 and welcome back to The Creative Life from the American Creativity Association on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Darlene Boyd, and co-host Phyllis Blee's president of the American Creativity Association is joining us today. Along with Phyllis, Dr. Gea Grant will be helping us by offering a summary of her research, her innovative research. She is the author of several best-selling books and a researcher, consultant, and lecturer on sustainable innovation culture. Dr. Grant is joining us from Sydney, Australia and let's get started. So, Dr. Gea, why did you write a book called The Innovation Race? Good question. Thanks for the invitation to be here to share about it. So, the book, The Innovation Race is really about identifying what is it that really supports innovation. And we've looked at why some countries and cultures get ahead according to how innovative they are. And this takes us right back into history to look at as far back as the Renaissance period. We look into the Egyptian culture and we're trying to pull out what are the key factors that makes an organization innovative, that makes an innovative culture and that makes individuals innovative. And we sort of turn everything on its head a bit because we say there's a paradox behind that. So, it's not just that you have to be entrepreneurial to be innovative, that you have to be looking at those breakthrough innovations. What we're saying is that to be truly innovative over the long term, there's a paradox because you also have to be sustainable. So, there needs to be some sort of support behind that innovation that will sustain it over the long term. And that's why some countries and cultures get ahead over the long term and some will fail even though they appear to be innovative. And we're saying that's the same thing that happens to organizations today. There could be some that appear to be leaping ahead and appear to be highly innovative but can they sustain it over the long term? That's the real question. So, we're looking at all of those levels and trying to break it down into the key factors that really impact sustainable innovation. Jaya, I noticed that you've worked with a number of corporate entities which include Google and JP Morgan Visa just to name a few. And to me, it seems that certainly Google has been sustainable. But at the same time, how do you distinguish between common stock sustainability, not common stock innovation rather and sustained innovation? Well, I think those organizations and individuals that are truly sustainable in terms of innovation are adapting quickly. So, they're not setting up a certain system and structure and sticking with it but they can see what's coming on the horizon and they're able to predict what's gonna happen next and able to adapt accordingly. And that's a shift between these two core factors that I talk about in my book, The Innovation Race. So, these two core factors are exploration and preservation. So, the exploration is that breakthrough innovation where we're trying to leapfrog ahead and the preservation is the need to focus on systems and structures that support innovation. So, there's a tension between the two that's the really core dynamic because it can either break an organization apart or it can cause tension within an individual if you're trying to push those breakthrough ideas. But at the same time, you realize we've got to sustain those ideas and we all have our own personal bias as well. An organization has its own bias. And so, if you don't manage that tension well it can be highly destructive but if you do manage that tension well then it can be really productive and it could propel innovation forward. So, in terms of organizations like Google what you'll find is that they have been called a highly innovative organization which is true but even the leaders of companies like Google will tell you that they've had to keep adapting to keep up. And I worked with Google a couple of years ago and we worked on a project where we were trying to identify what was happening in the media was that they were getting called out for being a bit insular and for not engaging with local communities. So, you'd have employees coming in on the Google bus and bypassing the local communities because they had everything provided on campus or they still do. The local people felt that they were being cut out. They were also being called out in the media for diversity. So, these were things that were commonly known at the time. So, we were conducting a workshop to try to help them to address these issues and to their credit, they worked hard to adapt. So, they realized that we can't just sit on our laurels and think that we've made it that we're the most innovative company because that's going to keep changing. So, they were able to shift between this exploration and innovation and so they went from being insular to really trying to open up more and that's one of the key traits of innovation that you're able to be open and you're able to connect with others effectively and they started to do that. So, they balanced that need to focus on what they were doing with the paradox, the other side of the paradox which is the need to be open and to connect with local communities and to be more inclusive. It was interesting as I was reading your profile and I was somewhat fascinated about the reference to the facility that Google had because for me, my last office was a clone of Google directly designed as such, located in a university research park. And the deal from Google was to the realtor, major company that we could clone their physical plant. So, and we could be there rent free if it was used as a model. But even with that incentive, that would mean that clients would walk through for the realtor, but in three years, we saw no clients come through. So, it was rather stable and stagnant to the facility but we did have a Jenga game outside in a volleyball court and a lovely kitchen and those kinds of things and plants that were supposed to clear the environment and they died off very quickly probably because of our neglect and were replaced by false artificial plants. Sorry for that digression but I just couldn't help but resist. But it was. I think that's my life. It wasn't my life. It was just physical culture. It's a physical environment. You can't just set up a facility that looks creative and that looks innovative. You have to build a whole culture and people have to be trained and prepared for that. I mean, we had a similar experience where we visited an insurance company in Singapore and there