A
new product or service does not come around every day. Organizations are built
around the core innovative idea and thrive on systems, processes and capabilities to manage subsequent growth. In more mature organizations, repeatable processes are created to deliver the value, service and support to customers. However, this "order and routine" also leads to a corporate culture that becomes
“inhospitable” to innovation. Let me share a great quote from one of marketing's leading innovative thinkers - this would become my inspiration for this post.
“Organizations by their very nature are designed to promote order and routine. They are inhospitable environment for innovation.” - Ted Levitt.
How can we look at innovation in a mature organization?
As
someone has said, “innovation is anything, but business as usual.” Most daily tasks in an office tend to fall into the routine job duties, but the teams need to be encouraged to challenge the status quo and find ways to improve product, service, processes. In other words, INNOVATE!
Let’s
take an example of a project meeting that I participated in. While trying to resolve the poor quality complaint on a new product, it was brought to our
attention that often the call-issue is not captured and/or is categorized inaccurately in
CRM system. Adding a new complaint code based on new service would have seemed like an obvious next step, but, the support team was reluctant to do so, as it would overload the already complex list. A deeper
dialogue revealed that patching the legacy systems (linear fix) was no longer a viable
option and our analysts suggested an overhaul of CRM-coding that better represented the new business and customer experience priorities (innovative fix) . I saw the innovation happen right there!
Innovation does not start at the CEO level, or even at
one or 2 levels below. It can just as easily start at the lowest level, amongst the troops in the
trenches. It is our analysts and managers, who are interacting with the
customers, vendors and internal stakeholders that are most aware of the issues
and probably can help lead or collaborate on more pragmatic go-forward strategies.
If you happen to be in such advanced organizations, don't be surprised if the next great idea for customer service, cost efficiency, reporting, etc., comes from one of the many of the "routine" meetings. It
is these voices that need to be heard! It is this “out of the box” thinking
that needs to be encouraged! It is this "corporate culture" that needs to be
nurtured! It is the senior leaders who should lead such "corporate innovation” by
encouraging participation and curbing the
“quick resolution” mindset.
Corporate
innovation can only be kept alive if we let the “bottoms-up” approach to
flourish.
Here
are a few ideas to encourage corporate innovation:
- Tying manager performance with
matrix feedback from colleagues, which will ensure that
managers are encouraging participation
- Training project managers to record and follow-up on any “out of the box” initiatives that emanate from the routine meetings, instead of staying focused on task lists
- Senior leadership finding time to discuss those ideas, not always relying on a formal business case to justify the time/resources spend
- Institutionalizing a reward system for innovative ideas and solutions, and making sure idea, and NOT the value, is recognized - value invariably follows!
Corporate innovation, if done right, holds real promise for more mature organizations. It ought to be at the core of corporate culture and true leadership here would improve employee engagement, get them vested deeper with the organization’s
success, and may significantly contribute to the bottom-line.
* image from: awma.org
