Innovation in the Workplace

There was a time when organizations could not compete without continuous improvement, today organizations cannot compete without innovation. There was a great article recently in Forbes about innovation that explains it very well, so I will be using quotes and information from this article to help drive home some key points. First of all, "the term innovation gets confused with creativity, according to Barry Conchie, principal leadership consultant at Gallup "Let's be clear: Innovation and creativity are not the same thing," Conchie said. "Creativity may spur innovation, but there's an element of action missing there."

The difference is that innovation actually brings ideas to life. "You can't get innovation without a groundswell of creativity," Conchie said. "But you [must] turn creativity into something that has an impact beyond the conversation you had about the idea." Innovation is more than an idea -- it takes place when great ideas actually happen and make their mark on the world.

In Clifton's words, "Better doesn't work anymore. Different does." If innovation is today's hot commodity, how can business leaders harvest it? They must create conditions in which innovation can thrive in their companies. Below are the four drivers of innovation:

Driver #1: Finding and Fostering Talent
The first key is finding the right talent to drive innovation. In every organization there are basically three kinds of people when it comes to who creates innovative work and who does not (see chart). So, at MBI, we seek out and try to find people in our organization who are actively engaged and we hire, as best we can, those who demonstrate that they have been actively engaged in the past.

Innovation almost always starts with employees, not with management! I am constantly asking and looking for ideas from people in our company and you'll see me gently prodding you or others for NEW ideas, not just how to improve what we have... but both are important.

Driver #2: Managers Matter
If there are leaders in organizations who blunt ideas or do not listen to new ways of thinking and doing - then employee innovation will go nowhere. It is critical for leaders to spur innovation forward...not necessarily come up with ideas themselves but rather encourage new ways to look at things and reward and recognize the actively engaged, innovative people within an organization.

Driver #3: Relationships Matter Too
How people interact within a company has a huge impact on innovation. Most great ideas are formed with two or maybe three people standing around, having coffee and talking about new ways things can get done. It doesn't normally happen when someone is all by themselves. So, how people interact, the social norms within the company that allow for interaction and the quality of the personal relationships all make a difference in driving innovation.

Driver #4: Keeping the Right Leaders
This refers to the CEO. Succession planning is critical for the next leader to embrace innovation. Too often organizations rely one on one leader at the top to champion innovation and when that person leaves, innovation dries up. Who is next in line to carry the leadership torch and what leadership qualities are evident to continue innovation?

I would add one more, Driver#5: How the physical environment affects people

At MBI, our design focuses on how people in organizations work together and work alone. We are finding more and more needs for open spaces that support innovation; why? Because rarely does innovation happen when one person is working alone, and rarely does innovation happen when many people are working on an idea. Most innovation occurs in small groups, particularly two people (dyadic work). Spaces that support innovation and idea development usually include the following:

1. Highly reconfigurable areas, allowing people to recreate their environment to support one, two or 6 people quickly.
2. Use of flexible marker boards to allow for information persistence. That is, get the ideas up so everyone can see and share them and re-use the information at tomorrow's meeting quickly or alter and add to it quickly. People think about what they see and remember information that is visible vs. being on a computer or in a file folder.
3. Make technology easy to use - have internet connections, plug and play capability with ease of displaying digital information so the whole group can see it. Access to data and internet resources is critical in today's world.

So, space matters. It can help or hinder how people work and therefore the speed and quality of innovation in the work place.

So, to Summarize: "When you put talent in a fully loaded environment, you get performance out of people," In today's fast-paced marketplace, if a company keeps offering the same product, a rival can easily race past with a better one. And yet another competitor will blow them both out of the water when it invents something altogether different and better -- something innovative. To remain competitive, companies must consider how to find and keep visionary leaders and how to foster innovation and creativity in their employees.

*Excerpts from 'The Four Drivers of Innovation' by Shelly Mika. Release date: January 11, 2007; Source: http://gmj.gallup.com

posted by Scott Messmore @ Wednesday, February 14, 2007   0 comments