Three ideation capabilities leaders must master to win

Maintaining agility, being open to alternative ideas, and staying curious are three critical capabilities leaders must develop to win in a business environment where our reaction to rapid change makes the difference between success and calamity.

Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gino presented her guide to developing each capability to business leaders at the HFS Super Summit in New York. She is the Tandon Family Professor of Business Administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit and the author of Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules in Work and Life.

Capability 1: Play your “Agility” CARDs right

Professor Gino argued that the word “agility” is overused. She called on leaders to be more precise in what they meant by it and offered a framework to help: CARD—creativity, ability to adapt, responsiveness, and divergence. She explained that by “divergence,” she meant the ability to consider multiple options for solving a problem.

Many leaders, she argued, did not apply the four dimensions of CARD. By considering each, leaders could be clearer about the trade-offs they may have to select to reach their goals.

Professor Gino offered an example of a fast-food outlet that made its focus rapid, error-free order fulfillment. To do this, it dropped the C and the D of CARD (creativity and divergence) to place the focus on A (setting up a system to adapt to orders with accuracy) and R (targeting responsiveness). Staff received 135 hours of training at each workstation. They became experts focused on “A” and “R” with the trade-offs of creativity and the ability to change things with alternative approaches (divergence). The fast-food chain became famous for its speed of service, delivering on average in 15-18 seconds with an error rate of just 1/3,600. Leaders achieved their goal with the discipline of focusing only on the appropriate dimensions of agility.

Capability 2: Stay open to alternative ideas from any direction

Before selecting appropriate dimensions of agility to deploy in any task, process, or strategy, leaders must find ways to remain open to alternative ideas and new perspectives.

Professor Gino referred to the youth soccer team who became trapped by floodwater in caves in Thailand in 2018. She explained that it was an alternative idea from a young engineer that changed the course of the rescue. While the experts were pumping water out from the caves, the young engineer argued for redirecting the water flowing into the caves from above. The collaborative nature of the rescue effort enabled him to be heard despite his relatively low “rank.” Even though the idea appeared to be off the wall, leaders listened, considered, and ultimately applied the approach, resulting in a window of opportunity for a successful rescue.

Navy Seals remove the stripes from their jackets to emphasize the equality of ideas when they hold their mission debriefs. Professor Gino suggested all leaders need to find their own “moments of transition” to take rank out of the equation in similar open ideation sessions at work.

Capability 3: Be curious, and hire curious people

Professor Gino also called on leaders to stay curious and find ways to make their organizations curious. She said that of 3,000 surveyed leaders, 94% said curiosity was important. But when asked to what extent they experienced it day-to-day, the result was nearer to 20%. The remainder cited barriers to asking questions in their organizations.

She advised leaders to actively hire for curiosity. How do you do that? When interviewing, ask your candidates who they follow on LinkedIn, is it just people in their industry or beyond? You could ask how they found where to eat at a new location, for example, to understand a little about how open a candidate is to new experiences. Ask yourself what you are doing to keep your curiosity alive.

The Bottom Line: Start open but apply discipline to turn ideas into value.

You need to feed a wide-topped hopper. An idea discovered while being curious about something unrelated may end up supporting a breakthrough on the project that matters to you. That may come from your journeys or those of anyone in your organization. This dialog must be open and broad, within your organization and across the ecosystems you are building. But when it comes to operationalizing ideas, it’s time for the disciplined application of agility – playing the appropriate aspects of Professor Gino’s CARD.

Consider design thinking as your starting point, with its initially open ideation leading to defined and constrained deliverables.