Innovation at the Frontier

by Joyce Wycoff

While it's probably impossible to compute the exact percentage of business initiatives that fail, it is widely acknowledged that most do. After years of research and observation, it is clear that the same reasons for any change initiative failure tend to be the same culprits that make innovation initiatives fail. Here are the top ten reasons for innovation failure:

1. Not creating a culture that supports innovation
2. Not getting buy-in and ownership from business unit managers
3. Not having a widely understood, system-wide process
4. Not allocating resources to the process
5. Not tying projects to company strategy
6. Not spending enough time and energy on the fuzzy front-end
7. Not building sufficient diversity into the process
8. Not developing criteria and metrics in advance
9. Not training and coaching innovation teams
10. Not having an idea management system

Culture – culture is the playing field of innovation. Unless the culture honors ideas and supports risk-taking, innovation will be stifled before it begins. Culture is like our immune system … its job is to kill intruders before they can harm the body. Culture can change but it is a slow process.

Ownership – once great ideas have shown up, they have to be implemented somewhere. Generally that means a business unit manager has to take on the idea and devote scarce resources of time and budget to the new project. If that manager has not bought into the new project fully, it generally doesn't succeed. Business unit managers need to be engaged from the very beginning of an innovation initiative and they need to have the option of “buying” new concepts.

Process – when organizations want to embrace innovation, they often hold a two-day kickoff to hype innovation and provide some training in tools and techniques. They set up a few innovation teams, schedule some brainstorming sessions and then are shocked to learn (about six weeks later) that “innovation isn't working.” In today's world where people are already overloaded, a piecemeal approach to innovation just doesn't work, not if you want real, bottom line results. Innovation needs a process that focuses people on the right challenges and leads them through an organized process of releasing creativity and evaluating results so that the right concepts move into the implementation process.

Resources – too often the CEO stands up at an annual meeting and says, “We need to be more innovative,” and then goes on to the next topic. Innovation takes time, energy and money. People need some freedom and time to think and tinker around with new possibilities. They also need new skills and systems that support thinking and collaboration. Innovation is critical to the future; but it depends on the investment of today's resources.

Strategy – somewhere along the line, as people were taught to “think out of the box,” a false impression was created. People began to believe that there should be no rules, no boundaries, no constraints. This turns out to be a counter-productive approach that produces popcorn – wild ideas bouncing around with no purpose in sight. Once in a millennium this might produce a breakthrough … but it is not a cost-effective process. What is more effective is focusing creativity within the scope of a well-constructed company strategy. Of course, this requires a strategy that is both narrow enough to define the company's core competency and broad enough to allow exploration into related areas.

Fuzzy Front-End – there are a lot of unexpressed ideas lurking in organizations. However, to find the truly new and different ideas … the ones that could create a breakthrough , requires a process of looking outside and inside; at customers, suppliers and competitors; at changes in demographics, trends, economics, regulations, and political environments. Innovation that begins with an internal brainstorming session will seldom result in anything other than pale, incremental concepts.

Diversity – diversity is the difference between “same-old, same-old” thinking and “Wow! I never thought of that!” possibilities. In the old days, cross-functional teams were a daring foray into diversity. Now they are standard fare and the true value of diversity comes when we deliberately focus diverse thinking styles, experiences, perspectives, and expertise on a challenging problem or opportunity. The process of innovation should include all functions; all genders, ages, races, all thinking styles, as well as all stakeholders, customers, suppliers, competitors.

Criteria & Metrics – in a healthy innovation environment and process, more ideas will be generated than can possibly be implemented. This can lead to overload and frustration unless there is a mechanism for sorting and prioritizing. Developing criteria guides long before going into idea generation mode can provide the rational means for evaluating ideas and prevent going over the edge on a seductive idea that doesn't fit.

Training & Coaching – a mistake often made by organizations is assuming that innovation teams are the same as other project teams. In a recent survey by the InnovationNetwork, responses indicated that people participated on an average of 3.7 innovation projects per year. However, only 21% of the respondents had had some training on how to participate on an innovation team and less than 10% had actually had training as part of the innovation team. No wonder over 70% of all projects fail.

Innovation requires new ways of thinking and new skills. Developing a just-in-time, active-learning training process insures that innovation teams develop the desired results effectively and efficiently. As with any new set of skills, innovation competency develops over time while working on real projects. Coaching is a critical piece of developing this competency.

Idea Management System – Many innovation projects have died on a sticky-note covered wall as participants lost energy trying to figure out what to do with those yellow pieces of paper fluttering to the floor. Having an effective system that captures ideas and engages people in developing, modifying, enlarging and evaluating those ideas is just as critical to innovation as accounting systems are to the financial health of an organization.