Years back, i had the good fortune to attend a workshop by Centre for Creative Leadership (who does cutting edge research in creativity and leadership) – they were exploring the concept of creative leadership vs adaptive/innovation leadership than. What we found out (in an MNC like HP that sells IT services and products) at the workshop was:- on a straight line scale, managers who were involved in R&D tend towards creative leadership and managers who were involved in support functions like Procurement, GRE, Facilities tend towards Adaptive/innovative Leadership. Also, we found that Managers in functions like HR and some finance roles were mid point (neutral) on the scale. It makes me wonder what it would look like in a services company, like say FM. Can the FM industry have creative R&D or innovative breakthroughs in the “productization” (eg plug and play helpdesk module)or “servicelization” (eg unique JLL customer experience) of our industry? If there is, perhaps there will be more differentiation between all service providers. Perhaps it will slow down the commodization of FM servcies in the market and put less pressure on margins.

~chee leong