“Passion is one great force that
unleashes creativity, because if you're passionate about something, then you're
more willing to take risks.” Yo-Yo Ma
I had the best week
ever!!! Week 6 was a boatload of reading and information, but I loved all of
it! The best part of the week was driving up to Daytona Friday night for the
MSLD meet and greet with our professors and some fellow classmates from previous
semesters. Jamie and I had so much fun and it was so incredible to be
surrounded by such brilliance! I am even happier to have finally met Matt, my
mentor since the start of the program, and super blessed to have finally met Ed
and Dr. P too – it really was an incredible night and I am looking forward to
the next one. My mojitos were pretty great too…so not complaints there either.
Week six was a week of
dynamic ways to approach and work with innovative ideas. I particularly enjoyed
reading the DARPA article. I think the reason I was most impressed with this
aspect is because most of the time, I don’t really always consider government
or related entities rather intuitive, creative or ingenious. However, after
reading and connecting with this article, there were several takeaways that
resonated with me that can be applied for future learning opportunities.
For example, within
the DARPA article, we found that being able to act swiftly, unconventionally,
and effectively, such as a team of “special forces” do, we are able to uncover keys
to effective and impactful innovation (Dugan & Gabriel, 2013) . DARPA uses methodologies
that include identifying ambitious goals, creating a temporary project team, mandating
independence for the work team, specifically defining the project and how they
will track progress, as well as hiring contractors, seeking out a “special
breed of project leader” while establishing fixed time limits and tenure for
members on the project team (Dugan & Gabriel, 2013) . These type of hard
and fast specifics that the team is governed by allows for robust knowledge sharing
and engagement, allows the team to act independently of others motives and
agendas, and moreover, by finding the right talent mix to be led by leadership
that is able to determine “…what pieces of work are needed to produce a specific
result, conducts a proposal competition, and contracts organizations to do the
work” (Dugan & Gabriel, 2013) .
Additionally, DARPA’s
ability to recognize that there is a certain amount of scientific method that
has to be applied to their analysis of each issue they embark upon, they were
able think outside the box and recognize that “…problems must be sufficiently
challenging that they cannot be solved without pushing or catalyzing the
science” (Dugan & Gabriel, 2013) has certainly given
them a leg up over traditional business structures and ways of dealing
strategically within the organization.
Overall, the DARPA
model embedded the reality that part of the failures of innovation within the
corporate sector can be explained by understanding that “…traditional
approaches to corporate research and development have difficulty consistently
delivering breakthrough innovations” (Dugan & Gabriel, 2013) because of the fact
that we tend to want to minimize risk, avoid disruption and traditionally, do
not have the money, intellectual power and resources to dedicate a research
group entirely devoted to going against the grain to uncover greatness (Dugan & Gabriel, 2013) .
Next, we learned that “Innovation
is about practical creativity” and how being practical does not always have to
include linear models or tools for us to achieve this within our organizations (McKeown,
2014, p. 147) .
Each contributing idea, regardless of where it originated from with either add
to or deter from varying levels of contribution (McKeown, 2014, p. 151) . Here we identified
that improvement is something that actually progresses the way we currently
approach an existing solution to our problem. Whereas inventions are actually “…new
ideas made into practical solutions…” that contribute to success and innovation
from a whole new direction (McKeown, 2014, p. 151) . Additionally, as
emerging leaders, we are now able to see that “new generation” can uncover insight
from a broader depth; it allows for us to see things as part of a whole solution,
instead of just a component to a larger part of the system. Here we have to
generate ideas that take more than just our version of what we define improvement
as, and see how it actually integrates to the existing system. Lastly, we
learned that “new systems” actually offer the same basic and principal idea,
but allow us to solve problems in “..a whole new way” (McKeown, 2014, p. 151) .
I think one common element
that both the DARPA and some of the McKeown methods offer is that both must be flexible
in nature to respond to changing needs within a fast paced environment, as well
as offer the importance to leaders being able to respond, react and re-tool
quickly and inexpensively. By using McKeown’s pyramid tool, we are able to see
that each layer continues to look for more and more innovation at its deepest
levels. DARPA’s entire foundation is based upon actually dissecting level by
level to uncover the best results without risking rejection and rely upon what
the science tells us…do we need to uncover more…or do we need to simplify the
solution more?
As we found in our discussion
this week while analyzing each other’s team projects, as one of my classmates
posted, often times we get caught up in ideas and begin to “…argue too many
choices can lead people to make unwise decisions, irrational, spontaneous
decisions, or impede a decision at all (Zeitz, 2015) . This is where
another McKeown element can come into play; knowing what our minimum acceptable
result needs to be for improvement (McKeown, 2014, p. 154) . When all else
fails, this allows us to find clarity and purposefulness within our work
efforts. Knowing this key allows for the decision making process to result in a
strategy that allows for “…shaping the future – or the shortest route to
desirable ends with available means” (McKeown, 2014, p. 156) .
Part of our strategic
purpose needs to remain committed to breaking boundaries to lead us to amazing
breakthroughs while exploring the challenges that will lead us to greater
innovative ideas (McKeown, 2014, p. 159) . We need to let
others explore various challenges, generate as many ideas as possible, prepare
for action, while delicately balancing and safeguarding “...the unreasonable
passion and unrelenting playfulness on which radical creativity depends” (McKeown,
2014, p. 159) .
This is the area in
which I think our team project can use some work; we do not yet have full
participation from all members, which of course limits our creativity at the
moment. However, I think that even though only 2 of us have contributed work
efforts, we may have gone overboard with our innovation…reaching for the stars…and
we may have to tweak back and alter some of our current ambitions. We have definitely
learned that in order for make invitation come to life, there has to be a
variety of ideas, skills, and “…perspectives to explore the value and expand
the practical elements…” of our newly born ideas (McKeown, 2014, p. 159) . Our gap of
perception and reality may be too broad to be successful at our current infant
stage, however, I think that time and more team contribution will help us
narrow our perspective to make our innovation a closer reality than its current
state. I think my biggest downfall learned this module is that I fell into the “uniqueness
trap” and added too many bells and whistles for practical usefulness to a broad
range of users (McKeown, 2014, p. 161) . I love to solve
problems, and this class by far has had me stretching outside of my comfort
zone to identify unique approaches in which to do so. But clearly I need more
practice at my honing skill, which I am confident will come in due time.
Overall, this was my
favorite week in the semester by far; I am so happy to have met the team in which
makes my journey for transformational leadership skills a reality!
Until we blog again!
References
Dugan, R., & Gabriel, K. (2013). "Special
Forces" Innovation: How DARPA Attacks Problems. Harvard Business
Review, 74-84.
McKeown, M. (2014). The Innovation Book. Harlow:
Maverick & Strong Limited.
Zeitz, A. (2015, May 1). A642.6.2.DQ - Discussion
On the Draft Innovation Projects. Retrieved May 3, 2015, from ERAU.edu:
https://erau.instructure.com/courses/14127/discussion_topics/48357
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