Jedidiah 'Jedi' Alex Koh is the Founder of Coaching Changes Lives, Asia's leading Coaching Firm Specializing in Team Leadership Development.
getty
“We need our teams to be more innovative.”
“We need to innovate.”
“There needs to be more creativity in our organization.”
These are common statements made by organization leaders. They often use a yardstick to measure the unmeasurable. Can innovation or creativity be measured? What happens when we try to overmeasure every single thing? There are some behavioral qualities that are not so easily measured but can be evidenced. Innovating new service offerings or products to create value for consumers is often very challenging. How do we coach leaders and teams to become more creative or innovative?
The safe bet is to "innovate" within a safe boundary where innovation produces some degree of progress but often doesn’t push the boundaries of creativity. Teams have learned through the structures of policies within the organization that if they take risks they might fail, and that results in lower performance appraisals. As such, they would rather "innovate" within a measured degree with risks that are predictable and don’t create too much danger to their overall performance outputs. This stifles true innovation and value creation.
One day, a chairman of a board of directors asked me how we could coach the organization leaders and teams across the hierarchy to embody innovation and be willing to take risks to create new value propositions for stakeholders.
I told him that organizations need to learn the principles of the sloth. At first, the chairman was perplexed as to why innovation in an organization had anything to do with the sloth. The sloth, being such a slow animal, doesn’t have any qualities that are remotely creative. I told him the five principles of the sloth that can transform organizational learning and innovation. Upon applying these principles, the chairman found that it opened their organization to embrace innovation and deepen the conversation for change.
At the core of innovation is the willingness for change. And when we observe the sloth, there are five principles we can learn that could create a shift in thought that propels us to innovate.
Principle 1: Reserve Judgement And Embrace The Dull
When we see the sloth, we often see a dull-colored animal that is lazing. We immediately associate it with boring, dull and slow and think there isn’t anything interesting about it. We judge before giving space to see that its dull color actually contributes to its survivability.
Allow teams to freely express all possible ideas with no self-filtering. Reserve judgment on what ideas are better and freely accept all possibilities. This doesn’t mean to do all ideas, but rather to have a space where all ideas—however weird or strange they sound—can be expressed. Ideas don’t always have to be explosive and colorful; sometimes even the dull-looking color can produce fresh ideas. Just like when you see a sloth, the moment you recognize your internal associations with the object, hold yourself back and ask what other associations you see and observe rather than just accepting your own cognitive biases.
Principle 2: Being Slow Does Mean Slow
The movement we see and observe of the sloth appears to be slow and lethargic but it actually has value. Sometimes we want to innovate fast, but when we try to do that our minds are a complete blank. Sometimes a better way is to take time out and just be open to the environment. Notice the surroundings that you had taken for granted. Innovation occurs when you slow down to rethink, reconsider and retrace the process and movements that you desire. To innovate is not a switch to be turned on but a space to enter into.
Principle 3: The Extra Vertebrae Flexibility
Many leaders want to apply more flexibility in the area of work to create more innovation, but just saying that you want more flexibility doesn’t mean there will be flexibility. Most mammals have only seven vertebrae, which only allows for a fixed range of movement. So even if a normal mammal were to stretch, it can only stretch within the limits of its structure. Whereas the sloth has extra vertebrae which allow it structurally to go beyond a standard range of motion.
When we translate this to organizations, we have to ask whether the current structures and policies in place help create a space for more flexibility to innovate or limit it. Revisit these structures and make adjustments to promote greater flexibility among your team.
Principle 4: Embracing Bizarre Habits
In groups, individuals tend to conform to group norms or organizational norms. When someone has a bizarre habit, it often gets shunned away or looked down upon. When in fact all of us have quirks and habits that are unique. These habits actually promote the space for creativity. The sloth has a unique and bizarre habit that happens when they need to relieve themselves. They do so only once a week and can lose a great deal of body weight. Creativity doesn’t happen by putting people in one room, having flip charts around or having colorful chairs. Every individual enters that space of creativity differently.
Principle 5: Enjoy Patience And Relaxation
There isn’t a sense of rush when we observe the sloth. They are patient and seem to be in a constant relaxed state. Think about innovation. Innovation thrives when you are not forcing yourself to think about it. It grows when you are not trying to push a certain agenda. The power of innovation comes when you just let go, be patient in the process and are unbothered about time.
The future of organizations requires a new way of thinking about the systems that support innovation and change. When we try to codify everything, it doesn’t quite work. There needs to be space where there is no form, no structure—allowing creativity to flourish. How organizations design that can set them apart from their competitors.
Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
