Dig into the rigorous thinking via Google Scholar on innovation and you will find there are 2,300,000 articles and books of an academic nature that have verified and validated every different type of known innovation process - disruptive, open source, front end, back end, induced, user, IT, supply chain, management, R&D and even innovative innovation! Enough information to drive you crazy. And worse still, there is a huge problem with most of it!
It perceives innovation as a theory and a process and it is neither.
It’s a practice!
Innovation as theory is like reading a mountaineering book and then setting out to climb Mt. Everest dressed in the attire you had on while reading the book. Innovation based solely on process is like being lost with a map on the side of a snow capped mountain with wild winter weather closing in – very few will survive. Most will freeze to death. A few get lucky. Luck, however is not a dependable process for succeeding in a competitive commercial environment.
Research by our strategic partners at the Creative Leadership Forum on innovation practice in organizations has revealed systemic failure in innovation initiatives, regardless of consultants, theories and processes in up to 52% of cases.
Importantly, there are clear and identifiable reasons for this.
Innovation initiatives need full support and commitment from the senior leadership of the organization in policy, talent, resources and money. Otherwise, it is a part time experiment doomed to failure and in many cases, never likely to be considered again under the organization’s current leadership.
The value and results of developing enterprise level innovation practice take a long time in any organization to gestate. Unless the leadership, usual at board and senior management level, is prepared to ignore the first onset of innovation impotency in the face of practice and is confident enough with its innovation team to hold the course -- enabling the signs of innovation progress to emerge -- our best counsel is simply don’t bother with innovation. It's not yet time for your organization to go down this path!
If however, you want to hear how a 6 year disciplined approach to innovation can produce startling results, then join us at the Management Innovation Index Global Webinar on February 16 entitled "How A Mature International Financial Services Organization Succeeded in Turning Innovation Into a Core Value for Success."
Hear one of the leaders of the Allianz UK Strategic Innovation team, Harvey Wade, explain how over 6 of the most turbulent economic periods of the last 100 years from 2006 to 2011, Allianz UK, an organization in the mature financial services market, developed an internal innovation capability that helped to maintain its market position, drove increased revenue based on an innovation incentivized workforce, launched new products and drove organizational efficiencies in a workforce that has the highest level of innovation engagement we have ever measured. So successful has it become as an innovation program, it is being considered for launch globally throughout the company.
There is a limit to attendance, so please register quickly.
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