Live with dissent or die without innovation

The typical business owner or manager often uses four common “efficiency-boosting activities” that inadvertently kill innovation. Failure to encourage innovation will have your competitors leaving you in their dust.

As a result of this column you and your organization will learn how to:

Understand why generating new ideas is critical to growth.
Enthusiastically support and reward innovative ideas.
Learn the 5 most important lessons discovered by the most innovative companies.

One of these lessons is to use “best practices.” Best practices have become a catchall phrase for sharing knowledge and experience throughout an industry. However, they are about improvement and efficiency, not innovation. Use them for that reason, but don’t expect new ideas.

Are you guilty of the “old standard” of designing a “process” to capture good ideas? Sharing knowledge, generating good ideas, and stimulating innovation cannot be boiled down to a formal process. Two of the most innovative companies in the world, Google and Intel give employees one fifth of their workweek entirely free of structure. Instead of structure, we must provide some freedom for people to daydream or to do research on their own.

In addition, hiring and working with only those who think and act the same way as you cuts both ways. While you need to have people around you who have the same values and believe in the same purpose you do, you also need some people who question the goals you’re working so hard to attain. Otherwise, when the time is right for change, you’ll be so committed to a certain path, you won’t recognize that it’s no longer taking you where you need to go.

Innovation consists of two vital ingredients: a great idea, and the ability to put it into action. Jack Paluszek, President of Advanced Management Associates, Inc. and facilitator of Bullet Proof Manager training said, “Two of the top innovation killing attitudes include why not leave well enough alone and let the competition try it first.”

Most innovators lack the political skills needed to implement their ideas and are often proud of their refusal to “play politics.” Yet, political skills are crucial to successful innovation. Also, because innovators usually have little political savvy, they often fail to read the signals around them, even when everything indicates that they have won. Unfortunately, innovators often feel the only acceptable outcome is to get their proposal adopted exactly as stated.

We must acknowledge that innovators are frequently dissenters and often offend powerful people. Business owners and their managers need to help innovators gather support and in most cases coach them on what to say and do. To manage innovators, try implementing an effective reward system utilizing the “SMART” technique.

Specific and clear relationships between rewards and actions taken by the dissenting innovator must be established.

Meaningful innovation rewards should provide an important return on investment to both the innovator and the organization.

Achievability is difficult to judge with innovative ideas, and the willingness to accept and reward failure is essential. When a new idea does work…it’s critical for the individual or a team to achieve the performance goals that are set.

Reliability means the innovation program should operate according to its underlying principles and purpose in both good times and bad.

Timeliness means that recognition and rewards should be provided frequently enough to make sure good performers never feel forgotten.

Businesses must lead innovation efforts by encouraging and supporting dissenters who will often challenge everything you believe in. Competing effectively mandates embracing innovation and…the dissenters who provide it.

Questions for discussion:

How can we encourage respectful innovative dissent in our people and support our dissenters so we and our customers benefit from their new and better ideas?

Which of the 5 lessons presented, best practices, equality, process, taking action or playing politics should we work on changing immediately?

No one has an exclusive on good ideas. Please share you thoughts by posting at the bottom of our blog. Click here

This article is provided by Joe Murtagh, “The DreamSpeaker^TM” www.TheDreamSpeaker.com. For keynotes, facilitation, workshops, consulting and questions or or a free report on The 3 Most Common Mistakes Organizations Make, email us at Joe@TheDreamSpeaker.com or call 800-239-0058.

If you enjoyed this column you’ll love our Books (click here) and Training Programs (click here). Each is filled with hundreds of leading edge profit enhancing ideas from the best business thinkers in the world.This is one of over 300 columns published and part of the reason why The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have called The DreamSpeaker^TM about Business Planning Issues.

To receive future bi-weekly issues of Business Journal Columns™.

One year subscription $ 24.95
First Name:(required)
Last Name:(required)
Organization name:
Address:(required)
City:(required)
State/Province/Region:(required)
ZIP/Postal Code:(required)
Country
Daytime Phone:(required)
E-mail Address:(valid email required)
Web site address:
Scholarship code: