Innovation

Only in an open trusting space, ideas can flow smoothly, and innovation can be catalyzed effortlessly.

Innovation is about moving forward. In any business, if you are not moving forward, you are moving backward. There is no standing still. The hybrid nature of innovation is a combination of something old with something new. Innovation kaleidoscope shows the ever-evolving dynamic view, hybrid digital patterns, and mixed cultures.

 Innovation management needs to lay out different thoughts structures, and practices, produce intuitive products or services to delight customers in imaginative and advantageous ways.

No matter which analytics you apply, that's a big part of what data has to do - be transformed into actionable insight and catalyze innovation: Information is one of the most critical pieces in the innovation puzzle. Given this assertion, there is no limit to the value of information in harnessing innovation. Innovation often happens at the intersection of customers and businesses; people and process. Top management should be able to capture the signal for innovation now; articulate vision, clarify the opportunity and risks, create a sense of urgency to promote a healthy climate for creativity, motivate the team to achieve higher goals, and improve innovation management effectiveness.

Companies today can abstract business and customer insight from quality information, bring to the table innovative solutions that meet customers’ needs and fit the growth perspective of the organization. Business management needs to be able to break down silos, connect wider dots for stimulating idea generation, handle management paradoxes, deal with innovation dilemmas strategically for improving innovation effectiveness.

It is the synthetic view of ‘innovation' that binds all crucial components into unique innovation competency: Innovations happen at the intersection of people and information technology, business and customers. Generally, besides incremental innovation, all businesses should have a handful of "bets" in the breakthrough category which could be considered as drivers for emerging digital strategies with the goal to build the long-term competency of the organization. What's important when developing the mix is to make sure you're accepting risk for potential reward.

Innovation success needs to be defined with the tangible value it brings to the business and the level of impact it could make. Hence, it is the time to 'see' the context you are 'part' of, inspire innovation and accelerate the speed of change. An integrative innovation approach with a structural innovation process leads to the development of an innovation initiative foundation, recognizing challenges, understanding boundaries, stakeholders core discipline, enforcing innovation discipline; improving innovation management effectiveness.

It is crucial to examine the causes of failure in innovation, the gaps and pitfalls on the way: In reality, innovation fails because many organizations lack a cohesive strategy or a systematic approach to manage both opportunities and risks in a structural way. There are so many pitfalls on the way to fail innovation - fear of unknown, unhealthy competition, comfort with the status quo, complacency, poor judgment, lack of big picture, lack of recognition causing low-level of employee engagement, discourages change and produces business incoherence.

Resource bottlenecks, business frictions, change inertia, etc, are also all obstacles to innovation. The culture of innovation isn’t built in a day. Assess organizational cultures with some insightful questions such as: Does the culture help to fulfill the business vision and accelerate innovation execution today? How does it drive organizational mindsets, attitudes, behaviors? Effective leaders facilitate progress and encourage innovation. Great managers engage people with effective communication, harness cross boundary collaborations to catalyze innovation and achieve innovation excellence.

The evolution of innovation only exists in the more open environments that create insights, take advantage of all sources of creativity in a more open way. The harmony is based on continuous idea-sharing and constructive criticism. Only in an open trusting space, ideas can flow smoothly, and innovation can be catalyzed effortlessly.

Posted in: Creativity,Digital Pitfalls,Innovation