If you’ve read this far, you now know enough to (at least) start your innovation effort in a way likely to bring success. The question you must now be asking having digested this book, is what you should do next?
It is a very good question. The answer is simple: just start innovating.
As I mentioned in the introduction there is no single text you’ll be able to find that will tell you how to run an innovation effort that works in your specific organisation. Building an innovation capability takes time, and it takes practical experience which is earned through doing.
Every innovation effort is different. Just starting is the only way to build the skills which will lead to sustainable success.
Having said that, there are theoretical tools which will be useful in guiding the overall shape of your programme.
Firstly, if you have the time, I recommend you read E.M. Rogers’ The Diffusion of Innovation.
Rogers was the founding thinker who first noted new ideas are spread through populations in particular ways. He posited the two stage adoption model now enshrined in “word-of-mouth” marketing: the idea people will tell each other about things they like, and this will make it more likely that those they tell will also adopt. He was also the initiator of the idea of “early adopters”, “laggards” and so forth.
The Diffusion of Innovations is a big, thick text, but well worth the read if you want the broadest possible understanding of the mechanics of innovation science.
The next book you should consider is Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma. After Rogers, Christensen is possibly the most influential innovation thinker of modern times. He’s the man who first provided a theoretical construction to explain the way established companies and products are overturned by new entrants, who on the face of it, have no chance at all of succeeding.
Finally, there are hundreds of other books on practical innovation topics. If there is a specific tome on innovation management for your industry I suggest you read that too. I, for example, wrote Innovation and the Future-Proof Bank which explains how to do innovation management for bankers. There are similar texts for almost every other industry.
I’d try to avoid the non-industry specific texts, though. They tend to be full of high level advice without much practical application.
Next, having gotten through the activities recommended in the 10 rules in this book there are a couple of diagnostic questions you should ask yourself. They’ll help to determine if your innovation effort is heading in the right direction.
The first is this: has your CEO paid any attention whatsoever to your innovation efforts thus far? Is he or she even interested in the work you’re doing?
If the answer is negative, you are potentially facing some difficult waters. CEO support for innovation has, in too many studies to mention here, been shown to be the critical success factor in getting new things done.
Of course, there are two reasons your CEO might not be noticing your efforts. The first is you’re following a Play-Not-2-Lose innovation strategy, and have consequently focused on incrementalism. In this case you may not have a problem, because CEO attention will come with time as mounting returns follow from innovation at scale.
On the other hand, if you’re following a Play-2-Win strategy you do definitely have something to worry about if you aren’t getting noticed by the CEO.
When you’re executing a Play-2-Win strategy, the kinds of innovation you’re doing are material to the long term fortunes of your firm. Lack of attention from the CEO means you are either not expected to succeed or that at some future time you’ll be stopped from succeeding. This should be addressed now, or at least as soon as there is something substantial to talk about.
But what if you can’t get CEO attention no matter what you do? Unless you have a very good reason, it is time to drown-the-puppy.
The second diagnostic question is this: do you have visibility of a pathway to predictable best-in-class returns? In other words, can you say when you will be able to demonstrate you are the best available investment for your organisation, and back this up with substantive figures?
If you aren’t able to articulate a reasonable story around the money your innovation programme will likely face significant challenge in the near term. The challenge will arise the moment the initial euphoria accompanying an innovation effort wears off. Then, business-as-usual investments will take precedence simply because they are seen as more certain.
The third and final diagnostic question to be asking at this point in the innovation effort is this: how much innovation is getting done entirely by the innovation team members, and how much by people outside the innovation team?
As I mentioned earlier in this book, one really needs to ensure that participative innovation is the ordinary operating mode for an innovation team. Doing innovation any other way means the innovation effort won’t scale, which has the consequence of failing to generate appropriate financial results.
By the end of the first year, a solid and loyal base of innovation supporters should exist in your organisation. They’ll be the ones who come up with ideas and who work on those ideas collaboratively. Their efforts will cause others to fight the innovation corner as well.
If you are in the lucky position of having satisfactory answers to all three of these diagnostic questions, there remains one further note: don’t expect results too soon. Neither should you set an expectation that results will come quickly.
Innovation Management is a voyage of discovery. Successful innovation teams are built in years, not a few months.
Although I’ve stated throughout this book that an innovation effort has limited time between start and cancellation if it fails to generate significant returns, there is no point hiding the reality that it takes time to build those returns. There is no better advice I can give than to suggest you set the expectations of your management appropriately.
The first year or so of any innovation effort is a fragile, nervous time. You skate between hoping for the wins you must have and managing the politics which attend the times when you’ve had to drown-the-puppy for whatever reason.
Every week it seems, a new challenge raises its head that has to be handled personally and carefully. The innovation team always seem to be walking on thin ice.
This scenario changes the longer you persist in your innovation effort. Eventually, you get to a tipping point beyond which the possibility of cancellation is remote. Time and time again, I have seen organisations reach that tipping point when their innovation efforts have gotten predictable and become just another business-as-usual process.
It takes time, but the tipping point always arrives eventually with perseverance.
Thank you for taking the time to read The Little Innovation Book. I hope it has helped in some small way, your innovation efforts and the fortunes of your organisations.
Dr. James Gardner is a career innovator and is part of the management team at
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