Why we do not have more innovation
Many of us who have (or are) working with established large organisations have often been frustrated at how many great ideas were killed before they even got a fair chance. Rejected by a boss who wanted to see more and more details about how it would work OR killed by the naysayers in finance OR rejected by the boss as ‘too risky’ and so on. Then we have seen how a start-up or small business launched something that was new OR introduced a new way in its distribution and became successful – sometimes the very same idea rejected somewhere in the bowels of the large organisation.
The cutting edge that organisations need in today’s world requires innovation in not just products and services but in every aspect of the business model and the value chain – from supply chain, marketing, employee engagement, compensation…. businesses have to constantly invent, innovate, adapt or adopt.
The theory and need is well understood and ‘innovation’ often features as a key ‘value’ in an organisations stated values. Yet when it comes to implementation, there always seems to be problems – particularly with large currently successful organisations and/or those that have been around for some time.
D5 Creation
Could also be possible that the individual feels that
a. his/her innovative idea may not be given due credit – the boss (or his relative/pet) may run away with the idea
b. his/her idea may have a larger value outside the company – and thus plans on leaving the company -some are successful and some are not
Most out of the box ideas are intuitive by nature. They’re the fruits of imagination rather than a process. And very often the method is retro fitted to the madness. Now extrapolate this into a corporate scenario where ‘gut feel’ is a bad word, and it takes guts to back your gut. Now imagine how much more difficult it is to back someone else’s gut. And u prolly begin to get an idea of how idea infanticide is rife in layered orgns.
Solution: Encourage risk taking. Create a mentor mentality, wherein each employee has a mentor, with each mentor being responsible 4 a set of execs. Reward successful ideas with small stakeholdings, where the mentor’s also rewarded, so he looks for ideas and has a reason to incubate eggs which aren’t his. Blah blah…..
I think there’s a new turn the world has taken after the year 2000, we’ve stopped thinking outside the box and our innovative thinking has gone two places.
1) Retro futurism: Trying to use methods used, tested and tried in the past.
2) Way outside the box thinking.
Retro futurism is something we’ve resorted to, be it in the field of design or creative management of a company, since we dont really have an signature style of the 2000’s. Just like the mechanisms of the watch havent changed over the century, we have kept sugar coating it and selling the same wine in new packages over and over, this keeps the industry fresh for short spans but is not a very good solution for the longer run.
On the other hand, way outside the box thinking is now practiced by many upcoming companies such as Apple, Google, Honda, Sony and so on have actually started looking way into the future, designing and developing the product for 2050 and trying to adapt it to 2010. These kind of moves may create a bit of a scene but is almost as good as digging your own grave, as they sell these products but are unable to back them up with the fuel they run on. Much like the iPhone 4 built to run on 4g speeds, but we still do not have a well developed 3g infrastructure throughout the world, or say the blueray drive, or hydrogen fuel cell cars. There are so many problems with these products at the stage we are in now that most of the time they either get recalled or sold at cheaper prices.
So according to me, all that we need to do is strike a fine line between retro and futuristic thinking and focus on the jobs at hand, be less imaginative but more creative and solve problems rather than creating more by launching such products and services.