By Mark Dembo
2010 may go down as a record-breaking year when it comes to chatter about innovation. Of course, to me, this sort of begs the question: from the Industrial Revolution to the Information Revolution – hasn’t innovation always been the fuel of the growth engine?
In days of yore, when we thought of innovation, we pictured researchers in Thomas Edison’s lab creating the latest new invention; activities focused on by discreet, specialized parts of the organization. For today’s thinking, I like the definition offered up by dictionary.com:
Innovate: “to introduce something new; make changes in anything established.”
Innovation is not just the realm of product-development; it’s about process, it’s about organizational design, it’s about learning and development – in short, it’s about the very fabric of organizational life today.
For HR and Talent Management, it’s vital to understand what innovation truly is, to articulate the success profile to enable us to hire, develop, and retain innovators, so here is my round-up of the Top 5 Innovative Thinkers on Innovation.
Vijay Govindarajan is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on strategy and innovation, as the Founding Director of the Center for Global Leadership at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. VG, as he is known, widely makes the point that innovation is not something done in isolation, but rather must be embedded as part of the organization.
In his most recent book, The Other Side of Innovation, VG and co-author Chris Trimble discuss the things that organizations need to do to make innovation work; the 99% of the effort that needs to happen after that initial idea is hatched.
Gary Hamel, consultant and Professor at the London Business School, is well known for his work on core competencies and corporate strategy, much of which is focused on innovation. In his Management 2.0 Blog, Hamel focuses on the idea that there is not just one size or flavor of innovative organizations. His classifications:
- Tyros; young companies built around whacky new business models
- Nobel laureates; these companies are consistently innovative, albeit in a narrow, technologically oriented, sphere
- Artistes; these firms are in the creativity business—innovation is their product
- Cyborgs; companies like Google, Amazon and Apple that have been purpose-built to achieve super-human feats of innovation
- Born Again innovators; companies like Procter & Gamble, IBM and Ford.
While his “taxonomy” presents a great way to think about your organization, and where you may fall on this spectrum, his key point is this:
Innovation “requires a fundamental retooling of a company’s management processes . . . Most of our management rituals were designed (a very long time ago) to promote discipline, control, alignment and predictability—all laudable goals. But to outrun change or head off a newcomer at the pass, these processes have to be re-engineered so they facilitate rather than frustrate bold thinking and radical doing.”
Steven Johnson, author and expert on the intersection of science, technology, and experience. His most current book: “Where Great Ideas Come From” further dispels the notion and myth that innovation is born in a single “Eureka” moment. An “idea is not a single thing”, rather an “idea is a network”, says Johnson.
Innovation is something cobbled together from existing things into a new configuration.
He draws on examples such as the rise of the coffeehouse in mid-seventeenth century England as a key impetus for the rise of the Enlightenment and the innovations of that period.
Watch his talk at the TED conference for a brief, yet fascinating look into the evolution of innovative thinking – and ideas for fostering a culture of innovation within our organizations.
Jeanne Meister is a leading expert in the design, operation and management of the corporate learning function, Meister take an important look at how organization design and learning needs to innovate and change in order to remain competitive into the 21st Century. Her latest book, the 20/20 Workplace discusses how organizations need to first define a core set of values, and then fully leverage the tools of “the social web to reimagine learning and development, talent management, and leadership practices.”
She focuses on the need to create personalized learning experiences, while being able to tap into the way the millennial generation learns and interacts.
Daniel Pink – one-time speechwriter for Al Gore, author Dan Pink has a pulse on the key trends shaping business now and in the future. In his latest book Drive, and in this speech at the TED Conference, Pink discusses the need to re-think how we run our businesses, citing a mis-match between what science knows and what business does.
In today’s world, in order to encourage innovation in our organizations, the focus needs to turn to the intrinsic factors where people find true meaning in what they do.
Pink talks about three primary drivers of this intrinsic motivation; Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Organizations that want to foster an environment and culture of innovation should turn their attention on how they can best provide these elements within the design of jobs and organizations.
Fostering the Culture of Innovation:
In looking at the thinking of this group, some common trends emerge that may apply to your organizations.
- Innovation does not happen in isolation
- Innovation is about more than just a great idea; it’s about turning ideas into reality
- Organizations need to provide the “space” for everyone in the organization to innovate
- Key competencies such as team building, risk taking, collaboration, learning agility, leading change are needed in our leaders to help foster innovation throughout the organization.
Wishing you a very innovative 2011!
Mark Dembo is a manager for Development Dimensions International (DDI).
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