One of the key questions one needs to resolve at the commencement of an innovation programme is what sort of innovator you should hire to lead everything.
This is particularly important, because whether you are running a central innovation team with a participative agenda, or a distributed innovation function with a mandate to shepherd an innovation culture, everything that happens will likely devolve from the particular mentality the innovation leader brings to the table.
Should you put an entrepreneur in charge, someone with proven capability to start and run small ventures? The kind of person that knows everything about working on a shoestring and matching limited resources to big problems? A leader, in other words, with proof they can turn an idea into something that works?
Or, instead, do you hire someone with lots of experience managing a portfolio of projects, who knows how to start-stop-continue things, but doesn't have much depth in the intricacies of making individual projects successful? Someone who's more like an investor than a project manager?
Most people, given the choice would go for the former. It is the easy choice to make: choose someone you know will at least make a few things they choose to focus on succeed.
But the easy choice is not always the best choice.
Innovation leaders who are entrepreneurial will be highly motivated to make their pet projects successful no matter the cost. This, after all, is the way they got to be leaders in the first place. They take good ideas and through personal heroics, make them into something worthwhile. Often, their whole careers have been based on a few lucky successes.
Individual heroics are one thing, but the fact of the matter is most innovation projects fail for one reason or other. This happens despite the amount of effort applied. Entrepreneurs accept this intuitively, so they cancel a projects which don't seem to be progressing well. They live in the hope that their next project will be a hit.
For innovators in corporate situations, though, this is a very bad strategy. Innovation teams usually last about 18 months before they are disbanded, so doing things in a sequential order means time runs out way before there are decent results. The implication is that hiring someone with an investment mentality, rather than an entrepreneur, is usually sensible.
Investors have an intuitive understanding of the fact that the real name of the game in innovation is avoiding concentrations of risk to get to a predictable return. Usually, that means a light touch on a large number of simultaneous innovations, rather than a deep concentration on a few. - 31960
This is particularly important, because whether you are running a central innovation team with a participative agenda, or a distributed innovation function with a mandate to shepherd an innovation culture, everything that happens will likely devolve from the particular mentality the innovation leader brings to the table.
Should you put an entrepreneur in charge, someone with proven capability to start and run small ventures? The kind of person that knows everything about working on a shoestring and matching limited resources to big problems? A leader, in other words, with proof they can turn an idea into something that works?
Or, instead, do you hire someone with lots of experience managing a portfolio of projects, who knows how to start-stop-continue things, but doesn't have much depth in the intricacies of making individual projects successful? Someone who's more like an investor than a project manager?
Most people, given the choice would go for the former. It is the easy choice to make: choose someone you know will at least make a few things they choose to focus on succeed.
But the easy choice is not always the best choice.
Innovation leaders who are entrepreneurial will be highly motivated to make their pet projects successful no matter the cost. This, after all, is the way they got to be leaders in the first place. They take good ideas and through personal heroics, make them into something worthwhile. Often, their whole careers have been based on a few lucky successes.
Individual heroics are one thing, but the fact of the matter is most innovation projects fail for one reason or other. This happens despite the amount of effort applied. Entrepreneurs accept this intuitively, so they cancel a projects which don't seem to be progressing well. They live in the hope that their next project will be a hit.
For innovators in corporate situations, though, this is a very bad strategy. Innovation teams usually last about 18 months before they are disbanded, so doing things in a sequential order means time runs out way before there are decent results. The implication is that hiring someone with an investment mentality, rather than an entrepreneur, is usually sensible.
Investors have an intuitive understanding of the fact that the real name of the game in innovation is avoiding concentrations of risk to get to a predictable return. Usually, that means a light touch on a large number of simultaneous innovations, rather than a deep concentration on a few. - 31960
About the Author:
Is this the year you commence planning an innovation program and are thinking about your recruitment options? James Gardner's free online book has detailed advice on how to recruit an innovation leader.
