How to Lead Teams to Drive Innovation, Efficiency, Growth or Transformation

Premise I watched this short video in which HBS professor Linda Hill shares her experience from engaging a Life Sciences company and how they went about building teams and leading for innovation. You can watch the full video here. I have written many times about this topic (here, here, here, here, here, here and on innovation here). As leaders, we need to adapt and change depending on what we are trying to achieve and what our objectives are. Leading for Innovation If we want to drive innovation, we need to foster a culture that enables, engages and encourages the team […]

Improving Cognitive Diversity in our Teams

Mike makes a great point about 100% agreement within our teams. When we start seeing an increase of 100% agreement on our point of view, it is time for us to do two things: 1. Stop sharing our point of view until every one on the team has shared their opinions, without in any way giving away where we are leaning towards. That way the teams can share their honest opinions rather than toe the line that we lean towards. This is critical to avoid group think and encourage diversity of thought. 2. Identify and give the role of a […]

Leading in Different Contexts

Most people who talk about leadership (including me) talk about it as if leading is the same across situations and contexts. However, in reality it is not. Leading an organisation or a team in a stable environment is very different from leading the same time in a dynamic, ever changing environment. Leading the same team to drive innovation is very different from the other two. Leading the same team in a hyper-growth environment is very different. Apart from a set of skills that are relevant in all environments (empathy, decision making, building trust, good communication, taking care of those in […]