Are You an Innovator? (Part 4)

By Rasul Sha'ir, 15, July, 2008
 

THE BUILDING PERSONAS

The four remaining personas are building roles that apply insights from the learning roles and channel the empowerment from the organizing roles to make innovation happen.  When people adopt the building personas, they stamp their mark on your organization.  People in these roles are highly visible, so you'll often find them right at the heart of the action.  

7.  The Experience Architect designs compelling experiences that go beyond mere funtionality to connect at a deeper level with customers' latent or expressed needs.  When an ice cream shop turns the preparation of a frozen dessert into a fun, dramatic performance, it is designing a successful new customer experience.  The premium prices and marketing buzz that follow are rewards associated with playing the role of an Experience Architect.

8. The Set Designer creates  a stage  on which innovation team members can do their best work, transforming physical environments into powerful tools to influence behavior and attitude.  Companies like Pixar and Industrial Light & Magic recognized that the right office environments can help nourish and sustain a creative culture.  When a business team doubles its usable output after reinventing its space and a sports team discovers a renewed winning ability in a brand-new stadium, they are demonstrating the value of the Set Designer sometimes discover remarkable performance improvements that make all the space changes worthwhile. 

9. The Caregiver builds on the metaphor of a health care professional to deliver customer care in a manner that goes beyond mere service. Good Caregivers anticipate customer needs and are ready to look after them.  When you see a service that's really in demand, there's usually a Caregiver at the heart of it.  A Manhattan wine shop that teachers its customers how to enjoy the pleasures of wine without ever talking down to them is demonstrating the Caregiver role - while earning a solid profit at the same time. 

10. The Storyteller builds both internal morale and eternal awareness through compelling narratives that communicate a fundamental human value or reinforce a specific cultural trait.  Companies from Dell to Starbucks have lots of corporate legends that support their brands and build camaraderie within their teams.  Medtronic, celebrated for its product innovation and consistently high growth, reinforces its culture with straight-from-the-heart storytelling from patients' firsthand narratives of how the products changed - or even saved - their lives.