Shawn Cunningham: Thinking out loud
Framing sensemaking, decision-making and innovation in the in-between spaces
No tool or technique will improve the innovation culture of your company – it is a relationship thing and leadership is central to success.
I share some thoughts in this weeks Thought Thursdays newsletter of the USB Executive Development.
Click here for the article on the USB-ED website,
In 2016 I wrote an article for the University of Stellenbosch Business Schools Thought Thursdays newsletter about how leaders can unlock knowledge intheir organisations to enable innovation. This article has lead to many
interesting presentations, speeches and conversations. I also wrote several follow on articles on the cunningham.org.za that can all be accessed from this link.
In the USB article I wrote that leaders must incentivise and encourage staff to accumulate knowledge through deduction and experimentation, as well as reaching beyond their organisation. This would require that staff are encouraged to invest time in reading, exploring and trying out new ideas. Learning by doing should be encouraged, and tacit knowledge should be actively sought out and leveraged.
For the readers of this blog I think that article is a good starting point to reflect on the culture of acknowledging and encouraging knowledge creation in your organisation. It is not so important to try and formalise all knowledge as it is to actively encourage employees to actively seek out what they know and to experiment with how this knowledge can be used, recombined and leveraged.