New is Necessary, But Not Sufficient

The characteristics of novelty may occupy center stage in the way accounts of innovation are told. However, what goes on backstage may contain the real gems.

Over 20 years ago, publications on innovation management splashed onto our reading lists with Foster’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Pinchot’s Intrapreneurship, etc. The past five years that splash has been subsumed by a flood of new titles on innovation, some of them destined to become classics, like Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma, Utterback’s Mastering the Dynamics of Innovation, and Nonaka’s Knowledge Creating Company.

In the process, our definition of innovation itself has begun to shift, for better or for worse.  In the past, the distinction was often made between creativity and innovation; the former being associated with newness, the latter being allied with reducing what is new to practice (i.e., commercialization.  Recently, I believe this old “black and white” contrast between innovation and creativity has been transplanted by a more precise and rich spectrum of “color” contrasts.  Some might even say that “innovation” has lost its meaning from such frequent use (or misuse).

The term innovation—in the context of innovation management theory and practice—is now used to include any one of the “particles or energy” that make up the “atomic structure” of innovation.  Discovery, invention, reduction-to-practice and diffusion, individually or collectively, are now what I believe practitioners have in mind when they use the term innovation.

This “atomic” metaphor is useful in pointing out that the nucleus of focused, creative collaborations may be at the heart of successful innovation. In other words, while novelty gets the press, it is the formal and informal process of the right mix of people, collaborating, that makes innovation happen.

Peter Drucker hinted at this when he observed that the “bright idea” is the least reliable source of innovation.  He says, “Bright ideas are the riskiest and least successful source of innovative opportunities. The casualty rate is enormous. No more than one out of every hundred patents for an innovation of this kind earns enough to pay back development costs and patent fees.  A far smaller proportion makes any money above its out-of-pocket costs. The entrepreneur is, therefore, well advised to forego innovations based on bright ideas, however enticing the success stories.”  (Innovation and Entrepreneurship, page 130.)

The central place that “newness” holds is not unlike the potential over-emphasis we place on entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, champions and/or inventors—the individual heroes and heroines of the innovations we hear about. Most mental maps of innovations reserve large and influential space for these individuals. However, the actual terrain of innovation, I suspect, involves the less sexy, often unseen, combined efforts of many “common” folk.  The persistent passion and vision of the entrepreneur may be necessary, but it may not be sufficient to bring the new into reality.  That requires the sustained and focused creative collaborations of many others. 

This truth came to our attention recently when Erik Eidsmo directed us to an article by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker (July 22, 2002) entitled, “The Talent Myth: Are Smart People Overrated?” The article takes a look at the “deep-seated belief that having better talent at all levels [of the organization] is how you outperform your competitors.”  For those of us with an interest in innovation management, the article concludes on a note that should give us all a moment to pause.  Citing the management culture and philosophy of Enron, McKinsey and even Gary Hamel as the prime examples, the article concludes, “looking for people who had the talent to think outside the box, maybe it was the box that needed fixing.”

Gladwell makes this fundamental point: “The broader failing is the assumption that an organization’s intelligence is simply a function of the intelligence of its employees.  This assumption is understandable because our lives are so obviously enriched by individual brilliance. Groups don’t write great novels, and committee didn’t come up with the theory of relativity. But companies work by different rules. They don’t just create; they execute and compete and coordinate the efforts of many different people, and the organizations that are most successful at that task are the ones where the system is the star.”

Just as intelligence is necessary, but not sufficient for leading an organization, so novelty may be necessary, but it is likely, in and of itself, not sufficient.



This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in November 2002. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 387-1270. 

Highlights of Lessons Learned

Innovations require parenting, more than managing.

Perhaps the biggest “aha” of last year was one that left us mumbling to ourselves, “Why didn't I see this before?” 

Though our letterhead says “innovation management”—largely a legacy from 20 years ago when I was a part of the Innovation Management group at Kimberly-Clark Corporation, I have become convinced that parenting is a better word than managing when it comes to innovations. While effective parenting involves good management skills and efforts, parenting captures the essential developmental character of innovation and innovating.  Just as every child is unique, so every innovation is unique. What works in parenting one child might not for their brother or sister. However, principles of parenting learned with one child can certainly help parents with the next child. So too, with innovators and their innovations.  And just as “it takes a village to raise a child,” so too, it takes a whole host of participants, particularly in informal and implicit networks that straddle the formal organizational boundaries of our companies, to successfully develop and commercialize an innovation.

After being a student of innovation management, particularly in established companies, for almost 25 years, we were struck with the power and appropriateness of the word “parenting.”

Play may be what is missing in our innovation efforts.

