PAIRS IN INNOVATION: HOW WORKING IN PAIRS HELPS ORGANISATIONS TO MOVE INTO A NEW SHARED DIRECTION

Abstract

Innovation is a collaborative act. Thus, a lot of attention has been paid to teamwork as the prevalent approach for innovation in companies. However, teams also present limits, due to conflicts and compromises when converging. This study, which focuses on the development of innovative directions, explores the nature of collaboration by looking at the purest unit of collaboration: the pair. We isolate the case of pair collaboration and investigate, through empirical investigations, the sensemaking process people accomplish and how it is affected by those tensions that affect teams when innovating. We observe how innovation unfolds when people move from creating individually, in pair and finally in team. Findings suggest that the pair creates an intimate environment where innovative thinking, alignment and engagement flourish and that it is a good intermediate step towards teamwork. This paper acknowledges an underestimated dynamic of innovation, pair collaboration, which has real potential to address one of organisations’ most problematic challenges: people engagement and convergence towards an innovative direction.