A Teams Model for Effective Innovation

This post continues my series on lessons learned in my career, the ideas that influenced me, and the people who helped me along the way. This post is on the role of teams in developing and implementing innovation.

Most of my career as a consultant over the past 40+ years has involved innovation in one way or another. That’s what originally drew me into consulting. But innovation is rarely the domain of individual contributors. Innovation is a team sport. The most interesting and exciting times in my career have been when I could participate in a team focused on some sort of innovation. These experiences included developing new systems, building several consulting practices, developing new research publications, or participating as a consultant on a client’s team. 

So, it is critical to understand how team members can work together most effectively to bring an idea to reality. And this includes understanding the roles that each innovation team requires and the stages that the team passes through. 

Two Conceptual Models for Working Together

For most of the 1990s, I was a consultant for a systems integration firm in Orange County, California (no longer in business). During that time, I first managed two groups of ERP implementation consultants and then launched a management consulting practice within the firm. I also developed most of the firm’s internal training and consulting methodologies. Because the owners of the firm knew how important teaming was to our success, they brought in an outside consultant, Dr. Karol A. Bailey, to train us in two behavioral profiling tools. 

• The first was DiSC, an assessment tool to help individuals better understand themselves and others, along with their preferred work styles. Originating in research from the 1920s, DiSC has gone through multiple iterations and refinements over the years and is still in widespread use today. It is now owned by John Wiley & Sons and is available through its authorized resellers. It is a powerful tool, and I still apply it today in my personal interactions and collaboration with others. My long-time associate Dee Long became a certified DiSC trainer and has been a great help to me in continuing to apply it over the past three decades. 
• The second was what we knew, at the time, as the C.A.R.E. profile [1]. Although this model is synergistic with DiSC, it was developed independently. It specifically focuses on the roles that are needed in any team and the stages that an innovation should go through to successful implementation. 

The C.A.R.E model is illustrated in the schematic below, which I’ve drawn from memory and earlier training material. It recognizes that a successful team moves an idea through four distinct phases, in sequence, forming a Z-pattern.  

Click to enlarge

1. Creators. These are the idea people, who dream of new possibilities. They often start sentences with, “Wouldn’t it be great if ___________”. 
2. Advancers. These are those who take the idea and run with it, communicating and promoting it inside and outside the team. Through interactions with others, they test the idea to see if there is—or could be—a market for it. 
3. Refiners. These are those who analyze the idea to find issues or problems that stand in the way of success and develop solutions resolve the problems. 
4. Executors. These are the team members who oversee the implementation and, if appropriate, support it on an ongoing basis. 

The two roles on the top—Creator and Advancer—are focused on possibilities, what could be. They have their heads in the clouds. The roles on the bottom—Refiner and Executor—are focused on realities, what is practical. They have their feet firmly planted on the ground. The two roles on the left—Creator and Refiner—are focused on analysis. They like to work with abstract ideas. The two roles on the right—Advancer and Executor—are focused on relationships. They like to work with people.

The C.A.R.E model also recognizes a fifth profile, the Flexer. This is the least common profile. These are individuals who by nature can serve in any of the other four roles. They are like utility players in baseball, able to play any position. They are also good at facilitating the process of moving the innovation from one stage to the next in the Z-process. You don’t need to have a flexer on your team, but if you have one it can be quite valuable. 

Moving Through the Four Stages

It is important to realize that to ensure success, any innovation must pass through these four stages, and skipping over a stage will lead to failure. For example: 

1. Jumping straight from creation to execution. Some creators are so excited about the idea that they want to implement it immediately. “Let’s just do it!” they exclaim. Organizations with this culture tend to launch many new initiatives, most of which wither like flowers without water. 
2. Skipping the Advancer stage. This sometimes happens when the Refiners look at the new idea and immediately see problems with it. They look at the Advancers as cheerleaders, not realistic about what it will take to make the idea work. They don’t realize that someone first needs to communicate and promote the idea, to see if there really is a market for it. Without advancers, the idea suffers “paralysis by analysis.” Refiners by nature wear what Ed De Bono called the black hat (seeing the negative). First the idea needs some promotion, for team members to put on what De Bono called the yellow hat (seeing the positive).  
3. Skipping the Refiner stage. This happens when the Advancer stage shows the idea has legs and has good possibilities. The team gets excited and wants to move straight into execution. But without analyzing the idea and resolving any issues the innovation will likely fail in execution. Few ideas are perfect in their initial conception. Some refinement is almost always needed. It is like the testing phase in software development. No system can go straight from development to production. It is important to see Refiners not as naysayers but having an important role to play in perfecting the innovation so the idea will succeed. 
4. Not following through to execution. This happens when the team does not have many hands-on doers. It is an even greater problem when the idea is a product or service that needs ongoing support and management. Organizations like consulting firms that are mostly project-based businesses can have this problem. They are good at managing projects that have a beginning and an ending with a defined set of deliverables. But they may not have many people with skills and process-orientation to manage something day in and day out. 

Even if a person is not assessed as a Flexer, he or she may be comfortable in more than one role. Many team members will have a preferred role while also gravitating toward a second role. One common combination is Creator/Advancer—those who come up with new ideas and are also good at promoting them to others.  Another is Creator/Refiner—those who are good at conceiving new ideas and also good at perfecting them. Another is Refiner/Executor—those who refine the idea and then implement and manage it going forward. 

My Preferred Role

So, how did I test out? I am a Creator/Refiner. I love coming up with new ideas, and I am also good at analyzing them and refining them to make them better. At the same time, I may not be the best person to advance an idea. In fact, the Refiner-side of my profile means I tend to get nervous when the team rushes to promote an idea (especially if it wasn’t my idea!). As an analytical person, I tend to see the problems, the defects. So, I need to remind myself that ideas need to be promoted before they can be refined. There is a time for promoting and a time for refining. 

I am also not natural as an Executor. Of course, having owned two businesses for twenty years, I could not avoid ongoing operations. But I have always done my best when I had team members that were good at execution, with an attention to detail so I could do what I do best. Fortunately, I was blessed over many years to have had a few business associates who were excellent as Executors [2][3]. 

Although the original C.A.R.E assessment is no longer in commercial distribution, it is not difficult for individuals to figure out what roles they prefer to play. The important thing is for the entire team to understand the four roles and to move an innovation idea through these four stages. This will lead to greater appreciation for others and their unique contributions to team success. 

End Notes

[1] The C.A.R.E assessment was later rebranded as Team Dimensions, which, like DiSC, is also owned by Wiley. Although Wiley no longer markets it, it may be available in different forms through other providers.

[2] One was Barbara Newton, whom I’ve known for 30 years. She worked with me and Dee Long at that systems integration firm I mentioned earlier. She then joined my partner and I when we launched the consulting firm Strativa in 2000 and later acquired Computer Economics in 2005. She was responsible for all of the research publication processes as well as client services. She stayed on through our acquisition by Avasant in 2020 and retired in 2021. 

[3] Another example is Sherry Maples, who joined us in 2001 and stayed on for nearly 20 years. She ran the accounting function and, with Barbara, managed the back-office processes for the two companies, freeing me to focus on consulting and research. She retired in 2019. She was incredibly detailed oriented, which is exactly what I needed in those years.