{"id":843,"date":"2012-10-20T19:45:32","date_gmt":"2012-10-20T19:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/?p=843"},"modified":"2012-10-20T19:45:32","modified_gmt":"2012-10-20T19:45:32","slug":"innovation-only-insurance-against-irrelevance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/from-our-business-transformation-consultants\/innovation-only-insurance-against-irrelevance\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovation only insurance against irrelevance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Innovation only insurance against irrelevance: isn\u2019t merely a competitive advantage, it is the competitive advantage.<\/p>\n

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Extract from Management Innovation eXchange:<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the creative economy, innovation is more important than ever. Innovation is the only insurance against irrelevance. \u00a0It\u2019s the only antidote to margin-crushing competition, the only hope for out-performing a dismal economy, and the only way to truly amaze your customers.\u00a0 Innovation\u2014in operations, products, business models and ecosystems\u2014isn\u2019t merely a competitive advantage, it\u2019s the competitive advantage. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

We all get it: innovation is the lifeblood of every organization. Yet more often than not, when innovation occurs, it\u2019s a \u201chappy accident\u201d rather than the product of a deep-rooted innovation competence. \u00a0Dig into the genesis of a paradigm-busting new product or service, and you\u2019ll usually find that its success owes more to the indomitable spirit of a lone innovator than to the obliging climate of an inherently pro-innovation management model.<\/em><\/p>\n

Fact is, most companies aren\u2019t very good at game-changing innovation.\u00a0 That\u2019s why it\u2019s usually the newcomers, rather than the incumbents, who upend industry rules (think of Apple in music, Amazon in web services, or Salesforce in enterprise software).\u00a0 Want some hard evidence?\u00a0 In one recent McKinsey study, only 24% of respondents felt that their company wouldn\u2019t benefit from a more robust pipeline of new ideas.<\/em><\/p>\n

For industry incumbents, the problem isn\u2019t a lack of resources or a shortage of human creativity, but a dearth of pro-innovation values, processes and practices\u2014and when innovation programs do get launched, like an internal venture fund or an idea wiki, they tend to either be organizationally isolated or easily marginalized.<\/em><\/p>\n

Through the years, we\u2019ve spoken to hundreds of individuals who\u2019ve struggled to make their organizations more innovative\u2014and most seem to end up deeply frustrated.\u00a0 This is hardly surprising, because in may ways they\u2019re confronting the same problem that faces an animal trainer who\u2019s trying to get dog to walk on its hind legs.\u00a0 With the right incentives, a canine will take a few halting steps on two legs, but the moment the trainer turns his back, the critter is down on all fours again.\u00a0 Problem is, Fido has quadruped DNA.\u00a0 Similarly, our organizations have efficiency DNA.\u00a0 Operational goals like productivity, predictability and alignment are woven deeply into management systems and processes.\u00a0 Innovation, experimentation and risk-taking\u2014not so much. Until we solve this DNA-level problem, rule-bending innovation, when it happens at all, will occur in spite of the system rather than because of it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Remember, the disciplines of management were invented, a hundred and more years ago, to drive variety out of organizations.\u00a0 The goal was to excise the irregularities, in an effort to ensure conformance to work rules, quality standards, timetables and budgets.\u00a0 Today, though, it\u2019s the irregular people with their irregular ideas and irregular methods who create the irregular successes\u2014and profits.\u00a0 All too often, the quest to routinize the irregular ends up routing innovation.\u00a0 The goal?\u00a0 Organizations that are paragons of penny-pinching efficiency and bastions of rule-busting innovation.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Over the past decade or two, companies around the world have invested an enormous amount of effort in retooling their operating models for efficiency and agility (think of all your company has invested in its ERP systems, in CRM, in cloud computing, and in business analytics).\u00a0 To win in the years ahead, companies will have to devote a similar degree of effort, if not investment, to reengineering their management processes for innovation.\u00a0 Businesses that falter in this quest will see their margins shrink, their customers defect, and their growth engine splutter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ultimately, every management process must be a catalyst for innovation.\u00a0 The planning process needs to put a premium on game-changing ideas; the budgeting system needs to give innovators quick access to experimental capital; IT systems need to support idea sharing and the fluid formation of innovation teams; performance management systems need to track innovation performance at every level; training and development programs need to bolster innovation skills; market research and customer insight efforts need to surface the deep, unarticulated needs that open up opportunities for radical innovation; R&D and new product development must encourage the sort of perseverance that is often needed to turn nascent ideas into billion dollar businesses; the compensation process has to reward those who take smart risks; and the criteria used in hiring and promotion need to give weight to creativity and innovation leadership.<\/em><\/p>\n

For now, too many companies are still approaching the innovation challenge in a piecemeal fashion\u2014a web-based suggestions box here, an awards program there, and a corporate incubator over there, somewhere.\u00a0 These efforts are typically incomplete (an idea market where the criteria and timetable for evaluating submissions aren\u2019t clearly spelled out), or they\u2019re isolated (an idea market that isn\u2019t directly linked to talent management and resource allocation processes).\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As human beings, we are born with a creative impulse\u2014with an innate desire to use our imagination to better the world around us.\u00a0 Yet too often, our organizations end up being less innovative than the people within them.\u00a0 Working together, we can change this.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the M-Prize we\u2019re launching today, we\u2019re looking for examples and ideas that will help us how build innovation into the woof and warp of our organizations.\u00a0 While there aren\u2019t many businesses that have yet made innovation a true core competence, we can, with your help, build a composite picture of how every element of a company\u2019s management model can be retooled to make it innovation-friendly.\u00a0\u00a0 While no one organization has put all the pieces of the innovation puzzle together, we should be able to assemble all of the pieces in one place\u2014via this M-Prize challenge.\u00a0 In doing so, we\u2019ll give managers around the world the chance to identify the missing pieces in their own innovation programs, and to learn from companies that may have found a piece they\u2019re still looking for.<\/em><\/p>\n

More …<\/strong> http:\/\/www.mixprize.org\/blog\/innovating-innovation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Innovation only insurance against irrelevance: isn\u2019t merely a competitive advantage, it is the competitive advantage.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25],"tags":[40,43,41,42,35,11,10,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":845,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions\/845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaordicsolutions.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}