Innovation in Full Sentences

How people use the term “innovation” can vary a great deal. Too often, the connotation of the innovation gets distorted by “partial sentences.”

After reading a view of Whirlpool Corporation’s journey with innovation since 1999 in the book Strategic Innovation, we are reminded how the term innovation itself can take on subtle, but importantly different connotations, depending upon whether innovation is thought of as a “noun,” “verb” or “adjective.”

For example, in the case of Whirlpool Corporation, at least as described in Strategic Innovation: Embedding Innovation as a Core Competency in Your Organization by Nancy Tennant Snyder and Deborah L. Duarte, the word innovation is being used to describe an organizational quality, character or “competence”—an organizational “adjective.” This orientation to innovation is about innovativeness—a characteristic and orientation of the organization and enterprise—which Whirlpool has attempted to “embed” in its culture.

In contrast, others (Clayton Christensen, James Utterback, et al) approach innovation primarily as an economic “noun,” leading to an interest in and emphasis on embodiments, particularly those value propositions that have significantly higher profit margins and/or change the basis of competition. This orientation to innovation emphasizes innovations—new value propositions that bring new value to customers and/or users.

Still others use innovation primarily as an entrepreneurial “verb,” leading to an interest in and emphasis on actions that encourage successful development of new, embryonic value propositions, into robust, profitable businesses. This orientation is about innovating—doing the right thing at the right time to accelerate the development cycle and shorten the time-to-market (or break-even, positive cash flow, profitability, market share) and even discover a new, emerging need before it is generally recognized.

This leads many to think about who the actors are in the “sentence” of innovation. This is the people side of innovation—entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, champions, mavericks, mentors of mavericks, midwives, sponsors, gatekeepers, etc.—the “subjects” who are involved in making the innovation come to life.

As innovation practitioners, when we reflect upon our experiences, some emphasize the subject of the sentence—i.e., who is innovating—while others emphasize the predicate of the sentence—i.e., how is the process being conducted and what is being conducted “on” (the object, or the ‘innovation’).

Neither one of these perspectives is necessarily better than the other. However, it may make sense to be aware of the differences and to speak (and think) in complete sentences when it comes to innovation in general. It may help in nurturing innovations that work•.


This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in January 2004. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 387-1270. 

Hunting for "Bears" with a Maverick

By John Raley

Several years ago, I was talking with some people about what it was like to work with a Maverick.  The answer I received was in the form of a story.  At first I found the story to be, well, quite humorous.  However, the more I thought about the story, the more I realized just how replete and rich it was with insights about Mavericks, about the people who work with them, and about organizations that hope to have successful Mavericks in their midst.

The story says working for a maverick is like going bear hunting.  Your group, including a maverick named Charlie, arrives at the hunting cabin in the evening.  After unpacking, everyone turns in for a good night’s sleep.  The next morning you awake and discover that Charlie the maverick is gone.

A quick search confirms that Charlie is not in or around the cabin.  About that time you hear Charlie’s voice, coming from the woods, yelling “Open the door, open the door!”  Looking outside, you see Charlie running down the path toward the cabin with a bear in hot pursuit.  “Open the door, open the door,” Charlie continues to yell.

“Oh my God,” everyone gasps.  “We have to open the door so that Charlie can get into the safety of the cabin.  If he has to slow down to open the door, the bear will surely catch him just outside the door.”  So you open the door and yell at Charlie to run faster.

Just as Charlie gets to the door, with the bear nipping at his heels, Charlie quickly steps aside.  The bear unable to stop, hurls into the cabin.  Charlie quickly slams the door and then heads back up the trail yelling, “You take care of that one.  I’ll go get another!”

That is what it is like to work with a Maverick.

Everyone in the story had the same purpose – going bear hunting.  However, there were different expectations of how the bear hunting would proceed.  The metaphors in the story say a lot about mavericks, about working with mavericks, and about what organizations can expect from mavericks.

The Bear represents new ideas.  All organizations want new ideas to improve their products, their people, and their competitive advantage.  Management is always interested in bringing new ideas into the organization.

The Group represents the people working with a maverick.  These people need to stay on their toes because they never know exactly what the maverick is going to be bringing through the door, or exactly when this will occur.  People working with a maverick need a broad spectrum of skills and need to keep their skills sharp because the form the new idea has when it enters the organization may not be what would normally be expected.  And, perhaps most importantly, people working with a maverick need to be comfortable with surprises and capable of handling them.

Charlie represents the Maverick.  The maverick sees his or her job as one of going out into the wilderness and bringing new ideas back to the organization.  Once the maverick has brought the new idea back to the organization (i.e., the bear is in the cabin), he sees his part of the job as done and goes off in search of the next idea.

People in the organization, unless they understand mavericks, will feel that the maverick has left things undone, did not maintain ownership of the idea through to completion, and left a mess for them to clean up.

The Cabin represents the Organization.  An organization is typically designed and operated with the expectation that things will happen in a certain way.  However, a maverick within an organization will often have things happening in a quite different way.  As picture in the story, having a bear loose in the cabin runs the risk of tearing up the cabin a bit.  However, the benefit is that the maverick is off hunting again and more bears can be caught sooner rather than later.

The same can be said of organizations who hope to have successful mavericks in their midst.  The organization must be flexible enough to accommodate having things “torn up a bit” knowing that, in the long run, they will have a more rapid influx of useful new ideas.  However, key to that success is also having a group of people within the organization that can take raw ideas and transform them into things that are of value to the organization.

Going hunting for bears with a maverick can be an exciting and profitable path for innovation within an organization.  However, be prepared.  Make sure that you are ready for surprises, you have a team that can handle them, and you have a structure that can survive some turmoil!

This article was originally published in Innovating Perspectives in September 1999. For this and other back issues of our newsletter, please visit our website at innovationsthatwork.com or call (415) 387-1270.    

Editor's Note: The Maverick Way: Profiting from the Power of the Corporate Misfit was published as a book in 2000. If you would like a signed copy of the book by author Lanny Vincent, please call 415-387-1270 or you may purchase a copy at Amazon.com: