It is clear why innovation is important. Companies want to try many different things, and keep those that work. So they need a lot of innovative ideas. But such innovations are not always developed according to some organized plan. One good example is the invention of the POST-IT by a 3M employee. His motivation was to have an easy way to mark names on seats in his church, and he managed to invent the Post-It in the process.
A colleague of mine had an observation that "laziness" is a strong motivation for innovation. If you are "lazy", you are annoyed by having to do some kind of task or process over and over. Thus you try to look for ways of making this task easier and faster to implement, and thus adopt new tools and techniques for making this task more efficient. Laziness actually becomes a trigger for efficiency.
Innovation can also come simply from looking at some facts and events, analyzing what went wrong (or rather right), learning lessons, and implementing them. "If only we had this and that, this problem would not have happened". Sometimes, the innovative idea was already implemented in this one-time dealing with the problem, but the real innovation step in this process would be to take this one-time occasion and make it a matter of habit.
A colleague of mine had an observation that "laziness" is a strong motivation for innovation. If you are "lazy", you are annoyed by having to do some kind of task or process over and over. Thus you try to look for ways of making this task easier and faster to implement, and thus adopt new tools and techniques for making this task more efficient. Laziness actually becomes a trigger for efficiency.
Innovation can also come simply from looking at some facts and events, analyzing what went wrong (or rather right), learning lessons, and implementing them. "If only we had this and that, this problem would not have happened". Sometimes, the innovative idea was already implemented in this one-time dealing with the problem, but the real innovation step in this process would be to take this one-time occasion and make it a matter of habit.
It seems that some people are more capable of innovation than others - some just "see it", others do not.
However, innovation and execution are two completely different things. There are people who can innovate, and bring their innovation to a certain level of "proof of concept", but lack the abilities to convert this innovation into a successful product. On the other hand, there are those who excel in taking an idea, and converting it into reality - doing the hard implementation work.
It seems that in order to be successful, an organization need both types of people. A startup will usually have a lot of innovators. However, if there are not enough executors, this startup will remain a collection of technological assets, and not become a real business. In contrast, the big companies often lack the ability to innovate, and they compensate by acquiring such startups, and turning this innovation into revenues.
It seems that in many cases, the average employee does not have any strong motivation for bringing innovation into her/his workplace. Most of the people seem to just be inline with whatever work practices and ideas are brought upon them.
In some big companies, such as Google and 3M, innovation is encouraged by allocating dedicated time for it. For example - in Google employees seem to use up to 20% of their time working on innovative ideas. In addition, companies seek the "next great thing" by creating a lot of small "startups" internally - small groups of people are trying to develop new ideas into product prototypes, show a potential lead, experiment with customers. If it seems to be working, the project is elevated. And if not, it is aborted and the people move to work on a new idea. In the quest for innovative products, it is inevitable that some of the leads won't be successful.
So how do you motivate yourself and your people to be more innovative ?
Do you question and reexamine everything you are dealing with, asking questions about whether it can be done better, and how ? Are you encouraging people to constantly try to bring up new ideas ?
Do you allocate dedicated time for trying the new things ?
Does your organization have a spirit of following new leads, and accepting failures as part of the learning and improvement process ?
Are people being aware of the need for innovation, and does it make them be more innovative ?
I would be happy to hear your thoughts and ideas on the subject.
I've noticed that innovation has inertion. For example, once some repeatative task has been automated, other employees seems to reuse the concept to automate other task they are doing, and the innovator did not even seem to know exist. Or even the thought of "he did it, how can i do the same for my task?" might lead to innovation. So a healthy organization will have this environment of encouraging innovation by simply letting this happen. The opposite is also true, and sadly, is more common: a culture of "this is the way it is", repeatative or otherwise. If no new innovation is discussed in an organization, after a while it just stops and remains that way. Until new blood arrives...
ReplyDeleteShlompo.