Leadership Skills / Approaches for Successful Innovation

Approaches for Successful Innovation
John Geurts, Consultant, Netherlands, Member
First it's assumed that it's about innovation in an existing company and it's about disruptive innovation! A terrible combination.
1. You must have a vision as a leader, that's what you get payed for, but it's about challenging the mindsets to communicate that vision. To challenge is more useful to my opinion then to set expectations. Challenging asks for thinking. The leader must set other expectations about (creating) value as a disruptive innovation will have radically other value creation (in time, risk, extend…) then the old business.
2. It's doing & thinking (doinking). Great tools are in design thinking and in the startup community. Crucial is customer focus and on durability (do we create value? For how long? How much can we keep for our own (monopoly).
3. I don't agree to involve a lot people. Being disruptive in old business is hard enough. Find your apostles and first prove and then go viral internally. Also the current business must run.
4. Important is to create intersections.

Leadership Skills & Approaches for Innovation
Glover, Business Consultant, United Kingdom, Member
Some nice points but I have to side more with John.
I think you need a leader with strong vision to launch the initial idea(s) and build enthuse among those around him (or her). Once everyone is on board and knows the expected outcome, then your points can come into play.
Without the initial guidance, strong leadership and foundations, people will likely head off in all directions - with a smattering of good but a lot of bad or wasted effort.
I look at it as a journey...
1. This is where we should be heading - the destination I'd like to reach and by when.
2. These are the rules - Drive on the left (or right). No faster than etc. For a maximum budget of...
3. Now (open question to everyone) Go find a means of transport and route which will get us there. If you find some exciting things along the way that can benefit us and others then, whoopeee!
That's my view. Of course, if you have limitless funds, time, you're young and don't care what direction you want to go in then go for it!

Leadership Sklls & Approaches for Innovation
K.Narayana Moorthy, HR Consultant, India, Member
A. A good Leader has to be GREAT ACHIEVER: Innovation will be in the field of (a) 360 Personal Success; (b) Aware of People skills.
B. A good Leader has to be GREAT ENTREPRENEUR: Innovation will be in the field of (a) Entrepreneur creativity; (b) Venturepreneur; (c) Skills of Venture financing.
C. A good Leader has to be a BUSINESS LEADER: Innovation will be in the field of (a) Smart Leadership; (b) Capable of creating a new Management Model; (c) Be aware of Leadership Roles; (d) Aware of Smart Executive Skills; (e) Innovation Strategies; (f) Harnessing Cultural Intelligence (CQ); (g) Business Bliss; (h) Jazz Innovation; (i) Radical Innovation. Particularly for CREATING- a guiding innovation solutions;- Balancing Order & Creating Chaos and Unleashing the power of strategic innovation.

Innovation Management Skills
Zaddock Oguta, Consultant, Kenya, Member
1. Leadership and people management skills: attract, retain, coach, motivate, develop team members.
2. Communication skills: communicate, assert, speak senior management language
3. Collaboration skills: influence, build relationships, navigate politics, manage conflicts, negotiate
4. Business management skills: understand strategy, business function, decision making and workflow.
5. Financial skills: budget, forecast, manage cash flow, understand financial statements, manage business metrics.

Focus Areas for Innovation Managers and Leaders
John Geurts, Consultant, Netherlands, Member
Leadership should do the following:
1. Think about arenas, not in industries
2. Set broad themes and let people experiment
3. Change metrics so they support entrepreneurial growth
4. Focus on experience & solutions to problems
5. Build strong relationships and networks
6. Avoid brutal restructuring, learn healthy disengagement
7. Get systematic about early stage innovation
8. Experiment, iterate learn (design thinking)
What great leaders do is figure out key directional guidelines, put in place good processes for core activities such as innovation, use their influence to a few crucial inflection points to direct the flow of activities in the organization. This requires a new kind of leader—one who initiates conversations that question, rather than reinforce, the status quo. A strong leader seeks contrasting opinions and honest disagreement. Diversity becomes a tool for picking up signals that things may be changing.

Disruptive Change Management
Jos Kok, Turnaround Manager, Netherlands, Member
Why is the gap between theory and practice this big? The last 20 years I worked in companies and institutions that were forced to change by politics or consumers.
The traditional professionals were not on the move. They had been able to set standards for their lifetime and this was now interrupted in a brutal way. They could not be seduced.
Most of the time I drew the new - to obtain - reality and made a decision whether there was a critical force to make the change. Most of the time I needed fresh blood to make a chance.
Nowadays however this kind of organisations have a lack of finance, so it is hard to fire people, because the costs - at least in the Netherlands - are unbearable.
Please excuse my bad English.

