Bottom up for innovation

I watched TedTalk entitled, 'How to Manage for Collective Creativity?' by Linda Hill and there are a few things I'd like to talk about today ka...it's a 'TipTalk' kaaa:))!

Linda Hill was sharing her experiences analyzing what actually happened in the field, studying the most creative companies like Pixar and Google about leadership and innovation.

From my own understanding, I think her work shows that leadership should nurture the culture of conflicts, diversity, and experiements ka. I also learn that visionary leadership is needed at the right time as even vision could make all the efforts in alignment, it could dilute the wealth of creative ideas and possible collective efforts from staff at all other levels. You may want to watch it at your leisure na ka.

What I learn and then link with our Thai context na ka:

• Thai people are very creative from our commercial and ads na ka but our government service and in some other circles, including universities(?) aren't quite so ka.
• We talk and learn a lot about leadership but it turns out to be mainly 'top down' with 'order only' in many situations mai ka?
• We don't really have the true understanding and exercises how to handle diversity to maximize its advantages for our creativity and innovation.
• Our leaders may not need to learn too much about theories of leadership but how to be open with their ears and minds while serving as facilitators to welcome ideas and help come up with different patterns that may fit with the tasks of organizations.
• More freedom should be given to staff at all levels for them to feel more free to express what they think. But it needs to start from home and school lae ka!

In quite a few homes and communities, we still see our deeply rooted culture of being submissive and polite, making it hard for people of all generations to discuss together productively. Being 'good' followers/staff could mean not talking back or not asking questions. Definitely, we need to balance it out not to be like some westerners who could be unnecessarily aggressive (from the eyes of Thais).

Each of us needs to break the traditions to become a good model for our modern world lae ka!

Happy Monday na ka.