There is an increasing focus on creativity and innovation in both the business and nonprofit sector. Both sectors realize that neither can continue to think in the same ways they have been thinking and that there is a need to approach the work to be done with fresh eyes and open minds. This is easier said then done because there is a struggle within organizations to the harness creativity and innovation. This can especially be the case for nonprofits where there is limited resources and time to ferret out the latent treasures that lie within the enterprise.
Despite this, nonprofits cannot rest on the lack of resources as a reason for not forging ahead to innovate. One way nonprofits can move ahead of the curve and build capacity is to focus on what I call the "new-new" and "unusual suspects" that may pose opportunity or challenges to the work they do.
Futurist, Alvin Toffler quoted Herbert Gerjouy as saying, “Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn." What both Toffler and Gerjouy were trying to emphasize was the need to learn, unlearn, and relearn as future skills to understanding the world around us. I believe this ability is not just to be applied at an individual level but must be applied at an organizational level as well. The ability to see how the organization functions as a system, captures learning, creates models of understanding and applies this knowledge to the core of its work will be important for adapting to change.
Technological, social, political, environmental, cultural, and economic changes in our society will have an impact on the way nonprofits will operate. The “new-new” are the things that can erupt from these societal changes and recent innovations. The key will be for nonprofits to harness the influencers and adjacent possibilities these changes will bring by looking at the connections that seem unrelated and that have an impact on the organization. Organizations must be able to go beyond traditional strategic planning to applying methods that use foresight, divergent and design thinking strategies and methodologies in order to see the “new-new” and harness the power of new ways of thinking, connecting, and doing. Meaning, nonprofits will have to build within the organization structural “tools” that focus on the work of foresight and creative thinking to occur in real time to be innovative at a quicker pace. Nonprofits will have to set the pace rather than walk to a given beat. They will have to move from being at the mercy of funders and the tail-end of technologies to creating new ways to fund and new technologies to use. It means stepping into the realm of competitiveness both known and unknown.
Examples of where nonprofit innovation has gone can be seen in mobile Farmer’s Markets, eco-travel tours that allow travelers to do good while vacationing, funding models like Kiva.org or Kickstart.org or kickstarter.com or blended models such as Panera Cares (see: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7188729n) and netimpact.org.
So where does one start? How can nonprofits begin harnessing innovation? By looking at the “unusual suspects” meaning the people and situations that reside within the “white space” of the organization. The white space carries the underlying organizational dynamics, hidden influencers, assumptions, and latent abilities that add value and potentiality if given attention. As an example, a nonprofit leader shared with me the frustration of not knowing how to “manage” their younger and newer staff members, this manager shared, “They have great ideas, but they aren’t practical for the day-to-day challenges we face.” So, they did nothing. The ideas fell upon deaf ears. This told me that there was a great likelihood that ideas or potential for innovation had been lost and that instead of harnessing the potentiality of these white space ideas they were instead, caste aside along with the individual. We must remember that creative ideas are often out of the mainstream and at first glance they come across as impractical because they are foreign to the organizational system. So if our first reaction is to bristle at a suggestion, it just might be worth taking a closer look at it.
Nonprofit leaders need to seize the opportunity to develop the potential of both seasoned and new professionals. Often times new and young professionals are faced with the struggle of developing an identity in environments that cling to traditional organizational structures and norms of being. This creates a tension between the “old school” and “new school” that results in both the nonprofit and the new professional losing the opportunity of providing higher order benefits to those served. This tension stifles the collective growth of both and deprives direct recipients of service, creative solutions, and innovations that could be targeted towards the “big hairy audacious” dilemmas that require new thinking and actions.
Leaders need to make contextual and creative sense of technological, social, political, environmental, cultural, and economic changes so that innovations can take hold. Also, leaders need to foster collective work within their organizations to see not just what is around them but what is in the “white spaces” before them where adjacent possibilities lie and new beginnings are formed.