Innovative Leadership Should Motivate Organization
Ali J. Boru, Student (Other), Kenya, Member
I agree with recommendation #3 that leadership should focus internally, build on existing resources and motivate. This will bring out the much needed momentum to drive an organization. Of course innovations will then be realized.

It Depends on the Organization
Kurt Ludikovsky, Consultant, Austria, Member
I can agree to most what has been said here and disagree at the same time.
- Let me ask a question: "Is it important that a ship's captain can repair the engine?" One may say yes, one no. And both are true, and wrong as well.
If it's a 8 m sailing yacht with 2 people on board it's essential, for a 5000 guest + 2000 crew liner it's not.
- A small young company might have some entrepreneurial spirit. A big old company might have more resources.
So, what type of innovation are we talking about?
A business leader usually has a day-to-day business and a focus on optimizing, thereby having difficulties to focus on innovation.
Having hundreds of people involved means to have them moving everyday as all might change.
So I think it's important to know your environment: If the solution requires more of your intellectual capacity do it internal (customer based improvements), radical innovations possibly require to take advantage of less 'existing know-how' and are better 'outplaced'.

An Innovation Leader Should not Be Alone, from Experience
ramos, Manager, France, Member
Practice and theory are still not compatible! From experience in companies from 100 employees to several thousand employees, the approaches differ.
Above all, the leader has to have a perfect knowledge of his company ans his dominant culture. And introducing innovative ideas into a "conservative" company is doomed to fail. The key words describing the leader above all have to be adaptability and charisma. He must be surrounded with competent people which believe in the opportunity too! And it's no use to launch an innovative process if we know that the structure will not follow! On the contrary, in a company ready for the innovations, the leader will have to delegate to watch everything spends at best. Naturally, before launch of any innovation, a pushed preliminary study must be made (Bass, BCG, Marketing Mix etc.).
But I saw projects succeeding with surrounded leaders.

The Context of the Innovation Leadership
Davor Markota, Management Consultant, Croatia, Member
I agree fully with Mr @Kurt Ludikovsky, what matters is the context of the situation. The art of management is about appropriate use of some models and practices therefore I find difficult to discuss the above statements.

Innovation Leadership Must Demonstrate Need to Change
Paul D. Wilson, Manager, United States, Member
While I believe that Furr and Dyer are "spot on" with their observations, I believe that it is also critical to help the people of the organization to understand the need to change. Perhaps this thought can be included under their point #3 "Preparing the Organization...", but I have been extremely successful in fostering change ONLY when I have established World Class Metrics that can be used to demonstrate to the people of the organization that improvement is not only possible, but necessary. Then by launching a few pilot projects to impact those metrics, I demonstrate to the organization by tracking the metrics over time, that change is indeed possible and desirable. Once the people of the organization believe that they can make a difference, get out of their way!

Innovative Leadership or Leadership for Innovation?
Greenhow, Consultant, Sweden, Member
Like Ludikovsky and Markota, I feel that the discussion requires a more specific description of the scope of the subject matter. Are we talking about being or becoming an innovative leader, or about the skills, attitudes, approaches etc needed when leading an organization that is innovative? These are different different topics, even if they have important intersections.
I can refer readers to a couple of references:
- Dr. Sharon Tapper, 2012. How to be a disruptive Innovator. Palo Alto Medical Foundation.
- J.Dyer, H.Gregersen, C.M.Christensen, 2011. The Innovators DNA: mastering the five skills of of disruptive innovators. Harvard Business Review Press. Boston.
In terms of the leadership aspect what is needed is a "transformational leadership" approach, in which team members are encouraged and given the means to co-create, using all the skills of the innovator described in the above mentioned references.

Innovation Types
CALLIGARO, Management Consultant, France, Member
At first many thanks for your work, from my part I think that there are 2 main ways of Innovation:
- One is an occidental point of view: It consist of increasing the research and development budget. With the following target for the marketing and sales services that the customer may buy it (Radical or Jump Innovation). It is a short term vision that can be developed.
- The other is to make a "smart copy". For this take a product leader, localize the suppliers at first, look about customers claims (Apple versus BlackBerry) and develop a new product approach better than the leader without the defects of the leader (see also Apple versus Samsung) (Incremental Innovation).
That was for the two main ways of innovative processing.

