  For instance, consider having a cross-functional team orchestrate a jam session between departments.  The results might surprise you when people who rarely speak to one another, now begin to make music.

You can also consider cohabitation.  By meshing work groups together we can tear down silos and encourage new perspectives.

Kelley goes on to offer several other suggestions for collaboration like preparing gourmet meals together.  Cooking and then eating together can truly create bonds between team members.

Or you might consider excursions like scuba diving, golfing or triathlons.  These all present creative options for building camaraderie and trust among the whole team.

Kelley points out that the most important step in radical collaboration is simply finding a way to work together in the first place.  Take for instance the infamous 4X100 relay race in track field.  

In that race it is typical to have the four fastest individual racers come together and they will inevitably experience greatness or the agony of defeat.  No one person can win the relay race, and if you blow the hand-off you are guaranteed to lose.  A mishandled baton pass, is the opitimy of a failure of teamwork which will overshadow the achievement of even the most brilliant individual performance.  

According to Kelley, A botched hand-off is invariably due to a lack of coordination and communication.

Kelley goes on to say that, “Passing the baton in a modern organization can be even trickier than in a relay, but the metaphor still applies.  Success depends on picking the right team and casting them in the proper roles.”

For Kelley the lesson for Collaborators is to transform the work of the organization into projects headed by teams.

Using Teams can change the nature of our working relationships:

Consider using self-directed teams who meet regularly, actively problem solve, and celebrate in each other’s accomplishments.

Consider using Team Member Forums and Advisory Groups that promote the open-door, open-book, open-people policy that grow trust among the teams.

Consider adding fun into the work by combining play and friendly competition.

Consider providing continuous learning opportunities to team members that help build the job skills of all team members.

It comes down to trust.   Good teams have an ability to ask team members  to stretch and cover for one another in order to fill the gaps.  It is an overlapping blending of skills and responsibilities that can make a good team hum.

It is an ability to trust that everyone earned their spot, and the team was meshed together with creativity, skill and coordination.  The team can in essence think for itself.

And to build superior teams, Kelley uses the soccer team as an analogy.  He suggests we follow these keys:

Coach More, Direct Less
Good leaders inspire their staffs to develop their confidence and skills so they can seize critical “big game” opportunities.

Celebrate Passing
Consider breaking teams into smaller groups so that great ideas can be passed around among team members.

Everybody Touches the Ball
It is important to actively involve everyone on the team.  Find one or more key responsibilities for each person on the team so they are invested in the outcome.

Teach Overlapping Skills
Create opportunities for team members to assume non-traditional roles and push forward opportunities.  Tap into the unique passions of the team members and let them explore them on the team.

Less Dribbling, More Goals
Encourage the sharing of ideas and initiatives.  Someone can make the initial drive forward, but it is the team the will drive in the goal.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the analogies Kelley offered in  describing collaborators, the one concept that intrigued me most was the notion of “Unfocus Groups.”

In government we are famous for our use of focus groups but Kelley suggests that we learn nothing from the usual suspects.  According to Kelley, “Unfocus Groups  offer inspiration on innovative design themes and concepts.”

IDEO’s use of Unfocus Groups is to invite extreme people who are passionate about the products and services they are attempting to create.  Because these people are invested in serious ways their ideas tap into what truly excites and drives people.  

These groups provide points of inspiration for prototyping ideas and a more authentic way to engage with our customer.  As Kelley states, “Unfocus Groups put faces and emotions on the deeper underpinnings of products and services.  They add another human level to the process of innovation.”

The Director

Directors are easy to spot.  They 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
• They Wield a Large Toolbox

According to Kelley, “The role of Director is more complex and nuanced than any other in the world of innovation.”  

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.  

Since the launch of a project is critical to its success, a particularly important tool for a Director is the Brainstorming session.  Brainstorming is a high-energy way to generate ideas and get buy-in.  Kelley suggests that by building brainstorming into how you operate, you are on your way to nurturing a culture of innovation.

Kelley introduces to the concept of ideation in this section.   Ideation is the rate at which ideas are developed in an organization.  Kelley encourages the reader to “ideate” often through active brainstorming sessions.

Kelley offers some suggestions for brainstorming sessions like sponsoring lunchtime branstorms once a week or on paydays when people are in a good mood.   He also mentions the importance of setting the stage for brainstorming sessions with colorful post-it notes, lots of markers, toys to get people thinking, and indulgent rewards like m&m’s or fresh cookies.  Kelley suggests providing people with some upfront homework to get their juices flowing and be ready to ideate is a great way to get a good brainstorming session off the ground.

Review the Seven Secrets to Brainstorming to the right to help make the most of your brainstorming sessions.

Directors look for inspiration.  A great way to do that is to consider naming the team or project.  As Kelley states good project names lend themselves to t-shirts but more importantly build solidarity.

Directors know that teams are all about chemistry.  The role of Director is the one role Kelley describes that is about the human side of an innovative organization.

Teams can be a marketplace for talent and a good Director instinctively knows how to match talent and personalities to find the right chemistry.

As Kelley says, “Directors intuitively understand the importance of making emotional connections. Exploring new ideas isn’t just about making better things or services.  It’s about changing people’s behaviors and attitudes.  Which may be the most critical step in innovation.”

The Seven Secrets to Brainstorming

1. Sharpen Your Focus
Begin with a clear statement of the problem, a question that is open ended but not too broad.

2. Mind the Playground Rules
Go for Quantity, Encourage Wild Ideas, Be Visual, Defer Judgment, One Conversation at a Time.

3. Number Your Ideas
Shooting for 100 ideas an hour is a great sign of a good brainstorming session.

4. Jump and Build
When a brainstorm hits a plateau, push forward with a slight variation or cycle back to an earlier idea.

5. Remember to Use the Space
Use the room and its contents as inspiration.

6. Stretch First
Ask people to do some homework upfront.

7. Get Physical
Use brainstorming sessions to quickly move into prototyping.