How to keep up with the pace of change

While everybody wants to be innovative, few companies achieve the level of innovation they are hoping for. There are several reasons for this, starting with not being enough in tune with what the customer wants.

A second reason is that justice is not done to the talent in the company by lack of attention being paid to the way in which ideas move through the organisation. While every organisation has processes for routine work such as materials flow and collection of accounts receivable, few have procedures in place for capturing ideas that move through their ranks.

Polite teams get polite results. The leaders need to be able to create the capacity for constructive confrontation. All too often, both organisations and individuals shy away from this. It is easier to build a team that gets along than to push people to fulfill their potential.

Essentially, innovation represents the jump from one generation of product to another. This is not simple at the best of times and being able to marshal the arguments, hire the talent and have the courage to reorganise could all be made easier if only we could see further.

One reason companies do not get full value out of the talent they employ is because the number of people who take time to think within the organisation is limited by roles, by hierarchy, by turf and by functions.

Today's organisations ought to be encouraging as many people as possible to be innovative and to create processes and mechanisms whereby those ideas and insights can get to the right people at the right time.

Three things are essential to driving strategic innovation. The first is making the right choices. This means looking up and down the value chain. Distributing innovation along the value chain and then being able to coordinate that process in such a way that value is captured, is important.

The second is having a grip on what the innovative abilities needed for success are.

The third is finding someone with the ability to assume the leadership role and drive the execution.

Hire for attitude, train for skills?

Innovation, however, is all about change and if one wants to create change, it is preferable to increase the chances of success by getting smart people in the right skill areas. The risk that comes with this, however, is big egos and the challenge of making them work together. If you go to the trouble of hiring great people, and paying a premium to bring them in, then they need to be given the things they need to let them be great. It all comes down to pushing the boundaries of achievability and stretching the team to meet those higher expectations.