Top 10 Ways to Kill Innovation
Weekly top Ten post - so how many of these have you seen?
1. Believing that innovation will just happen
Innovation will “just happen” like a garden will sprout without planting, watering, and weeding. In today’s marketplace, deliberate and dedicated attention to innovation is a prerequisite for success.
2. Asking people to “think outside the box”—and calling it a day
Ideas are the seeds of innovation—not innovation itself. Companies that get innovation right take a holistic approach and create a culture and process for nurturing ideas.
3. Stopping the buck at technology
Innovation begins with corporate culture—mission, motivation, and more. Thus, the role of IT and other technologists is to support the process of innovating—not drive it—by developing the best-possible technologies to move things forward.
4. Creating an obstacle course for ideas
Too many companies stifle innovation—bureaucratizing systems and building cumbersome, convoluted processes that discourage real passion and participation. Today, fostering an innovative spirit requires creating a “safe haven” where people are free to shape and shelter their ideas.
5. Viewing “new” and “different” as bad
The fear of new and different things is ever present. In fact, at any given moment in an organization, someone is likely uttering the words, “That’s just not the way we do it.” Still, barring the most basic moral
truths and human values, old ideas are meant to be disproved—and replaced with new ones.
6. Handing the best ideas over to the attorneys and accountants
Ideas are fragile. On the surface, then, turning their care over to Legal or Accounting may make sense. Even so, those with the most influence over the idea process must be the innovation champions, and overall ownership and support for innovation must come from the top.
7. Fearing failure
The cold, hard reality is that companies’ efforts will often fail. The silver lining? If an organization learns to fail fast, a few knocks here and there can provide invaluable learning experiences—and important fodder for the innovation cycle. Bottom line: Tolerating failure is vital to creating an innovative work culture.
8. Innovating only when you need to
It’s tantalizing to innovate on demand, particularly when crisis looms. But crisis-driven innovation, while certainly a motivator, drives innovation costs up and deters a real culture and business model of
continuous innovation.
9. Leaving innovation up to the “innovators”
Every company has its thought leaders—executives, “big idea” types, and others. They might represent the brightest minds of the organization, but ideas can and should come from anyone and anywhere in the firm. Otherwise, barriers arise and good, innovative ideas leave the company and go elsewhere—usually to the competition.
10. Dumping all ideas into an electronic submission box
Some of the greatest innovation failures come from companies whose ambitions to solicit ideas far exceed their capacity to evaluate them. The reality is that when organizations ask people to submit ideas, they
must have a cohesive system in place and acknowledge every idea with a sincere evaluation. Too often they don’t—and good, even great, ideas languish.
Tags: creativity, ideas, innovation, innovaton zone
September 15th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Good list Tom.
There are a few more big ones I have come across especially in large organisations:
1. Restricting this activity to a small group (R&D or any other group) and expecting them to come up with miracles. Innovation needs to be encouraged at all levels. Specifically diversity is known to spark innovation in numerous ways. Organisations need to encourage this.
2. Transparency - The evaluation team needs to be as open as possible when it comes to encouraging and developing ideas. Only this will keep the motivation levels high amongst staff and keep them going even when there are repeated failures. The management should recognise and encourage this instead of viewing it as a failure and penalising the employee.
3. Open Innovation - Large organisations should be open enough to accept an idea from outside the organisation and be flexible enough to take it forward (especially when it is clear that this is the best way forward). Agility is the most important term when it comes to innovation. Firms could be left behind otherwise and end up being a follower rather than a leader.
Cheers
Madhu
September 18th, 2009 at 5:53 am
Madhu - Thanks for adding these! Agree with all three! #2 is so critical and yet so often missing in many of the companies I’ve worked with. Without building a bond of extreme trust between the inventor and the evaluators ideas will simply languish or get up and go elsewhere. - tk