Supporting and Resourcing for Innovation

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 [1] 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

After reading this case - 'The Specialty Group', reflect on the following questions:

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.

Copyright 2012. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.

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[1]   Baregheh, A. Rowley, J., and Sambrook, S. (2009). “Towards a multidisciplinary definition of innovation”, Management Decision, Vol. 47(8), pp. 1323-1339.

Managing Innovation at the Organisational Level

Strategic Importance of Innovation in Organisations

I have written much about the limitations of continuous improvement and the role of creativity in injecting new avenues of improvement into an organisation and in thinking outside the natural laws that govern the technologies that define a current produce, service or process.

Each time a new source of improvement or breakthrough is found, the propensity for innovations come into existence. The capability to identify this source and the capacity turn it into innovations is an advantage that organisations must afford to have in order to stay competitive.

From Managing Innovations to Managing the Engine that Creates Them

However, organisations cannot depend on a single improvement or innovation to stay competitive. In a dynamic market, competition is nearly perfect and organisations do not have long periods to enjoy the gains from their own innovation. The lifecycles of products, services and processes are getting shorter as more organisations have learnt to innovate and are capable of taking their own innovations to the market.

This means organisations need to move away from managing an innovation or a number of innovations; seeing them from conceptualisation to commercialisation, to managing the pipeline that creates these innovations. This is the engine that is capable of producing new innovation to replace the ones that are currently decaying in their lifecycles.

However, to manage innovation at this level, Organisational Development (OD) practitioners need to recognise the kinks in the pipeline. These kinks are the outputs of an overactive organisational immunity system working against all things that may create instability ln the organisation's current social order and topple its existing structures. This means, innovations do not flow through the organisation very well and regular interventions are needed to nudge the ideas and the innovations that come from them forward.

Seven Kinks of the Innovation Pipeline

Before we talk about the types of intervention, let's examine these seven kinks in the pipeline:

The Challenges of Imperfect Market

There are many individuals in organisations with ideas and solutions. Equally many are individuals looking for them. The challenge is that there is little knowledge in the market who and where these suppliers and buyers are and this create exchange inefficiencies in the organisational market of ideas and solutions.

Projectisation Challenges

Many ideas with breakthrough potentials are often given up because very few individuals are willing to stick their heads out to turn these into projects in order to draw value out of them. This does not mean that the motivation for enterprise is found lacking amongst the employees in the organisation. It suggests that people are turned off by the organisation's aversion towards uncertainty, its unforgiving nature towards failures, and an overly myopic focus on short-termism.

Challenges of Time and Space

Project teams face much inertia when they try to get their projects started. Some of these include finding the right members, right problem definition, and right range and scope. When things become tough, there is always a tendency for these teams to fall back on routine work methods and proven solutioning approaches, and symptomatic rather then underlying fundamentals issues get solved.

Challenges of Social Constraints

Research has revealed that leaders have the tendency to unknowingly introduce organisational and social constraints that prevent creativity and innovation to flourish in their own organisation.

Organisations may formulate and implement seemingly well meaning policies that have unexpected consequences that constraints the flow of ideas or innovations within the organisation. Organisations have both formal and informal structures that govern the distribution of power, influence and control between stakeholders. The flow of ideas and innovations in the organisation could be channelled or halted by these elements and the leaders needs to be sensitive to their use and the impact they create.

Challenges of Participation

Social interactions are always at the centre of creative ideas and innovations generation. The willingness of various players in innovation - the fund managers, entrepreneurs, protectors, advocators and promoter, to believe and participate in these interactions will determine the projects’ success.

Therefore, the quality and frequency of these interactions cannot be taken lightly and has to be cultivated over time. This requires the skills and acumen of the pipeline architects and the recognition that these players have to play two roles - the role of managing today and the responsibilities of managing for tomorrow now.

Challenges of Scarcity

The availability and accessibility to resources can make or break the project. Money is not the only resource teams need. They also need management approval, support and protection as these are capable of influencing the motivation, make-up and dynamics of the project team. Often, teams are frustrated and jaded because of the lack of such resources. Jaded individuals could create long term impact for the organisation as their existence always challenges the credibility and authenticity of management towards being an innovative organisation.

Challenges of Withholding Value

In a knowledge-based society, creativity and innovation is not constraint by the boundaries that separate spaces. Individuals and teams could choose not to contribute and they are equally capable of withholding the value of the innovation from the organisation and passing it someone they find worthy of receiving it. Individuals could start translating an idea created at one organisation in another. There is very little the organisation could do in terms of the policies that could be used to prevent the leakage of value from the organisation.

Managing Innovation in the Organisation is about Managing the Pipeline

It is therefore not surprising organisation has no problem recognised as being innovation when they managed these kinks well and those trying to be innovative find it to be a challenge to be one because they are doing the wrong things by copying them without understanding the underlying principles.

This article was 1st written on 29 April 2009 and updated on 15 May 2009.

Copyright 2009. Anthony Mok. All Rights Reserved.