Balance in Innovation Leadership

Balanced Rock June 2009

Balanced Rock June 2009

Most talk about leadership in the innnovation environment of getting things done and delivering. But how does one develop a “shop” that provides sustained output over time? Like Microsoft, Toyota, Sony and the like, developing an environment that fosters balance contributes to sustainable innovation. Balance between elements of personality temperaments and behavior work along many axes: science vs. art, turfiness vs. facilitating communication, speed to market vs. total solutuion, reactionary vs. pro-activity, and spontaneous creativity vs. disciplined advancing approaches. Balance often takes place without much engineering from management when team members originate from diverse backgrounds–one of the gifts of diversity. As the Eastern philosophy of yin-yang (i.e., the oscillating balance of opposites), leading innovation environments into sustainability often requires balancing changing and opposing forces and characteristics.

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