Innovation Leadership Skills
m fransson, Manager, Sweden, Member
In my opinion such leadership must set the vision and direction. Leader must also point out important areas of focus and challenging goals for the coming years.
Leadership in all levels are there to get results and make the organisation improve its business. Don't tell them exactly what to do, but give them challenging goals. Let the people come back with suggestions that are linked to the top target and if they seem OK, let them try, but follow up.

Leadership and Followership in Innovation
John Geurts, Consultant, Netherlands, Member
Innovation is a growth strategy. Also a broad concept, there are many types of innovation. From low amplitude innovation to high / disruptive amplitude innovation.
The interesting question is to map the capabilities of the organisation (including leadership) to the innovation ambition.
In my opinion in every type of innovation, low or high amplitude, leadership is questioning the frontiers of the company (business arenas). So therefor the basic personal skills of innovation leadership should be: open minded, curious, people oriented, achiever and his biggest task is creating an entrepreneurial culture as culture eats strategy for breakfast. So he should ask himself everyday "why would people follow me"?
I believe in our academic & scientific world we should put more energy in followership / followers. Some are leaders, everyone is follower. There are zillion books & articles about leadership but only 3 on followership! For me there is a blind spot in our research, education and practice.

Innovation Leadership
CALLIGARO, Management Consultant, France, Member
At first, I may thank you for your explanation, and I may add the following ways to prevent a single way that you may put as the only one possible. Concurrence is the death of the great number. I don't think that it is the right way...
To be human means to be creative and adaptive, you are the symbol, the evidence of a survivor since the cavern time... Not competition but adaptiveness and sharing efficiency and experience, that is the origin of a true life... With co-production and teamwork.
Leadership in that perspective becomes to create new collaborations and exchanges among the people.

Leadership & Innovation
John Geurts, Consultant, Netherlands, Member
@Kurt Ludikovsky: Dear Kurt, I disagree with you. Being involved in day to day business is not leadership but management. I agree that a leader should be able to 'read' the environment, his business and look at the applied business model.
I question if different kind of innovation asks for different kind of leadership skills. I believe we mix up (organizational & managerial) capabilities with leadership. In your example in both situations the leader has to do the right thing. If you make innovation (to me that is challenging your business frontiers) a key component of your growth strategy, the leader's task and skill should be to get the capabilities of the organization in line with that ambition and map a successful route for the company and inspire the people (literally 'blowing life into them') to take that route. He must be able to create great followers.

Innovative Leadership and Vision
janekariuki, HR Consultant, Kenya, Member
@m fransson: Coming up with a vision should be a corporate decision where all stakeholders are involved from the onset so that they can run with the vision.

Cultural Aspects in Leadership Skills in Innovation
Pablo Illingworth, Business Consultant, Ecuador, Member
The 4 Areas mentioned sound really interesting but it is important to consider the culture when applying them. Sometimes leaders try to be focus on new challenges but they forget to "tropicalize" the information and the techniques.
Normally leaders try to focus on new ways to reach existing goals so then if we analyze the information that you provide for Latin America we can say:
1. RATHER THAN DICTATING A VISION, SET A BIG CHALLENGE.. The challenge must have a destination so then the vision is so important to set the final destination and the challenge must be the path that they will designed.
2. RATHER THAN MAKING DECISIONS, DESIGN EXPERIMENTS so how can you decide which experiment is the better way to solve problems. I think you need the "smell" to know the way your team will response in innovation.
3. RATHER THAN JUST SELLING THE IDEAS TO A FEW PEOPLE, FOCUS ON PREPARING THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION TO ACCEPT THOSE NEW IDEAS.
That is true you have to involve the whole organization to prepare to accept the ideas.

Leadership and Innovation,
CALLIGARO, Management Consultant, France, Member
Many thanks for your comments, the normal way in developed nations is to increase the budget to increase creativity, by level effects, I observe that it is only an occidental approach. By the way, you may at first choose between: a strategy of a rough competition, or innovative way?
Which are the competitors?
For which customer, with a short economical cycle or a long economical cycle... Etc.
And the most important: " what are the functions and costs desired by the customer ". In the thinking about you will have to define and identify competitor on an existent market or create your own market.
If you create you own market, you will have to make simple products, with low costs; minus benefit and minus risk but with a great number of unities sold.
And after develop your production units to follow the demand you may stay and listen to your customer. Prevent a technology show, that will not be the need of your customer.

