Leaders, at least those who have sustained impact over time, know well the criticality of being able to innovate – that is, to innovate not just things, but new ways of doing. The best leaders understand something bigger: the value of habitually stepping out of their worlds. It’s a conscious move, one that allows you to pause, gain perspective and ask questions. All three are the seeds from which impactful innovation is sown. Each also enhances a leader’s ability to find direction, even peace, while readying for disruption to return. The lessons here are critical. So, for a moment, let’s go into that practice by way of a story, one likely far from your everyday.
A peaceful journey
While traveling in the Netherlands recently, I visited The Hague. Many who visit the country skip this city, focusing on what the typical sightseer playbooks suggest, places like Amsterdam or Rotterdam. Even those who do go there go for the art, food and wine. But as any good leader knows, sticking only to the playbook is simply keeping pace. So, I went to Den Haag, as the city is known locally, but not for what the guidebooks highlight. I for the peace.
The Hague, and more precisely a place in the city called the Peace Palace, is where people from across the globe come to pursue peace. Most outsiders associate the place with events or single points in time. But the truth is, the pursuit of peace there is perpetual and far bigger. The Peace Palace is the home of the international courts of law and arbitration, around conflict and peace. Rather than limit its pursuit to litigation or settlement, it also houses meeting facilities and learning centers where experimentation and collaboration around peace take place. Its library stores vast knowledge about peace, law and cooperation. But it’s the home of something far bigger and less obvious. At the Peace Palace, they pursue perpetual innovation.
Innovation of things vs. innovation as a way
This rarified place was born of other innovations, among them were the camera and the telegraph. We may not think of them that way, but each of these inventions helped spur the innovation of peace. For a very long time, war, not peace, was what many pursued, even valued most. In truth, what they unknowingly valued was war’s mythology. Innovation changed that. Photography brought war’s realities to the forefront with images of the dead, the battlefield and destruction. The global reach of the telegraph brought real-time news and eyewitness reporting. With these creations, people far from the front lines began to see war for what it was, and wasn’t. It made them want something different, innovative. They wanted peace.
As surprising as it might sound, peace had to be invented, and herein lies the important distinction that makes The Hague and the Peace Palace such a valuable lesson for leaders of every kind. Unlike the innovations that contributed to its creation, the innovation of peace is and has been a systemic one. An unending one. The tall order isn’t to create peace once or in a single form, but to create an environment where peace can be achieved repeatedly. Rather than a thing, it’s a culture, a way.
Truth be told, peace isn’t typically thought of as an innovation. Yet, at least among humans, it doesn’t simply occur. Rather than being sued for, it must be created. Because it’s both ongoing and hard to come by, it’s a form of innovation requiring collective effort. The distinction is in the innovation of a way versus a thing. Great leaders recognize the difference.
Revealing the true job of a leader
The leaders who established the Peace Palace sought something enduring. So, they set about creating an environment. They took this approach because they understood that peace moves. It breathes. It changes, as do organizations, markets and life. Peace, they understood, is most likely to thrive if the right conditions are enabled. In such an environment, the expectation is that everyone, not one, will lead, each in their own way, to arrive at what they could not achieve alone.
In some ways, this runs directly against the mythology we maintain around leaders and leadership of one person knowing it all. If you pause and reflect, focusing on assuring the right conditions is the ultimate allowance of the greatest leaders. Such a focus means a leader has chosen to take responsibility for enabling that environment above all the rest, rather than pursuing some deceit of attempting to be the fountainhead of all the rest.
The pursuit of peace can seem so big, impossible even, unicorn-like. But the fact is, the most resilient and innovative organizations do this as well. Their senior leaders model this dynamic. They actively encourage, allow and reward innovating in others. They build culture, not things. Both come, but the order and priority are different, and matter.
The fact is, true innovation is in the way rather than in the outputs. At its most impactful, it’s systemic, shared, “never done” work. The rest – be it a single invention, a single victory or a single leader — is fiction.
Suffice it to say, this place made me think. It made me ask. If lasting impact matters to you, it should do the same.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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