Why is innovation so hard for large organizations? This question came up a few weeks back and I wrote a about that. But you can never write enough about this subject. And can creativity and innovation really be nourished and managed in large corporate settings when senior executives are mainly focused on quarterly earnings? How can we equip different level of managers with tools and framework to develop, conceptualize and manage innovative ideas? What organization structure or design is best for innovation to happen?
Here is a good one from my friend Scott. Moving these ideas within a large organization setting is like driving a big bus through a small busy market place, there’s simply no place to park. And you risks running over some people and their livelihood is selling fruits in that market.
I remember some dialogue exchange during an event at HBS around "Creativity, Entrepreneurship and Organizations of the Future", the impression I had when I walked out was many felt that traditional management practice has little to contribute to processes of concept creation and innovation. It is in fact the number one barrier to innovation. Innovation is not really part of modern management and it is not something that is taught in B-schools. Our management system and training put too much emphasis on “control” and not much on “inspiration” and “empowerment”. Film school and Design school is best in training people to learn how to “inspire” and it is almost the same process to turn a little idea into a 90 minutes film that people resonate then of thousands of people.
One guy raised the question if whether creativity scales? That’s a good one. Can an innovator be more productive with the substantial resources that a large organization can provide? Or does the process work better for two or three crazy guys in the garage with $50,000. Are resource-constrained entities ending up have to be more creative because they have to find ways of dealing with the constraints?
On the question of "What isn't management's role in innovation?" Michelle Malay Carter stated the case this way: "Nearly all current performance management models are stacked against innovation." This includes, according to B. V. Krishnamurthy, confining such activities to an "R&D function" even though he questioned, "whether organizations are ready for … open collaboration." Ulrich Nettesheim suggested that, if innovation is to be fostered in the conventional organization, "the role and practices of management require innovation as well." But what kind of innovation in management are we thinking about? There were many ideas flying around. Nearly all called for a new kind of leadership…. strategic leadership or inspirational leadership. Umesh Gupta stated, "Innovation … is directly proportional to the attitude of senior management”. Dan Hoch put it nicely, "… the real question revolves not around whether the managers have the courage, but does the CEO have the vision and fortitude to stand before the board and defend the opportunity to explore and fail?" There are a few different model of innovation. With the proliferation of networking technologies, more open-innovation will happen beyond the boundaries of traditional enterprise? Here are the four most common innovation approaches:
- GE: CECOR - Calibrate, Explore, Create, Organize, and Realize
- Peter Widdis: People Provoking Process to Prototype Passion
- Idris Mootee: Pattern Recognition, Participation, Prototyping, Possibilities
- Suzanne Merritt: Collect. Connect. Create.
Innovation is hard work (who says it’s easy). Not only it requires intelligence, it also takes out a lot of emotional energy and personal commitment. It is not for everyone.
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