Into the Unknown is a Different Paradigm
Gary Wong, Consultant, Canada, Premium Member
When dealing with the unknown and I also include unknowables and unimaginables, deploying traditional methods from the Systems Thinking era is like nailing a screw with a hammer. It's not a linear, Gaussian world but a non-linear, Pareto world of emergence, tipping points, Black Swans, Butterfly effects. In my consulting practice, I am applying complexity science thinking in an open network environment. The 3 points in the Furr and Dyer article make sense in this domain.
The analogy I use is navigating through thick fog. Limited vision, no boundaries. You hear foghorns so you know there's something out there. You have some sort of destination port in mind but it's fuzzy and therefore, hard to describe. You also know you will be sailing into wind, wave, currents, floating debris, and who knows what else (Sirens, Moby Dick, Lochness monster?). And you're not alone. There are other ships, some friendly, unfriendly, and ones that only care about what's in it for them. Thank goodness for your deckhands. You quickly realize to survive it's more about crew competence and followership and less about your image as a confident leader at the top. What else do you learn? Here's my "more about and less about" list.

• More about naturalistically responding to the emergent present and less about envisioning some idealistic future
  
• More about connecting diverse agents (customers, investors, suppliers, competitors, regulators, politicians, employees, citizens) and less about isolating a chosen few
• More about persuasion, negotiation, collaboration and less about direction, control, and policy compliance
• More about getting out of way of free flowing communication in the network and less about top-down communiques to the organization rank and file
• More about creating space for idea collisions amongst agents to occur and less about "Hippo" (highest paid person's opinion)
• More about recognizing and supporting informal leaders (anyone, anywhere) and less about bowing to "Hippos" (positioned with formal authority)
• More about conducting disciplined 'safe-to-fail' experiments and less about introducing disruption for the sake of shaking things up
• More about running many small scale experiments and less about one big innovation project with lots of fanfare at the start
• More about exaptation and abductive thinking backed by a value proposition and less about predictions and inductive thinking backed by a business case
• More about observing emergent behaviour, monitoring consequences to learn and less about measuring, tracking to reward/punish performance
• More about building resiliency in your crew and less about you as a great leader seeking another achievement
• More about triggering anticipatory awareness to survive Black Swans and capture Serendipitous opportunities and less about adding asset robustness to take an unexpected hit of significant magnitude
• More about focusing on a rough and ready adaptive business model and less about a nicely polished 3 year business plan including assumptions and mitigation plans for known risks
• More about engaging whole of workforce at the beginning and less about seeking buy-in some time later from those deliberately left in the dark
• More about obliquely exploring the unknown with a Purpose in mind and less about targeting and meeting growth, profit expectations

If the skies are clear and the waves are calm, it's perfectly fine to do all the "less abouts". System Thinking methods and tools work well in a stable, predictable, repeatable environment. So, a critical leadership skill is the ability to make sense of the current situation. That will pick the paradigm and what approach to use - systems thinking or complexity-based.

Leadership and Innovation
CALLIGARO, Management Consultant, France, Member
At first many thanks to Gary Wong, for this point of view, positioned as a disruptive and original way of innovation.
A lot of questions for an innovative way, for a searcher that is OK, for a manager of his society or a manager in an international group it will not the same understanding.
That is why I said that the first part are the people, to be human is to be creative, and for the philosophy a great quantity of are possible, also in this time I will make a citation of Peter Drucker: "for the prediction of our future, the best way is to build it." Remember that the richness of the 1% will not assure the life of the 99% others. Our reality today is that we have potentially 99% ready for a " normal " consumption, for which they don't find simple products adapted to their budget, is it the way to follow? It may be try at first to increase the business... And in the second time to keep peoples producing and selling instead of making war.

Innovation as a Core Business Philosophy
jorge anibal hoyos hoyos, Manager, Colombia, Member
I think the innovation could not be something to get around to when it's convenient nor should it depend on proposals /guidance by those higher up in the organization.
It must be a core into the strategic plan to be considered at every level of the organizations, internal administrative procedures, marketing metrics, production, quality control etc and who else can better suggest innovation than those in charge of the day -to-day to reach their specific targets.
Hence I think everybody must work as a leader, thinking of how to improve their duties hopefully reaching a disruptive innovation level to keep the uniqueness, irrepeatibility and differentiation of the job, product, service, customer attention, real value of the product etc in charge of. Needless to say, the company´s policies, plans, resources, decision-makers, internal procedures must be followed and where the accountability for each innovation will reside.I think innovation mindset is a kernel to keep foothold in and out.

