Leadership is Like a Rubik's Cube

Image source

Sarah Jerger
EMM505: Leadership in the Age of Transformation
January 29, 2017

Many of us do our best thinking in the shower. This morning’s shower musings brought me to think of leadership like a Rubik’s Cube. It’s a challenge and hard to figure out for most people. There are many facets and configurations… lots of time where there is discord and occasional times of harmony. There are different colored pieces and planes which those pieces collectively form just as there are many diverse people and opinions on a team. One twist in the system and the whole thing can be upheaved. Patterns can be unpredictable, but once you practice, practice, practice, some patterns do indeed appear, making the challenge easier to solve the next time. But, just when you think you’ve got it really figured out, someone or something comes along to mix it up and you shuffle the pieces all over again. The puzzle is different each time and that makes it ever-challenging. A Rubik’s Cube or the journey of leadership is always in motion – except for when you purposely abandon it and leave it stagnant on the shelf.

In just two weeks of this class, I’ve learned much about my journey as a leader and about myself as a person. Leadership itself is an evolution; one where the only constant is change. I’m a planner, an organizer, a detail person. I always have been and I probably always will be, but that doesn’t mean I can’t work on opening myself up more to ambiguity and risk-taking. I’ve had many major takeaways from the book, The Innovator’s DNA, but perhaps one of the biggest so far is that leadership is rooted in creativity. You can learn to think differently. Creativity is an active endeavor which is iterated upon as you challenge yourself and take an active role in your growth as a person.

The framework, or the mechanics, laid out in The Innovator’s DNA (Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen 23-25) in order to develop your innovative abilities include questioning, observing, networking, and experimenting… and many nuances surrounding them. These are all critical components of successful innovators, however I do appreciate that the authors give “permission” in that you don’t need to have high levels of proficiency in all areas, as honestly, that seems so overwhelming. In the spirit of implementing these concepts right now, I’m choosing to focus first on the two areas where I think I need the most growth – questioning and networking. I think the area which comes most naturally to me is observing and I’m fairly comfortable with experimenting, though there’s always room for growth in both areas.

There is one idea in the book that struck a disagreeable chord with me. Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen recount A.G. Lafley and Ram Charan’s argument that “an innovation is the conversion of a new idea into revenues and profits. Innovation is not complete until it shows up in the financial results,” (165) and the authors go on to agree. Perhaps it’s my experience coming out of the corporate world and the last nine years I’ve spent in a higher education non-profit, but I see innovation as so much more than the end goal of revenues and profits. Sure, finances might be part of the picture, but to me, the greater reward – the true end goal and a different definition of profit - comes from innovations creating positive change; creating a better life for people, a better process, a higher happiness quotient. Studies (Chamorro-Premuzic) show that humans are not intrinsically motivated by money long-term, so why would that be the motivation for innovation? Of course, money is needed as a basic minimum, but it’s not primary in what motivates us to achieve and engage. A Harvard Business Review article titled “Does Money Really Affect Motivation? A Review of the Research”, puts it well – “The more people focus on their salaries, the less they will focus on satisfying their intellectual curiosity, learning new skills, or having fun, and those are the very things that make people perform best” (Chamorro-Premuzic). Those are the very things that encourage innovation.

Which brings us back to the Rubik’s Cube – it’s fun, it keeps us curious and learning new skills. So, like the Rubik’s Cube, the ongoing and shifting challenges are what brings satisfaction to the journey of leadership and innovation.
______________________________________________________________________
Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas. "Does Money Really Affect Motivation? A Review of the Research." hbr.org. Harvard Business Review, 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 29 Jan. 2017. <https://hbr.org/2013/04/does-money-really-affect-motiv>.

Dyer, Jeff, Hal B. Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen. The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Boston, MA: Harvard Business, 2011. Print.