Pioneer Leadership Thinking
Establishing Breakthrough Ideas In Your Business Or Organization
‘Nelson Mandela,’ wrote Fintan O’Toole, ‘always carries within him the sense of being at the beginning of something rather than at the end.’
Mandela inspired change in a nation locked in institutionalised backward-thinking and he did so because he was more than politician. He was and is a pioneer.
The forward progress of every great human endeavour has come about through the work of pioneers. Whatever the venture, in whatever field, any great achievement has been the fruit of pioneer thinking.
In the sphere of education, we celebrate Helen Keller and her reforms to the teaching of disabled children. In social action, we revere Mother Teresa for her work in the slums of Calcutta.
In the world of race relations, we remember the words and example of Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr. When it comes to space exploration, we celebrate Neil Armstrong and his ‘one small step’.
All of these people were pioneers. Without pioneers the world would not only be a dull place, it would cease to move forward in any positive and constructive direction.
In business and civic leadership, pioneer thinkers are as important as they are in politics or exploration. That’s especially true in times of financial constraint.
In every enterprise, we need to identify people who can make more out of less, moving beyond status quo thinking to create entirely new approaches.
What is a pioneer? A pioneer is a leader who boldly blazes a fresh trail for themselves and for others after them. Pioneers are leaders who are prepared to risk all in the pursuit of finding previously undreamt of solutions to deeply entrenched problems.
Some people seem to exhibit an above average affinity for this, yet there is within all of us the spark of pioneer creativity.
If our businesses and organizations are to not merely survive the post-recession blues, but to flourish in them, we each need to stir up our capacity for pioneer thinking. Times of change and more than usual uncertainty require leaders who will work at developing the characteristics of a pioneer:
Fluid:
Pioneer thinkers are not static by nature. They’re constantly in a state of flux, seeking out fresh approaches and exploring new ways to meet the challenges of their times.
What people need most when they think about the future is not knowledge but hope. They need leaders who are able to do more than identify market trends.
They’re looking for leaders who can portray the big-picture narrative that makes sense of the trends. People need leaders who can provide a better worldview which makes sense of the change and turns it into something that adds value to their lives and work.
When change is happening at an exponential rate, leaders who have a static worldview will have a very limited shelf-life.
In many ways, Mandela simply outlasted his opponents. He did this by constantly expanding his worldview. His curious mind kept him looking for solutions where others only saw problems.
Expanding your worldview involves reading outside your comfort zone; making insightful writers your mentors from a distance.
It means including in your inner circle people whom you know will rock your boat from time to time, with a positive motive.
It requires a commitment to moving outside your normal circle of contacts – meeting with people whose ideas may work on you as ‘iron sharpening iron’.
It also means a willingness to travel light. You can’t remain fluid mentally if you’re tied to too many things materially – particularly if things and the status they bring form your measure for personal worth.
Inventive:
Pioneers do more than have good ideas: they know how to turn them into practical innovations.
We live our lives surrounded by technologies of one form or another. Technology is more than the practical application of scientific enterprise; it is the embodiment of fresh ideas.
Technology is attractive to us because it promises us help in dealing with tangible problems. Technology, in other words, is not merely ‘sexy’ – nice to touch and play with – but pragmatic in what it offers.
‘The ultimate test of practical leadership,’ wrote J. M. Burns, ‘is the realization of real change that meets people’s enduring needs.’
It’s been estimated that by around 2025 the average American will receive something like 9000 targeted, personalized commercial email messages in a year. (For some people, it feels like that’s already happening.) That’s a lot of ad-mail!
The oversupply of advertising material is leading to increasing clutter in the marketplace of ideas and products. An oversupply of messages makes it harder for companies and organizations to establish the credibility of their projects and products. And to establish the ‘stickability’ of their ideas, so that people remember a product long enough to go out and buy into them.
The visibility of your ideas and products is reliant on your ability to achieve a certain level of ‘stickiness’, and that relies on the value of your ideas in terms of solving everyday problems.
To generate ideas like that requires practice. Having good ideas is like playing better tennis, or golf – you’ve got to put in the time, developing your mental muscle. When did you last shut your office door, turn the PDA off and brainstorm on some of the challenges you face?
