innovation

The beautiful thing about innovation is that you can talk about it a great deal - and then do nothing. Today ‘innovation’ is the buzz-word. Competition from low-cost countries like China makes everyone realise that the design and delivery of value are essential. That means innovation.

Corporations and governments talk a great deal about innovation. In March I am talking at a summit in Brussels dealing with the subject. There is a general feeling that ‘innovation’ is a good thing. In any case, it is rather difficult to be against innovation.

But are words enough? Is a general feeling that innovation is a good thing enough? It is indeed a start -but then there has to be more to follow.

You can innovate by borrowing or copying what someone else is doing. Most innovation is of this sort. You can innovate as a result of a perfectly logical reaction to market trends and market research. If people seem to want a 500ml wine bottle, then you can respond to this desire.

LATERAL THINKING

You can innovate by waiting for inspiration and then building on that inspiration. You may have to wait rather a long time. Or you can innovate through the deliberate and formal use of lateral thinking. Most organisations simply do not realise that creativity is a learnable skill. One afternoon, in South Africa, Carol Ferguson set up a group of workshops for ISCOR.

Using just one of the formal tools of lateral thinking, the workshops generated 21,000 ideas in that afternoon.

So the first reason why organisations do not go beyond lip-service to innovation is that they simply do not know what can be done. They still believe that creativity is a matter of divine inspiration.

There is nothing magical about creativity. Creativity is dealing with information in a self-organising system that creates asymmetric patterns. Whenever I talk about this to audiences of top mathematicians and physicists they are in full agreement. There is no mystique about it.

There are old-fashioned ideas about creativity. Approaches like ‘brainstorming’ do have some value, but they are very weak. It is not enough to be liberated and free.

A man tied up with a rope cannot play the violin. But cutting the rope does not make that person into a violinist. If you are inhibited it is difficult to be creative -but being freed of your inhibitions is not enough.

The human brain is specifically designed to be non-creative. The purpose of the brain is to make stable patterns for dealing with a stable world. Once such patterns have been formed, then all we need do is to recognise the situation and apply the appropriate pattern. Without this excellent function, life would be impossible. We would not be able to get up in the morning, cross the road, read or write, etc.

So, while we should be grateful that the brain is not designed to be creative, we also need to develop thinking skills that force the brain to be more creative. That is what lateral thinking is about. Lateral thinking is to do with changing perceptions, concepts and ideas. It is a skill that can be learned, practised and used deliberately.

DISRUPTION

The second reason why organisations do not really like innovation is that innovation is a disruption to the continuity of what is being done. With a constant focus on efficiency and cost-cutting, it is difficult to undertake new things that disturb the continuity.

Then there is risk. New ventures are always a risk. You can never be sure that things are going to work out as hoped. If things go wrong, someone is going to take the blame.

Language lacks a word which implies ‘fully justified venture that did not succeed for reasons beyond your control, and which could never have been foreseen’. Because of the lack of such a word, we have to use others like ‘failure’ or ‘mistake’ for ventures that do not succeed. No one wants such words in a curriculum vitae, so people are not willing to try new things.

There are other factors which make innovation difficult. Everyone is busy with their own responsibilities. When innovation is everyone’s business, it quickly becomes no one’s business. It is enough to talk about innovation. No one can blame you for not having new ideas and for not innovating.

There needs to be a structural change in which someone becomes directly responsible for innovation. Action or inaction can now be judged directly. Is the person doing his or her job?

It is assumed that innovation will come from existing departments, such as research or marketing. Such departments do need new ideas and do produce them.

But that is not enough. There needs to be a specific ‘innovation’ function which exists as an entity in its own right. Very few organisations have yet realised this point or taken action on it.

When I did a lot of work with Du Pont, David Tanner became the de facto innovation officer and set up a Centre for Creativity and Innovation. Such a centre can then put energy into the innovation process. The centre can organise training. The centre can act as a liaison point for putting innovators in touch with those who might use the innovation. The Centre can pinpoint the areas that need new thinking, etc.

Expectation is key. People are very good at playing the game that they perceive to be operating. If the chair-person of a meeting devotes that last 15 minutes to hearing from anyone who is exploring a new idea, then people will explore new ideas.

There is one further point that needs mentioning. Because of the huge advance in information technology, there is the belief that information can set the strategies and provide all the new ideas that might be needed. This is a dangerous and limiting view.

SKIDS

I have noted an insidious disease which is quietly crippling business. It is called SKIDS. This stands for: Sufficient Knowledge Ideas Deficit Syndrome.

Because there is a lot of information to deal with and to analyse, and because such analysis often leads to a need for change, there is a belief that this is a sufficient source for innovation.

Technological advance is a source of innovation. But it is not value innovation. There is a need to design the value concepts that the technology can deliver. In general, our value concepts are way behind our technological abilities.

Sometimes it is enough to define a mission. It may be enough to choose a destination. Then there are cars, roads, maps, road signs, etc., so you will get to the destination. At other times it is not enough to define the mission. If you want to get to the top of the mountain you had better learn some climbing techniques. It is not enough just to define the destination. Innovation is useful as lip-service, but even more useful as reality.