True innovation is hard work and takes time. It needs to be a part of a strategic plan, developed and launched in a deliberate manner. There’s nothing new in that, and few would disagree. But let’s look at some corporate reality. There are two key factors that can essentially kill effective innovation; corporate culture and employee reality.
First let’s look at the corporate culture. Private and publicly held companies are both under extreme pressure to deliver financial returns for the short run. It’s hard to convince shareholders (or banks, or holding companies) to wait two years for something great to occur. Expectations are set on a quarterly basis. With such intense pressure to deliver in the short term, it’s much easier pursue incremental change than to embark on a longer term innovation strategy. Companies will begin innovation efforts with the big picture in mind, but often succumb to the pressure and pursue only those ideas that can be knocked out quickly.
From an individual employee standpoint, the pressure is very similar. Who in corporate America expects to be in their current job two years from now? Even if an individual doesn’t change jobs, the reality is the organization will most likely change around them shifting all priorities and efforts accordingly. What motivates a person to embark on an effort that lasts a long time? The person that delivers a project seems to get the credit, not the one that does the hard work on the front end. Over the course of a typical, strategic innovation project it’s not uncommon to see multiple people at the helm, each adding their own opinion and wanting to put their mark on the effort in case it happens to be successful.
It’s not lack of interest, its lack of vision beyond the immediate future. Companies spend considerable time and effort creating one, three and five year plans. But the initiatives that get pursued are those that can be delivered quickly to show an immediate impact on the bottom line. Can anything be done to shift this mindset? Or are we doomed to a culture of incrementalism?
Great post Jerry. I think you already know my answer to your opening question.
Yeah… It’s a sad reality isn’t it?
Jerry, I think everything you said is true. I agree that most companies aren’t willing to invest the serious time and energy that real innovation requires. The other observation we have in working with a variety of companies is that the skill to identify something that can sell and would be profitable is relatively rare. It’s interesting to play back some of our sales calls from people who didn’t license our technology as they tried to ascertain whether we had something of value (it turned out we did). And to be honest only very few have the ability to discern when something has value. More typically there isn’t confidence that an innovation is good until someone else does it first and proves out the market acceptance. The ability to sift the wheat from the chaff is a valuable skill and it’s why Apple could beat Nokia even though Nokia had an R&D budget that was many fold Apple’s in their heyday. It’s also why it is often reported that R&D spending doesn’t necessarily correlate with market success….larger drug companies are another good example. OK, you hit my hot button!
Great thoughts Brad. I love hitting hot buttons!
Great thoughts. It is toxic, yet survivable with the proper suit and stepping stones. A suit of short term, incremental innovations helps shield true ground breaking innovations that take longer. The stepping stones (people that do come and go) that help provide the footing (time/budget/resources) for the ground breaking innovation. It is not easy and you will get burned yet it is possible.
But an organization has to be able to “see” far enough into the future to be willing to lay the groundwork. I agree that it’s possible, but isn’t it far too rare?
Vision is indeed a rarity. Yet you can adapt the groundwork into bite size bits people can easily adopt. Evolutionary rather the revolutionary. By your and my standards yes far too rare. By others that like to claim being “innovative” it is more than enough for this quarter.
Totally agree!