OK so this is the last in my recent mini-series of blogs about why organisations are struggling with Innovation. So far I’ve debunked the idea that innovation is a solo pursuit and knocked on the head the idea that Innovation will magically occur in your organisation courtesy of Harry Potter. In this blog I’m hoping to debunk the myth that consistent and high quality Innovation can be effectively delivered by a well meaning and disparate bunch of unorganised and ill equipped amateurs.
So before I get too far in to the blog let me instantly acknowledge that history does sporadically regale us with tales of small bands of heroic amateurs who for a brief moment in time defied the odds and made something amazing happen (e.g. the Dunkirk Evacuation flotilla, Paul the Football World Cup Octopus and the winners of Britain’s Got Talent). However, these are almost undoubtedly rare and often short lived moments of genius (and in Paul’s case actually completely random).
The strange thing is that when businesses start to “get to grips” with Innovation they invariably try to harness the amateur innovation abilities of their own workforce. Can you imagine any other aspect of corporate life where a CXO would willingly hand over the responsibility of delivering a consistent outcome to a random self-selecting subset of his organisation. Imagine if property management were left in the hands of Brian from accounts who happened to be quite keen on DIY and had a “feel” for soft furnishings, imagine if sales management was left in the hands of Polly, that terribly nice lady from the call centre, who did a tremendous job of selling tickets for last year’s Xmas charity raffle and what if we left finance in the very capable hands of Bob from Operations who has taken out 4 ISA’s with 4 different banks in the last two years and has a small portfolio of shares.
And yet... when it comes to Innovation the first action of many a hard pressed CXO is to send out a call to action for all the members of the business to get involved with delivering Innovation. Are they mad?
I suspect the disconnect is again a mental one - everyone has the ability to be creative and understands roughly what having an idea is – much like most people understand the rudiments of football. However, when it comes to football, I think most people would also acknowledge the tremendous gulf in class and outcome between me and my boys having a kick around in the local park using our jumpers for goalposts and the highly trained professionals competing in the Champion’s League. To deliver effective, consistent, high quality Innovation requires a very professional approach.
In essence when the well meaning CXO asks for volunteers to get involved with Innovation they are not only entrusting one of the organisations most valuable processes to a band of happy amateurs they are almost guaranteeing that despite a temporary buzz of well being arising from the inclusive language used that they will inevitably be left with the poor quality disappointing results that untrained amateurs are likely to deliver when competing against the professional Innovation capabilities of competitors.
So please, please if you are a CXO tasked with driving Innovation in your business please resist the temptation to muddle through with some keen beans. Take the responsibility very seriously and look to find the professionals with the capabilities required to ensure that the Innovation delivered is worthy of the name.
Having laid out my thoughts on this topic I’d be fascinated to know what people think – do drop me a line and let me know.