Leadership and Innovation
K.Narayana Moorthy, HR Consultant, India, Member
Thanks Mr. Calligaro, good day. Since we we were discussing about Disruptive Innovation in the Transformation of skills of a leader, I thought, Mr. Clayton M Christensen's concept of Disruptive Innovation would be more appropriate here. The concept I find, Time versus Performance, Innovation against Technology keeping in mind always the customer's utilization and absorption, has more aptness here.
This is in terms: disruption and commoditization. These 2 go hand in hand. This type of innovation, is about understanding what people really need, is far from easy, while always designing product and services that address the current behaviour of current customers in background of mind.

Innovation Leadership Skills
m fransson, Manager, Sweden, Member
@Janekariuki: I agree, the board have to sign off the vision. But to make it real is the company leadership responsibility. I think the motor in a company is its management and to make the company fly higher and higher is leadership.

Effective Innovation Leadership
abedmadi, Coach, Palestine, State of, Member
To be an effective innovation leader, you should make the others innovate themselves, by making the goals of your organization match their self goals. You should in some way connect their subjective and personal needs and values to the organizational ones.

Leadership and Innovation
K.Narayana Moorthy, HR Consultant, India, Member
Agreed with @abedmadi. But then a discussion is needed between the organization's vision and goal annunciators and those of the employees to match employee's personal needs and values to that of organizational ones. This way confidence and commitment on both organization and employees will build up to a high level.

The Leadership-Innovation Relationship: Ambidexterity Theory (Rosing)
Anneke Zwart, Student (University), Netherlands, Moderator
Although many studies have researched the factors that are needed in a leader to encourage innovation, it remains unknown what specific characteristics best forecast innovation, according to Rosing (2011). This led Rosing to prepare a more precise model of leadership in innovation for which he uses the term ambidexterity. So, what does ambidexterity leadership means?

Ambidexterity refers to an organization’s ability to develop and maintain balanced leadership behaviors that on the one hand foster explorative activities (such as a combination of research and experiments) and on the other hand the exploitation of these activities (implementing and executing ideas) in followers.
These behaviors are respectively called: opening and closing behaviors.
The combination of these 2 types of leadership behaviors (closing and opening behaviors) predicts succesful individual or group innovation. When both leadership behaviors are high, the innovation of an individual or a team is high as well.

The main idea behind this theory is that innovation is a complex phenomenon and therefore requires a leadership approach that is equally complex. Ambidexterity thus proposes that the ability of a leader to combine two types of leadership behaviors is more effective in encouraging innovation than single leadership approaches (of which transformational leadership is an example).

Later on, Rosing (2015) empirically researched the effect of the balance of closing and opening behaviors on innovation and found that a combination of high opening and high closing behaviors indeed resulted in the highest team innovation.
Source:
Rosing, K., Frese, M., & Bausch, A. (2011) “Explaining the heterogeneity of the leadershipinnovation relationship: Ambidextrous leadership” Leadership Quarterly Vol. 22 Iss. 5 pp. 956-974.
Rosing, H.Z.K, (2015) Ambidextrous leadership and team innovation” Leadership & Organization Development Journal Vol. 36 Iss. 1 pp. 1-29

Leadership Innovation Relationship- Ambidexterity
K.Narayana Moorthy, HR Consultant, India, Member
@Anneke Zwart: Ambidexterity is the state of being equally adept in the use of both right & left appendages (such as the hands).
Building ambidexterity into an organization typically refers to an company's ability to execute today's strategy, while developing tomorrow's.
Two forms of Ambidexterity:

1. STRUCTURAL AMBIDEXTERITY (the standard approach). To create separate structures for different types of activities. Like Strategic Business Units given responsibility for creating alignment with existing products & services; R&D being given responsibility for prospecting new markets, developing new technologies, keeping track with emerging industry trends. Compare also: Forget, Borrow, Learn.
2. CONTEXTUAL AMBIDEXTRICITY differs in important ways. Many companies find themselves mired in contexts that do not effectively support ambidextricity and high performance. Those companies have to look for ways to engineer dramatic shifts in the behavior they encourage. Contextual ambidexterity is not an alternative to structural ambidexterity, but rather a complement. Structural separation may at time be essential, but it should also be temporary, a means to give a new initiative, the space, and resources get started. The eventual goal should be reintegration with main stream organization as quickly as possible. Contextual ambidexterity can enhance both the separation and integration processes. It involves creating an organizational context that inspires, guides and rewards people to pursue both exploitation and exploration behaviors in terms of control systems, boundary systems, belief systems, diagnostic systems, and interactive systems. How can managers begin to think about building Contextual Ambidexterity into their Organizations? Sumantra Ghoshal & Chris Bartlett define context as the often invisible set of stimuli and pressures that motivate people to act in a certain way.
   In combination, these attributes create two dimensions of organizational context:
   - The first, performance management (a combination of stretch & discipline), is concerned with stimulating people to deliver high quality results and making them accountable for their actions;
   - The second, social support (a combination of support and trust), is concerned with providing people with security and latitude they need to perform.