So this leaves us with a call out to leaders to be deliberate and purposeful in making space for
exploring and harnessing creativity with an eye towards challenging formerly held norms or ways of being that may hinder the organization and people from discovering the "new-new" and allowing the “unusual suspects” from participating in moving not only the organization, but whole societies forward.
Despite this, nonprofits cannot rest on the lack of resources as a reason for not forging ahead to innovate. One way nonprofits can move ahead of the curve and build capacity is to focus on what I call the "new-new" and "unusual suspects" that may pose opportunity or challenges to the work they do.
Futurist, Alvin Toffler quoted Herbert Gerjouy as saying, “Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn." What both Toffler and Gerjouy were trying to emphasize was the need to learn, unlearn, and relearn as future skills to understanding the world around us. I believe this ability is not just to be applied at an individual level but must be applied at an organizational level as well. The ability to see how the organization functions as a system, captures learning, creates models of understanding and applies this knowledge to the core of its work will be important for adapting to change.
Technological, social, political, environmental, cultural, and economic changes in our society will have an impact on the way nonprofits will operate. The “new-new” are the things that can erupt from these societal changes and recent innovations. The key will be for nonprofits to harness the influencers and adjacent possibilities these changes will bring by looking at the connections that seem unrelated and that have an impact on the organization. Organizations must be able to go beyond traditional strategic planning to applying methods that use foresight, divergent and design thinking strategies and methodologies in order to see the “new-new” and harness the power of new ways of thinking, connecting, and doing. Meaning, nonprofits will have to build within the organization structural “tools” that focus on the work of foresight and creative thinking to occur in real time to be innovative at a quicker pace. Nonprofits will have to set the pace rather than walk to a given beat. They will have to move from being at the mercy of funders and the tail-end of technologies to creating new ways to fund and new technologies to use. It means stepping into the realm of competitiveness both known and unknown.
Examples of where nonprofit innovation has gone can be seen in mobile Farmer’s Markets, eco-travel tours that allow travelers to do good while vacationing, funding models like Kiva.org or Kickstart.org or kickstarter.com or blended models such as Panera Cares (see: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7188729n) and netimpact.org.
So where does one start? How can nonprofits begin harnessing innovation? By looking at the “unusual suspects” meaning the people and situations that reside within the “white space” of the organization. The white space carries the underlying organizational dynamics, hidden influencers, assumptions, and latent abilities that add value and potentiality if given attention. As an example, a nonprofit leader shared with me the frustration of not knowing how to “manage” their younger and newer staff members, this manager shared, “They have great ideas, but they aren’t practical for the day-to-day challenges we face.” So, they did nothing. The ideas fell upon deaf ears. This told me that there was a great likelihood that ideas or potential for innovation had been lost and that instead of harnessing the potentiality of these white space ideas they were instead, caste aside along with the individual. We must remember that creative ideas are often out of the mainstream and at first glance they come across as impractical because they are foreign to the organizational system. So if our first reaction is to bristle at a suggestion, it just might be worth taking a closer look at it.
Nonprofit leaders need to seize the opportunity to develop the potential of both seasoned and new professionals. Often times new and young professionals are faced with the struggle of developing an identity in environments that cling to traditional organizational structures and norms of being. This creates a tension between the “old school” and “new school” that results in both the nonprofit and the new professional losing the opportunity of providing higher order benefits to those served. This tension stifles the collective growth of both and deprives direct recipients of service, creative solutions, and innovations that could be targeted towards the “big hairy audacious” dilemmas that require new thinking and actions.
Leaders need to make contextual and creative sense of technological, social, political, environmental, cultural, and economic changes so that innovations can take hold. Also, leaders need to foster collective work within their organizations to see not just what is around them but what is in the “white spaces” before them where adjacent possibilities lie and new beginnings are formed.
So this leaves us with a call out to leaders to be deliberate and purposeful in making space for
exploring and harnessing creativity with an eye towards challenging formerly held norms or ways of being that may hinder the organization and people from discovering the "new-new" and allowing the “unusual suspects” from participating in moving not only the organization, but whole societies forward.
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