was a whole top floor dedicated to this company that was newly renovated and highly creative looking. But we did the tour of the office and then the leader took us aside to a room and he said, you know what? It's not really working. People haven't changed. Everyone still just goes and sits at their own desk and they're not sharing information effectively. It's not an open culture. And we said, yes, the physical environment will support that but you have to actively work to teach people how to tap into their creative potential and how to be more innovative and how to connect with others in order to make the most of that facility. I think that's important to reinforce that and that probably is a key and a clue to the practical implementation of a creative situation in any culture or any design. I forgot to mention, let me remind our viewers that if you have any questions, be sure to send them along to questions. Think Tech Hawaii. Yeah, Tech Hawaii.com. And I have, I'm interested in this tension that you raise this paradox, Jaya, between exploration and innovation. We know it's not the environment. We just covered that. But who is it that's holding this tension? Is do you, how do you go in and provide the training to really affect the change in culture? And who's listening? Is it one person who's holding space in their day or do you carve out your day to be both innovative and sustainable? You're using those, I think those are the polarity words that you're using. Or is this a team or does one team have responsibility for all the innovation and then come in and collaborate once a week for the sustainability group? Or is it the whole culture? So how do you operationalize your research and the work through the people? How do you divide it out? I would say it's all of the above. They're all important. So the two key terms I use is exploration preservation. And I say to individuals, are you more of an explorer or more of a preserver? Or is to personalize it? Are you the sort of person, you could think about it in travellers terms, are you the sort of person who loves to explore? So you love to turn up at a destination and not know exactly where you're going and stay in local Airbnb and eat off the local food carts. And just hire a car and go wherever your nose takes you. Or are you the sort of, so that's an explorer. Or are you the sort of person who'd rather be organized ahead of time and rather be planned and rather know exactly where you're going and go and stay in somewhere familiar, eat in a familiar type of restaurant? So that's sort of at the core. We either like to explore and you would have seen the image that came up earlier. There was an amoeba in the middle of the diagram there. And to explain that, even the most basic of life forms like amoeba, single-celled amoeba have this tendency to either be drawn towards danger and like to explore, there it is, or to move away from danger and to protect themselves to preserve. And it's exactly both that we need. So that's the core principle, that core paradox. The preference to move away from and protect yourself or the preference to move towards challenges and take on challenges. So if you're working with an organization, what I do is I've developed what I've called the innovative change leader profile. So it's a measure to identify these two core aspects or orientations of an individual. And I've kept it really simple at the core level because then people can relate to and use the language easily. So you can talk about, oh, I'm more of an explorer, therefore I like change and I will often challenge other situations. So you'll see this is what the measure looks like and you'll see on the left side of the chart it represents the exploration dimensions. So if you're stronger on the left, if you have long lines on the left and more blue dots, then you're more of an explorer. If you're stronger on the right and have longer lines, more blue dots, you're more of a preserver. But of course it's much more nuanced than that. So we're not straight explorers or preservers. There'll be elements or dimensions where we stretch in one direction or the other and we're a bit more of an explorer, a bit more of a preserver. So in the research that I conducted, I also identified what are some of those core dimensions that represent our preferences. So I use this measure to help individuals become more self-aware about what their own preferences are. And some people will be what we call ambidextrous. So they'll be able to stretch themselves in both directions quite easily. They can explore where needed and they can preserve where needed. So by helping people to identify what is my preference and become self-aware, then they can become more conscious of their behaviors in particular situations. So you can choose to stretch yourself and become more of an explorer when you need to brainstorm, when you need to be open to new ideas, when you need to collaborate to embrace diversity, when you need to be more flexible. Or you can stretch yourself to become more of a preserver if there's a need to build some systems that are going to help sustain what you're doing or if you need to just to go back and analyze what you're doing and check that it's going to work over the long term. And as well within a team, you can help to identify who are the people with an explorer preference, who are the people with a preserver preference and how can we maximize the tension between the two to make sure it's productive and not destructive. So how do we respect each other and then consciously allow each other to use our strengths to ensure that as a team, we are really able to sustain innovation and change, manage change effectively. And then you can do it as an organization. And I've also identified in my research specific profiles of different types of roles within the organization. So you'll have a, this might not be a surprise, but a finance role is typically more of a preserver takes a finance role or is in a finance role. And then you'll get an executive leader who's typically more of an explorer and all of the dimensions sit on the explorer side. So here's a sample of the innovation leader. And this is interesting because you'll see they're very strong as an explorer on all four dimensions. So they're strong on freedom, openness, collaboration and flexibility, all four dimensions. But they're also very strong on one preservation dimension, which is they also have a strong ability to be independent and to be individual when needed. And that means that they have these great ideas and they're strategic big picture