The Hindu Business Line : Defining innovation

ONE thing that differentiates innovative companies from other organisations is that they have a shared view of what innovation is all about. Take a look at a few of the definitions from some very famous companies.

"Harnessing the power of chaos - in individual, team and organisational levels to bring out the most innovative and collaborative thinking of every one.

To apply our natural abilities to create new and better ways of enjoying life and working together." _ Ford (MP&L) Team Learning Center

"Innovation is a culture, an attitude that blends care, quality and service for our customers." _ Washoe Health System

"Innovation is going outside the box (framework) to create solutions and implementing them. It's creating opportunities and the environment for change and learning." - Smithsonian Institution (Office of Finance and Administration)

"Innovation is the transformation of thoughts to new ideas, the application of these ideas to fulfil goals and therefore improve the current business or create new business." _ R.J. Reynolds Research & Development

"Innovation is what creates an environment for fulfilling a connection-making process that creates something new which pays off. Idea Verse is a social innovation - creating a climate for first-level innovation to flourish." - Idea Verse, Lucent Technologies

"New ideas which improve customer satisfaction, productivity and intellectual capability of our organisation are innovation." - Marshall Industries

"Implementing creative ideas to produce new and improved processes and products is innovation. This includes better ways of doing our jobs and new tools to make us more productive." _ The Clorox Company, Research & Development

"Innovation is visioning the possibility of something that does not exist and making it real. Doing something to meet people's needs. Something which has never been done before - which will make people say WOW!

At its heart, we believe innovation is ineffable. A spirit constantly is pushing outward against complacency." _ Federal Quality Consulting Group

"Developing and implementing our dreams - by new programmes, products and services that have value related to our mission and the needs of our markets." _ YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago

Most organisations do not have a clear view of what innovation is. They use the three words - idea, creativity and innovation - interchangeably.

Here is an interesting way to define and differentiate all three words: An idea is a prescription for action. By definition, an idea must change people, places and situations. Creativity is about new ways of looking at issues. Therefore, a creative idea is a new way to handle people, places and situations. Innovation is implementing the creative idea and benefiting from it. Implementation is the key to innovation.

What are the typical barriers to innovation? Participants in the George Land Awards discuss these.

Barriers to innovation

"Our barriers are low self-esteem, the absence of leadership, lack of encouragement and negative feedback.

We began with a transition plan to eliminate these barriers and reach our goals. We did this through training on the new ways of operating. The training plan encouraged learning in the family and work teams." - Ford (MP&L) Team Learning Center

"SIZE. We did three things to overcome this barrier: First, we built a culture receptive to innovation by making the employees aware of the value we place on it.

We started numerous programmes to facilitate the implementation of new ideas.

We believed in immediate acknowledgement of new ideas." - Washoe Health System

"FEAR - fear of failure, success, decision-making, old government attitudes, making mistakes, job security and change.

To overcome our barriers we focused on education, employee investment, recognition and pilot projects. We also conducted follow up discussions when we tried something new." - Smithsonian Institution (Office of Finance and Administration)

"We faced two types of barriers: business-related and culture - related. The business-related barriers are the needless bureaucratic policies and procedures. The culture-related barriers were development and protection of `silos' of power.

Unwillingness to share responsibility and reward.

Non-acceptance of the empowerment of all individuals.

A distrust of the benefits of innovation, teamwork and diversity.

How we tried to overcome our barriers:

Just do it

Employees as owners of the company

Cross-functional, cross-silo working groups

Diversity, innovation and teamwork

Facilitated problem-solving sessions _ R.J. Reynolds Research & Development

"Our main barrier: the unrelenting drive to produce results now, led people to believe that creativity and innovation are not relevant unless they can be summoned on demand and in short order.

Overcoming barriers

1. Thinking out of the box

2. Custom ideation

3. Ideaversity

Our other barrier was lack of shared knowledge of tool and creative process that contribute to innovation. - Idea Verse, Lucent Technologies

"1. MBO-based compensation plan.

2. Legacy information system that limited the access and exchange of data between customers, suppliers and business teams.

We removed the MBO plan, thus aligning employee compensation to the goals of the company and not to the individual.

Reviewed and re-structured all our information needs. The new systems had a single, rational database and a series of client-server applications." - Marshall Industries

"1. Idea Time

Idea time excursion

3 per cent idea time

Long-range planning

2. Cross-fertilisation

Food for thought

White boards

Brainstorming sessions

A technology fair

3. Idea Support

Killer phrases

Training classes - The Clorox Company, Research & Development

"The biggest barrier to innovation was the tendency to focus on the past. In the present, try to keep within the boundaries that have been set traditionally and have worked for the company previously.

Fear & Judgment: Fear of making a mistake and being judged for it.

Solution: Being trained in skilled facilitation and good ground rules.

Best practices - new ideas.

Tools and techniques - creative thinking

Visioning techniques

Self - managed team

Team library

Impromptu brown bag lunches

Stories, humour and laughter

Federal Quality Consulting Group

"The biggest barriers at the YMCA were: communicating between the relatively autonomous centres, lack of resources, lack of staff and time and a culture that fostered doing things `the Y way.'

Solution: `A Seed Fund' was created to support programme innovation. - YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago

CEOs and seniors managers who are grappling with creating a culture of innovation in their organisation might find solace from these comments. They are certainly not alone and issues seem universal.

(The writer is a creative consultant and Partner, IDEAS-RS.)

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