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Public innovators: Drivers of change
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Mar 2, 2006 Posted by Rich HarwoodWhat’s going to drive public innovation in public life and politics? People will. In the final analysis, we need public innovators to imagine a different path, to build different kinds of mechanisms, to create organizations that are catalytic, to create the conditions for a more robust public life and politics.
Recently, my colleagues and I looked back over nearly 20 years of Harwood Institute work, and one of the key insights we gained was that all of our successful work was fueled by a very particular kind of person.
These individuals combined, in different ways, a collection of characteristics. I’ll summarize these characteristics in three ways:- They are driven by their ideals
and aspirations – these were not magically
implanted in them or simply gleaned from a
book. These individuals came to us already
jazzed.
- They are pragmatic in their approach to
public life and politics. They do not allow
their ideals and aspirations to make them mushy
or overly sentimental. They are driven by a
deep desire to create change and make society
better.
- They understand risk and know how to calibrate it. They can figure out how much risk they can afford to take in any given situation, and they are constantly measuring where they stand.
I’ve come to believe that the cultivation of public innovators, and our ability to support them, is so important that The Harwood Institute created the Public Innovators Lab to help people develop their sensibilities and practices around public innovation and leadership. Moreover, we are launching this year our first Annual Public Innovators Summit to bring together under one roof people who have been innovating and who want to share ideas and lessons about pathways for making a difference; who want to wrestle with common challenges; and who want to build a network of ideas and support.
There are wonderful people across the country – including you – who are public innovators and maybe never even thought of themselves in that way. I want to find them and work with them. We need more public innovators in public life and politics.
Why? To address the challenges we know all too well. - They are driven by their ideals
and aspirations – these were not magically
implanted in them or simply gleaned from a
book. These individuals came to us already
jazzed.
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Mar 6, 2006 | Charles Irish | cirish@zoominternet.net
I agree with these characteristics, though I believe that there is one that stands out as being indispensable to this work. Jim Collins says it best as he describes the Level-5 leader. Such leadership builds an organization “that can tick along without them, rather than feeding their egos by becoming indispensable.” That’s a step above the Level-4 leader who is described as a “genius with a thousand hands.” I think that this is where the sustainability-rubber meets the road. The leader, organizer, or initiator—whatever you want to call these individuals—must understand and believe in this simple principle. If this doesn’t become the essence of the organization, then success is likely to be fleeting. It just can’t be about one person.
The Public Innovators Lab is an excellent place to learn this. However, I would urge communities to send teams. To be sure, one individual can become the catalyst for change, but experience tells me that the opportunity for change increases geometrically with the inclusion of one or two more people.
By the way, I think I would add one more trait to this list of characteristics: the ability to swim upstream. Sometimes that becomes easier to sustain when there’s another beside you. http://www.communitypartnership.us
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Mar 3, 2006 | Richard Puffer | byerlyfdn@yahoo.com
Nothing happens without people making it happen. I think one of the factors leading to the cocooning that has taken place is that lots of people are having to work harder at making the living than in previous times. Remember when the white collar people were asked to be connected within their communities? In today's world of globalization, lean and mean, six sigma and productivity driving earnings people really do have less time and they are being more careful with how they are using the time they have. That is why I think your discussion is so timely and why I hope others become involved. Public innovation, public rennovation, and old fashioned community building has to become a priority if we are going to be moving up and not sliding back. We have to find ways to help people help make it happen! http://www.byerlyfdn.org