So this is it, “Innovation” is on the Agenda of your company. You’re told by your Manager that in today’s competitive world, it’s often about the survival of the fittest. Inspirational speeches are made by the highest executives of your organization in order to energize the troops. No… it’s no joke… it’s innovation-time. You smiled looking at this sudden surge of ‘tracts’ saying “I Want Your Ideas!”, but not for long…
Indeed, you’ve been recently informed that your team must innovate. Finding ways to innovate is now part of your mid-year objectives and everything in your organization is in place to receive your suggestions, assess your ideas and rate the capacity of your team to innovate via a so-called innovation process.
But it’s ok, plenty ideas you have, and there’s always one or two brave members of your team that will actively submit some flat ideas until they get rewarded by a financial incentive of some kind.
So here it is, after a month or two, you’ve got a dozen of suggestions (including your own ones) and you decide to submit each of them to an innovation review committee. And to do so, your first step is to fill an innovation request form.
Let’s get started. First section: “Author/Originator”. Hmmm, first entry – first issue. Actually, the idea doesn’t really come from “one” person… It originally came-up from a need that many identified, so it really doesn’t make a lot of sense to attribute the thought to one person in particular… But you’re thinking “right, let’s play the game anyway. I will attribute the idea to guy X”. You like this guy, and you want your team to look good, so you better find someone credible for “PR” purposes.
Now, second section: Enter here a short synopsis of the proposed Innovation. Ok, that’s quite easy… at this rate you’ll be done with this form in less than five minutes.
So, third and last section: “How much money will it save for the company?” [...] You have to re-read this one a couple of times. No, you’re not dreaming. Horrified, you start to realize that all ideas you’ll submit will get stripped-off based on a couple of attributes; the prevalent one being about COST-SAVINGS.
Wait a minute. None of your pile of “bright ideas” can be translated in immediate monetary terms… and the more you think of it, the more it sounds horribly wrong. You’re thinking: “It can’t always be about cost-savings or economies of scale right?”, “What about adding value?!”.
You’re unfortunately not the only one of our beloved readers in this case. Like for all of us, you’ll discover that once “the hype” is over, such “pseudo-innovation” processes never go very far anyway. It takes more than a “process” to bring innovation to the doorsteps of any organization.
“innovation is not on-demand”
Before the whole thing eventually sinks, you’ll see several “innovation consultants†coming to the rescue, scheduling informal “employee interviews”, thanking you warmly for the profusion of ideas you came-up with. Their mission? Who knows… Maybe genuinely looking to drag the best ideas out to the surface and display them in front of some “upper-management” bench… Or it may be about finding “innovative ways” to draw cash from your company. All the same, these guys generally speak of an home-grown ‘methodology’ or refer to some outstanding piece of consulting aiming to get your place to innovate. Each ‘methodology’ is more enigmatic and believable than the other… but the vast majority of them are not going anywhere fast. And you would not mind too much about it, only if you, dear middle-manager, didn’t remain with the hell of a mid-year objective to fulfill: getting your team to innovate.
The problem is that innovation is not on-demand. Innovation can’t be engineered. Innovation can exist because ideas exist. Ideas cannot be engineered. Ideas exist because you let your People the space (the time, the place) to express their point-of-view, to share their interests. Innovation exists because you empower your People inviting them to make things better than what they are; because you foster in your People the “will†of making things better than what they are. Innovation exists at all levels of your organization. Innovation often exists in the corridors of your organization. Innovation hides in many negative conversations, and often follows the sharing of frustrations. Innovation is by nature chaotic, unexpected, a risky business, an experiment and let’s face it, sounds crazy at first.
You don’t do innovation, you tempt innovation to come in your camp, and once there, you give innovation what it needs to stay there. In other words, Innovation comes as a natural consequence of the way you, middle-managers, design your organization, manage your people, communicate your intentions for the future and foster a ‘bold’ culture thriving on change.
And yes, Innovation likes Fun 
and this will be no surprise to you… they’re good friends, but don’t say it to anybody.
Who knows? In time, your team may even come-up with innovations presenting some tangible cost-benefits! Just be aware that it takes lots of experimentation, patience and also a good dose of tolerance. Allow your people (and yourself) to make mistakes along the way. Like many things in life, you often learn good lessons from bad experiences. Doing so, you’re likely to get better and better at ‘innovating’.
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