Discussion: Challenging Your Status Quo
Please use these heading for Discussion Forum 7.
Week 7 Discussion 1 Forum Templates
Initial Post Template
Ten Questions That Challenge the status Quo at Your Current Workplace
One Question for Further Analysis and Importance
One discovery skill from Dyer, et al. (2009) to Overcome Creativity Barriers
APA References
Discussion: Challenging Your Status Quo
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
– Henry Ford
When Henry Ford began revolutionizing the automobile industry with assembly line production of affordable cars for the public, the status quo for most people around the world was still transport by horse. You can just imagine the questions Henry Ford might have asked as he looked around at the status quo of the time. Perhaps he asked “What if I could mass produce a type of transportation that everyone could afford?” Ford’s innovations in business process allowed him to create a series of radical changes which would help to create what we recognize today as a modern lifestyle. Ford identified and challenged the initial resistance to changing the status quo that he faced.
Is there a status quo in your work life that you think could be changed? In this Discussion, you will cultivate some of the important skills needed to challenge the existing state of affairs in your work life. Start by looking around your current workplace or envision the workplace at an organization with which you are familiar and start thinking, “What if?”
With these thoughts in mind:
By Day 3
Post the following:
- Ten questions that challenge the status quo at your current workplace, or one with which you are familiar. Be sure to place this list at the beginning of your Discussion post.
- Then, select one question for further analysis and provide a rationale as to why this question is important, why it poses a barrier to innovation, and why it challenges the status quo of the organization.
- Finally, select one of the five discovery skills from Dyer, et al. (2009), and provide a rationale for why this discovery skill would enable you or the organization to drive innovation and overcome creativity barriers and the status quo that prompted your question in the first place.
Required Readings
Document: Week 7 Weekly Briefing (PDF)
The Week 7 Weekly Briefing provides an essential introduction to the content and concepts that you will be studying during the week. After viewing the Weekly Introduction, the Week 7 Weekly Briefing should be your initial reading this week.
Grivas, C., & Puccio, G. J. (2012). The innovative team: Unleashing creative potential for breakthrough results. Retrieved from http://www.vitalsource.com/Pages/home.aspx
- Chapter 22, “The Combination of Preferences Within People” (pp. 231–236)
- Chapter 23, “Creating Conditions for Success” (pp. 237–241)
de Jong, J., Den Hartog, D. (2007). How leaders influence employeesâ€
innovative behavior. European Journal of Innovation Management, 10(1), 41–64.
This article offers an inventory of leader behaviors that can positively influence employeesâ€
Nodeson, S., & Beleya, P. (2012) Leadership role in handling employeeâ€
This article discusses the role of the leader in managing innovation, particularly resistance to innovation. Leadership skills and building relationships are discussed.
Royal, C. (2009). An analysis of leadership development gaps for arts executives in the not-for-profit sector. Proceedings Of The European Conference On Management, Leadership & Governance, 222-231.
This article examines the priorities of developing leaders in the context of other human capital systems. Continuity of leadership is examined as a goal for leadership development.
Amabile, T. M., & Khaire, M. (2008). Creativity and the role of the leader. Harvard Business Review, 86(10), 100–109.
What would you like to learn from scholars about creativity and from executives from innovative companies about how to generate great ideas? In this article, Theresa Amabile and Mukti Khaire discuss the themes, tactics, and leadership practices that came out of a two-day colloquium held for leading creativity scholars and executives from companies like Google, IDEO, Novartis, Intuit, and E Ink about managing for creativity to generate innovative ideas. The authors present varied theories and frameworks to give leaders a playbook of sorts for increasing innovation.
Dyer, J. H., Gregersen, H. B., & Christensen, C. M. (2009). The innovatorâ€
Who is the most innovative person you have known in your own life? Dyer, Gregersen, and Christensen have studied many of the business world’s top innovators in an attempt to determine what common traits they might have. The authorsâ€
Tushman, M. L., Smith, W. K., & Binns, A. (2011, June). The ambidextrous CEO. Harvard Business Review, 89(6), 74–80.
What happens when innovative ideas can disrupt established business units in a successful organization? This article discusses the need for leaders to balance the tensions of established business units that have a long-standing claim on resources, with the speculative units of the organization that exist for innovation. The authors discuss ways leaders can embrace inconsistency when these units can have conflicting and multiple agendas.
Document: Leader Characteristic Inventory Handout (Word document)
This document will provide a place to organize ideas about innovation leader characteristics as you complete your self-assessment in the Individual Reflection.
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