Companies know they have to innovate to grow, but many struggle to fit innovation into the strictures of established business. Mary Mesaglio, research vice-president with Gartner, gave delegates at Gartner Symposium a number of insights into ways to kick-start the process.
Innovation has a sense of vague business benefit, Mesaglio said, which scares people off. "No one wakes up and says 'I'm gonna innovate today to increase shareholder value!' But people do wake up and want to create the best product for their sector, or fix a broken process. Ideas are everywhere - all too often the people with the best ideas are the ones who are not empowered to bring them to fruition."
Be specific
To address this, be more specific, Mesaglio said. Innovation is easiest to foster when it is accompanied by clear goals and milestones. "In personal terms, 'run a marathon this year' is a terrible New Year's resolution. 'I will run this specific marathon on this day, and tomorrow I will run around the block twice to start training, and here are my shoes,' now that's clear.
"In the 60s, John F Kennedy made a bold pronouncement: we will put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. He didn't say they would be good at space exploration - there was a very clear goal and a specific timeframe, and NASA and the American people could really get behind it."
Why bother?
There are two key questions a business leader should ask themselves, Mesaglio said. "Why would anyone innovate for you? And how do you keep people innovating over time?"
Gartner research found most staff innovate because they are specifically expected to. That runs counter to the sense that innovation is an innate talent or requires sweeping organisational change to foster the right environment, Mesaglio notes. "You may not be able to change the whole company, but you can take responsibility for your direct reports. Challenge them to come up with ideas; set up focus groups and demand prototypes of new apps or projects."
Innovation requires momentum too, Mesaglio says. "It's a matter of habit, and you have to pay attention to it because it is an extra effort, like fitting gym training into a busy schedule. You can't demand new ideas every Tuesday, but you can ask them to schedule activities which drive innovation, like meeting with other departments or reviewing customer feedback."
Subtle death
Most innovation teams die, because they are too vaguely defined and lack momentum. "They don't die suddenly - they die sad, slow, subtle deaths," Mesaglio said. The result is a lingering sense of resentment and institutional fear of trying again. So it is vital to change the stigma of innovation, she says. Often, innovation is associated with failure, almost measured by it. Silicon Valley start-ups embrace this in the culture of "fail early, fail often", and hold FailCon conferences to share war stories.
To many employees, that turns into a fear of failure, Mesaglio says. Instead, promote the sense that innovation is a process of learning and experimentation. The journey, rather than the destination, is the business value - and sometimes you'll get a winning idea as well.
Share