Week 8 IDEO

Managing in a creative way is very important in any organisation. Most organisations do not adopt this style of leadership. By being creative many opportunities can arise. Companies which encourage creativity and innovation tend to have a competitive advantage. When ever a problem is encountered many ideas and solutions come along easier in a creative style of leadership.  We can learn many effective strategic leadership from the IDEO case study. In order to be creative, all employees of an organisation must be free and relaxed at the work place. At IDEO employees design their own offices in order to feel comfortable and relaxed so that they can be more productive and innovative. Just like a write who needs his chair, his desk or maybe his sofa to write something down. Very low power distance is one of the most important aspects of the organisation. This is a very good method for closing the gap between the boss and the employees at the bottom of the organisation. Low power distance results in more dialog between employees, which can result in more innovation. I personally find it easier to develop some else's ideas as opposed to generating my own ideas, therefore, more communication can only result in better outcomes. Another very important and effective strategic leadership that we can learn from IDEO is the high level of freedom, which think is one of the key elements for innovation and creation. A person can't be creative if he or she is not given a bit of freedom. Employees at IDEO do not criticise each other. All ideas are taken into account, even the wild ones. The company is divided into small teams and each team is required to come up with a innovative and creative solution to the problem. This is another effective style of leadership where a group of people are responsible for a particular task, instead of just one person who might not be as productive as a team. All employees are allowed to come to work dressed up just like they want to, there is no dress code at IDEO. This is another factor which contributes to the low power distance of the organisation. I believe that one of the most important factors, for a company like IDEO where creation and innovation is at the core of it's business, is to employ people from diverse backgrounds, which is exactly what IDEO is doing.  I don't think we can compare IDEO case study with Gerry Robinson because IDEO is a company that tries to come up with creative solutions to particular problems, whereas Mr. Robinson was looking for creative ways of speeding up the process at hospital, he was looking for ways to make the process more efficient. He was analysing the problem to identify the possible gaps which could have been used to diminish the waiting list. But we can compare IDEO with NHS where we clearly see major differences such as, high power distance at NHS and low power distance at IDEO, lack of communication and team work (everyone seemed to work for themselves and also a high degree or rivalry between employees) at NHS and extensive communication within the company and great team work at IDEO.  We can identify many differences between IDEO and the Challenger case study. IDEO is a flat organisation with employees that are comfortable and open to everyone, whereas at NASA high power distance is in place forcing employees to adopt a more formal style of communication, which sometimes is proven to be less effective. These two organisations are dealing different pressures, different costs of failure, different cultures and different roles and rules.  If we compare it with the Carrefour case study we can again identify differences in the cost of failure, we can see high power distance at Carrefour, differences in culture and style of leadership.  Madonna has always maintained a certain level of innovation in her career. She understood a very important fact in her career as a singer and that was and is to be in line with people's expectations. She managed to stay in the trend for a long period of time because she understood how important it is to be flexible. And we can see a high degree of flexibility at IDEO.