Should everyone work with innovation?
I have often made the argument that companies need two kinds of people to make innovation initiatives successful. They need innovation leaders who focus on building the internal platform required to develop organizational innovation capabilities. This is work on the strategic and tactical level.
Innovation leaders are often also involved as coaches and facilitators for the second group required for innovation; the intrapreneurs who turn ideas and research into new products and services. Intrapreneurs are much more operational minded, and they are rare within most companies.
A while ago, I had a conversation with Martin Smith, Director of Group Technology and Innovation at Manchester Airports Group. Martin believes there is a lot of truth to my ideas. However, he also made the observation that it implies that there are ‘Innovation Champions’, Operational Intrapreneurs’ …. and then the rest! Martin mentions that their focus, whilst recognising that there are always ‘best examples’, is to try and foster a culture where everyone is actively encouraged to innovate. That way the task of finding, coaching and encouraging the best should become easier.
It is a great observation by Martin and it prompted me to respond to him and clarify my thoughts as it also touches on one of the bigger questions within innovation. Should everyone in a company work with innovation?
First of all, I agree with Martin that we should avoid labelling some people as “innovation champions”. It makes other people think they do not have to be involved as the “champions” will just take care of it.
My next point often stirs some controversy, but I do not believe that you should let all employees work with innovation – at the same time. A large majority need to just focus on the core work including incremental innovation. This is where you make the money to bet on innovation and you need to focus on this.
On the other hand, every employee should be given the opportuntity to work with innovation even at a certain radical level through a variety of initiatives setup by your innovation leaders. This could be idea generating campaigns, internal business plan competitions and innovation camps.
Such initiatives help you find the people who have natural capabilities for making innovation happen. Some are just better than others and you need to identify and develop these people even further.
Doing all of this will help you build a strong innovation culture. It would be great to hear your comments on this.
Stefan, I’m very happy that you’ve raised this question as it’s one that I’ve been pondering for some time. These are my current thoughts on the matter:
There are two main kinds of innovation work that an organisation must undertake.
The first kind is bringing forth new stuff for the organisation to provide to its customers (if it’s a business) and its service users (if it’s a non-profit). By “new stuff” I mean products, services and experiences. Some of this new stuff will be radical – hopefully – and some of it will be incremental. The distinction is irrelevant in the context of my comment.
In your article you mention innovation leaders, who are concerned with maintaining and developing the organisation’s innovation capability, and operational intrapreneurs, the alchemists who turn ideas into products, services and experiences. But let’s not forget the people who identify the unmet needs of customers and service users, and the folk who come up with the concepts for new products, services and experiences that will satisfy those needs.
This products-services-experiences innovation work is probably best done by a dedicated team, augmented by people whose input will be needed at key points in the idea-to-reality process.
The co-creation principle here: is “Include upstream all those whose contribution, co-operation and consent will be required downstream.”
The second kind of innovation work that an organisation has to carry out is operations innovation. This is focused on making the organisational system more efficient and effective. It includes things like process improvement and new ways of working.
There are many ways of organising for operations innovation. Typical approaches include Six Sigma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma), GameChanger-style programmes ( http://is.gd/14jCS) and employee suggestion schemes.
When people like Gary Hamel (http://www.garyhamel.com) and Lynda Grattan (http://www.lyndagratton.com) talk about the need to harness the creativity of every employee, they’re probably thinking about operations innovation rather than product-service-experience innovation. (Is there a term for product-service-experience innovation? If not, can someone please invent one?)
Although I believe that everyone is creative in their own way (see http://www.kaicentre.com) and most employees will have ideas about how to get the day-to-day work done more efficiently and effectively, few people – as you rightly mention in your article – currently have the wherewithal to bring an idea to fruition. This ablity can be taught, and I know people who are teaching it (http://www.nowheregroup.com for example), but the organisation in which everyone is an innovator is light years away from the kind in which most people work – places where the way of innovation is brainstorm-then-project-manage, and where open innovation is seen as new and radical. Such organisations have barely begun to embrace the concept of whole system innovation.
Those are my current thoughts. I’m looking forward to seeing what others have to say on this important topic. Thank you again for setting the hare running.
Great reflections. At MindLab we are trying to promote an innovation culture among 3 government ministries and 23.000 employees. We are increasingly aware that the mindset of key managers in the different organisations is crucial. What is your experience with getting managers on board, perhaps not as the only champions of innovation, but at least as those that encourage employees to get involved?
[...] Stefan Lindegaard, whose services help companies identify and develop the people who drive innovation, has just published a timely and thought provoking article: Should everyone work with innovation? [...]
Valid, however it is a must to have a project Champion, somebody with seniority, respect and passion about the project to be delivered, without it there are too many Nay sayers in teams…
It is always important to promote innovation inside organizations. I have read some literature about intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs. Both of them need to be focused with the vision of the organization.
