“Come up with something new! And make it good.” Have you ever said that? More and more leaders nowadays make this demand. They need something new and they need it to be good. Mostly because their circumstances are changing radically and their organization hasn’t. Or maybe simply because that is the kind of market they are in. Come up with something and make it good!
At THNK, we work with and learn from the best in the world, we guide teams in coming up with innovative solutions for large societal problems and business challenges. So what have we learned about creative leadership in this process? And, in particular, what have we learned about orchestrating creative teams? How does this differ from the orchestration of more traditional operational teams?
We have learned that:
– a strong creative team typically outperforms the gifted creative individual.
– a creative team consists ideally of 3 carefully selected individuals, not 2 or 4, or even more.
– the team needs to feel on a privileged mission and the team home can reflect that.
– creative leadership means leading the team concurrently from the front and from the back.
managing the energy of the team means pushing the teams to, but not over the edge.
Article written for THNK with Menno Van Dijk, read more at http://www.thnk.org/2013/09/orchestrating-creative-teams/