03.31.2008 — In turbulent times, companies that constantly innovate achieve significant competitive advantage over those that do not.

Innovation in a custom installation company can take many forms.

It involves a process of questioning everything you do, including what you sell, how you bundle products and services, your back office and installation practices, your levels of customer service and how you come to market.

True innovation creates value that is measurable and bankable. However, innovation requires a company to learn to do things that it doesn't already know how to do.

The question becomes, "How can a business transform its entrenched organizational culture to become a business that embraces innovation as a core company value?"

In short, how do you teach an old horse new tricks?

According to Jeff DeGraff, the keynote speaker at last year's PARA Management Conference and author of "Leading Enterprise Innovation and Growth," in order for companies to truly innovate, they need to develop faster, more flexible organizations with lower overhead, less scale and more scope to diversify.

Most importantly, leaders must populate their companies with individuals who embody four distinct managerial styles that work together to create a dynamic that is conducive to creating and sustaining innovation.

Each of these four types embodies a distinct set of positive corporate values that work together to enable companies to innovate effectively.

However, certain value sets also create inherent tensions with other value sets. When unaddressed, the internal friction created by these competing sets of values can frustrate and undermine a leader's efforts to spearhead and execute meaningful change.

The Four Management Value Profiles

DeGraff's Competing Values Formula (CVF) delineates four main innovation types/profiles that produce value.

Each profile is a description of the biases, preferred activities and management styles of particular types of individuals, together with the outcomes they tend to produce.

Each type also refers to an area of functionality within the company. To find your dominant profile type, log on to http://www.competingvalues.com and take the test.

Compete Types are intensely competitive. They are totally focused on performance and goals.

Companies with a competitive culture emphasize results and the discipline necessary to achieve them. Their driving purposes are profit and speed of response.

Competitive leaders build the organization by clarifying objectives and improving their companies' market position through hard work and productivity.

At their best, they keep everyone focused on short- and long-term goals. They are good motivators, good managers and quick decision makers.

At their worst, they create tension for collaborate types when their style of managing and decision-making neglects important team and people factors.

A company dominated by compete types can alienate people and create high turnover and low morale.

Collaborate Types are the "people" leaders who believe in something greater than the business itself and run their companies to reflect shared values.

They are generally warm, affable and trustworthy types who are known to do the "fair" thing. Their actions are motivated by knowledge, learning and building relationships.

They are good communicators, community builders and diplomats. They are excellent trainers and tend to lead by consensus.

At their best, collaborate types build trust and foster commitment, loyalty and team spirit. Both employees and customers are treated like partners in an extended community. They make great managers and sales people.

At their worst, collaborators can drag their feet when it comes to making unpopular decisions or having to fire long-time employees, and they tend to lose sight of timetables and short-term goals.

A company dominated by collaborate types can sometimes feel more like a party than a business. Because they are generally slower decision makers, collaborators often come into direct conflict with compete types.

Control Types represent incremental innovation by taking something that already exists and modifying it to make it better.

Control types are totally focused on control issues and business process, with a strong emphasis on creating rules and enforcing them. Controllers are systematic, careful and practical.