Gaia Grant

Ambidextrous Future Ready Leadership

Categories: Business, Creativity, Innovation, Leadership, Management, Productivity, Strategy

Gaia Grant (PhD) is the creator of the unique ‘Innovative Change Leader’ Profile (iCLi) and ‘Polar Positioning’ (PoP) tool. She is a researcher and lecturer on innovation with the University of Sydney Business School, a director of Tirian Consulting, and author of a number of books – including The Innovation Race: How to change a culture to change the game and international bestseller ‘Who Killed Creativity?… And How Can We Get it Back?’ along with ‘A Patch of Paradise’ and ‘The Rhythm of Life’ and over 30 other educational resources.

Gaia researches how to create a culture that supports sustainable innovation and draws on data she’s collected from multiple survey responses and interviews with global leaders. She is a course designer & lecturer at the Work Integrated Learning Hub / Discipline of Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship / University of Sydney Business School. Her role includes evaluating and designing work-based learning and teaching for the future of work. Gaia also has an MSc in Creative Leadership (State University of New York), along with a Grad Dip Change Leadership, BD (hons), and BA Dip Ed.

Gaia was appointed by The Australian Institute of Company Directors and the peak Australian Superannuation Association Fund to research and report back on the importance of creating cultures in an organization that promotes accountability and integrity following the outcomes of the Haynes Royal Commission. She is recognized as an outstanding educator, receiving multiple university awards for her work.

Gaia’s corporate clients have included: Google (US), JP Morgan (Asia Pacific), Visa (US), Salesforce (Asia Pacific), Boeing (& Partner airlines), Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts (Canada), Citibank (Asia Pacific), AMP Bank (Australia), Baker & McKenzie (Asia Pacific), Colgate Palmolive (Innovation Lab America), Deutsche Bank (Asia Pacific) & many other MNCs who can all attest to her insightful approach.

Keynote presentations Gaia has given at a number of high-profile events for up to 3,000 people at a time have included: Salesforce International Roadshow | Gartner Symposium CIO Itxpo | World President Organization Global conference | Optus / Singtel national event |Growth Faculty Conference. Other selected industry keynote and workshop presentations have included CI Creative Innovation Conference (Australia) and the Creative Problem-Solving Institute (State University of New York, US). Gaia has also presented her research papers at a number of universities internationally including across the US (such as Xavier and Miami), Asia Pacific (including Bhutan, Central Philippines University), as well as delivering at major US & European management theory conferences: Academy of Management, EGOS & PROS.

Gaia contributes regularly to a number of major magazines and newspapers, and she has also been featured in a number of international media including BBC and ABC TV along with commercial TV, Reuters, Harvard Business Review, HRM, Fast Company and the Wall St Journal. She has co-authored several academic papers on innovation and over 30 corporate educational resources, simulations and programs, which are used by Fortune 500 companies worldwide. Gaia’s recent white paper on “What it means to be an ambidextrous innovation leader: Developing greater agility for sustainability in a rapidly changing world” is being very well received by innovation leaders globally.

Gaia is a recognized thought leader and a highly skilled presenter, facilitator and consultant who has developed a wide range of strategies and tools that can be used to find solutions to the most difficult challenges. Along with her corporate client work, Gaia has also researched, designed and delivered long-term innovation culture solutions for a number of not-for-profit organisations, including directing a one-year project working on innovation solutions for a government project that supports impoverished farmers with improving agriculture techniques in Indonesia, coordinating strategies for refugee organisations to overcome challenges internationally, and producing a health curriculum for more than 25 million teachers and students in India.

Gaia and her partner Andrew Grant have travelled the world for over 20 years looking at innovation and creativity in companies, countries and cultures.

ON INNOVATION & CREATIVE THINKING

Are you an Ambidextrous Innovation Leader? What the latest research reveals about how to lead for sustainable innovation

“What it means to be an ambidextrous innovation leader: Developing greater agility for sustainability in a rapidly changing world” How is it possible to deal with the challenges of constant change in order to innovate and thrive? This session includes a fascinating validated assessment and interactive exercises to help explore individual unique Innovation Change Leadership (iCLi) profiles. Gaia Grant’s latest research reveals how understanding ‘Paradoxical Innovation Orientations’ (PIOs) and applying the ‘Polar Positioning Tool’ (PoP) at the individual, team and organisation levels can assist with fuelling innovation. In this session participants learn how to manage the dynamic tension between the principles of exploration, for breakthrough new innovation ideas, and preservation, for incremental continuous improvement. They learn how to lead teams so they are propelled forward by the creative dynamic between these positions rather than ripped apart by the tension, and through this process come to appreciate the importance of becoming ambidextrous innovation leaders. Drawing from her research with thousands of survey responses, multiple interviews with heads of innovation and a deep dive case study immersions – along with fascinating case studies from her consulting work with organisations over 30 years – this session reveals how leaders can fuel sustainable development. (Academic version with White Paper also available)

The Innovation Paradox: Why so many innovations fail… and what to do about it

For many years people have believed that innovation is about by being open and taking risks. Risk takers like Steve Jobs have been venerated for their innovation accomplishments, and cutting edge companies like Google appear to be leading in the ‘innovation race’ due to their ‘open’ strategies. Yet Gaia Grant’s research from interviews with more than 70 global innovation leaders and surveys with more than 1,000 – along with our international consulting work with leading innovative companies over 30 years – has revealed that most leaders and organisations today have only half the story right. Few are set up for long term survival. This session is based on Gaia’s recent book The Innovation Race: How to change a culture to change the game and identifies the unlikely paradoxical elements needed to be ‘fit for the future’. It can include an interactive game board exercise with a global challenge and connected case studies to identify the principles for sustainable innovation. Through the session Gaia reveals her unique research findings on how to fuel innovation through successfully and dives deeper into the 4 key innovation ‘Paradox Pairings’ and the ‘Innovation Change Leader (iCLi) Profiling tool.

