 |
Innovation has been high on the corporate agenda for several years.
With proliferating competition and fewer sources of enduring competitive advantage, companies
are focused on how they can drive future growth through innovation in products, services, and
business models. The constant flow of new articles, books, and seminars on innovation testifies
to how urgently businesses are trying to crack the code. Whenever a potential source of business
value takes center stage in the collective mind, be it innovation, customer excellence, or
supply chain management, the usual analytic approach is to seek out those few “gooses” who
seem to be laying golden eggs, cut them open and see how the magic happens. Of course, like
in the fable, what you tend to end up with is just one dead goose. The factors that drive success
for a particular company may be easy to describe, but their magic is hard to replicate. Ask
anyone who’s spent years trying to fly profitably like Southwest, or build mp.3 players
like Apple. Companies that innovate successfully have created a climate for innovation that
is greater than the sum of the parts. This article will focus on how several key elements work
their magic in producing that kind of climate.
Innovation Process
For practical purposes, it's useful to think of the innovation process as containing four separate
phases: idea generation, idea evaluation, development, and commercialization. In reality, in terms
of the factors that drive success, there is no clear dividing line; the methods and processes that
companies put in place to manage each phase shape the overall innovation climate and exert influence
across the whole process. For example, implementing an overly-backward-looking idea evaluation process
can discourage idea generation and choke off the commercialization pipeline. In the current public
dialogue on innovation, authors and speakers tend to reflect their own personal experience or interest,
emphasizing one phase or another of the overall process. However, creating new business value consistently
over time requires that all aspects of the innovation process be operating above a basic threshold
of effectiveness. A breakdown or serious deficit in any one phase disables the whole process. Climate
and process reinforce one another in determining how easily innovation progresses. |
|
Creating a productive innovation climate is challenging because
of the way that "mindset" typically interferes with our ability to see the world
openly, flexibly, and creatively. Mindset, which is basically the sum of our beliefs about
how the world operates, not only shapes the actions and decisions we take, but also limits
our view of the possibilities and the amount and kind of information that we take in. Mindsets
are generally difficult to change; not least, because they operate largely out of awareness
and because our human natures tend to favor familiar and predictable patterns that we can
feel in control of. While there can be genuine excitement in seeing the world freshly, for
most people, most of the time, it can also entail a degree of discomfort that we are disinclined
to tolerate for long, let alone, seek out. In the workplace, individual and collective mindset
is shaped by many forces, including history and temperament, organizational culture, risk
tolerance, past and current business success (success tending to breed complacency), richness
of experience, the variety and diversity of the information environment and social and political
pressures. Creating a climate in which prevailing mindsets can be challenged and innovation
can thrive means recognizing the specific, often subtle, factors in the organization that
operate to potentially stifle fresh thinking. The battle for innovation is largely a battle
against mindset.
With innovation, as with many aspects of human and organizational functioning, one of the
first questions is usually, "Is it the people or the environment?” In other words, "Do
we just need to hire more creative people, or is there something about the way we're managing?” In
this variant on the "nature-nurture" controversy, the answer is, these are not
polar opposite choices; both are important. Talent and environment exist on continuums of
their own. There are individuals who will be creative in any environment you put them in,
as well as those who will have difficulty creating almost anywhere.
<< Back to Insights |
go to page 2 >> |
|
Privacy Statement
