Changing the Innovation Culture from the Bottom Up
I hear it so often. Innovation leaders do not feel they have top executive support and thus they are not able to create the innovation initiatives and culture that their company deserves.
It is unfortunately very difficult to influence top executives. One of several reasons is that you often need to go through your direct own boss, then his or her boss and perhaps even one or two steps further. There are lots of people with their own views on innovation that you need to get by before you reach the top executives. And they might not even listen if you are able to reach them…
So what can you do?
You could start an innovation revolution from the bottom up. Open innovation is a good case on this as you have to deal with not-invented-here issues and the lack of support from executives who do not understand the value open innovation can bring.
Your first step on changing the innovation culture from the bottom up is to bring together a small group of passionate people who really want the best for their company. They know the value of open innovation and they know this is right for the company. Now, they just have to persuade their colleagues.
This small group of people could start by creating a BHAG – a big hairy audacious goal. If you want to inspire others, you need a good, strong vision. Next, it is very much about communication using all channels available in the company. They are most often informal as the group does not really have a mandate for what they are doing.
Here, informal leaders with a strong positive influence on others can really help spread the word. Get them onboard on your mission. Move on with events in which you not only educate others, but also create settings in which like-minded people can network and learn more about each other.
When you initiate networking experiences like this, you need to keep it loose in the beginning. Just focus on the vision and do not set too many rules on how to reach it. Let the network itself work this out. Six to nine months later, you will most likely need to change this and set more direction in order to get the next level in which you focus on creating real results.
With lots of passion, effort and some luck, this is also the time where executives have picked up that something valuable is going on. Now, they might even decide to back such an initiative and turn it into a real culture-changing project. It would have been great if you had this backing from day one, but better late than never.
Yes, it takes some guts to do this, but remember that in the words of Peter Drucker and Warren Bennis, two of the most respected names in business, leadership is doing the right things; management is doing things right.
Who says true leadership has to come from the executives? If you lead on things that are right for your company, you will gain followers. Then things can begin to happen…
I see this problem a lot too. It's a tough one.
The thing that I always ask people is "how much can you get away with?" People often have more scope to experiment than they first think – they control some amount of budget, they have some amount of free time, and all of this can be invested in innovation.
Often though they're waiting for permission – that's the biggest obstacle to bottom-up innovation I think.
It is a tough one and there is a fine line when it comes to doing things you believe in without having permission. Unfortunately, this is often one of the few ways to shake up the system and get things moving. Some believe it is worth the risk, but not all…
As the old saying goes, sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. Most people have much more freedom of action than they think.
Stefan, I love this post.
This is how things get created. The people are the ones who are taking action because they see how something can be different. Not because they are being forced to do anything. Because they see themselves as having something important to contribute.
If they are working in an old school top down organization, they might be told to stop. But those organizations are dying out. Any company who has employees who care enough and have the initiative to try to make something better is blessed. The world needs more of that.
Cheers, Donna
Top level support is really a challenge.
But there is another side: what does "support" mean?
Some would wish all the C-level guys would stop to listen to their ideas; then what?
Innovation is about creating conditions for opportunities and ideas to grow and evolve, but it is also about pioneering, showing where the value may be, mobilizing minds and efforts, fighting for support, trying new ways to inspire people, from top to bottom — and vice-versa.
In some ways, there is a "natural selection" for ideas, and no easy path for real innovation. We have to fight, top-down and bottom-up.
Absolutely – I wonder why this approach is not more widely discussed as a way to jump-start a collaborative culture in a biz or other organization.
When a small group of talented individuals recognize the power of "Doing Both (optimizing productivity + innovation) by supporting ways to use best talents together in collaborative ways – and demonstrates one such as a self-organized & self-managed team with:
• a single and singular goal, sweet spot of mutual benefit (in addition to demoing collaboration),
• some agreed-upon rules of engagement
- and succeeds + gains insights about how to support each other from what they learned along the way they have an alluring, real story of the benefits of bottom-up work that naturally attract attention in interest in emulating.
Other alluring, widely-applicable collaboration methods include:
• mutual mentoring,
• ongoing mutual support groups around specific interests,
• small group-to-small group coordination on a project, and
• a vendor-supported crowdsourcing for a specific kind of innovation.
Spigit and BrightIdea are both nimble providers
I think bottoms up is a great idea and I largely agree with this post. But if you're one of these bottoms up innovation leaders, at some point you have to ask yourself "wouldn't I rather bring my talents to bear at an organization where the senior leadership truly wants what I have to offer?" It's hard not to answer yes to that question. Pushing through brick walls gets tiring after a while.