Leadership, innovation and courageous patience.

Innovation— any new idea—by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience.  ~Warren Bennis

It’s fall in Chicago.  That means when I’m out walking I not only see the number of runners increasing, I notice that many of them are frequently checking their watches.  No, I don’t think they are running late.  I presume they are checking their time because the Chicago Marathon is just weeks away.  They’ve been training for months (i.e., endless demonstrations and monotonous rehearsals) with courageous patience.  I admire their audacious endurance!

I’ve sat through many meetings where leadership teams have identified the improvement, advance, innovation or whatever you want to call it that’s going to lead them into their future.  They end their meeting with a metaphorical collective cheer, return to their offices, and continue their work as usual.  Or, sometimes they give their innovative idea a try, it doesn’t immediately catch on or sell or transform society, so they give up – assuming it must have been a bad idea.

I like Bennis’ requirement for innovation: courageous patience.  I pulled out my Thesaurus and selected several synonyms for both courageous and patience and came up with these alternatives.

• Audacious endurance
• Bold persistence
• Gutsy fortitude
• Spirited staying power

Think of some of the great innovators: Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, the Wright Brothers, Alexander Bell and Steve Jobs.  Each and every one of these individuals embodied courageous patience.  They had bold persistence, audacious endurance, gutsy fortitude and spirited staying power. 

I can’t help but think of a quote I heard this week.  “We are the most indebt, obese, addicted and medicated adult cohort in history.”  Doesn’t sound like a society abounding with courageous patience, does it?

In 2011, an article in TIME reported that the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation rankings have a category that measures how much a country has improved its innovation capacity from 1999 to 2009, factoring in measures like government funding for basic research, education and corporate-tax policies.  Of the 40 countries analyzed the U.S. came in dead last.  Sobering, isn’t it?

It begs the question, what are leaders (that's us!) doing to create an environment of innovation and courageous patience in our organizations in the midst of an instant-gratification self-centered culture?  Are we willing to be counter-cultural?  As a nation, we’ve recently recognized and admired the work of Steve Jobs; but we haven’t really followed his example or legacy of bold persistence and gutsy fortitude.  David Ogilvy said, “Leaders don’t resist innovation, they symbolize it.”  Do we?  Can we?