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All organisations are in the business of solving problems. Innovation has become a word that either strikes fear into the heart of a budget owner or feels like something other people do in a garage in a U.S. suburb. In reality, innovation is when you introduce something that is new, adds value and is implemented to make your organisation better. In the early stages, an organisation thrives on the excitement of solving problems. But as success grows, so does the focus on maintaining stability, pleasing stakeholders, and reducing risks. Without constant growth and fresh challenges, organisations risk stagnation, it’s a case of grow or go, survive or thrive.
Technology can support growth, but our research shows that sustaining it requires a conscious culture and specific behaviours. Whether innovation is at the heart of your strategy, or like many, you simply recognise the need for all organisations to innovate in order to keep ahead of the curve, it’s important to appreciate how to achieve the right balance against our third tension – fearless experimentation vs sharp decision-making.
Too much experimentation can be a waste of time, effort and resources while a lack of it can also lead to reduced growth and a failing organisation… so what can you do to strike the balance of this tension to ensure a culture of innovation - creating the conditions for fearless (but disciplined) experimentation.
Steve Blank wrote in the Harvard Business Review that his experience has shown that being able to respond to threats and problems rapidly can trigger usually 1 of 3 things in an organisation:
1. Often the first plan from leadership for innovation is hiring management consultants who bring out their 20th-century playbook. The consultants reorganise the company. The result is organisational theatre.
2. At the same time, organisations typically adopt innovation activities (hackathons, design thinking classes, innovation workshops, et al.) that result in innovation theatre. While these activities shape, and build culture, they rarely deliver sustainable change.
3. Businesses have realised that the processes and metrics they put in place to optimise innovation, are often obstacles to it. Efforts to reform these are well meaning, but without an overall innovation strategy it’s like building sandcastles on the beach. The result is process theatre.
For most large organisations these activities and reforms don’t increase revenue, profit or market share, nor does it keep them ahead of their competitors.
While dedicating a big budget and resources to an innovation team can be effective, true innovation thrives when every team member is encouraged to contribute to ongoing improvement. Empower your people to explore issues and seek smart solutions, setting clear, value-driven objectives to support sharp decision-making. A shared culture of innovation, with agreed-upon principles, tactics, and guidelines, provides the framework needed for success. When everyone understands how and where innovation fits in, it gives them the confidence and direction to drive the organisation forward.
Growth rather than threat (protect what we've got) mindset will ensure that the organisation holds itself to its full potential. When leaders and decision makers are held in unhelpful beliefs and refuse to try new things it can lead to a comfortable but risky position. Its understandable why these beliefs are formed but common
pitfalls are known and can be avoided if addressed and once you see the impact of this shift in mindset – it becomes easy and will show in your culture.
To reduce the risk of sitting too much on the side of fearless experimentation that can lead to waste, a few simple tools and techniques can really reduce the risk of failure. However remember failure is still a great learning as long as you combine it with point 4! Design thinking, agile methodologies and other great tools like value proposition canvas and organisation model canvas can help you to build well thought out, measurable experiments.
In innovation theory – one of the key principles of success is avoiding Vanity Metrics - statistics that look great on the surface but don't necessarily translate to any meaningful organisation results. We all love the feeling of thinking our effort is working however it can lead to sunk cost fallacy – where because of the effort and resources employed the project becomes too big to fail. Setting true actionable metrics that will ensure the meaningful tracking of impact of effort and outcomes will hold you to the true goal of growth.
t-three and Kiddy & Partners can work with you and your organisation to implement and drive these steps to bringing your balance of the tension to what your organisation needs now through interactive and impactful interventions.
To find out more, download our brand-new eBook 'Culture at Breaking Point'.
