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Book review
Riding the Waves of InnovationKaren K. Wollard
The cover of the book promises to
Harness the power of global culture
to drive creativity and growth.Riding
the Waves of Innovationoffers new
perspectives and strategies for
encouraging the growth of innovation
and creativity while identifying and
removing obstacles. Effective product
and service innovation requires a
process that is much more
encompassing than a few creativepeople huddled together in research
and development departments.
Companies that want to create a
culture of innovation must consider
three levels of culture: creative
individuals, complementary teams
and supportive organizational
resources.
Whats worthwhile?
Organizational development students
and practitioners will find familiar
theories and concepts presented in a
new and thought provoking way. The
authors challenge the conventional
wisdom of dichotomies and
two-ends-of-a-spectrum by showing
how creativity and innovation happen
as individuals move along a
continuum, adapting as need and
circumstance dictate.
Using simple graphics and line
drawings reminiscent of Peter
SengesThe Fifth Discipline, theauthors challenge traditional theories
and thinking, demonstrating that
innovation comes from finding new
ways to combine the strengths of
contrasting ideas. Chapter three uses
a funny bit from a John Cleese sketch
to demonstrate what happens when
two concepts collide, using humor to
show difficult it is to hold two different
perspectives.
The most important learning from this
book is the idea of dilemmas
methodology, that teams and
organizations who grapple to find
creative ways to integrate differences,
diversity and dichotomies are going to
innovate and thrive. Challenges
encourage learning and creativity.
Whats inside?
Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of
the contrasting attributes that
challenge organizations to innovate.
Innovation is needed to find ways to
combine what appear to be two ends
of the spectrum in ways that serve the
customer. These pairs include such
items as complexity and simplicity;
high quality and low cost; supply and
demand; opportunity and crisis;among others.
Chapters 2 and 3 probe individual
creativity. Creativity is imaginative,
original, purposeful, and valuable
thinking. Creativity is done with a
purpose. Some people like to start
with the big picture while others prefer
to begin with the details. Creativity
melds perspectives, allowing for the
possibilities of something different.
This chapter revisits the Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator (MBTI) and its
dichotomies, i.e. perceiving/judging,
sensing/intuiting, thinking/feeling and
extroversion/introversion. The MBTI
attempts to place individuals at a
single place on a continuum, but
humans in reality move along the
continuum constantly. The authors
offer an integrated type indicator,
which suggests that most people
PAGE 40 jDEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS j VOL. 26 NO. 5 2012, pp. 40-41, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1477-7282 DOI 10.1108/14777281211258716
Dr KarenK. Wollard is a HRD Consultantat
Kelly Wollard & Associates, Inc.,
Hollywood, Florida, USA.
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have preferences about how to
approach a problem, but use much
flexibility when seeking solutions.
Creative people find options that
integrate opposing ways of
processing information, arriving at
more innovative approaches. Cultural
preferences also have influence.
Chapters 4 through 6 deal with the
contributions of teams and the roles of
individual contributors. Beginning
with a discussion of the different roles
team members can play, the authors
explore the dilemmas that teams face.
This leads to a discussion of tensions
between roles and how the success of
teams requires managing the crucial
decision points. For example, the
team must find a balance between
being too critical and being too
imaginative by finding a way to ensure
that good ideas can be recognized
and encouraged.
Beyond roles, creativity comes from
diversity, which is often the result of
interactive cultures. The book
identifies seven dimensions that differ
across cultures, such as being more
individualistic than group/social
interest or ascribing status more to
achievement or potential. This is the
area discussed further in an earlier
book by the authors. Each dimension
leads to potential misunderstandings,
but can also lead to new insights andperspectives. Innovative teams have
been shown to integrate different
views effectively. Whether the
diversity is across nationalities,
disciplines or departments,
innovation is encouraged by
integrating and valuing diverse
opinions and inputs.
Chapter 7 discusses the dynamics of
organizations in creating an
innovative culture. This is done
through a discussion of an innovative
16-week experiential education
program that used dilemmas
methodology. Students were exposed
to numerous dichotomies and
challenged to find innovative
strategies to create new products,services and business strategies. The
program proved more successful
than traditional educational practices
in helping students develop their
talents across five different
continuums and become more
innovative.
Chapter 8 identifies the traditional
dilemmas facing organizations and
the emerging values required for
innovation to be achieved. Each of the
12 identified pairs are discussed,
beginning with centralizing
knowledge while decentralizing
activity and ending with building a
profitable company and building an
innovative network. The tension of
resolving each dilemma requires the
need to innovate.
Chapter 9 introduces four cultures
along two continuums:
egalitarian/hierarchical and person
centered/task centered. Successful
cultures integrate values and resolve
conflicts by integrating theirresponses and reconciling
differences as situations dictate. Most
organizations begin as families, take
on the responsibility of incubating
new ideas, become guided missiles
as they shepherd products to market,
and finally becoming obsolete while
preparing to radically change or
disrupt its sedentary ways.
There is no magic formula that will
make an organization innovative, so
the last chapter poses 15 questions
for leaders. Leaders must probe
whether their organizations are
innovative, whether their people are
creative, and whether there are
opportunities for people to play, to
experiment and to take risks. Leaders
must be able to remove bottlenecksand protect fledgling ideas. Leaders
must make it clear that learning and
knowledge are crucial and that new
ideas can come from everywhere.
Innovating requires resources and
support. Innovative companies need
to have suppliers and customers who
are part of their network of creativity.
And ultimately, leaders must help their
organization change cultures when
new situations demand it.
Whats the recommendation?
This is a useful book for practitioners
who work in organizations that are
open to innovation. Recognizing that
dilemmas and challenges are
opportunities for creativity and
innovation is crucial. By beginning
with individuals, then teams, then the
organization and culture, this book
gives practitioners and students a
way to disassemble what they are
observing and then reassemble the
pieces in ways that will lead to morediversity and further innovation.
Reference
Trompenaars, F. and Hampden-Turner, C.
(2010),Riding the Waves of Innovation,
McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
VOL. 26 NO. 5 2012 jDEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS jPAGE 41