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For organizations to truly innovate and grow, leaders in every role and at every organizational level must be attuned to how they are creating new value while simultaneously protecting existing value. Just as a soccer coach must simultaneously pursue both scoring and defending, leaders must constantly focus their attention on opportunities to create value — through innovation, risk-taking, and experimentation — and to protect value — by preserving and defending key aspects of their responsibilities. Because both approaches are essential to success, organizational leaders must proactively and continually encourage their teams to adopt both a creating value and protecting value mindset when tackling their day-to-day responsibilities. But how can leaders do this? More specifically: Where and how do leaders deploy these two approaches, and how do these approaches change over time? In this article, the authors offer four steps leaders can take to ensure that they’re on the right path for growth.
Ask any leader what comes to mind when they hear the word “innovation” and you’ll quickly hear examples of a new, user-centric product design, or an R&D team pursuing a new mission, or their company’s exploration of a new market opportunity to drive additional revenue. But what if this relatively narrow view captures only a slice of the potential innovation that resides within your organization? What if your organization could unlock non-traditional avenues and areas for innovation, experimentation, and value creation?
