I am often asked by people interested in business development to define ‘innovation’. I shall give my definition and my understanding of this term. This does not mean it is the only definition or even the correct understanding. After a while, words come to mean what users of that word want it to mean - no matter what the original meaning might have been.
Innovation is a fashionable term. A great deal of lip-service is given to ‘innovation’. Too often it is no more than lip-service. It is always easier to talk about such things than to do anything concrete about them.
All corporations want to be seen as ‘innovative’ because the opposite is ‘stagnant’ or, at least, complacent. There is always a need to progress and change, either because of new technology and possibilities or because of changes in the external world.
So ‘innovation’ is often used as a term to mean progressing and adapting to changed conditions. That is what it is intended to mean. That is excellent, and there is nothing wrong with that intention - provided it does go further than a mere intention.
SOMETHING NEW
My definition of innovation is: ‘the putting into effect of something new for that organisation’. There may be many sources for what is ‘new’.
1. It may be something borrowed or copied from another organisation. For example, an insurance idea from India may be introduced into Canada (or the other way around). There is a certain amount of risk because cultures and conditions are different.
Nevertheless, you would only want to copy successful ideas, so the risk may not be great. It is ‘new’ for your organisation, but not new in an absolute sense.
2. There may be a logical reaction to information and research data. If you find that sixty-year-olds are going to the cinema more and more, you may want to make films for that age group. There may be a logical reaction to changes in the law. There may be a logical reaction to the low cost of production in China, so you set up factories in China. All these things are both logical and new and so are part of innovation.
3. There may also be a logical design that puts forward something new. For example, cost-cutting and outsourcing may be driven entirely by logic, but are still innovations. The design of new products and new services may also come about through a logical design process.
4. Lastly there are innovations produced directly by the exercise of creativity. Such innovations are original and neither copied nor the result of logical progression. Direct creativity of this sort may be a higher risk than the other sources of innovation – but the rewards can also be much higher.
When McDonald’s started to serve breakfasts, this was probably a logical decision to make use of existing facilities. For about four years the innovation lost money - then it became the most profitable part of McDonald’s. Anything which requires culture change (like eating breakfast outside the home) takes time to take effect.
READINESS
Innovation always requires a readiness to do something new. Any new strategy is a risk. Anything new is a distraction from the normal routine. Anything new requires commitment of some resources.
For obvious reasons, many organisations do not like to try new things. Executives reach senior positions through being good at continuity and problem-solving. You do what you are supposed to do and solve problems that interfere with that doing. The readiness to try new things is not usually a factor in an executive’s success and promotion.
FAILURE
Then there is the fear of failure. Something new that does not work out is a failure or a mistake. Language does not have a word for a ‘fully justified venture which, for reasons beyond your control, did not work’. So anything which does not work out is a failure. It makes sense to avoid ‘failures’.
If there is a readiness to try new things and the habit of exploring new possibilities, then innovation can happen. It is very hard to seek to create a climate of acceptance for every new possibility. The climate has to be there all the time. Maybe there is a need for a specific ‘Innovation Officer’ whose business it is todevelop the innovation readiness.
SOURCES
The various sources of innovation have been listed above. Clearly there is a need for someone to be sensitive to what is happening elsewhere in the same field and to what is happening is the world around. There is a need for an ‘opportunity scan’.
Many organisations work on the basis of ‘osmosis’. If anew idea has been around for a long time and has been taken up by other organisations, then it becomes natural (and low risk) to adopt that innovation.
This is very much how doctors choose to become aware of new advances in medicine. If something is ‘around’ you eventually get to hear of it. This is not a very proactive approach. It is more a matter of following the field than leading the field. You do not want to be left behind, but you do not want to take the risk of being in front.
DIRECT CREATIVITY
There are a lot of myths about creativity. For one thing, ‘idea creativity’ is quite different from artistic creativity - though the two may overlap in some areas.
Then there is the notion that creativity is a mysterious talent that some people have and others can only envy. Creativity is a thinking skill that anyone can learn and practise. Some people may be better than others, as with any skill - such as cooking, driving, tennis or skiing.
The brain is a self-organising information system. Such systems form patterns. Patterning systems are always asymmetric. The formal and deliberate processes of lateral thinking are designed to move across patterns instead of along them. The use of just one such technique by a group of workshops in South Africa generated 20,000 ideas for a steel company in one afternoon.
Brainstorming and the notion that it is enough to be uninhibited make a very weak approach to creativity. The brain is not designed to be creative. The brain is designed to make stable patterns for dealing with a stable universe. So it is possible to be trained to be creative. For further information see my website at www.edwarddebono.com.
SUMMARY
Innovation is the introduction of something new for that organisation. This may be obtained by copying someone else, by systematic logical design or through direct and deliberate creativity. There must, however, be a readiness to explore and implement new ideas. This is usually not the case, even when much lip-service is paid to innovation.
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