What is harmonious innovation?

I work closely with a brilliant leader who leads a large, capable team. He works incredibly hard and has high ambition for things to be different, to be better. And he is incredibly effective.

I’m always impressed with his productivity for one very specific reason.  He is really good at hard decisions.  When I say hard, I probably mean decisions I find hard.  The spiky, emotional, potentially upsetting, people decisions.  He makes them quickly and once he’s started out on the actions required to follow through, he sticks to them. But this doesn’t mean he isn’t empathetic and kind.  He also consults with others, listens and demonstrates his listening.

In summary, he does not ‘prioritise harmony’.

Ever heard that phrase?

In this particular context, what I mean is, he does not shy away from difficult conversations or making tough decisions that will possibly cause people distress.   That does not mean he is rash.  He is just not afraid of conflict in the pursuit of progress.  He is also not surrounded by people who dislike or resent him. 

So perhaps what he’s doing IS prioritising harmony, just not in the short term.

Harmony has been much discussed by eastern and western philosophy.  Pythagoras recognised order and harmony in numbers.  In his time, curing disease was about ‘restoring harmony’.  In Eastern philosophy, harmony was considered emergent and dynamic, not something urgent or static.

In recent decades, Stewart D Friedman, Emeritus Professor at Wharton has said we should all strive for work life harmony.  We should aim to integrate all aspects of our life not strictly delineate them.  Sounds good doesn’t it?

So perhaps harmony is a desirable goal, and a state of equilibrium.  We could consider that in a personal context like Friedman suggests, or in the context of corporate projects or endeavours. 

However, we confuse long term harmony, with short term peace, and not upsetting the apple cart.  We tend to avoid discomfort, confrontation, conflict and tension. Are you lucky to be in a team which constantly looks for different types of learning opportunity? Can you remember a productive tension, where everyone got to air their contribution and that lead to improved outcomes? 

Or, perhaps more likely, can you describe occasions where no-one speaks up about what they thought and the issue, whatever it was, never resolves.  Or worse, it festers.  I can picture teams where people got to say what they thought but it never actually translated to doing something different.  Or, in the face of conflict, a leader made constant, unilateral ‘executive’ decisions.

Both Eastern and Western philosophy consider harmony to be a process. Heraclitus (apparently) said ‘tension is the creative force of harmony’.  So, to get to this desirable state of harmony, we need tension and it needs to be creative.  In innovation, we must be destructive in some sense.  We must challenge old processes, throw out design or displace competitors.   But for innovation to really succeed it must also generate creative avenues.

Prioritising short term harmony can also be detrimental to personal development when it leads to neglecting personal needs, stifling self-expression, and hindering the pursuit of personal goals. This can manifest as people-pleasing, sacrificing personal well-being for the sake of maintaining peace, and ultimately hindering growth and self-discovery.  And that cascades to how we interact with people in the workplace, and what we are able to achieve as individuals, teams and organisations.

So what must our harmonious innovation team be able to do?  They must move rapidly together in the desired direction.  They must work collaboratively together, accept that no one person can know all the answers or be right all of the time.  They must be open, curious and expect to learn and adapt on the go. And most of all, they must learn to incorporate tension that is productive but not deleterious.

What might we work on in the short term, to prioritise harmonious innovation teams over the long term?

Actively seek learning opportunities

Amy Edmondson and her colleagues, famous for theory on psychological safety, propose several types of learning that innovation teams can adopt.  The most significant is reflexive learning, where teams constantly reflect on and refine their own approach and methods. 

Facing hard conversations

What is a hard conversation?  One where there’s a risk someone’s feeling may be hurt?  One where you discuss stopping a project that is failing or likely to fail?  Discussing poor performance? We can often see the need for them, but how effective are we at having them and acting on the learning?  This takes conscious practise and often, accepting failure.

Drawing attention to goals

The colleague I mentioned above excels at this.  He frequently reminds himself ‘what am I/we trying to achieve?  What is the outcome we are looking for?’.  He refers back to his strategy and takes motivation from that.  In a team, we can use that as a continuous check point for our reflection and learning.  'What collective action must we take to keep us moving toward that goal?'

Being assertive

A constant focus on maintaining short term harmony can discourage us from speaking up. This can hinder authenticity and prevent us from developing a strong sense of self. As leaders and team members, we can work to build reflective and open feedback cultures which value diverse voices and make space for them.

Try responding with ‘thanks for your idea, tell me more’, to foster more open conversation.

Prioritising our own need

It is common to put individual needs aside to avoid conflict.  But that is making someone else’s comfort more important than your own need, leading to feelings of being undervalued and unsupported, ultimately reducing motivation.  Try reflecting on your needs and practising applying boundaries. Often the outcome is not what you fear.

But first, a quick audit of existing capability in these areas.

First off, you might like to think, as a team or individual, how good you are at those things.  Where are the areas of opportunity?  Perhaps encourage a team conversation.   Ask ‘if we were really good at hard conversations and learning, what would we be doing differently?

None of this is necessarily easy, especially if you or your team is starting from a low bar.  All of this can feel very much out of the comfort zone. But practising small moves can be productive and transformational over time.

In summary, harmony is a state to aim for, where people can deconstruct ideas, learn, find solutions and paths forward.  Where we can listen to each other, be agile and adapt. It’s not about seeking agreement, avoiding conflict and everyone getting to be right all the time.

I also must add that innovation is rarely done by a discrete team, working in isolation.  All I have said here applies to a group of people working on the same goal. That could be an executive team with an innovation priority or a business-wide group of people tasked with an innovation project.

How harmonious is your team? Do you prioritise long term harmony?