Who Killed Creativity?… And how can we get it back?+ Harnessing Creative Intelligence (CQ) skills for a competitive business advantage: Identifying the key psychological blocks to creative thinking and how to deal with them.

We need to be creative to be innovative. But the relentless push to innovate faster may be undermining the whole creative process. In our rush for end results, we could ironically be killing the very thing that will lead us to innovation: creativity. Recent research has revealed that creative thinking will be the most important leadership attribute in the next 10 years. Yet it has been identified that even though IQ has been on the rise, creative thinking (CQ) has been rapidly declining since the 1990s. CQ has also been found to drop over an individual’s lifespan. We are now at a point where all the design thinking strategies and innovation labs in the world won’t help a team if there are significant psychological or environmental and cultural blocks to the creative probes. This session takes the participants on a journey from the classroom to the boardroom to understand the impact of the current creativity crisis. The session covers the implications for the workplace and reveals how it is possible to develop a creative and innovative culture.

SPECIALIST TOPICS, ACADEMIC PAPERS & DEEP DIVES:

‘Sensemaking & Paradox Theory’, ‘The profile of highly effective innovators’
‘Rallying around a shared purpose: How the top management team experiences paradoxical demands in strategizing.’
‘Profiling innovation leaders: Developing and applying a multidimensional measure of paradoxical innovation leadership orientations.’ ‘Dual leadership dynamics: Identifying how dual executive leaders navigate competing innovation sustainability demands in growing organisations’
‘How Leaders Navigate Scaleup tensions’. ‘From detecting dichotomies to navigating dipoles: How senior leaders negotiate competing demands.’
‘Creating agile leadership teams: How shared leadership models can better manage the ambiguities of sustainable innovation and growth.

Gaia has been engaged by market innovation leaders to help create a culture of innovation including: Google – working at their HQ in the US to introduce future solutions thinking; AMP Bank – assisting them with dealing with changes to finance regulations; Four Seasons Hotels (CEO & GMs) – preparing teams to embrace the potential future of the hospitality industry; Colgate Palmolive – equip their HQ innovation lab (Mexico), Salesforce in four locations around Asia Pacific, looking at the future of marketing and the customer journey & Chanel on innovation leadership. Research oriented programs / lectures have also been designed and delivered for Gartner, The University of Sydney (Australia), The International Center for Studies in Creativity at the State University in New York (USA), Royal Thimphu College (Bhutan), The Academy of Management (Israel) & YPO/WPO Global Edge (International)

“You did an amazing job to help us translate big ideas into execution.”
Agnes Durlik | Head of Portfolio, Governance & Change | AMP BANK ,

“A phenomenal session! The feedback was excellent and many members gave this session a 10 out of 10. Really unique in bringing real depth and understanding to innovation. This will help our CEOs to be more effective in innovating.”
Robert E. Fiske, President & CEO, USA | Chief Executives Guild

“Superbly presented – scoring a very high evaluation feedback of 6.8 out of 7. Gaia is a knowledgeable and entertaining presenter who presented an excellent session for us, really well facilitated and introduced. Really enjoyed it and liked the creative presentation through the game.”
AIM (Australian Institute of Management)

“Your contribution in so many ways turned the Optus Learning Fiesta into a smooth event with very interested participants and a great atmosphere for discussion & collaboration.”
Optus / Singtel (opening keynote for national broadcast and internationally synchronized ‘Learning Fiesta’)

“Gaia’s presentation provided our clients with great tools to help them become a marketing success.”
SALESFORCE (feature keynote for four city international roadshow)

“Your knowledge, professionalism, and willingness to work with us were key to the success of these digital virtual seminars. I learned a lot from you, and really enjoyed working with you.”
Doug Wieringa Global Strategic Initiatives BOEING USA

“An extremely well facilitated, engaging and well organized digital program”
Dan Balasundaram Associate Director, Business Management S&P GLOBAL RATINGS

“Masterful story tellers who have compiled a rich set of tools for sustainable innovation methods.”
Derek Laney, Head of Product Marketing Asia Pacific, Salesforce.com

“We asked Andrew & Gaia to present 2 keynotes (USA & Australia) explicitly looking for an interactive session. We’ve found that it’s all too common to have adventurers, high achievers, and sports celebrities come and tell us how what they have done aligns with our business. What we were looking for this time was to take an experience and enable a paradigm shift to start people thinking differently, because once you have seen something you can never unsee it. For us, the interactive nature of the sessions was critically important. They did an outstanding job – everyone was engaged, and everyone had a fantastic time while they were learning.”
CEO IR (Integrated Research)

Gaia Grant

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