Definitions of Innovation
When someone was asked
what innovation is, we typically would hear people describing it as something
unique, breaking through, and valuable.
However, there are over 60 different ways of
defining innovation, and together, they share six broad themes.
Innovation:
· Could occur anywhere
in our society, in any part of our organisations, and even in our daily lives.
As long as there is a problem that does not go away, an unusual approach will
be needed to change the situation
· May come in different
shapes and sizes to bridge different expectation and performance gaps so that
stakeholders could receive greater returns in the things they want accomplished
with what they have
· Requires different
types of social actors who would use personal techniques, methods and processes
to navigate the innovation through the systems
· Demands repeated and
differentiated quantities and qualities of tangible and intangible resources
and support to empower and enable these social actors into bringing movement in
the work they attempt to accomplish
· May spends indefinite
amount of time traversing sequentially and laterally through the many stages of
its creative and innovation life-cycle
· Delivers different
types of value to meet different aims of individuals, communities and societies
Given these attributes, a more integrated
definition of
innovation has been proposed, which describes innovation as ‘the multi-stage
process whereby organisations transform ideas into new or improved products,
service or processes, in order to differentiate, compete and advance themselves
successfully in their marketplace’.
The definition implies that organisations should
not rely on a single innovation or keep innovating on a single entity to stay
competitive. It means they need to move away from managing an innovation or a
number of innovations to managing the pipeline, and the engine that lies
within, that creates these innovations.
Innovation Pipeline and Its Kinks
However,
to manage innovation at this level, Organisation leaders need to recognise the
kinks in the pipeline; the seven choke points of the engine. These
kinks are the products of organisations reacting
to things which they see as agents that upset the organisations’ existing
social order.
Briefly, these kinks are the:
·
Challenge of Exchange
Deficiencies
There are many individuals in organisations that
are producing and owning ideas and solutions. Equally, are many who look for
these to close their performance gaps. However, it is the need to account for the
performance, which gaps these innovations could close, that is the reason few
opportunities for sharing of information on the whereabouts, needs and
offerings between these two sets of social actors - the fund managers,
entrepreneurs, protectors, advocators and promoter, exist. These create
deficiencies in the exchange of ideas and innovations within these
organisations.
·
Projectisation
Challenges
Often, the
organisations' aversion to uncertainty, unforgiving nature towards failures,
and overly myopic focus on short-termism, turn the most motivated and
innovative individuals off.
Many ideas with
breakthrough potentials are given up because very few individuals are willing
to stick their heads out to turn these into projects to draw value out of them.
As the project moves
through its life-cycle, this phenomenal prevails. It continues to prevent
people, who may have specific competencies to bring best out of the project,
thereby reducing the propensity of the project truly reaching its innovation
success.
·
Challenges of Time and
Space
There is inertia to start innovating; getting
the right problem definitions, finding their right scope and range, and
locating the right social actors.
In a world where we have to struggle with doing
things that provide for us today, and having things that may not even pay
tomorrow, the going of moving ideas beyond their drawing boards could be tough.
These conditions create tendencies for social
actors to fall back on their routine work methods and proven solutioning approaches
to avoid spending precious resources on the fundamentally more challenging
issues just to get things by.
·
Kinks of Social
Constraints
The innovation success of organisations is
positively related on the quantity and quality of ‘intrapreneurs’ that
they possess.
However, social actors have known to
introduce policies or encourage practices that, while well-meant and intended,
restrict and constraint the ways ‘intraprenuer’ may use to organise their
workplace.
Besides introducing these cultural norms,
social actors reinforce them. In the world of measurements and accountability,
they formally and informally sanction behaviours that are deemed unacceptable,
thereby reducing the space in which diversity could work and where quality
could really matter at the workplace. What has started as expected control, has
unexpectedly reduced the willingness of ‘intrapreneurs’ wanting to fill
pipeline with ideas and innovations, and their number wanting to remain behind
to operate it.
·
Challenges of
Participation
At the heart of creation are the interactions
social actors have with each other on matters relating to its vision, intention and direction. Without their
willingness to come together to make meanings that touch, inspire and move
others into working for and with the venture, the innovation is dead.
Therefore, the quality and frequency of these
interactions matters and cannot be taken lightly. These could be cultivated,
but they require the acumen and skills of pipeline architects to recognise the
social actors and understand the importance of their conversations to lead them
into playing their most important function in the creation process - managing
the affairs of today so that tomorrow has a chance begin now. However, in a
space where today is awarded a premium over tomorrow, this chance for
breakthroughs is narrower.
·
Challenges of Scarcity
Usually, we would conclude that money is the
panacea for innovation. While this is essential in buying us the material to
build the innovation, it does not always buy us the approval, protection, and
support necessary to introduce and sustain the innovation in the organisations.
Innovation is about change, and change demands, firstly, shifts in
mind-sets, and secondly, modifications in behaviours. These are challenging
endeavours, which require the act of leadership.
Intangible resources are capable of influencing
the make-up, motivation, and dynamics of social actors coming together and
working in the pipeline. Often, actors feel frustrated and become jaded when
they have difficulties accessing these ingredients for success. Jaded actors
could impact the pipeline negatively as their very existence will always put
into question the credibility and authenticity of management in wanting to
build a more innovative organisation.
·
Challenges of
Withholding Value
In a knowledge-based society, creativity and
innovation is not constraint by the boundaries that divide space and time.
Individuals and teams could choose not to contribute since they are capable of
withholding the value of the innovation from the organisation and passing it
someone whom they find worthy of receiving it. Individuals could start
translating a conceptualised idea that has taken place at one organisation in
another.
There is very little the organisation could do
in terms of the policies that it could use to prevent the leakage of value from
the organisation.
Organisation that does not use a humane and
inclusive approach to managing its human resource practice that build rapport,
trust and relationships, these are the investments that
Means
Organisation members are unlikely to use
their own pocket money to create innovations for their organisations. Highly
innovative organisations recognise this and provide the means – resources and
the support, for their members to innovate.
By laying the common
themes found in the definitions of innovation on the kinks that are found in
the innovation pipeline, we could discern the nuances of a meaningful framework
for resourcing innovation. The goal is to stave the kinks by resourcing and
supporting the alternatives.
Presented below is one of the Innovation Pipeline Performance Metric and
Intervention Rubrics -
Challenge
of Exchange Deficiencies
Please
contact ThinkInnovation, the People Behind Your Breakthroughs, at thinkinnovation@ymail.com for the
full version of the Innovation Pipeline
Performance Metric and Intervention Rubrics.
Reflection and Discussion
1. What
are the broad themes of innovation for The Specialty Group?
2. What
are the kinks in the company’s innovation Pipeline?
3. How
does the company manage these kinks?
This article was 1st written on 8 Nov 2012.
