The Hindu Business Line : Another one bites the dust

The innovation process begins with a mandate which must be set at the highest levels of the corporation by identifying goals and priorities and once identified, these must be communicated all the way down the line - Akio Morita

Expecting a management team to "do something innovative" without putting it in the strategic context can lead to disappointment.

It was a business meeting with Supratik (name disguised), a marketing manager with a financial services giant, keen on getting an innovation strategic programme for his organisation. Or so he had indicated when we set up the meeting. Somewhere into the discussion, I realised that he didn't really want an innovation strategy or anything resembling that - instead, he wanted a manual for new product development (NPD) processes, preferably one that was "off-the-shelf." I attempted to explain that installing an NPD process flow without understanding what it should deliver would be both myopic and purposeless.

"We need to begin with some strategic introspection on how new products would fit into the overall strategy," I began.

Supratik looked fidgety, and I stopped, detecting some impatience, "What exactly is the deadline here?" I asked.

"Oh, it was part of my goal sheet for this year, and I have a couple of weeks left, so I thought I should do something", he said.

"Are you in charge of this programme?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, "but I also handle an important business, and am in charge of a number of key brands, so I can't give this innovation stuff too much time. But I have to submit something about innovation by the end of the year. You see?"

I did see. And I sighed, inwardly. The responsibility for "innovation stuff" had been piggybacked onto an existing job specification that was already heavy. In the balancing of the urgent and important, I could see that Supratik's mind had already slotted the innovation process goal into the `important-but-not-urgent box.' I really doubt anything concrete will come out of this, other than a submission of a process flow or manual that will indicate compliance with the fuzzily stated goal that he "do something about innovation" this year. It was also clear that this was another case of placing the responsibility of innovation-led growth on the inexperienced shoulders of a middle-manager: Supratik lacked the vision to recognise the need for strategic introspection and also the seniority or the power to push this through.

No wonder then that it was far simpler for him to contract out a process. The result would probably be a fat manual cobbled together in a hurry, very likely cogged from that of another organisation, outlining an impressively detailed, and possibly impractical, set of must-do steps and procedures. Whether such a manual of `standard operating procedures' would, in fact, be useful or indeed, even adhered to, was not of consequence - its real advantage lay in the fact that it could then be pointed to as demonstration of commitment to the innovation process.

Sure, processes are important, but they should be viewed as enablers, not as the starting point. Processes should be designed to fit with the demands of the strategic imperative, not vice versa. Again, while innovation should appear on a goal sheet, the expectations of individual contribution should dovetail with an overall roadmap. This is the fault of a poorly designed innovation agenda: "empowering" a junior manager to fulfill one small element of the innovation continuum may create the illusion of innovation investment, but it will be just that: an illusion.

Not all innovation systems are suitable for every industry or situation. The requirements for engineering radical innovations are quite different from that needed to deliver a stream of sustaining innovations. Designing a stage-gate process would need an in-depth understanding of what the criteria should be for funnelling ideas to subsequent levels of resource commitment. The choice of gatekeepers should not be a superficial exercise - for effective buy-in, this needs a process that demonstrates transparence and objectivity. Indeed, Harry Potter's Sorting Hat might come in useful in deciding on key decision makers; a manual won't offer any sustainable value if its design doesn't take into account an organisation's specific dynamics with regard to its competitive imperative. Worse, the problem with looking for a quick fix is that the paper solution is unlikely to stay benignly trapped within the ring-binder - by foisting ill-conceived procedures that have not been customised and tailored for the organisation's requirements, it risks creating dissonance that will actually function as an impediment for future innovation initiatives.

It is this myopic vision of what innovation means and what it can deliver that reduces the very complex act of managing innovation to a linear `black-box' approach, as a set of processes that will steer an idea neatly to its conclusion; or unidimensionally, as equivalent to either creativity, or to brainstorming, or to R&D. Instead, innovation is the product of a complex, adaptive system in which different elements - strategic, cultural, economic, and infrastructural - pull and push symbiotically. Of these elements, it is the strategic alignment that determines how innovation shifts from a functional activity to an organisation-wide system.

What sort of innovation does your organisation need? Answering that question needs an understanding of where exactly innovation fits into the overall corporate strategy. Asking a team to "do something innovative" without setting the strategic context is setting yourself up for disappointment.

As I did not take up the project, I have no idea whether Supratik was successful in getting a manual delivered in time, but I can safely predict that by attempting to create a `plug-and-play' process, without defining the strategic context, Supratik's CEO has prematurely doomed the programme. Another one bites the dust.

(Radhika Chadha is a consultant in strategy and innovation. Karate- gy is the proprietary name of strategic exercises conducted by Paradigm Management Knowhow Ltd.)

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