Everyone wants it – our government wants it, our businesses want it, our communities want it, but they all seem to have different ways of trying to get it. They are trying to hire it, they are trying to buy it, even copy it, but still many are struggling to get what they want. The challenge is working out what innovation means to you.
To us, innovation is new thinking with a focus on creating something better than we currently have. Innovation should be about advancing what we are doing, not about creating stuff just for the joy of it (and potentially sewing the seeds for the very next problem at the very same time).
Despite the fact that most people agree that innovation is a solution to many of our problems, getting it is another thing. Some of the most common drivers for innovation that we come across include:
- Being stuck in a rut in a changing environment and not knowing how to respond
- Trying to get ahead of others in the same field (or at least catching up with competitors)
- Needing to do more with less in all the forms it takes
- Needing to make things better and the current solutions just not cutting it
And, some of the most common responses we see to the innovation challenge include:
- a focus on process
- the creation of a specialist department,
- an innovation rewards scheme
- a top down focus
While these responses could work in the right circumstances, none of them address the biggest barrier that we find to a truly innovative group or organisation – and that is culture. You can hire the smartest people, buy the most fabulous innovative little start-ups, engage the most amazing consultants and copy the most inspirational organisations, but if your group/organisation does not foster an empowered and engaged culture – your innovation goals will not succeed in the long term.
An empowered and engaged culture is one that allows people to get their DNA all over the organisation, have ideas and then make them happen, and feel a part of something bigger and more important than just business as usual.
David Grigg
The problem you don’t address here is that many organisations actively try to suppress innovation, and indeed find that they have to do so in order to remain stable and profitable… until a competitor they didn’t see coming disrupts their industry.
I recommend Clayton Christensen’s book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” and also almost everything written and spoken by his brilliant ex-student Horace Dedieu at http://asymco.com.
Jason
I’d agree about the suppression, but I’m pretty sure most of ’em would be shocked to hear you say that. Most of the organisations I’ve gotten to know well truly believe that they need innovation, and they’d commit to it too if they weren’t so damn busy minimising risk and punishing variation and ‘failure’… and then there’s all those increasingly rigid protocols and standards to be enforced… And having seen the inside of quite a few major business schools, i suspect that much of what’s on the curriculum for managers is like Kryptonite to creativity and experimentation, and without those, well, innovation is next to impossible.
Gary
I think that organisations don’t necessarily suppress innovation but they often don’t value or see its potential as a way of unlocking thinking, processes or the way they develop their staff. Innovation is risky, more problematic to quantify or justify and hence breeds caution in a cultural sense for organisations. Plus we have a predominance of managers (who are often more adept at more procedural matters) who are given responsibility for projects which require creative, right-brained and a high degree of people skills in terms of EQ. No wonder it flounders. We set them up and the others around them who are looking for leadership and not management for potential failure.
Jason
Thanks for the comment, Gary. There’s a few classic barriers we keep running into, the most popular being; 1) we don’t know how, 2) we’re not allowed and/or 3) we don’t have time/space/money/resources to do it. But the two ‘reasons’ we hear the most talk about are; 4) our people aren’t smart enough and/or 5) they don’t want to innovate… but those two are never true. Handing innovation over to managers who are allergic to ambiguity and uncertainty (and as you say, setting them up for failure) is pretty compelling evidence of barrier #1, at least in my book. Your thoughts?
Gary
Hi Jason
Yes I concur with this one. Many leaders have lost the capacity to create an environment that allows individuality to flourish not because they don’t believe in it but it is too much of a risk for them. Under everyday workday pressure it seems that our default position is to micro manage everything, to control or screw it down to a system, process or finite situation. This effectively strangles the creative process which is the antithesis of what we are trying to achieve; a fluid, differentiated and risk taking culture that celebrates ideas and difference. It is too about both the ‘what’ and ‘how’ when it comes to nurturing this type of thinking environment. Many managers and leaders can see ‘what’ needs to be done but don’t have the capacity to address the ‘ how’ in order to make it happen. The ‘how’ to me is ostensibly the personnel. If the leaders model what is celebrated in terms of the innovative practices they believe in, then surely this has to permeate to the rest of the culture to effect gradual change.
Jason
Don’t you think it’s funny that so many of these ‘riskophobic’ organisations were actually started by one or two individuals who were passionate, creative risk-takers, none of whom would probably last 10 minutes in the machine their idea has morphed into. I love it when we find such a company, because there’s something very powerful in reminding them of the kind of thinking that created them. I suspect it’s fear of blame and ridicule that feeds the fear of ‘failure’ (which usually includes anything that happens that wasn’t listed in the KPIs) which in turn generates the levels of micromanagement and supervision that suffocates any opportunity for something wonderful to happen.
David Seignior
I reckon organisations see innovation as ‘Creativity in a suit’. They don’t want to commit to saying they are creative, that sounds too ‘Penniless arty-farty weirdo in a garret.’ Innovation sounds more productive and they are told they have to have it, but they still struggle with specifically why they need it and how they can best make use of it.
Jason
David, you make me think of all the other perfectly obvious notions that had to wear a suit to make it into The Boardroom. For example ‘get in touch with your feelings and those of the people around you’ didn’t get a look in until it became Emotional Intelligence. Which is probably why ‘go home for god’s sake’ became Work-Life Balance, ‘be with your family’ became Quality Time and ‘have a nanna nap’ became Power Sleeping. I actually find it reassuring when management gurus wrap the bleeding obvious in a suit, ‘cos it means organisations will be able to catch up.
The latest one I’ve heard is the Results Oriented Workplace, which I think means ‘let people work in whatever way gets the job done.’ Brilliant, cutting edge stuff.