FUTURE TALENT November - January 2019/2020 | Page 61

TALKING HEADS
T
‘Bringing the outside in’ to solve challenges
Often, the answers with
potential lie much further
afield. Looking outside
your sector offers three
important opportunities:
first, it opens your mind
to new possibilities, taking
you out of your ‘river of
thinking’; second, gaining
insight into how others are
solving issues for the same
principles helps you to think
in new ways, and third, it
creates the networking
every innovative leader
needs to collaborate in the
new innovation ecosystem.
On a recent visit to
San Francisco, senior
leaders from an industrial
manufacturing company
visi ted a range of
organisations to open
their eyes to new ways of
thinking and approaches to
innovation, and to broaden
the solution space as they
consider their innovation
challenges . One of
the topics at hand was
approaches to sustainability,
so team members
immersed themselves
in ‘green and clean’ tech
initiatives. They heard from
start-ups working on waste
management to cleaning
our plastic-filled oceans,
took part in sessions with
leading academics and
heard from government
leaders and the World
Economic Forum’s Centre
for the Fourth Industrial
Revolution about its global
initiatives. They even ate
Impossible Foods’ plant-
grown burgers. This wasn’t
about corporate tourism,
but immersive experiences,
curated conversations,
knowledge exchange,
peer-to-peer learning
and networking.
When thinking about
where to start with your own
innovation challenge, start
by identifying its principles,
and then find related areas
of work in that field of
enquiry. A brilliant example
was the renovation of New
York’s JFK Airport Terminal 5.
The principle challenge for
architectural firm Rockwell
Group, in designing a new
airport terminal interior,
was to rethink how people
move through spaces, so
they asked themselves
“who else solves problems
for the movement of groups
of people?” That led them
to work with renowned
c ho re o g ra p he r Je r r y
Mitchell.
At first, the engagement
of a choreographer in an
airport terminal design
isn’t intuitive, but when
the principle becomes
the start-point, this kind of
collaboration seems like an
“of course”.
Victoria Harrison-Mirauer is
discipline lead for innovation
at Ashridge Hult International
Business School and runs
private innovation practice
The Ideas Machine.
Keeping business personal
travel, making explicit the importance
of human connections: placing too
much emphasis on the opportunities
of technology and too little on the
potential of people will erode trust
and confidence over time.
This involves enhancing our
people’s ‘soft skills’ – from empathy
and collaborative working to creative
thinking and curiosity – and instilling
these within the values of our
organisations. It also means upskilling
or reskilling our people to take on
more interesting tasks as automation
mops up the routine activities, and
giving workers greater autonomy over
the management of their workload
(when, where and how they do it).
Being trusted to do a great job inspires
high performance.
What else can we do to foster
and amplify human connectedness?
My advice is to go back to basics,
revisiting the engagement levers
that make a difference to how people
feel about their role and organisation.
Evaluate how values live and breathe
within your business. Do you manage
behaviour according to those
values or make exceptions where it
suits you to do so? It’s the exceptions
that will stick in the minds of
your employees.
Listen to people regularly and often.
I would hope we’ve moved beyond
the annual cycle of engagement
surveys and performance reviews,
to ongoing, real-time dialogue with
employees, via a mix of progressive
technology and good, old-fashioned
conversation.
From day one, give people
opportunities to have a voice, to
grow, to feel that their work matters.
Treat them as you do your valued
customers and reap the rewards.
Shereen
Daniels
“HR must
influence the
direction of
travel, making
explicit the
importance
of human
connections”
Shereen Daniels is an HR director
and strategic adviser.
November – January 2019 // 61