thinkers, but they can also follow through. They can also make sure that they're not just, you know, pie in the sky ideas, but they can actually be implemented effectively. So having that balance between the two, they're very ambidextrous in that they will connect with others, they will collaborate with others, but they will also be able to move forward independently. So they're not just followers and they're not prone to groupthink. They will be able to sort of apply that independent thinking mode as well. So it's a really interesting mix between the two. So that's your leader. What about your managers? Darling, if you were going to ask a question, it looked like you were. Actually, it's somewhat similar. I was going to ask about the tension you talk about and then the reference to diversity. So I'm thinking, and I think that's what you're saying, Phyllis. There's diversity isn't just narrowly defined, correct? Diversity could include managers, explorers. And so help us out with that. Tell me a little bit about how you would clarify diversity in this particular model. Oh, look, diversity can be anything. It can be in terms of background. It can be in terms of preferences. It's really, all of diversity is important. So any differences, it's important to learn to embrace those and to be open to listening to people from these different backgrounds and with these different preferences. So that's really critical. And when we, so we use this profile model, first of all, to identify differences and then typically we'll design an intervention for an organization where it might involve coaching. So helping individuals to become more self-aware, to learn how to manage their differences effectively and to maximize their own potential effectively. It might go into workshops where we'll help teams to identify their potential and work together effectively. And we have a series of exercises that we take people through that helps them to kinesthetically experience and move around the room and sort of identify those polarities. This is how different we can be on this particular issue. So I'll get them to stand in position of how they would respond to a particular issue. And they can see, oh gosh, we're poles apart. And then we can talk about, well, what can bring us together? How can we meet in the middle? And how can we recognize those differences and capitalize on them? And you'll see what's come up here is it was an image of a workshop where we actually have, this is another type of workshop where we have a game board at tables and then we'll have individuals actually moving around a map of the world and visiting different countries and cultures to identify those dimensions in those polarities, those paradoxes and talk about does this impact our organization? Where do we sit in this race in terms of are we both exploring? Are we moving ahead quickly enough? But are we also thinking about sustainability and are we going to be able to sustain our growth over the long term? So again, we can do that, the coaching at the individual level, working with teams in workshops at the group level. And we've also worked with a lot of executive teams to help them think at the strategic level, are we managing to balance those two polar positions effectively? How do you cope or how do you strategize or advise organizations? And this happens as I think we would admit more often than we would like to see it happen. And that is that we may have a person who is in a position of leadership and power that goes along with that, but yet they're not an authority. So we have people that are in positions of authority that are not an authority. I'm thinking, for example, of the financial manager that you referenced, having the power to control an entire department, but yet they're not an authority on what the department does or what the mission and the values of the organization is. What's your thoughts on that? So I think as long as there's self-awareness at any level, then you can use these principles effectively. So what you'll find is when I looked at the profiles of different roles in organizations, so for example, when you get to an HR manager, then they have less of an emphasis on freedom and more of an emphasis on control. So that's a particular dimension where there's a difference between an executive manager. So the HR manager needs those, to have sort of those systems, those rules in place to help support any change going forward. So they're helping to provide that bridge there between the two. And as long as you're aware that, maybe you're not as free a thinker as somebody else might be who has more of an exploration orientation, then you can say, all right, I'm really good at this part of the process and I now need to bring in a more strategic thinker to help me with this part of the process. And as long as I'm aware of my team's strengths, then if you have explorers in your team, then bring them out and call on them to contribute, have team meetings where you're saying, look, my focus is on systems and structures. I'm good at this. I need some fresh ideas and who can help me to think around this challenge that we have. So at any level, you can be aware of what you're capable of what you're good at and bring in others to compliment you where you might need that extra support. That's very helpful. What happens if your explorers and your preservers are not balanced? How do you bring that about? I know you've been, in your last remarks, you've been hinting at how to do that, but can you tell us a little bit more about off-balance groups? Well, it can be quite enlightening. What's interesting is that heterogeneous groups are groups that are different, take longer to come to a solution and it can be quite, there could be quite a lot of tension, so it could be harder to reach a solution than homogenous groups or groups of like-minded people. So groups of like-minded people will come to a solution faster, but it will be a mediocre solution because there's groupthink and somebody will bring up an idea, everyone else will go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think the same thing, that's great. Let's go forward. And there won't be any tension and they'll think that that's a successful team and think about how managers bring in or hire people who are like them. It's because you want people to support you and you want, yes, men, who are going to say, yes, my idea is great. Let's move forward and you think moving forward fast means that you're being effective, you're not. Having that diversity and that tension is really positive and