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7 Ways to Unlock Innovation

Most organizations fail to sustain growth over the longterm because they are not able to innovate on a systematic basis. Even when we talkabout large, presumably successful companies, there is a clear pattern where they createradical innovations once or twice, and after that they rely on incrementalism.Companies focus on doing better or more (of the same) things, when they should ratherfocus on doing different things. Below you will find 7 ways to unlock innovation. Bear inmind that most of those measures can be applied by a single individual, so make sure youshake things up on your company.

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1. Explicit the assumptions: if you want to unlock innovation you should start byexposing the rules and behaviors inside your organization that might be hinderinginnovation in the first place. Often times more important than getting answers is askingthe right questions. Keep in mind that outlining the declared norms, the ones you willfind in the mission statement and other official documents aiming to guide employeesbehavior, is not enough. You will need to dig deeper and highlight the hidden norms

governing how people think and act around there.

2. Challenge the assumptions: thesecond step is to challenge the outlined assumptions.Ask yourself what if we decided to do the complete opposite?. If your company hastraditionally focused on customer A ask what if we start focusing on customer Binstead?. If the new product development process is mainly inside the R&D departmentask what if we put production and sales people in charge of it?.

3. Welcome failures: you need to pursue failure if you want to innovate andconsequently to succeed. Now let me clarify this point. I do not mean you should pursue

failure for the sake of failing. But rather because you can learn from failures and becauseit will spark new ideas. When a company fails it is necessarily trying new things, newconcepts. It is stretching itself beyond the comfort zone. Companies should create aculture where mistakes are allowed (and even promoted) as long as they contribute togrowth.

4. Use multiple sources of innovation: if you ask managers what strategy their companyis adopting to foster innovation you will probably hear: we invest millions of dollars intoR&D, we hire the best engineers and we also have a great Chief Innovation Officer.Now, while those can be good sources of innovation, they are not the only ones (and not

necessarily the most important ones). Innovation can emerge from employees, partners,suppliers, customers and so on. So make sure you are not neglecting any of them.

5. Go beyond product innovation: over the last decade companies and managers havepaid too much attention to product innovation. No wonder most people associate theword innovation with the introduction of a new, revolutionary, uber-technological device.Instead of focusing exclusively on product innovation companies should think how theycan innovate their processes, their structure, their business model and even their market.

6. Spot changes both as threats and opportunities: some companies spot market or

technological changes exclusively as threats. They end up taking defensive actions toprotect their segment, not figuring out that maybe that segment will not exist at all in thenear future. When desktop computers started to emerge the producers of mainframes andsupercomputers hurried to defend their segment, creating barriers and technicaldifficulties so that a desktop manufacturers would not be able to sell mainframes. Some 5years later, however, desktops represented the largest segment of the computer industry,and by the time mainframe producers had already lost the opportunity to jump in.

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7. Execute: good ideas come from acting and not from thinking. Many people sit in frontof the drawing table and try to come up with the so called killer application or the nextbig thing. This is a plain waste of time. Now dont get me wrong. Strategic planning isessential, but most people are able to carry it out. They fail, instead, when they need toexecute and implement the strategy. A good rule of thumb is Ready. Fire! Aim.

Daniel Scocco on September 20th, 2006 Comments(17) | Filed Under Innovation

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