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Innovation Leadership Lead Less, Encourage More

Leaders and managers have to change if they want true innovation in their businesses. If managing process is usurping your time, you will not innovate—nor will your people.

The age of innovation is upon us, ushering in the era of knowledge creation—data, artificial intelligence, robotics and more. The emphasis has shifted to continuous growth through market awareness, learning, and executing. Leadership teams at all levels—and in all industries—need to realize how critical it is to enable team creativity.

Teams are needed in the creative process because of the expanded breadth of knowledge required to understand the complexity of modern problems and solutions. Be careful, though. Individuals tend to fixate on how they are being perceived in the group versus focusing on unique ideas. Innovative teams take a culture and leadership shift.

Management traditionally has been all about bringing order and structure, but creativity is often about exploring “what could be.” Research shows innovative people are highly energetic, independent, curious, challenging and playful, so adopting a different mindset toward organizational and team leadership is required.

Encouraging leaders can inspire just as quickly as pessimistic leaders can mute risky initiatives. You will need to move from “driver” to “catalyst.” Guide people into sharing their insights, exploring things in new and perhaps uncomfortable ways. You will generate ideas far beyond what “normal” conversation produces.

Autonomy requires releasing control to encourage your team to be curious and to explore. An organization’s structured norms results in benchmarking competitors and maintaining the status quo. You will never innovate that way.

You cannot wait for executive-level strategies, then ask your teams to execute innovation. Everyone needs to be involved in identifying problems, opportunities, and the innovative ways to solve them—engaging your team into the process. You will leverage the whole organization’s brainpower.

Be patient. Not every gamble or initiative will pay off. Pfizer’s failed heart and blood pressure drug turned into a 20-year, $32-billion revenue run for Viagra. Maintaining patience to see things through to the outcome can pay huge dividends.

Your role as a leader is changing from complexity manager to expert enabler. Encouraging innovative thought provides long-term organizational success. Changing your approach to leadership can make significant gains in building an innovative team.

Innovation is messy, wasteful and time-consuming. It’s also the difference between surviving (or not) and thriving. Lead differently. It’s the only way. ♦

Stephen Garber is director of Third Level Ltd. Contact him at 561.752.5505 or sgarber@thirdlevel.com.

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Drew Limsky

Drew Limsky

Editor-in-Chief

BIOGRAPHY

Drew Limsky joined Lifestyle Media Group in August 2020 as Editor-in-Chief of South Florida Business & Wealth. His first issue of SFBW, October 2020, heralded a reimagined structure, with new content categories and a slew of fresh visual themes. “As sort of a cross between Forbes and Robb Report, with a dash of GQ and Vogue,” Limsky says, “SFBW reflects South Florida’s increasingly sophisticated and dynamic business and cultural landscape.”

Limsky, an avid traveler, swimmer and film buff who holds a law degree and Ph.D. from New York University, likes to say, “I’m a doctor, but I can’t operate—except on your brand.” He wrote his dissertation on the nonfiction work of Joan Didion. Prior to that, Limsky received his B.A. in English, summa cum laude, from Emory University and earned his M.A. in literature at American University in connection with a Masters Scholar Award fellowship.

Limsky came to SFBW at the apex of a storied career in journalism and publishing that includes six previous lead editorial roles, including for some of the world’s best-known brands. He served as global editor-in-chief of Lexus magazine, founding editor-in-chief of custom lifestyle magazines for Cadillac and Holland America Line, and was the founding editor-in-chief of Modern Luxury Interiors South Florida. He also was the executive editor for B2B magazines for Acura and Honda Financial Services, and he served as travel editor for Conde Nast. Magazines under Limsky’s editorship have garnered more than 75 industry awards.

He has also written for many of the country’s top newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Boston Globe, USA Today, Worth, Robb Report, Afar, Time Out New York, National Geographic Traveler, Men’s Journal, Ritz-Carlton, Elite Traveler, Florida Design, Metropolis and Architectural Digest Mexico. His other clients have included Four Seasons, Acqualina Resort & Residences, Yahoo!, American Airlines, Wynn, Douglas Elliman and Corcoran. As an adjunct assistant professor, Limsky has taught journalism, film and creative writing at the City University of New York, Pace University, American University and other colleges.