We Have Always Done It That Way

There is a great article on leadership in Harvard Business Review (I also blogged about it on my blog). It suggests four basic areas of leadership (not all of which need to be mastered by that sole leader at the top of the system):

Sensemaking
Relating
Visioning
Inventing

We must make sense of the world and our particular context, we must have positive relationships with others, we must create a compelling story about the future, and we have to make it happen. These all seem to resonate with what we wrote about in the book, but the last one, inventing, has a distinctive WHADITW ring to it. Here’s a quote:

In fact, inventing is similar to execution, but the label “inventing” emphasizes that this process often requires creativity to help people figure out new ways of working together.

The article provides four tips for cultivating inventiveness:

1. Don’t assume that the way things have always been done is the best way to do them. [Amen!]
2. When a new task or change effort emerges, encourage creative ways of getting it done.
3. Experiment with different ways of organizing work. Find alternatives methods for grouping and linking people.
4. When working to understand your current environment, ask yourself “What other options are possible?”

Tags: The Way We Lead, We've Always Done It That Way //