Innovation - Don't Undermine the Change!

A co-worker shared a great article from Harvard Business Revenue on the ways large corporations can undermine the innovation efforts. It definitely represents key things to consider as you work towards innovating within and through an organization, especially from an organization rooted in risk aversion and stability.

1. How you measure success – while a challenge for anyone venturing into new territory (I experienced it on asking others to even articulate what innovation means), defining something to represent a change in behavior, resources, priorities, etc. is a great way to see if there’s forward progress. Start small can be the simplest and easiest thing to do. We setup an area for employees to submit ideas and while there was argument whether we’ve had any successes today (only a few have been implemented); the fact that people were willing to voluntarily share their own ideas represents a success! Not to mention we have over 275 a year later! I would highlight the positive when there was doubt if we’d even get 3 ideas in the first month!

2. Return on Investment – are hard challenge in an expense-reduction environment, but again, start small. Can you test or prototype a piece of the idea and get immediate feedback? Doing something in a 1-3 month window for quick response, versus spending 12 months gathering data that may or may not come true, utilizes the capital in an efficient manner and easier to gain buy-in.

3. And yes – while I love the title of a Chief Innovation Officer – innovation should come from throughout the organization at all levels. Everyone innovating where they can with what they have leads up to larger, bigger changes.

4. “Radical Collaboration” - Working with LOTS of different people from different areas. Even if the idea is tailored to a specific work function, ask someone who is NOT part of that team for their thoughts. Not only will you might learn something new, but it also gives you practice on sharing your idea and why it is so important.

5. Physical space to see the evolution – innovation spaces and physical, tangible things that show not only innovations that produce results, but that say “See, we tried something and not sure what the result may be” are great at building support as they challenge existing practices in a solid manner. Anyone can argue with you about a good idea, but it becomes a whole lot harder of a rock to move if it’s been physically built.

6. Support – everyone looks to the boss to see if they agree. If they don’t, everyone is just paddling in their own direction. You need to see the support not just steering the boat with a given direction, but once it’s on course, getting in the back and helping to paddle just as hard if not harder as everyone else. Seeing this action will motivate everyone else even more than simply saying “you have my support” and residing in a penthouse office.

Some people say change is hard, but then I read a thought that change isn’t hard – we make a hundred changes every day: change your mind on what to wear today, change which direction you take to work due to traffic, change your mind and buy your lunch after you brought to the office, etc. It’s accepting the value of the change that can be the barrier, but without addressing all the above elements, little forward motion will occur. Thoughts and insights?