Sunday, December 13, 2020

Innovation Impediments

The main goal of improving innovation management effectiveness is to discuss the impediments in retrospective, identify the resistance behind, tackle the complexities of the management dynamic, make a plan and take actions to resolve them smoothly.

We have to understand that the world has become multidimensional, hyperconnected, and interdependent, innovation is the unique, or perhaps the only advantage that organizations have to build in order to win over the fierce competition and survive through frequent disruptions. Technically, innovation involves new ways of bringing together ideas and resources to create something novel and then transform those novel ideas to achieve the business value. 

Due to the hyper-complexity of modern businesses, innovation has become more intense with broader content or enriched context. Innovation is not just a restless adventure, but a cautionary tale. Statistically, innovation management has a very low success rate. There are various reasons to cause innovation failure. 




Inconsistencies and incoherence in the body of knowledge: Due to complexity of modern innovation management, knowledge is a crucial component for either sparking great ideas or implementing them smoothly. However, either too much knowledge or too little knowledge could be a hindrance to innovation success. The scarcity of information or overspecialization makes people get stuck in their comfortable zone, lacking the ability to connect the cross domain dots for generating fresh ideas. There are inherent dangers of too much knowledge particularly because of the inconsistencies and incoherence in exponential growth of information and the body of knowledge that surrounds us. Knowledge can be useful in trying to understand if what's imagined can be achieved. But outdated knowledge or “knowing it all” attitude might turn out to be the burden to stop us from exploring the new horizon, or even turn off the sparkling of our imagination and the fountain of creativity.

Knowledge is what is and what has been. Innovation leaders and professionals need to ask themselves and others: Does knowledge trap you or does it set you free to soar? A responsible use of knowledge is not an impediment to the imagination. Knowledge should be helpful for stimulating fresh ideas by widening the fields and the scope of dots connecting. Cross-pollinating ideas and knowledge sharing are what spurs innovation. Knowledge can also be useful in trying to understand if what's imagined can be achieved. But pay attention to potential pitfalls: Too much knowledge" in itself is not an impediment to creativity, but failure to recognize how vastly ignorant you are leads to an arrogance that will not admit new thinking or using knowledge in a new context.

Inflexibility & ineffectiveness in the processes of innovation implementation: For many companies, innovation is still serendipitous, there are no well crafted strategies or systematic approaches to improve its success rate. Lack of systematic processes or having overly rigid processes can both cause innovation to fail. Innovation, especially radical innovation will benefit in the long range, but lower profitability in the short-term. Efficiency and short-term goal orientation often divert focus from innovation in general. Innovation is fluid and should not be straight-jacketed. An obsession with the rigidity of efficiency stunts the innovation creation process, easily destroying the seed of innovation which is not quite ready to be analyzed for its profit margin.

Efficiency and innovation just have to learn to live and function together. Innovation management needs to checkup: How do you balance the short-term and long-term innovation /opportunities? How to improve innovation process effectiveness and flexibility? Is there transparency in follow-up a system of the innovation process from the idea up to the implementation? Is there also the mechanism to collect feedback and gain management and peer recognition? Etc. Make the innovation process as visible, company-wide, as possible, but not too rigid. Is there transparency in follow-up a system of the innovation process from the idea up to the implementation? Is there also the mechanism to collect feedback and gain management and peer recognition. Make the innovation process as visible, company-wide, as possible, but not too rigid. The greater the efficiency of an organization, the greater the need is for innovation to maintain high performance in the long run.

Incohesiveness and immaturity in innovation risk management: The differentiation between a good innovation and bad innovation is the people’s attitude toward risk, and the management’s ability to ensure risk management cohesiveness. With each flavor of "innovation," the risk is involved. The more disruptive or radical the innovation is, the greater the risk would be. Innovation is inherently risky because it is new and different, experimenting with better ways to do things. The primary focus of the risk management would be to identify and manage those risks that can be addressed through financing, market understanding, competitor analysis, identifying the space of opportunity, defining the scalability of the products/services, what timescale to allow before making a go/no-go decisions, etc.

Innovation Risk Management means stepping away from the accepted "best practice" and asking tough questions to dig through: Does innovations fail because folks fear innovation with risk-avoidance attitude or because there are too many disconnects that occur between the birth of a concept and the process of turning it into a reality? Can you predict risks? Is there any fundamentally different approach that would provide more flexibility, more sensitivity, and more responsiveness? Etc. Methodologically, too few business enterprises have appropriately aligned or devoted sufficient resources to their innovation risk management efforts, and they should be or need to be appropriately integrated, with decent reporting structuring and streamlined processes. Anyone or any company that fervently wants to be innovative must be willing to face risks, overcome the fear associated with such risks, and make a smooth shift from risk control to risk intelligence.

As businesses get more cut-throat in the hyper-connected digital environment, innovation has to become a part of the DNA of the organization. The companies can manage a balanced innovation portfolio for delivering unique products/services, improving employee engagement and customer satisfaction. The main goal of improving innovation management effectiveness is to discuss the impediments in retrospective, identify the resistance behind, tackle the complexities of the management dynamic, make a plan and take actions to resolve them smoothly.




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