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DEVELOP AN INNOVATION SYSTEM AND CULTURE

 

By Ruth Tearle

 

Companies are spending millions implementing sophisticated innovation systems. Yet how effective are they? How many customers are delighted by the innovative products and services they are receiving? How many staff members are inspired by the creative work they are doing? And how many leaders are delighted by the innovations they see coming from their staff? Use this article to evaluate your organisation's innovation system.

WHAT IS INNOVATION?

Innovation involves:

• Thinking of, developing, and offering new products (or product features), services, processes and distribution systems that:
  • Are valued by important customers
  • Help the organization to become more profitable.
  • Supports the organization's strategy.
  • Solves an important organizational or customer problem.
  • Creates new markets for existing products and services.
  • Creates new products, services, accessories or value for their customers.

HOW DO YOU GET A GROUP OF PEOPLE TO THINK, DEVELOP AND OFFER INNOVATIONS THAT MATTER?

The topic of innovation involves mixing the following disciplines:

• Creativity and inspiration.
• Strategic planning.
• Project management.
• Change management.
• Leadership and facilitation.

In short, innovation involves creating both a system and a culture that encourages innovative behaviours.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you, you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs. Ralph Waldo Emerson

CREATE AN INNOVATION SYSTEM

Innovation requires creativity, risk and effort. In today's working world, which is characterised by constant change and multi-tasking, Do you have a system in place that makes it worthwhile for your staff to put in the effort that is required to generate ideas, develop solutions and implement them? And are the innovationsthat they develop, worthwhile to the company?

WHICH OF THESE ELEMENTS DOES YOURORGANISATION HAVE IN PLACE? (make this the core of the article. The 6 steps.)

• 1. Leadership participation: Leaders identify specific focus areas they want their people to develop innovations for. They act as sponsors for innovations in these areas. May ask questions such as......
• 2. Education and training in innovation. Innovation committees provide training, tools, workshops, brainstorming sessions, videos and education on the topic of innovation, and how to develop innovative ideas, and implement them. (how and what of creativity) Also tools like trends...
• Innovation systems: Companies provide a computerised system which allows individuals and teams to log their creative ideas.
• Assessment of ideas: Teams of innovation champions at various levels of the organisation, assess innovationsand select those which can be developed further. They also act as catalysts and mentors in the completeinnovation process.
• Reward systems. Individuals and teams are being offered substantial monetary rewards for logging innovative ideas, building business cases for selected innovations, and for successfully developing and implementing their ideas.
• Culture....

QUESTIONS TO ASK TO GENERATE INNOVATIVE IDEAS (put in member zone?)

• what strengths do we have in our organisation? How can we use these strengths to create new products or services?
• What strategic shifts are occurring inthe political, social, economic and technological macro environment?
• How will these trends affect our customers?
• How can we use this information to:
  • Create new products or services?
  • Add a service to a product?
  • Add a product to a service?
  • Customise a product?
  • Make it easier for a customer to buy from us?
• In terms of our products and services how can we:
• Add?
• Outsource?
• Combine?
• Find other uses?
• Change the packaging?
• Change the shape?
• Change the size?
• Make it fun/easy to buy and use?
• What doesn’t work for us any more? What should we do about it?
• What do we need to do to get the passion back into our business?
• Imagine it’s the year 2010. You are your company’s most profitable customer. Write a letter to your company about why it’s always a delight doing business with you. Create your own list of questions that will enable you to see your products, services and processes in a new light.

Create an innovation culture is your company culture a friend or enemy of creativity/innovation.

ENEMIES OF CREATIVITY

People often don’t put forward innovative ideas because they don’t FEEL it is in their best interests to do so. Often elements within a companies culture, work against the creativity and risk taking required by innovation.
Enemies of creativity include:

• Best practices.
• Certainty.
• Perfectionism.
• Fear of failure.
• Fear of mistakes.
• Allowing others’ fears and insecurities to affect one.
• Trying to please.
• Order.
• A bias towards rational thinking.
• A desire for instant results.
• Doing too much.
• Multi-tasking. Divided attention.
• Judging.
• Conformity. A habit of criticisingothers who are weird.
• Too much information. Clutter.
• Focusing on knowledge rather than wisdom.
• A focus on thinking or speaking rather than acting.
• Allowing others to play a ‘devils advocate’ in a way that is interpreted by the innovator as a subtle threat.

FRIENDS OF CREATIVITY

• Problems that need to be resolved.
• Frustrations that need to be taken care of.
• A tolerance for chaos.
• Feeling okay with not knowing what the end result will be.
• Space to think.
• Time out.
• Courage to let go of certainties.
• concentration. Attentiveness.
• Patience.
• A clear focus.
• Space
• Imagination.
• trusting hunches/intuition.
• Faith.
• Spontaneity.
• Acting. Then reflecting. Learning by doing.
• Simplicity.
• Courage.
• Persistence when things at first don’t work out.
• A combination of rational and intuitive thinking.
• Believing in one self.
• Being okay with being different and with not fitting in.
• Passion

The 7 ingredients of creativity

• Knowledge.

• A problem to solve.

• Space to think.

• Reflection.

• Intuition.

• Hard work.

• Faith/belief.

 

Only those who will risk going too far
can possibly find out how far one can go.
T.S. Elliot