Innovation Without Commitment…and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves

by

Text-pad-commit_web

It’s difficult to achieve a goal without a plan. Intuitively we know this. We don’t expect to lose weight by not changing the way we eat or exercise. We don’t expect to learn French by purchasing Rosetta Stone and letting it collect dust on a shelf. Yet, when it comes to innovation, this is exactly what we see companies do with their innovation goals. A McKinsey survey found that although more than 70% of senior executives said that innovation will be one of their top three sources of growth, 65% of those same respondents said they were disappointed in their ability to innovate. Innovation can be blocked or impeded by any number of organizational flaws, but in my experience one of the biggest reasons companies fail is that they don’t prioritize the work needed to succeed, namely innovative experiments and projects.

As organizations mature, they refine their processes to reduce risk and improve reliable delivery. We see this in annual portfolio prioritization processes, complete with business cases and 100% allocation of both people and money to projects for the coming year. But what happens when a new business opportunity comes up? You trade resources from an approved project to allow work on your new opportunity. What about when you want to experiment with a new innovative technology? Chances are that you’re told to write a business case, which doesn’t get approved because you can’t promise new revenue.

A slightly more progressive leader might assure you that if a new opportunity comes up, that they will “find resources” for you. Let’s assume they really can get you the money and people you require. How important does your initiative feel when it’s being handled as an exception instead of an expectation? Can a company that truly values innovation expect so little of it that they are comfortable paying for it with the corporate equivalent of checking the couch for spare change?

Innovative experimentation shouldn’t require you to trade budget with active projects or hunt for resources. It needs to be an expected, planned part of doing business in a competitive market. For companies that want to bring their innovation practice out of the shadows, there are a few places to start. First, look at how you allocate people and budget to projects. As I mentioned before, if you have an annual portfolio prioritization process in which you allocate 100% of your people and money to projects, you’re setting yourself up for failure. You need to reserve some resources for innovative experiments. Some companies do this through a dedicated innovation or “skunkworks” team, while others simply hold back a percentage of their time and money to be used when the next project comes along.

Another thing to consider is making sure that the top talent in your organization is not over-burdened. Key employees are often in high demand, and when that occurs it’s all work all the time. This is a problem because these same employees are often your most likely innovators, or they at least have the skills needed to run an innovation experiment. To strike a balance between delivery and innovation, consider reserving a portion of your key talent’s time for side projects so as to allow them to think about something other than their day-to-day work. Some companies also find value in job rotation for key talent. Exposing these employees to other parts of your business not only helps with retention and leadership development but may also spark the next big idea in your company.

Start treating innovation and experimentation as the rule, not the exception, and commit to your innovation strategy by prioritizing the work it requires. It’s not going to happen on its own!

 

READ MORE

The Magic of Mortals

The Magic of Mortals

Daily we wake up to new developments in automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML). Across sectors and industries, automated solutions prove highly successful in surpassing the capacity of the human brain for certain tasks, improving...

read more
Leveling Up: How to Hone Your Skills at Home

Leveling Up: How to Hone Your Skills at Home

Leaders have been trying to crack the code on talent development for years. Recent studies have shown, however, that strength-focused leadership [read: intentionally elevating the qualities that already come naturally to us] is the clear winner for developing talent...

read more
Fake Case Study: Jack of all trades vs. Master of One

Fake Case Study: Jack of all trades vs. Master of One

  Listen to any earnings call or executive presentation and you will likely hear the terms “top line” and “bottom line.” These are words used to describe a business’s performance. According to Investopedia, the words are defined as follows: Top line refers to the...

read more
Your Personality Is Showing

Your Personality Is Showing

There I was, minding my own business one evening, digging into my organization's SEO performance (as one does), when I came across something interesting. Search terms related to "MBTI" — or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, developed by Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel...

read more
Lessons From a Change Manager Who Hates Change

Lessons From a Change Manager Who Hates Change

Hello. My name is Monique, and I’m a change manager who hates change.   After years of receiving “consulting therapy” from various mentors, I am now able to say these words out loud and proudly. But for a long time, it felt more like an admission of guilt. I mean, who...

read more
Creativity as a Cure

Creativity as a Cure

The topic of creative solutioning has been front and center these days as we talk more and more about organizational adaptability in the face of dynamic and uncertain times. For example, I recently read about a project that got me thinking about specific priorities...

read more
Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company — Why Now?

Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company — Why Now?

Big news over here as we close out the year - we have been acquired by Pariveda, a 750-person consulting firm in 12 markets across North America! We are now “Thought Ensemble, a Pariveda Company” and I’ll be serving as the Managing Vice President continuing to lead...

read more
Thought Ensemble Joins Pariveda Solutions!

Thought Ensemble Joins Pariveda Solutions!

Dallas, December 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Pariveda, a leader specializing in solving complex technology and business problems, announces the acquisition of Thought Ensemble. With the addition of Thought Ensemble, Pariveda now provides holistic business strategy,...

read more
Thoughts on Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act

Thoughts on Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act

It was about a year ago that we first started hearing about Colorado’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Act (SB19-085) and I knew it was going to be national news. We’d just gotten past the “Rocky Mountain High” jokes, and our lovely state was trying to break new ground...

read more