I have been talking to half-a-dozen of smart men and women this week who are interested in exploring career opportunities with Idea Couture, one common reason for them is they all feel the need to work in place that inspires them and allow them to push their own limits and grow. They are fascinated with the innovation work that we do and how we incubate these ideas into businesses. I like to think that innovation is sort of a “moment of creation”, "moment of inspiration" or "moment of awakening". The big idea moment is only a spark that drives continuous creativity and collaborative imagination, at the same time applying a healthy and positive dose of business realities. It is only the beginning of lots more hard work.
Many talk about radical innovations, I think any real innovations are radical in nature. There's no need to label some radical. The more radical the innovation the more the uncertainty, the more you need innovation to work out what that technology is for and what new behavior you're hoping to drive. The pay-off to innovation is greatest where the uncertainty is highest and this should be understood.
Web 2.0 causes the distributed capacity for innovation to come alive. The ideas flow back up the pipeline from the consumers and they’re often (if not always) ahead of the producers. It is when web 2.0 and other emerging technologies combines with passionate users who are knowledgeable - they’ve got the incentive to innovate and create micro-cultures tied together by new connectivity. Large organizations naturally struggle with any kind of radical innovation for many reasons. Look back at history of business and we know how hard its even for once great companies such as Kodak, Polaroid, Xerox and even Yahoo to reinvent themselves. For any large scale change, you need to create a "burning platform" and ask people to reason to act. One way (may be the only way) to get people to accept and act; NOT to give them any choice. Leadership becomes critical and people need to know the leaders have made up their mind and committed.
Leadership is about intellectual capacity, guts and judgment. Leaders sometimes have to make themselves vulnerable. They need to roll up their sleeves and deal with real problems where others can watch you. No leaders can be successful when all they do is hide in the background. Amazing many CEOs work hard to avoid coming to the front and dealing with difficult problems. Leaders need to reach out and energize the people and encourage them to bring their creativity to work. It is kind of Michael Porter meets Richard Florida. When Jack Welch said earlier in his career that corporations have barely begun to tap the intellectual and emotional resources of their employees, he clearly understood his mission.
Here are a few practical advice:
- As a leader, you must believe that individuals have inherent creativity and innovate when they see an opportunity. Reward people with original ideas and discourage people taking credit of ideas from others.
- Allocate resources in creating the architecture to enable people to share ideas including making use of informal and external networks.
- Recognize the need for the culture to drive and maintain innovation e.g. a lack of fear, and rewards for experimentation.
- Develop decision structures to enable managers to be innovative. Teach them the art of managing paradoxes and ‘fuzzy logic’ to be able to reconcile conflicting ideas.
- Stress the needs
for balance in analytical skills and creativity, possess emotional intelligence and sensitivity to multi-cultural and multi-generational issues, demonstrate persistence in sticking with a goal although with flexibility, and execute on great ideas.
