Co-Creation: An Ecosystem for innovation
Linda A. Hill, Professor & Author
I recently listened to a podcast featuring Linda A. Hill, a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and co-author of Collective Genius. She spoke about what it takes to be a great leader and to shape culture and capabilities. From her research, Hill has concluded that leading innovation is not about setting a vision for others to follow, but about getting people to co-create with you, which requires a different kind of leadership. These are the ABCs, the three functions she says a leader needs to succeed:
A- Architect: building a culture to collaboration, co-create, and learn, sourcing each individual’s diverse “slice of genius”
B- Bridger: acquiring outside talent to influence and create deep connections with in order to scale and innovate
C- Catalyst: accelerating co-creation throughout the system
As I listened, my thoughts went to the workshop Greg and I will be facilitating this week. Our half-day workshop will be the culminating event of a four-day residency for a group of Google VPs, each wrestling with a “turbulent challenge.” This will be our second time participating in the program with our JLP jazz trio. From a singular focus on one stakeholder related to their challenge, our session will expand their perspective to ensemble thinking.
Jazz musicians come to the bandstand ready to contribute and share the best of their talent. With an ecosystem of collaborative excellence, trust, and shared purpose, band members are key stakeholders in the success of the performance. Add the audience members, the managers, producers, and venue owners, and the stakeholder landscape takes on a broad spectrum of invested parties. Motivations may come through different lenses, but each stakeholder can be a valuable, generative partner.
If we orchestrate stakeholders, both internal and external, as a co-creative ecosystem, we can better understand the connections and interplay that can provide insights, strengthen performance, and be a catalyst for successful swinging.
Orchestrating a Stakeholder Ecosystem
We contend that workplace teams should function more like ensembles—through heightened collective intelligence. For this Google group, we’ve devised an exercise for them to get clarity on the interconnections that their stakeholders share.
This approach transforms the VP from a bilateral negotiator, repeatedly managing one stakeholder at a time, into an ecosystem conductor, inspiring co-creative ensemble thinking and turning natural tensions into creative, productive energy for systemic solutions.
Identifying interconnections may look like: patterns in communication frequency, dynamics, or methods; how stakeholders influence, challenge and/or support each other; or how information flows between them.
With an interconnective eco-system map (like the one above), the stakeholder orchestration can begin. Leaders can:
· Listen deeply (Big Ears) for interconnections as you hold stakeholder individual positions
· Understand stakeholders as instruments (Your Voice) clarifying what role do they play and what value they bring
· Reframe resistance (Antagonistic Cooperation) as signals of eco-system evolution, not personal opposition
· Leverage stakeholder tensions as productive off-beats (Syncopation) to drive innovation
As leaders orchestrating a co-creative ecosystem, consider:
What insights might you derive from viewing stakeholders as a whole?
What will emerge when you facilitate stakeholder interconnection rather than managing individual relationships?
As Hill said, you cannot force people to innovate, you have to invite them. An invitation to co-create deepens the level of commitment and connection so we can successfully navigate the next turbulent challenge.
