Transforming Innovation Teams with Best©Team: A Solution-Focused Approach to Achieving Preferred Futures

• Published in: Innovation Leadership in Practice: How Leaders Turn Ideas into Value in a Changing World pp. 161 - 181
• Main Authors: Czerny, Elfie J., Godat, Dominik
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Emerald Publishing Limited 07.12.2023
• Subjects: HR & organizational behaviour; Leadership; Problem solving; preferred future; solution focused leadership; collaboration; innovation process; co-construction; Innovation team; dialogue; microanalysis; solution-focused
• ISBN: 9781837533978; 1837533970
• DOI: 10.1108/978-1-83753-396-120231009

Abstract Innovation originally meant ‘change’ or ‘renewal’. Over time, it became associated with creating new products, methods, materials, markets, and forms of organisation. Today, in everyday language, innovation is used as a much broader term that encompasses non-materialistic, non-economical ideas such as social, educational, philosophical, political, environmental, or spiritual innovations. What makes something innovative is subjective and depends not only on the perceived novelty of the content but also on the co-constructed meaning of what is possible or what it changes in our lives. Therefore, innovation leaders must also become experts in co-constructing meanings with their teams. In this chapter, a structured solution-focused framework will be introduced with the intent to support innovative teams in maintaining effective team dialogue, foster more innovative team collaboration, better innovations, or an improved innovation process. In fostering an interactive and dynamic team process, solution-focused leaders engage in deliberate interactions that often initiate a positive dynamic leading into an even more innovative future.