In my twenties, I had a dating experience that returned to relevance twenty years later. Back then, I sang in a choir. One friend from choir – let’s call her Amy. One evening, Amy and I attended a huge, booze-infested, 200-person holiday party. The party turned into coffee and breakfast at her place the next morning. The eight overnight hours were not story worthy. The next eight daylight hours were unique in that Amy explained to me how we should be a couple, and I responded to Amy how we should not be a couple. The essence of my response was, “You would chew me up and spit me out.” At the end of this eight hours, she commented, “I’ve never felt so nice about being rejected. You are ruthlessly compassionate.”

These words – ruthlessly compassionate – pop up again every few years for me. In this book on Innovation Elegance and in this blog post, the words matter again, tweaked for an easier syllable count.

“Ruthless Grace” is not a corporate friendly term. Corporate friendly terms are probably discipline and empathy. I like these two terms because innovation teamwork needs both. Teams need discipline. Teams need empathy. As a Change Leader, you can be aggressive with process and be gentle with people. The twenty-first century requires you to be so.

The term “ruthless” triggers images of cruelty and punishment. Instead, think of sunrise and sunset. My confidence there will be a sunrise and a sunset tomorrow is ruthless. My confidence is dry, sterile, and unforgiving. The term empathy triggers other terms like understanding, forgiveness, elasticity, resilience, grace, and compassion.

The Elegance methodology leads with ruthlessness through three metaphors. The first metaphor is the factory. Although your innovation team is not literally a factory, you should manage it like one because you care about all the same things: speed, quality, waste, and more. The second metaphor is an Asset Portfolio. You must put certain things on paper, and you must manage them via the Five Verbs. This documentation is valuable for a long time. The Elegance methodology leads with grace through a third metaphor – the performing arts. Music, dance, improv, and theater – the language, the rhythm, and the culture of the performing arts shape your audience experience, your customer experience, and your employee experience. The performing arts shapes your culture to be beautiful and breath-taking. The performing arts create Moments That Matter.

Ruthless Grace was a label my friend Amy gave me. Ruthless Grace can be your competitive advantage. The Elegance methodology is enforced collaboration. It is a collaborative advantage. It’s one thing to have tools so that success is possible. It’s another thing to have tools so that success is inevitable.