Innovation Culture is another of those thorny innovation issues which will likely engender significant argument in any organisation. The question really boils down to this: is innovation part of everyone's day job, or is it something which should be handled by a central team?
Many people argue that in a truly innovative organisation, there will be a culture of support that ensures new things get started all by themselves. The argument goes on to suggest that you wouldn't need a central innovation team at all in this case, because individual employees are empowered to make the changes an organisation needs to stay at the top of its game.
To be honest, I am yet to see any organisation with a culture that does this. On the other hand, there are plenty of companies who empower their staff to be innovative, whilst also putting in processes and systems to make sure the empowerment leads to something substantive.
Organisations who indicate they want an "innovation culture" quite often fail to take steps to turn their ideas into reality though. They believe that, somehow, if only they get more creative and motivated employees, they would get innovation for "free".
It's important to remember that people have day jobs, and quite likely it is day-job activities on which they are measured. Unless you can couple innovation to these core activities, you'll probably get very little more than a lot of ideas that go nowhere fast.
This is one of the main issues you find in organisations, in fact. Managers expect innovation, and encourage it via employee engagement events, or internal suggestion boxes, or other devices which fail to provide any framework whatsoever for the new ideas to go forwards. Then, everyone wonders why their innovation efforts are failures.
A potential solution is to establish a central innovation team responsible for making new ideas go forward. Such an approach may not be suitable for all organisations, of course, because there can be substantial investments to make such a team effective. But one thing is very certain: the costs of not innovating at all are likely to be far higher than any up front investment in the first place. - 31960
Many people argue that in a truly innovative organisation, there will be a culture of support that ensures new things get started all by themselves. The argument goes on to suggest that you wouldn't need a central innovation team at all in this case, because individual employees are empowered to make the changes an organisation needs to stay at the top of its game.
To be honest, I am yet to see any organisation with a culture that does this. On the other hand, there are plenty of companies who empower their staff to be innovative, whilst also putting in processes and systems to make sure the empowerment leads to something substantive.
Organisations who indicate they want an "innovation culture" quite often fail to take steps to turn their ideas into reality though. They believe that, somehow, if only they get more creative and motivated employees, they would get innovation for "free".
It's important to remember that people have day jobs, and quite likely it is day-job activities on which they are measured. Unless you can couple innovation to these core activities, you'll probably get very little more than a lot of ideas that go nowhere fast.
This is one of the main issues you find in organisations, in fact. Managers expect innovation, and encourage it via employee engagement events, or internal suggestion boxes, or other devices which fail to provide any framework whatsoever for the new ideas to go forwards. Then, everyone wonders why their innovation efforts are failures.
A potential solution is to establish a central innovation team responsible for making new ideas go forward. Such an approach may not be suitable for all organisations, of course, because there can be substantial investments to make such a team effective. But one thing is very certain: the costs of not innovating at all are likely to be far higher than any up front investment in the first place. - 31960
About the Author:
Are you considering how you can get more innovation in your organsiation? James A Gardner has published a free online book which includes advice on managing innovation culture and innovation teams.
