Despite
what they might claim, Innovators and entrepreneurs love having a good structured
problem to solve. They just do. Give them a well defined, specific business
problem, public challenge or domestic conundrum and they are in heaven. They’ll instantly spring into action to
figure out how to creatively build or combine multiple bits of tech and process
that can work together to provide a suitable solution.
However,
if you ask the entrepreneurial show ponies to “invent” new solutions to a very
loose, broad brief they can often struggle to come up with a useful, marketable
solution. Now this strange, slightly
counter-intuitve reality can often be a source of frustration for those
business moguls and public leaders who invest heavily to build up and employ
groups of innovators with the intention of enjoying a stream of wonderful and
exotic innovations that add value to their endeavours. They know they can’t micro-manage the
innovators so they leave them alone.
They give them time, space, resources and bags and bags of freedom – the
proverbial blank sheet of paper.
Unfortunately this type of relationship all too often fails as the
solutions that get delivered just don’t scratch the itch.
So as a leader
it appears as though the recipe for having a productive relationship wth your
innovation team is to provide them with a series of clearly defined problems or
challenges that they can deploy their talents against. This of course is easier said than done. Why?
Because by and large most of us are just not trained or practiced in the
reflective, analytical and articulatory skills required. When asked the classic Spice Girls
question, “Tell me what you want, what
you really, really want?” most of us
respond with a bland “I don’t really know.”
In short
the art of being able to identify and articulate real business or organisational
issues in a concise and effective manner is a rare one. As a result many of the less transparent
aspects of business and public life are lagging behind when it comes to experiencing
the latest wave of innovative digital transformation. This is not because these areas are
particularly impervious to innovation, its actually because the problems and
challenges associated with them are ill defined and opaque. Compare and contrast the number of apps that
have been designed to help you find and book a restaurant (a clearly defined
and well known challenge) compared with the number of technology solutions
devised to help your local council collect and manage household waste (an ill
defined and opaque challenge). N.B. You
will be in the majority if you have just read the last sentence and asked
yourself the question, “So what is the problem with collecting and managing
household waste?” Honestly, I don’t know
either, but I’m pretty sure there are some they’re just not known to me.
Ok, so
before I tie us all up in logical loops the point is this. We need to understand that a key (and much
undervalued) aspect of the Innovation process is the ability to spot, analyse
and articulate a challenge so that the creative types can do their thing. The recent advent of “themed” tech
accelerators suggests that finally we are waking up to the fact that working
with industry segments to clearly articulate problems and challenges is
generating a better return on investment when it comes to Innovation. In my work with innovators and businesses I
am now very committed to putting the work in to spot and articulate the real
challenges of an industry rather than to merely assemble a group of the bright
and the brilliant and instruct them to “do their innovative thing”. So, when it comes to Innovation, creating a
counter intuitive sense of focus and structure is definitely a good thing.
