3 Things NOT to do as a leader in a co-creative process

Do you as a leader have a complex issue within your organization which you know you can’t deal with in a traditional top-down fashion? Are you thinking of involving all stakeholders and setting up a dialogue with all of them in order to find common ground and broad support for action? If that is the case, you are preparing a co-creative process. This blog is about your role as a leader in such a process.

In my practice, I see that in the more successful co-creative projects the leader plays a specific role. Let’s try to find out what it is successful leaders do by looking at three specific things that I’ve seen leaders do which were a recipe for failure.

1. The leader shows “laisser faire, laisser aller” behavior. The idea behind it being that co-creation is essentially about letting go and allowing people to take responsibility. While such trust in the team of collaborators is admirable, this is not the whole story. A co-creative process cannot be delegated entirely to people who in reality do not have the authority to make important decisions. Without the leader present in the co-creative meetings to a) set clear boundaries concerning what the co-creative process it about and what it does not cover and b) authorizing the propositions that the co-creative process delivers, the co-creative process is no more than a talking shop and people will feel continuously confused and abandoned by the leader.

2. The leader has a very clear view content wise on what the co-creative process should deliver. In these cases the leader thinks he/she knows very well how to tackle the complex problem. The co-creative process is only about getting support for what is already implicitly decided. There is no real interest in sharing, comparing and finding out the perspectives of the different stakeholders. As a result, participants in the process feel manipulated and trust is destroyed.

3. The leader has started a co-creative process with all the good intentions and openness that is required. During the process however, the leader realizes that the process does not evolve in a structured and predictable way. People participating in the process occasionally feel lost, including the leader. He/she is seized by fear and does not know how to overcome it. As a result, the plug is pulled from the project and people are left with the feeling that they are incompetent to solve the issue together.

What to learn from these examples?

1. As a leader, you have to be involved. Your role is to simultaneously lead and not lead. Quite the paradox.

2. As a leader you have to accept that the outcome of a co-creative process cannot be predicted. You have to willing to work with the results the participants come up with, even if the result is not 100% what you would have wanted.

3. Co-creation will affect you and everyone else involved in the process. Being willing to deal with uncertainties and complexity of a co-creative process is part of it.

From my experience, here are some other things leaders can do to help a co-creative process along:

• Acting as a sponsor for the process and creating the conditions which are needed.

• Making a clear link between the process and the added value for the core business of the organization.

• Allowing the time that is needed to reach results.

If you want to learn more on co-creation, you can order the book "Co-creation ... 13 Myths debunked" (2016, Lannoo). Contact me on lesley.vanleke@Vanlekeadvies.be or call me in 0478 51 96 66.