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The Innovator

 

Innovators have exceptional risk taking and creativity ability.  They always have a new idea and are often willing to give up their jobs if they cannot obtain the organizations support.  To others the Innovator seems just like the Challenger: outspoken, hard to influence, and of a single mind.  Unlike the Challenger, however, the Innovator always has a better mousetrap.  Innovators are full of alternatives, and any one of these may be better than anything the organization is currently using.  Start-up costs for their ideas may be prohibitive, but the Innovator rarely accepts that excuse.

 

Innovators can sense breakthrough products, which must be accepted from time to time if an organization is to compete.  Initially breakthroughs are unpopular, because they involve new technology and various kinds of changes.  Innovators are aware of this fact and will strive for the breakthrough's acceptance.  Although usually admired and probably feared, Innovators are viewed as radicals and are rarely at the head of the most-liked list.  Innovators continue to believe in their ideas when no one else does.  When their ideas are not accepted in an organization, Innovators frequently look for capital to start their own companies.

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Contributions

Most major non-incremental successes in American industry are the result of Innovators.  (Henry Ford is perhaps the most commonly used example of a man with an idea.)  They are not afraid to take risks. In fact, from most people's point of view, Innovators will risk more than they can afford to lose.

 

Hindrances

Innovators may become so fixed on an idea that they are not willing to wait until the time is right.  Innovators feel so strongly about certain potential breakthroughs that they cannot see the implementation problems.  When what they want is not forth-coming, they may develop a paranoid idea that the organization is against them or that plots are made in executive suites to block them.  Sometimes, of course, these suspicions are true.

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The Practicalizer

 

Practicalizers are high on risk taking and moderately creative.  Although they are no more creative than the Planner, they make ideas work because they will take more risks.  A socialized Challenger tends to practicalize new approaches.  Practicalizers are often perceived as effective managers.  They like taking ideas and driving them through the bureaucratic walls of the organization.  Because they are moderately creative, they can recognize the gifts of the Innovator (who tends to be socially less acceptable) and of the Synthesizer, Dreamer, and Planner (who are preoccupied with the product rather than its implementation).  Practicalizers are confident that they will be able to convince top management of the need to make major changes.  They are bottom-line oriented.

 

Contributions

Practicalizers are action-oriented and they accomplish things.  Often they are the only middle managers who can get a change accepted.  They will take the risks, up to a point, because they are confident of their ability to produce.  President Johnson said, "Politics is the art of the possible," and Practicalizers are the organization's politicians.  They are rarely confused between the right thing to do creatively and what can be implemented.  They will always compromise for the possible.

 

Hindrances

Perhaps the major weakness of true Practicalizers is that they will sell out the super-creative person in the crunch and thus sometimes miss the big payoff.  Practicalizers rarely play the long shot.  They trade tomorrow's first draft choice for today's winner.  By doing so, they risk losing the superstar that a draft choice could have brought.

 

The Synthesizer

 

Synthesizers are quite creative and generally moderate in taking risks.  They are idea and quality oriented people.  They practicalize conceptually what others think.  They take unlikely combinations of people, programs, or products and devise a new entity.  Their talents are in taking other people's ideas, adding some of their own, and then making those ideas fit into existing situations.  Their ideas will never be as practical or as easily implemented as those of the Practicalizer, but they will develop high-quality ideas that are just short of breakthrough.

 

Like Modifiers, Synthesizers like moderate risks.  They believe that the ideas will carry their own weight to produce change.  This position makes them appear to be Dreamers or Planners to those who do not understand how far Synthesizers will go to sell their ideas.  Synthesizers are usually liked but not always understood.  They are socialized Innovators.

 

Contributions

Synthesizers are often the most highly valued of creative people.  They put the good of the organization first and their creativity second.  Their moderate risk taking makes them controllable, unlike the Innovator.  They plan and organize and often function as peacemakers between warring factions.  They see combinations of functions, processes, and people that others do not see.  New organization charts or production flows challenge their ingenuity.  Good synthesizing managers continually combine the needs of the customer with the organization's talents and resources.

 

 Hindrances

The major blind spot of the Synthesizer is an inability to risk all for a breakthrough.  They believe in incremental breakthroughs.  They are not supersonic-transport lovers; they want a better jet for their customers now, not later.

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