The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures

Giovanni Andre Brahmantyo

437134
Innovation Cultures Latar Belakang
Kenapa Innovation Cultures?

Innovation culture is the work environment that leaders cultivate

in order to nurture unorthodox thinking and its application.

Idea in Brief

The Frustration What’s Missing Leader’s Role

But despite the fact that innovative cultures are desirable and that most
leaders claim to understand what they entail, they are hard to create and
sustain. This is puzzling. How can practices apparently so universally loved—
even fun—be so tricky to implement?
Tolerance for Failure, but
No Tolerance for Incompetence
Key Takeaways
• Exploring Risky Idea  Good
• Mediocre Technical Skill  Bad
• Decision Making
• Senior Leadership
• Make a Standard
• Maintaining the Balance

Example : Google, have a very employee-friendly

culture, but it’s also one of the hardest places on
earth to get a job

Pixar, movie directors who cannot get projects on

track are replaced.
Willingness to Experiment, but
Highly Disciplined
Key Takeaways
• ORGANIZATIONS THAT EMBRACE experimentation
are comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity

• Experiment to Learn, rather than to Produce

• Decision Making  Need Discipline
• Discipline-oriented cultures select experiments
carefully on the basis of their potential learning value

Flagship Pioneering
Always look at the Worst Scenario, if it doesn’t look good,
then Abort Mission
Psychologically Safe, but
Brutally Candid Eisenhower in WW2, ask his Top Officer to find a
flaw in their Battleplan, so they can get the best
possible result
Key Takeaways
• PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY 
organizational climate in which individuals feel they can
speak truthfully and openly about problems without fear of
reprisal

• Freedom to Speak without Fear

• More Open and Critical
• Candid Organization  Brutally Honest
• Senior Leader  Able to critique without being abrasive
• Demand critism for our own idea
Collaboration , but with
Individual Accountability
Key Takeaways
• People who work in a collaborative culture view seeking
help from colleagues as natural  Collective Responsibility

• Collaboration x Consensus
• Individual still make decision and own the consequences
• Accountability can drive Collaboration  You own the
decision, for better or worse

Example :
Andy Jassy at Amazon
Paul Stoffels, R&D at Johnson & Johnson’s pharmaceutical division

“You Take The Risk, I Take The Blame”

 Flat but Example :
Sergio Marchionne at FIAT and Chrysler
“At both companies, I used the same core principles for the turnaround.
Strong
Modern Leadership
PowerPoint Presentation First, I flattened the organization. I had to reduce the distance between
me and the people making decisions. If there is a problem, I want to
know directly from the person involved, not their boss.”

KEY TAKEAWAYS • Flat Organizations  People are given wide

latitude to take actions, make decisions, and
voice their opinions.

• Lack of Hierarchy x Lack of Leadership

• Flat organizations require stronger
leadership than hierarchical ones.

• Flatness allows leaders to be closer to the

action
 Leading The Journey
Leading the journey of building and sustaining an innovative culture is
particularly difficult, for three reasons :

• First, because innovative cultures require a combination of seemingly

contradictory behaviors, they risk creating confusion.
• Second, while certain behaviors required for innovative cultures are
relatively easy to embrace, others will be less palatable for some in
the organization.
• Third, because innovative cultures are systems of interdependent
behaviors, they cannot be implemented in a piecemeal fashion.

From the POV of the Leaders, building an innovative culture

requires some specific actions :

• First, leaders must be very transparent with the organization

about the harder realities of innovative cultures.
• Second, leaders must recognize that there are no shortcuts in
building an innovative culture
• Third, leaders need to be vigilant for signs of excess in any area
and intervene to restore balance when necessary
Thank You