Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a greater person than I, and has greater insights. Therefore I'm going to quote verbatim:
1) Strong sense of purpose and value: “If you want to change the world, you better have a strong sense of purpose and value at the heart of your enterprise,” Kanter says. Many Fortune 500 companies are heeding this call — for example, Proctor & Gamble is committed to improving the planet through “purpose-inspired growth.” Pepsico “wants to make itself a healthy company.”
The Minney.org approach is to engage all staff in the objectives of the organisation and the community - whether it's "better health" or "life in the years" - so that each person feels a personal commitment, each team takes actions that contribute, and departments and directorates work together and support each other.
2) Innovation of a very imaginative kind: Kanter urged companies to move from “thinking outside the box” to “thinking outside the building” — to “look far out into the community, into the world” for new ideas.
As Einstein is credited with saying: "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got."
We don't use "ice breakers" and "innovative thinking" for their own sake - we identify clear objectives. If a workshop is supposed to generate new care pathways, then why have an ice-breaker that gets people to feel comfortable (and so satisfied with the status quo)? Before you decide Six Thinking Hats is the tool, decide what the outcome is. We'll support you to get real solutions, not just a feel-good buzz.
3) Partnering: Super corps develop and nurture strong partnerships with customers, suppliers, and communities. “We can’t do anything of importance in the world without a network of partners.”
We encourage the opposite of the building of little empires - collaboration and using each others' skills. Years ago, preparing a business case and ongoing benefits reporting for community matrons, I had to fight them off from applying for their own finance clerk. What they needed (and now recognise) is a friend within the Finance department who does the calculations for them. Now, when the Chief Exec turns to the Finance Director and says "would you have a look at these figures? Are they correct?" the response is "my team worked them out". This applies to clinical review, workforce, facilities, working with the community, commercial partnerships, everything.
4) Self-integrating: People in organizations form their own informal networks. An organization dedicated to improving society will spur innovation and inspiration, thus “networks will be held together in a common purpose.”
See our response to point 1. If people understand their purpose, they will form powerful and self-healing networks to contribute to their purpose. They will survive changes of personnel, obstacles, flexibility, changing high level objectives, all sorts. How do I know? because I've seen it done badly and I've supported it to be done well