Are you inundated with information on innovation? The problem is that organizations are often paying lip service to innovation but their culture, processes and structures are stifling potential innovation and producing no results.
Leaders must break away from traditional ways of thinking and create cultures where the status quo is challenged. Rather than create innovation departments, innovation roles or innovation centers, leaders need to ensure their organizational culture embraces innovation so that it flourishes and delivers results.
Breaking away from traditional thinking
Pull a George – remember The Opposite episode of Seinfeld where Jerry tells George that “if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite must be right.” George proceeds to do everything opposite of what he normally would do. While this should not be adopted as a life philosophy, new insights and ideas may emerge when you take a position opposite to what you normally would. Conformity can kill innovation. So when everyone agrees on something, take an opposite perspective and see how this vantage point gives you some different insights that can lead to innovation.
Permission to Fail (in order to learn from failures and adjust accordingly) – to thrive, innovation requires people to have permission to be curious, crazy and courageous in coming up with unique ideas. It requires permission to fail in the pursuit of a unique and useful idea that is serving a business purpose. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, said in a Geek Wire interview, “I can guarantee you that everything we do will not work. And, I am never concerned about that…. We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details…. We don’t give up on things easily. Our third-party seller business is an example of that. It took us three tries to get the third-party seller business to work. We didn’t give up.”
Embrace Discomfort – this is really tough. Human beings crave certainty and comfort. Be intentional about asking difficult questions, exploring seemingly unrelated topics and even physically being in different space. This demonstrates that it is okay not to be “buttoned up” at all times. Show that as a leader, you are okay trying new things or not having all the answers. Discomfort and uncertainty can create new insights that the comfort of status quo would never reveal.
In Peter Drucker‘s HBR article, The Discipline of Innovation, he defines innovation as “the effort to create purposeful, focused change in an enterprise’s economic or social potential.” He says it is the work of knowing rather than doing.
When to use
- When your organization talks about innovation but culture, processes and structures are stifling results.
- When leaders need to challenge the status quo and break away from traditional ways of thinking.
- When teams tend toward conformity and you want to generate new insights by intentionally taking opposite perspectives.
- When you want to create space and safety for people to experiment, fail, learn and adjust.
- When you want to model and normalize discomfort and uncertainty as part of innovation.
TL;DR
- Innovation stalls when culture, processes and structures pay lip service to it but suppress actual experimentation.
- Intentionally taking an opposite perspective can surface new insights and disrupt conformity that kills innovation.
- People need permission to fail in the pursuit of useful, business-serving ideas in order for innovation to thrive.
- Leaders must embrace and model discomfort and uncertainty to uncover insights the status quo will never reveal.
- Innovation is purposeful, focused change in an organization’s economic or social potential and is the work of knowing.