Our fascination with, and early applications of, the work of Dr. Stuart Brown, has led us to believe that the early entrepreneurial roots of most successful companies were significantly influenced by a healthy dose of play—whether the playfulness of an original inventor, or the playfulness of a subsequent entrepreneur, or both. What so easily gets lost when a company 'grows up' and becomes responsible for consistent performance to its shareholders, is that early entrepreneurial vocation that was infused with play. [As Dr. Brown reminds us, the opposite of play is not work, nor performance; it is depression: emotional and financial.] Even though play has a public-relations problem in our productivity-driven business culture, this past year has brought be to a growing belief that play may be just what is chronically missing in our innovation efforts. 

Lester and Piori (in their book, Innovation, the Missing Dimension) allude to this when they suggest that what companies are not doing enough of is setting up protected spaces within which to learn, experiment and discover what their competition has not yet discovered. Might we not call these playgrounds within which our nascent innovations can themselves play? Clif Bar & Company calls these playgrounds “discovery channels,” and is starting to take seriously the power and importance of play in their innovation efforts.

Collaboration may be as important as competition for our innovation efforts.

If you haven't read it yet, Henry Chesbrough's Open Innovation should be near or at the top of your reading list. Not only does it explode the myth of our “funnel model” for innovation management, it reminds us all of the tyranny of the core business revenue model. What Chesbrough articulated so well, it what we have been seeing in so many of our clients. Collaboration with other companies is no longer an option. It is a necessity, even though many of us don't think we know how to do it very well, given competitive and proprietary interests and habits.
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This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in January 2006. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 387-1270.   

Content Trumps Process

When you hear someone say, “Trust the process,” do you take it literally or figuratively?

The old adage form follows function, or process follows content, still applies whether we are talking about innovating or operating. Yet these days it appears to be increasingly difficult for some to either know the difference between the two or remember this most basic principle.

Don’t get me wrong. Process—which often is used as a label for a sequence of steps, activities or procedures—is an important ingredient to getting things done well and in a timely manner. It is invaluable in coordinating diverse sets of arms, legs and minds, if not hearts. When process works well it is invisible; when it doesn’t work well, it becomes very visible. Without process, collaboration is more difficult. But when process gets in front of the content—that which is being attempted and why—activity and motion get easily confused with progress and productivity.

Over the past 30 years, I have heard many well-intentioned leaders say, “we need to be more innovative” or “we need to improve how we innovate.” A statement like this may be a true and necessary message; but on its own, it is insufficient and incomplete. Stating where innovations are needed (and why they are needed there) is also required for a coherent and complete act of leadership.

Yet all too often, company leadership—the CEO, CTO and others—are silent or inarticulate in this regard. Perhaps they are too focused on the best method to take the next hill. But even with the best methods executed well, if you are on the wrong hill, the execution and method are irrelevant. When leaders actually do articulate where innovations are needed and why, innovators within the company naturally respond vigorously and effectively.

Innovating is like parenting—a particular type of managing. In parenting, each child responds differently to discipline, love and teaching moments. While parenting principles may be transferable from one child to the next, the actual methods, practices and process itself is likely to vary, sometimes a great deal. The same is true with each and every innovation. By definition each innovation is unique, like children. If and when we insist on applying the same sequence in the same way we are likely to relearn that “trusting the process” is better understood figuratively, not literally. 

Peter Drucker made the observation in his book Management decades ago that the process one team used in its success is never exactly or directly transferable to another. Drucker says each project team needs to work out its own process appropriate to the particularities (or content) of the project at hand. This is not to say that one team cannot learn from the experience of another, particularly at the level of principles. Nor is it inferring that no new product development Stage-Gate framework is needed to define a common vocabulary and starting roles and responsibilities. It is merely a caution to being process-driven rather than content- or results-driven.

Many organizations are becoming more than “make and sell” execution machines by taking on the increasingly necessary “sense and respond” capabilities normally associated with living organisms. As this continues, the art of clearly communicating where and why innovations are needed will only become more important and valuable. Stephan Haeckel from IBM’s Advanced Business Institute wrote an interesting thought piece back in 1999 called Adaptive Enterprise (Harvard Business School Press). Haeckel suggests that the traditional command and control leadership required by organizations that are all about making and selling, centered around “offers” to customers is increasingly being complimented by a new kind of “context and coordination” leadership, centered in “responses” to customers more than offers to them. This kind of organization requires from its leaders a clear, unambiguous, “roomy” and shared understanding of where the organization is headed and why. 

For knowledge workers to be productive in creating new knowledge where it matters Ikujiro Nonaka, author of The Knowledge Creating Company, says knowing where the organization is headed and why is not optional. It is essential. It establishes context, and all value is context-based. Process may be important, but context and content trump process.

One of the startling “aha’s” that came from our Innovation Practitioners Network’s study of Toyota’s innovation management system is Toyota’s agnosticism regarding process. They appear to see the value in processes, tools and methods, but are eclectic in their mix of methods. Does Toyota have clearly stated principles and a firm sense of where the company is headed? Absolutely. But they do not have an overall canonized Toyota innovation process! The results speak for themselves.

Trust the process? Take it figuratively. But, by all means, trust the process.  

This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in November 2009. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 460-1313.