You’ll get better at generating inventive ideas if you read and study some of the great ideas generators of the past, both within your industry and beyond it. What was it that triggered ideas in their experience? What type of environment did they build around themselves? How did they prepare themselves for their breakthrough ideas – and how did they respond when the inspiration actually arrived?
Pursuing change is also key to generating ideas on a regular basis. If you’re only willing to tolerate change, you’ll only ever produce tolerable ideas.
Breakthrough ideas only occur to those who actively chase change, as if it were a goal in itself.
Revolutionary:
Pioneers are constantly challenging the status quo, often in quite provocative ways, in order to point the way to something better. They’re never too comfortable with the accepted wisdom of the age.
This is where pioneering gets a little uncomfortable. Change agents are seldom what we now call ‘politically correct’.
Political correctness as a political or social policy or ideology says that the will of the majority represents truth. The path of least resistance is the best path to take and security comes from doing what others are already doing.
Political correctness tries to remove all bright colours from the social palette. It does so in the hope that if ‘extremes’ can be removed, everyone will take on the same shade of grey and there’ll be no outstanding individuals left to challenge everyone else.
In this sense, political correctness is often the death of inventiveness. It is anathema to pioneering. It ties leaders to the stake of normality and reduces real creativity to formulaic painting-by-numbers.
To reduce the hold of political correctness in your enterprise, encourage people to challenge established norms – without losing sight of the fundamental values of the company or group.
Keep your substance – your core values and ethics – intact, but give people space and permission to challenge the style with which things are done.
Wherever you can, avoid benchmarking. It’s great for keeping up with the guy next door, but hopeless for stimulating fresh approaches.
Strategic:
Pioneer thinkers take the long view in any enterprise; they never measure their effectiveness by the immediate result alone.
Some of the most worthwhile and influential projects you will undertake will be those in which there’s very little immediate profit or growth.
The bottom line is only the bottom line. To pioneer lasting breakthroughs, you’ve got to be willing to put away the pie-charts now and again and let adventure rule accountancy, not vice versa.
I’m not advocating a reckless approach; far from it. The essence of strategy is careful planning, but it’s planning that’s heavily tinged with the spirit of risk. It doesn’t say, ‘Let’s abandon this idea if we don’t see X% growth in the first fiscal quarter after its introduction.’
You must have internal benchmarks for success and time-lines for their achievement, but you don’t have to be completely ruled by those goals. They are the servant of innovation, not its master.
Tenacious:
Pioneer thinkers are difficult to dissuade once they’ve set their minds to something. They’re stubborn in pursuit of an idea or project they believe will add value to the organization and, more importantly, to the world beyond.
This is not the same as mere pigheadedness. Pioneer tenacity is not blind to the risks ahead, or naïve about possible outcomes.
Pioneers often live with a very keen sense of how close to the precipice they’re walking; yet they choose to proceed because the potential gains are so great.
You can learn a lot about leadership and life from watching Warner Bros. cartoons. For me, one of the most instructive (and fun) is Road Runner.
No matter what the ravenous Wile E. Coyote throws at him, Road Runner always escapes unscathed. He’s indestructible. The coyote might come at his with the ACME jet shoes, or the ACME hand-grenade tennis balls, or the powerful ACME cannon.
He may even try the Back-Mounted Rocket-Driven Propulsion Unit made by, you guessed it, ACME. Somehow, the Road Runner always walks (or runs) away.
There’s a tenacity about this little bird that just won’t give up. Coyote’s determination is of a different kind: it’s cynical, destructive and animalistic. Road Runner operates with a positive tenacity: he’s not out to destroy anything, but to get from A to B.
Healthy competition is a wonderful motivator, but pioneer thinkers are never primarily focused on beating someone down. Being obsessed with someone else’s success can sap you of the energy you need to achieve positive results in your own project.
Pioneer tenacity provides the momentum you need to keep going when circumstances - or competitors - are throwing everything at you.
Pioneers thinkers are Fluid, Inventive, Revolutionary, Strategic and Tenacious. That is, they’re FIRST in the way they think, plan, act and respond to challenges.
Like Mandela, they set trends rather than follow them and their behaviour later becomes the benchmark for those who’re less willing to pay the pioneer price.
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