The past five years in business has been both inspiring and perplexing.
Just a few years ago, bricks-and-mortar industries that were once the foundation of our economy were suddenly overshadowed by bolder, sassier dot-coms with a seeming boundless capacity to attract new money and employees.
But wait. Just months ago, the dot-coms had the wind , and venture capital , knocked out of them. The Internet-driven economic honeymoon over, bricks-and-mortar industries once again are “in vogue.” Is it back to the “old way” of doing business? Not a chance.
Experimentation and lateral thinking creativity driven by the dot-com revolution have challenged the traditional linear processes of capitalism. While new business models continue to evolve, consumers demand higher levels of customer service and product development, raising the level of expectations at all points.
As the foundation shifts beneath the feet of companies, they must be ready to spring to a new plateau. So what really matters in this unpredictable world of tension, where “who’s on top” can shift like the San Andreas Fault? Innovation is what matters.
Innovation may appear to be an overused antidote for the status quo. After all, what’s the point of yet another cup holder in a luxury sedan or transparent lime-green electronic thing? But there is a point.
– Innovation Stems From Core Values
True innovation in business comes from something deeper , a non-negotiable core value that fosters radical changes in how a company creatively implements. It comes from building a culture that sustains, and continually repeats, innovation.
Actually, achieving that culture is one of the greatest challenges of any progressive company. True innovation is often messy, risky, uncomfortable and impromptu.
The perception that great ideas will come from a brainstorming session on the first Tuesday of each month at 10 a.m. in conference room B is baffling, even laughable. Innovation is unscheduled. It is sparked in the most informal of settings: in a hallway, at the coffee bar, in the car. It is lived and breathed daily.
But while there is no concrete formula for creativity, certain things must be in place to build a continuous capacity for innovation inside your company.
o People are most important.
Nothing is more imperative in a culture of innovation than having the right people in it. And for those innovators, nothing is more critical than a deep respect for the process and the inherent people-to-people contact required. Knowledge spreads when individuals are nurtured.
Cultures of innovation support and feed on the generation of ideas, any ideas. Taking risks is expected. “Failure” is considered learning. The new status is who continually comes up with the best ideas, not the size or location of the person’s private office
Nurturing people through innovation processes, and then achieving success, ignites a fire and passion for new ideas. “Talent has become more important than capital, strategy, or R & D;,” proclaims Ed Michaels, a partner at the international problem-solving consulting firm McKinsey and Co. Recruit the brightest people who love to collaborate, and keep knowledge flowing.
o Information is open, shared equally, and respectfully debated.
Innovation happens when explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge intersects. Explicit knowledge is about understanding data and procedures. Tacit knowledge is the cumulative body of information that is experiential, not easily described and intuitive.
“Out of tacit knowledge comes all innovation,” said Karen Stephenson of UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management.
– Managing Knowledge Promotes Innovation
The more knowledge and its continual transfer is managed, the better you innovate. Access to knowledge comes from a culture that promotes non-judgmental communication among others.
“The mere existence of knowledge somewhere in the organization is of little benefit; it becomes a valuable corporate asset only if it is accessible. Its value increases with the level of accessibility,” wrote Laurence Prusal and Thomas Davenport in the book “Working Knowledge.”
Individuals in innovative companies can imitate nature by seeing themselves as ecosystems with one idea dependent upon another. Consider the human genome project in which researchers publish their results on the Internet for others to utilize and build upon.
Collaboration in an innovative culture is not only essential, it’s also a powerful tool for growing new ideas, and expanding upon old ones. Human interaction ignites innovation.
o Solving the right problems.
True innovation is about knowing how to define and solve the right problems. People in innovative cultures are encouraged to release ownership of ideas, and savor collaboration.
“Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius,” said Peter Skillman of IDEO, the famed design studio that helped create products like the Palm Pilot.
– The Power Of Solving Problems
No story illustrates the power of solving the right problems better than this one: In the early 1900s, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. was on the verge of bankruptcy. Mining was not profitable.
One day, an engineer went to top management with a problem: “We have a lot of sand. How do we use this resource?” Out of that problem, sandpaper was invented, and the company, now called 3M, has thrived for more than a century. Innovation is mainly about making unusual connections between things.
o Innovation is never done it’s repeated.
A case in point: Ray Kurzweil of the East Coast-based Kurzweil Computer Products is an inventor of devices for the disabled who recently won the world’s largest prize from MIT for his achievements. Over his more than 30-year career, he invented the first print-to-speech reading program for blind people and the first speech-recognition software system. His latest passion, a mechanical device that would allow paraplegics to walk without wheelchairs, is now in development. Kurzweil and his team are examples of how truly innovative cultures never stop germinating ideas.
To achieve a truly innovative culture, the “one hit wonder” is inconceivable. Solving problems is inherent, imbedded within the company.
Whether it’s decoding the human genome, solving the energy crisis, creating or delivering something customers don’t even know they want, the quest for innovation becomes a burning candle within that never goes out. Cultures of innovation support this statement: fail often, to succeed regularly.
What is the next innovation worth to your organization?
McCulley is principal of The McCulley Group, a Solana Beach design and branding studio that strategically intersects interior architecture with graphic communications.
