leadership and innovation
Assessment & approach
We are often asked to assess whether company culture is innovative enough and at the same time determine whether the management team has the right elements to lead the renewal strategy. Considering the importance of leadership and entrepreneurialism as preconditions for successful innovation, BeBright supports its clients with a leadership scan. This scan of the organization gives insight into it's culture and evaluates the quality of innovation leadership competencies. For this scan, we make use of the AEM-cube®, a model designed by the Dutch psychiatrist and management consultant Peter Robertson.
This extensively tested model maps individuals and teams based on three important dimensions:
- The first dimension relates to “attachment”. This shows whether (and to what degree) the individual is focused on people and relationships with colleagues, or primarily on the actual content and substance of the labour, business concepts, techniques and systems.
- The second dimension (“maturity”) has to do with the degree to which the individual is capable of overseeing the complexity and coherence of the organization.
- The third and last dimension of the AEM-cube® is that of stability versus exploration. This dimension yields insight in the degree to which the individual tends to create new possibilities or has a need for more security.
Although the last dimension appears to be most relevant at first glance, research shows that mapping innovation, ability and leadership is challenging. Therefore the degree to which one is able to manage complexity is an essential precondition for steering innovation successfully.
All in all, the AEM-cube® offers a powerful insight into the strong and weak points of a person, team or organization and indicates opportunities for growth. It is a valuable tool, because it enables managers to make optimal use of the diversity within a team creating the essential preconditions for innovation.