INNOVATION - CAN WE DELIVER IT?

 

How can we become more innovative?

 

 

Top directors in organisations always look for innovations and innovators. They want something that will make a huge difference to the organisation's performance.How can the game of the organisation be successfully changed to move it forward apace? How might they help us to do this? Some ideas are indeed innovative in terms of the organisation itself -- but to be commercially successful they must appeal to the wider market in the sense that people wish to purchase or at the very least partake in that innovation. Therefore the innovation should not just seem like a good idea to us but a good idea to the market place as well. Too often we look at innovations just through our own eyes and not the eyes of others who they will ultimately affect and who may ultimately purchase them.

To bring a new innovatory idea to the fore, takes a lot of guts and perseverance - One has to be ready for ridicule and criticism -- but one has also to be thick skinned and determined -- The flow of innovatory ideas can never stop because the life blood of an organisation will be cut off if this happens. Innovation starts with an idea which needs to be nurtured,cared for and developed We need to always look at how and if the idea might work; not criticise the idea and\or the person who comes up with that idea. The latter is sadly frequently the case in organisations and the organisation cannot afford to de-rail people from their innovation track as this could prove to be catastrophic.Intelligent directors will know that the majority of ideas will not come to fruition but a few of them could be winners and that is all we need, just a few winners!

 

Companies like Google and Microsoft encourage their workers to think the unthinkable and that is partially why they have been so successful. In the modern organisation there is often not enough reflection and thinking time. A lot of effort is focused on getting the present reporting as correct as possible. Indeed people spend so much time focusing on the current reporting approaches that they devote little time to thinking about the future and the innovations that will need to inhabit that future. Not an easy task but it needs to be done.

 

Successful innovation in an organisation requires a person to possess,a mixture of creativity, common sense and the ability to get things done. Without the latter, nothing will ever happen no matter how wonderful and brilliant your ideas might be. Individually you have to have a clear sight on what you wish to achieve,get support,deflect\nullify criticism and keep the momentum going. That is how an individual might do it but what about the organisation itself. Is it geared up to innovate regardless of what your Director says?

 

Does your organisation have any or all of the following characteristics?

 

1. A well organised and freely flowing information stream between all parts of your organisation.

 

2. Close and frequent joint working between different parts of your organisation usually of a lateral and not vertical nature.

 

3. Top Directors who approve of and do not fear innovation.

 

4. Managers with the creativity and time to develop and drive innovation.

 

5. A culture of positively encouraging innovation.

 

6. A tradition of working in teams and sharing the credit for successful ideas.

 

Sharing credit is important as there is nothing that would stifle future innovation as much as an individual or group claiming exclusive ownership of an innovation if that claim did not reflect the truth. The real innovators would hide their future ideas for fear of them being stolen by internal colleagues and might even hawk them to more sympathetic competitors. Please give praise for innovations where it is due - that is the best recipe for success.

 

Does being innovative put your organisation at greater risk of failure? Well innovation does involve some measured and calculated risk taking -- but it does not equate to risk taking per se and this is very important to underline. Innovators are excellent at spotting opportunities that no-one else has exploited and this culture of horizon scanning and opportunity identification is key here. Such a process should be hard wired into your organisation's business planning approaches. It is much more difficult to do this if the aforementioned characteristics do not exist within your organisation.

 

This process can be risky however failure to innovate is even more risky - especially in these turbulent times.

 

We must all become more opportunity focused and it must be in our organisation's interests to help us in our endeavours to do this.

 

Wil our organisation help us?