constructive as long as it's well managed. So it's important to, again, just help people to identify what their own preferences are, to respect each other and to say this is a tension that can be really useful. So you know how you have destructive stress that can really impact you physically and psychologically and then you can have use stress that really drives your creativity forward and supports. Gives you that energy and that passion. Exactly. That's very helpful. Same thing in attention. Attention could be good and it could take a lot longer and that the process might need to be better facilitated and there could be more arguments, but you're bringing out those diverse ideas and you're coming up with a better, more original solution eventually. And hopefully the problem or the solution to the problems are sustainable, correct? Exactly. It will be more sustainable because it would have been argued more and people will have said, well, how about this and what about this? They'll challenge it, they'll test it, they'll analyse it. So you're not just getting those ideas, people who are throwing out ideas that aren't tested and you're not just getting those preservers who are saying, well, we want to maintain the status quo. Things should stay as they are. Why change things? So you've got both happening. You've got the people who are prepared to look for new ideas, fresh ideas and bring about change and those who are saying, okay, that's great, but hang on, have we thought of this? Have we checked that? They've been intimately involved in the process. So it's similar to that common stock label of they have a pride of ownership because they've been part of... Yes, absolutely. Yes, there's so much more buy-in as a result if everyone's been involved in that process. And it's interesting, what you need to think about with this tension is if you don't have that balance, then you can end up with too much of one side or the other. So you think about, if you take the tension between freedom and control as an example, if you have too much freedom, then there's going to be no boundaries and you can get lost in outer space. Things don't get grounded. If you have too much control, then you're not going to get that fresh thinking in those new ideas. If you have too much flexibility, again, you have no clear direction and too much stability means that there can be too much rigidity and not enough adaptability. So there's problems on both sides. Jaya. Thank you, Minnesota. It was way to say Phyllis, please. Well, I'm curious about how to operationalize, getting back to that mode of questioning for you. You're on the outside. You go to a company. You've talked about these principles. And I don't want to put you on the spot if you didn't have a slide or you don't have like 10 nice principles that you're introducing. I know I've heard about the tension between the explorers and the preservers. But I wonder two things. Are there principles that you're introducing? And you have that already in your toolkit. And when you're called into a company, which is another whole question, where does the company, where does it have to be before they are wise enough to put out a call for your team to come in and help them be more innovative? And I don't know what that trigger is or if you help them see that through workshops or speaking. But when you get there, do you do an assessment? Do you get access to all of the divisions? Do you give leadership or report about what you see, where the gaps are according to your principles? And then make a recommendation whether it's going to take a month or six months or a year to introduce these principles. And then what are you measured by? I'm really interested in how we bring creativity into, in this case, the workplace in a very pragmatic way. And you're doing it. So how are you doing it? What does that look like? Well, as you said, there's usually this diagnostic phase when we're working with an organization where, and the leaders don't always recognize what the issue is and what the challenge is. So as soon as we can identify what the core challenge is, then it really depends. We can do surveys. We can do focus groups. We can interview individuals. Then we can help to go through the profile, help them to identify individual differences. And then we can go on to work with teams in workshops. We can do coaching, mentoring. And we have had interventions that have gone on for up to two years with an organization just to really help to bring about that culture change. And we've had up to 25% improvement in people's perception that the culture has improved as a result of this intervention. So it really can make a difference at the team level, at the individual level, individuals report feeling that they're more creative in the way they think. They report that the environment feels more open. They feel less afraid of bringing up ideas and they feel like their ideas are more sustainable and the organization is supporting the sustainability of these ideas. So it happens at every level. When you're able to get that opportunity to work at every level, it can be very, very powerful. And so the core principle is back to, what is it that we leave with them? And I really like to keep it simple. And considering in any situation, you can go into a meeting and you can say, right now, do we need to be in exploration mode or preservation mode? And you can say, right now, we need to be in exploration mode. We need to brainstorm. We need fresh ideas, fresh thinking. So let's put aside any challenges, any judgment and let's just focus on brainstorming without judgment. And now we need to move into, after you've done that, now we need to move into preservation mode. How are we going to apply this? How are we going to walk out of this room? Make sure there's a few clear actions that we can implement. What are the next steps? So as simple as that, and then in your language, it can be, I'm coming as an explorer in this perspective to this situation. Let's talk about what we need to bring out in each of us. So... Thank you so much. We certainly have enjoyed listening to you in this session and hope we'll see you again. And Phyllis, thank you for joining us. I know you've been busy writing your book and thank you for taking the time today. I know it was a rough time this week and good to have you here and keep on schedule. Phyllis, we need that book. You have been watching The Creative Life on Think Tech Hawaii and we have been very pleased to be with you and we'll be back in two weeks with another episode. Until then, happy days and aloha.