An idea campaign may be a great idea—and there are some great technologies available to help you launch and administer one. But it’s just as important to launch an innovation culture campaign. One that will help your people better understand how to think and work creatively.
What would it do to your company to have to ask permission from the government before anything could change? Yet isn’t that what large corporations routinely require of business units and employees? Do you think maybe it has the same effect?
Even after years of breaking down silos and decentralizing decision-making, most organizations still cling to the organizational chart. It’s perhaps flatter but it’s still there. So maybe we still need it. If that’s true, let me humbly suggest that at the very least it’s time to turn it upside down.
Many verbs have been put in front of the word innovation, words like foster, promote, enhance, generate, cultivate, improve and imbed. They show up frequently in the literature and I’ve used them many times myself. However one word that I rarely see coupled with innovation in this way is one that I’ve come to realize [...]
Unfortunately even a series of creative events, no matter how well executed, is not likely to change the underlying habits and relationships inside an organization. On the contrary, it may reinforce the impression that creativity is to be used occasionally, as just some tool that you pick up when you happen to need it and then put down again. In a true innovation culture, creativity is “always on”.
People who are engaged in their work make appropriate adjustments without being told to. They require less supervision and solve problems more quickly. In other words, engaged employees are easier to manage. Without engagement, the only levers available to managers are command and control, reward and punish. That may keep things afloat, but it’s not a path to innovation and growth.
In a healthy innovation culture, the newcomers and outsiders are welcomed and valued precisely because they’re not burdened by convention and habit, because they bring fresh insights and new questions; because they haven’t yet learned what’s “impossible.”
The hard truth is—ahem—maybe your company isn’t getting enough good ideas because you’re not as good as you think you are at recognizing a good idea when you get one.
Tested systems work great when the technology is well established, when the market is stable, when the business environment doesn’t change. But for many businesses today none of those things are true. Technology is advancing. Markets fluctuate. Customer expectations are constantly evolving. In such a dynamic environment, a tested system may not only fail, it may even be counterproductive. The path to success in a fast changing environment is to become more flexible and adaptable, finding fresh insights and approaches, not clinging to what used to work.
In your business, are you trusting people to make good independent decisions—and providing the requisite resources to support those decisions? Are you willing to loosen up on command and control in order to foster collaboration and flexibility? Do you encourage an ongoing dialogue over how to best achieve your objectives? The degree to which you do those things will to a great degree determine your ability to innovate.