Kathy Gibson reports from Gartner Symposium – To make sure innovation happens within your enterprise, company leaders need to do much more than simply develop a process for it, or even make it a corporate imperative.
This is the word from Gartner analyst Mary Mesaglio, who says there are certain psychological elements that need to be considered to foster a culture of innovation.
“People keep asking me what their innovation process should be,” she says, “This isn’t a bad question, but it shouldn’t be the first question. You can put together a process, but it may not result in an idea.”
Sadly, most organisations’ innovation teams die within 24 months of their launch. “They don’t die in meteoric explosion of risk taking,” Mesaglio says. “it would be nice, but its not what happens. They tend to die a very sad, slow,
subtle death. That’s because companies are schizophrenic when it comes to innovation – today they want people to innovate, and tomorrow they must something else.”
Another common problem, she says, is that innovation teams kick off with a lot of analysis. “So, after six months, you have really great spreadsheets but this doesn’t translate into something of value.”
To think like a psychologist, Mesaglio says there are two questions organisations need to address: why would anyone innovate for you? And how do you keep people innovating over time?
The answer to why anyone would innovate for the company is that they probably won’t. “This is because most large corporations assassinate innovation from the inside out,” she says. “I bet most organisations are talking about innovation – or at least the executives are talking about it. And it’s not just because it’s the word du jour, but because its important – you have to innovate to stay ahead of the curve.
“But even if the CEO is talking about innovation, this doesn’t mean it will actually happen because it is assassinated in an insidious way, through the parallel paradox where the people with the best ideas are often those least able to influence their lot. So you have executives wanting innovation and entry-level people with ideas – but nothing happens.
“The problem is that middle management is encouraged not to innovate; they are risk averse, operations focused and have no time for new ideas. So the power paradox isn’t right.”
Another stumbling block is that, in many organisations, innovation is a dangerous act, with many influences bearing down in ideas and preventing them from moving into the mainstream. These influences include fear, apathy, inertia, and a “not invented here” attitude.
“Ideas are happening all over the place, but they don’t go anywhere,” Mesaglio says. “One problem is that ideas don’t travel well – the person who has an idea and the person who could do something with it are too far apart.”
Mesaglio adds that there are some practical ways to get people within a company innovating.
The first and most important is to have a purpose. “Innovation needs a purpose beyond telling people ‘let’s innovate’,” she says. “The purpose needs to be personal and proactive. As long as it’s motivating, the purpose can be big or small. So choose a destination that it clear and sticky.”
It’s also important to understand what motivates people to be innovative. “People don’t innovate just because they should – even when they know they’re important,” Mesaglio says.
Surprisingly, though, the number one reason that a person will innovate in the workplace is that it’s part of his job expectations – because his direct boss expects him to innovate as part of his job.
“The reason this works is because it is in someone’s control. Managers are much more able to influence their culture than you think you are. And people are more creative than you think they are.”
Another part of an innovation strategy is to expect it, she adds. “If you directly expect if from your people and they directly expect it from their people, you are more likely to get it.
However enterprises must create an environment where it is safe for people to invest. This means leaders must model the behaviour they want from people; they should use positive language repeatedly to dispel fear; and they should risk homeostasis, where people won’t break out of their comfort zone, by helping them to feel secure in other ways.
Once people have been encouraged to innovate, enterprises need to find ways to keep them innovating over time, and the first step in this is to keep it on the agenda.
“You do have to pay attention to innovation to make sure it happens,” Mesaglio says. “It’s like exercise; you have to make time for it. And you have to start somewhere.”
There is tremendous power in making innovation routine, she adds. “When it comes to innovation it’s the things you do over and above your job that count. If you can turn little things into habits, you can unleash power.
“This is not that easy, however. You can’t just say to people ‘Every Tuesday at 4:00 you must have a game-changing idea’, but you can say ‘Every Tuesday at 4:00 go and talk to someone ins a different department’. Those kind of habits can bear fruit.”
In the very first move in an innovation process, leaders have to be very clear about the goal and unambiguous,” Mesaglio adds. The very first step is hard, so make it as easy as possible.”
If the company does opt for an innovation process, she urges leaders to personalise the process as its more about the behaviour behind each step than it’s about the process itself.
“Engagement is important: make innovation 10 times easier and more fun than anything else – people don’t change for boring. You can’t mandate quality innovation so make it fun, easy and engaging.”
Enterprises should also consider how hard they make it for people to contribute ideas; how much approval potential innovators need to experiment with an idea; and how long ideas wait for the go/no go decision in the organisation’s innovation process.
“So take the first step – choose an action and turn it into a habit,” she says, offering some additional suggestions for making innovation endemic within an organisation:
* Start every staff meeting with an innovation moment;
* Plan a lunch a week to meet with someone from another department to exchange ideas;
* Start your next staff meeting with a story of personal failure and redemption;
* Create a failure box – every time a staff member uses the word failure, they pay into the box;
* Use the first 30 minutes of every Tuesday to search for innovation bright spots in the company;
* Meet all your Generation Y developers to see how they’re innovating in their personal lives;
* If your team is virtual create a digital learn-o-meter to record how many times team members try to succeed yet fall short – and celebrate as the metre goes up.