In our work with non-profits (civil society) in Peru, we can see how innovation is not well-driven and usually the lack of motivation of the staff burns them out. When we work closely with a non-profit doing capacity building, indirectly we are motivating the staff to develop new services ideas. And, if they are mission-driven it will be a success. That’s how they develop social enterprises. We allow them to have moments of creativity and we can identify which ones are the potential intrapreneurs.
From my side, I believe that organizations need someone inside to guide them (leader) and allow them to develop this new skills.
Interesting question and subsequent commentary.
As individuals (and in an economic sense) we all change our behaviors to acquire rewards and avoid pain. Unlike people, the “meaning of life” for enterprising companies is obvious: make money by fulfilling the demands of others.
Exchanging a set amount of money for an unknown commodity is impractical. So companies offer well specified products and services, with little variation in quality. By doing so they cultivate a reputation for Order and are rewarded by customer loyalty, word of mouth advertising and financial success. Companies grow only by combining resources in such a way as to compete and win.
For-profit companies compete and win to reward their owners and other stakeholders. Not-for-profit organizations compete for donations by, among other things, maximizing their delivery value, which is only possible if they innovate to lower their costs.
Innovation is not chaos but you can see it from here.
Innovation is a process which originates with one thought: the status quo is insufficient.
Innovation is essential for growth. If no one innovated in a company, it would be surpassed by its rivals and then fail. But, if everyone in a company simultaneously innovated no one would be able to market, sell, produce, deliver or collect efficiently enough and then fail. Businesses would be stunted or halted altogether if they choose between the two fundamental forces.
Companies must find a way to balance the Status Quo and Innovation. They need each other, and they need to compete for internal resources (power, talent and money) for healthy growth to occur and be sustained.
That’s all I got for now!
GGG
[...] is constantly ideating. Things do need to be done. But as Stefan Lindegaard writes in his post Should everyone work with innovation? On the other hand, every employee should be given the opportunity to work with innovation even at a [...]
I have done a lot of contract work in various industries, and it is my opinion that innovation is part of everyone’s job. Companies want to hire people who work within established business rules but are open to change. A great way to innovate is to read your industry publications and see where others are investing their efforts. Trade shows offer innovations at your finger tips. With the proliferation of information on the WWW, you might offer a company-wide contest to learn about or find tomorrow’s innovative products that will spur innovation within the orgnanization. Be sure to give all personnel the opportunity to participate. The key to unlocking innovation is to participate in the journey: read, attend a seminar, go to a trade show, take a course, observe the end user using your product! Do not allow personnel to stagnate in their jobs. Everyday things that we see, touch, use and otherwise take for granted can be the catalyst to the next innovation.
I just heard about an innovation “thewebaorund” (thewebaround.com). In hindsight, it is an obvious winner. Yet, if background was important for a video conference at my desk, I would just sit in front of a white wall. You can take this product with you, attach it to a chair and have a video conference in your kitchen if you wanted. Your logo appears on the screen behind you. With a mobile work force and tight schdules, it is a great idea. The viewer perceives that you are in a conference room at the office.
So, personnel motivation, stimulation, and buy-in are a basis for innovation in the workplace. Have a contest to find motivational programs for the workplace. Have a drawing for someone (or more than one) to attend your next industry tradeshow in which they have to bring back specified information that will help your company. People need opportunities to stretch beyond their comfort zone.
Greg mentions that “we all change our behaviors to acquire rewards and avoid pain”. While I agree, it is also important to understand the relative desirability between positive and negative incentives at the organizational level, as well as the individual level for thos involved in innovation.
I have often found that the best innovation organizations have a high degree of tolerance for “failure” and manage their innovation programs as a venture capitalist manages their investment portfolio; expecting a range of performance results, with a minority of the investments actually paying off big. What makes them successful is (1) an ability to identify losers quickly and curtailing further investments, (2) establishing a culture that does not “punish” the leader of an innovation project that does not move forward, and (3) establishing an innovation mindset into the culture without setting it apart as something better or more valued than the traditional work of driving the core business to fund new initiatives.
Great question…Should everyone work with innovation…
I think that when it comes to hard core R&D and concept creation in the Front End of Innovation (FeoI), it is not for every one!
My experience is that some employees even do not want to be part of the FEoI. And many want to be in the FEoI, because it is hot, but they are not capable.
You need a special type of people in FEoI, “System thinkers” because they have a different mindset than most high educated people (eg. engineers) where they do not lose the overview of things.
It’s often called the Fuzzy FEoI, most likely because you have the wrong type of people who can not cope with the complexity.
System thinkers can cope with this complexity and then it becomes the Funny FEoI.
Steen