Daily Inspiration: Innovation Leadership – “Move from why it can’t be done to why it should be done!”

“Move from why it can’t be done to why it should be done!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Shift happens. Do you?

Many organizations fail because they have failure engrained in their corporate culture! Do you?

Thirty years of innovation insight tells me that it can be difficult to try to be innovative in many organizations. People with an innovation-oriented mindset often find their enthusiasm stymied when they approach senior management with an initiative. And when their effort is turned back, it can be extremely frustrating – often shutting down any innovation momentum in its track.

One of the most typical situations today in which we are seeing innovation dead in its tracks involves the many initiatives that people are pursuing with leading-edge technology involving artificial intelligence, robotics, drone technology or other advanced tools. They know that we live in transformative times in which major changes are occurring with knowledge generation, skills acceleration, changes to the creative process, and a lot more related to these new technologies, and that there are several key strategic objectives that could be met through deployment.

So they set off to build a few prototypes, designed to get individuals in the company interested in the possibilities and opportunities.  Enthusiastic as heck, they take their project to the senior management team — and it’s rejected, with a litany of reasons as to why the organization just isn’t ready to deal with their new ideas right now. Any number of reasons can be given; every one of them is indicative of the fact that a sort of organizational sclerosis has set in, that clogs up the ability of the organization to deal with anything new.

Does this happen to you? Consider the attitudes that you might encounter if you are trying to get something happening:

• we don’t understand it, so we don’t think we need to do it
• it’s too easy to not confront the tough issues
• we are too busy fighting fires right now
• we don’t have the skill sets to deal with this
• we haven’t thought about this in our strategic planning process
• we haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about what comes next
• we don’t have a budget for that
• what we’ve been doing all along is perfectly ok, isn’t it?
• there’s so much going on, and we don’t know where it might fit in terms of priorities
• it’s too far ahead of its time
• you need to get back to your real job.

Of course, it’s easy to take this wall of negativity, step back from the project, curb your enthusiasm — and give up!

But real innovators don’t give up! They work to address the organizational sclerosis that might be in place. What you should do is confront these excuses head-on. There are a variety of different reactions depending on the different excuses that are used:

• If they don’t understand it, educate them! This might involve building a better business case for the initiative and bringing it up to date on the key business drivers and trends that require some bold steps and dramatic change.
• Help them to realize that those who tackle the tough issues of tomorrow usually win. This is a good time to put into perspective the concept of accelerating change. You need to make sure that the leadership team understands that everything around us today is changing faster than ever before, and will continue to do so: business models; methods of customer interaction; new forms of competition. Business today is all about continually confronting a flood of tough issues. We should be bulking up our capabilities to deal with a world of incessant change.
• If the organization is always in fire-fighting mode, change the agenda. Maybe they won’t be fighting as many fires over the long term if they have a clear view of the future and have a strategy that aligns with that future. So rather than asking, “Whoah, where’d that come from,” they’re asking “ok, what comes next, and what do we need to do about it?”
• If it’s not part of the strategic planning process, make it part of it. Every organization has multiple processes in which issues and activities rise to the top because they’ve been identified as fitting within the overall strategic plan. If yours isn’t part of the plan, work to get it there; and again, this comes through education, a clear business case, as well as internal discussions with those who are involved with and shape the strategic planning process
• Get people thinking about what comes next. Does the organization have a regular series of forward-looking leadership meetings? Does it take the time to assess the trends that might impact it on a 1, 2, 5, and 10-year basis? Is it busy looking at “have we really spent a lot of time thinking about what comes next.”
• If you don’t have the budget for it, get it. Following the process of getting the initiative into the strategic plan will help to lead to the next step: getting the project properly approved and funded within the overall budget process for the organization. There’s a process for budgeting. You have to be intimately involved in and respect the process.
• Make change happen. Make it clear that it isn’t ok to keep doing the same thing that has been done in the past. You’ve got to clearly articulate the new threats the organization faces and the opportunities that it can pursue as a result of ongoing change
• Reduce the complexity. In the high-velocity economy, it is extremely easy for people to feel overwhelmed in terms of placing priorities. With so much change happening, it is difficult to know exactly what to do, where to start, how to focus, and to not obsess over doing the wrong thing. The easiest reaction when faced with such feelings is to simply pull back and do nothing. That’s the worst thing you can be doing. Take on some projects to keep your innovation capabilities fresh and up to date, and to give you better insight into what issues might be priorities and which ones are not.
• Get them to realize that yesterday is gone forever.  This type of thinking might have made sense in the 20th century when the world, market, industries, products, and customers changed at a slow steady, and predictable pace. That type of thinking has been thrown out on its ear – what might seem far-fetched right now is likely to be very real tomorrow, and maybe even out of date and replaced with something else by the time you get to it!

Every organization developes a corporate culture that stifle its ability to try to do anything new.

That’s what you’ve got to work to avoid — it’s not easy to do — but necessary!

(Portions of this post originally appeared in Jim’s book of 2007, Ready, Set, Done: How to Innovate When Faster is the New Fast.)