Innovation
Innovation Is Less About Good Ideas Than You Think
As we enter a more competitive market, our need to innovate has increased with time. Individuals are starting to feel the pressure to practice entrepreneurial behaviours to remain ahead in their careers and personal life.
Technological advancements have given us the ability to connect and communicate more efficiently. Not to mention, they have provided us with entertainment and produced more wealth in our societies.
However, these advancements have also led to more chaotic environments. We are constantly pinged with news updates and messages to the point where it is hard to filter what is true or false. Many individuals are so anxious about losing connection to our complex world that they wake up with their phones in their hands.
At an individual level, it is challenging to manage. However, organisations now have a harder time finding good information and strategising in a world that appears to be going in all different directions.
When we think about our chaotic world, the research of Warren Bennis and Bert Nanus becomes more relevant. To describe the situation leaders have to navigate, the acronym VUCA was used in their research. It stands for:
- Volatility
- Uncertainty
- Complexity
- Ambiguity
There is no doubt that the world has become more volatile, especially over the past couple of years. With record-breaking inflation numbers and a virus that kept us all in our homes, we are struggling to understand anything about what might happen next.
With extreme volatility comes the feeling of uncertainty we all know too well. We become hyper-aware of our surroundings and start to prepare for the worst. Ofcourse, all of this leads to complexity and ambiguity as leaders debate the best cause of action to take.
The reason why this ever-increasing “VUCA” world is worth mentioning is that it is making innovation harder. And leaders are now struggling to define innovation, far less using it to bring about growth in their companies.
Getting the definition of innovation right is just as important as using the right methods to innovate. One of the best definitions I have heard is:
“A process where we continuously discover new ways of reorganising the world — ways that do not happen in and of themselves, but which are inherently useful.” — Matt Ridley
It is one I particularly enjoy because it encompasses the “how” of innovation. It highlights that innovation is not a one-off event but a continuing process.
Ensuring the definition is agreed upon is essential. It allows for clarity and stops people from pulling the organisation in different directions. However, there are other problems that often occur when we try to innovate in harsh environments.
One of these problems is a specific focus on finding new ideas and trying to pull great ideas from our employees. Although good ideas are a prerequisite to groundbreaking innovation, the capacity an organisation has to innovate is more important.
An athlete may be extremely talented, but without hard work and training, their capacity to win decreases. To become more likely to produce good innovation in hard times as an individual, team or organisation, you must practice.
Rather than focusing on where the next idea will come from, focus on your own innate ability to generate ideas in the first place. So, here are eight ways companies of the future are building their innovation capacity to increase their likelihood of producing better ideas.
8 Ways Organisations Innovate
Although more research is needed into these eight methods for building innovation capacity, these ways are proving to help companies. So, here they are.
Become Ambidextrous
It is easy to treat the daily operations of an organisation as separate from innovation and idea creation. However, doing this makes it hard to get employees away from their day job and actually want to partake in innovation.
By putting an innovation unit within the organisation, people can both innovate and work on operational activities. This method often has a central team managing innovation that integrates itself into various problems, processes and operations to deliver innovative solutions.
The benefit is that people are closer to innovation in their day jobs, and a central team is there to govern it. However, it can create significant conflict if integration can not be done smoothly.
Also, it can be counterproductive if leaders are not aligned on exactly what innovation is and what they want it to do.
Pioneer the Future
Unlike the ambidextrous method, this method seeks to move the innovation away from processes and regular operations in the organisation. Instead of being at the centre, the goal is to create demand for innovation by being at the edge and leading the organisation forward.
It creates this need by partaking in research and identifying areas where the organisation is behind. As you can imagine, this method leads to less conflict as leaders can clearly see the need for innovation and often demand it.
However, speculation may be used as a tool to create a demand for a solution that is not necessary or create a belief that the organisation is leading in a particular area.
Transforming What You Do
One of the best ways to explore new ground and build your capacity to innovate is to change your regular environment. Practising intrapreneurship and transforming the organisation to do something it has never done before will stretch employees.
Forcing the organisation out of its comfort zone leads to increased learning and more capacity to innovate. However, it is extremely risky and potentially costly if a fail fast mentally is not adopted.
Agile Practices & Structures
One of the most common ways companies are innovating is by constantly adopting new ways of working. The adoption of improved tools increases the employee’s capacity to learn and implement more innovative ways of working.
Although this adoption is great, companies must be careful to not get caught up in adopting without measuring results. It is also important that practices and structures are not implemented at the wrong time which can lead them to become counterproductive.
Knowing when to adopt these practices is just as important as how.
Open Innovation
There are two types of open innovation. Inside-out is when an organisation shares innovation from inside the company to those outside to develop it further. Outside-in is when an organisation looks externally to inspire innovation inside.
Open innovation is a great way to solve problems faster and strengthen your network. However, it is essential to not move too quickly and try to accelerate ideas that are not mature enough either inside or outside the organisation.
Working With Competitors & Suppliers
Some of the best ideas come from people working with their competitors and suppliers. After all, they are working on the same problems and have customers that have similar interests.
However, this method can be costly as contracts and agreements have to be sorted. Also, ownership tends to be a huge problem. Nevertheless, if it can be done in some form, it is a great way to increase your capacity to innovate.
Using Your Ecosystem
Do you know your supplier’s supplier? Odds are, you probably do not. And not knowing this is leaving you behind. Taking time to understand and connect with people in your ecosystem, even if not directly in your industry, will help increase your capacity to come up with better ideas.
You will be able to identify opportunities in your ecosystem that allows for more revenue generation. And you will be able to provide better services to your customer with your expanded knowledge.
However, this method does require openness from both parties.
Putting Your Ideas up for Sell
A lot of the time, companies have great ideas but do not have the capability to propel them forward. Instead of letting them rot on a document in your database, give them to experts or startups who have the ability to accelerate them further.
By keeping a stake in the idea, you can profit from the innovation and hopefully implement it into your ways of working. This method allows for all innovative ventures to be given the best chance to grow to their full potential. However, sorting contracts and ownership is difficult.
The Challenges That Innovation Faces
Organisations often face two problems when it comes to innovation:
- Sorting out their history
- Choosing the correct innovation method
Unfortunately, people today make decisions without future innovation in mind. They write processes and policies in a way that seems they will last forever.
Many decisions in history have blocked the ability to integrate positive innovation into our products and services today. That is why innovation takes a long time in large organisations.
Changing our mindset and the way we make decisions is pivotal for ensuring an agile organisation. Documenting your thought process as well as your decisions is essential for the future implementation of innovation.
Finally, choosing the correct innovation method is something many organisations struggle with. Organisations try too many methods at once, and this only leads to complexity, increased cost and a lack of understanding of what innovation is.
The eight methods highlighted are not designed to all be integrated at once! Select innovation methods that are likely to work in your company and optimise them until they are bringing about fruitful results.
So, use one or a few of these methods to increase your capacity to produce better innovation. Good ideas can pop out of thin air, but in this volatile environment, you probably do not want to bank on that happening in your organisation.
Choose a method and stick with it to see if it works for you. That way, you increase your chances of growing your company and delivering innovations that help your customers and you.
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References:
Meyer, C.B. (2022). Building Innovation Capacity. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 58(3), pp.369–376. doi:10.1177/00218863221110427.
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