Limiting Creativity? How and Why?

Paul Burns cites the likes of Birkinshaw (2003) to discuss the guidance and control of entrepreneurial action in his newest edition of Corporate Entrepreneurship: Building the Entrepreneurial Organization (Burns 2008).

Whilst Burns acknowledges that management must certainly not lose sight of the responsibility of a company to the shareholders in terms of how resources are put to use, he also suggests that there are ways to encourage performance through "awarding outcome rather than behaviour" (p. 185).

Burns is not advocating that badly "behaved" individuals permeate the corporation for the sake of outcome, he is instead saying that in addition to traditional forms of morale and team building *, leadership should encourage positive environments where intrapreneurs can propose and develop new products and/or services that may actually lead to improved sales and happier shareholders.

This kind of work environment is not an easy one to balance. It must allow mistakes to be made, but must still set limits on "creativity" for the sake of a company's financial survival. Moreover, those limits are perceived by leadership both emotionally and pragmatically. Ultimately the balance is therefore driven through risk managment where "risk" becomes relative to the nature of the company, the product and/or service it provides, and the personality and perceptions of leadership. And, as always, risk has a cozy relationship with Lady Luck.

References:

Birkinshaw, J. (2003) "The Paradox of Corporate Entrepreneurship", Strategy and Business, 30.

Burns, P. (2008) Corporate Entrepreneurship: Building the Entrepreneurial Organization. Palgrave Macmillan.

* The link to this YouTube video does not reflect an endorsement of Sabre Development nor of their strategies.

Social Enterprise and Sustainability

Today I took a survey sent out by a national bank to company owners regarding the degree to which they addressed social enterprise and/or environmental sustainability in their operations. As a sole-proprietor of a management consulting firm, I do not address these matters in the same way that a medium or large firm might, or even a small company with employees. But the survey provides insights into how we think about these matters. For me, the words social enterprise and environmental sustainability are not necessarily addressable in the same contexts. Bottom line, paying for carbon offsets--instead of seeking innovative internal solutions for environmental improvements, for example, is not always a good thing nor is it really related to social enterprise. These offsets become simply another financial product and instrument of financial institutions to pass forward as forms of debt. Social enterprise, as Muhammad Yunus would concur, should never be seen first and foremost as a means to increase revenues--even if revenues increase when customers are impressed by the goodness or generosity of a company. Innovation should be understood with these caveats in mind. When Guy Kawasaki talks about "making meaning", he is reminding innovators and entrepreneurs to think about humanity first. In this way, the innovation will be fit-for-purpose and all the rest will fall nicely into place.