Ambidextrious individuals (innovation leaders) are co-operative and seek out opportunities to combine their efforts with others. They are multi-taskers and they are comfortable with it. Example: An Operation Manager initially charged with making the plant run as efficiently as possible, takes it upon himself to identify new value added services for his clients as well. He develops a dual role for himself, managing the operation 4 days and on the 5th, developing a promising electronic module that automatically reports impending problems. He arranges corporate funding, finds a sub-contractor to develop the software and pilots the module in his operations. The module worked very well.

Leadership Innovation...
CALLIGARO, Management Consultant, France, Member
@K.Narayana Moorthy: I have read your comments about leadership and ambidexterity. My first reaction was: Why this? Normal I give you my vision, yes we are dual, as studies about brain as shown, one part right and one par left, Ambidexterity? What do you mean by this, is it that that we are all able to have a vision, that we will try to build...Isn't it what we call a life project? And the subject is it the resistance to an impact event? Will it need a large scale for the problem to define (macro or micro study) Qualitative or quantitive study to lead... And for which population righter or lefter and at which step of their development? I think that we must work hard to define something interesting and we don't lose the cape in the details...

Leadership Innovation and Ambidexterity
K.Narayana Moorthy, HR Consultant, India, Member
@CALLIGARO: Earlier I said a good leader has to be an Achiever- with knowledge of personal & people skills; an entrepreneur with skills of creativity & venture; a business leader should be adept with leadership roles & skills of innovation, & skills of cultural intelligence. A Business Leader, if desires to build Ambidexterity in the organization, needs skills of execution of today's strategy with tomorrow's requirements.
Now coming to the Left Brain: its functions are: analytical, objectivity, logic & reasoning.
Right Brain: its functions are: subjectivity, imagination, intuition, creativity, emotion.
Most people are left brained. A Business Leader has to have a balanced brain, with both left & right brain functions integrated.

Leadership Innovation...
CALLIGARO, Management Consultant, France, Member
@K.Narayana Moorthy: Many thanks for your reply and the details that you precise, I agree with your thinking about your right and left skills and vision, take account that what we called " Resilience" there, is built trough an educative and sective trajectory, that is a personal way of life, and all our our educative system develops only the left part of our our brain, read, calculate, modelisation, The use of the right part seems to be reserved for artistic works... This is a main error because we are not computers...(see Mac Gregor studies about X or Y type of peoples organisation " but it seems that autonomy, responsibility don't fit with the maximizing of the benefits, except if we take account the theory of mister Prahalad.
Have a nice week, and thanks for your confidence.

The Brain is More Interdependent Than Once Thought
Gary Wong, Consultant, Canada, Premium Member
For years I believed that a left-brained person is more of a problem-solver, more linear, logical while the right-brained person is generally creative, intuitive, artsy. I now stand corrected. It's a myth. New brain research and sciences like neuroplasticity are revealing the brain can actually rewire itself. Consequently, I've stopped saying most people are left-brained.
The myth arose from genuine science, but new imaging technology has shown that the brain is more interdependent than once thought.
As an example, I read that our left side is more dominant in processing language, but our right hemisphere is responsible for processing intonation and emphasis. So the two halves work together to decode communication.

Manage the Evolutionary Potential of the Present
Gary Wong, Consultant, Canada, Premium Member
@Anneke Zwart: I am intrigued by the concept of Ambidexterity. When working with complexity, the key is to manage the evolutionary potential of the present rather than trying to engineer to some desired future state. This requires both explorative and exploitative activities.
An example of combining both activities is a restaurant owner running a 'safe-to-fail' experiment to understand the unknown. The wicked problem all restaurant owners face is what do customers like to eat? They will explore like introducing a new item on the menu. It's a small experiment and if it fails, no major harm done. If it's a winner, then it's onto exploitation to gain traction in market - customer testimonials, ads, etc.