We Don’t Know What Innovation Is
Earlier this week, I attended the Chief Innovation Officer Summit in San Francisco. I’d like to thank Innovation Enterprise for inviting us.
I admit I was skeptical about the event. It wasn't my crowd, to be honest. Despite several years of interacting with it, I still find myself at odds with the American corporate culture. And so I was relieved when I managed to break through my silly cynicism and find curiosity to observe how the speakers understood innovation, and as an extension how it seems to be perceived in the American corporate culture. I’m delighted that I managed to understand a few interesting things instead of sulking in the corner all day long.
Here’s what I figured out.
The fallacy of innovation
According to the majority of speakers at the conference, the definition of innovation in American business seems to carry a significant burden: to innovate is to come up with awesome new ideas, which make companies money. Innovation is a cost center. Innovation is a tool, which solves the problem of stagnated growth by diversifying revenue streams. Innovation is how companies achieve digital transformation. It’s some sort of a master key to magically make more money.
Hey VPs, so we have all these product lines and revenue has been flatlining, how about we take something from here, something from there, copy competitor X, combine it with CEO’s current hobby and see if we can make more money out of it? Oh yes, it probably needs to be a mobile app too. Let’s throw some hard cash at it.
Our identity is no identity. We’re here to drive the numbers up, whatever it takes.
If the end game of a business is to make money then what is the point, really? Money is an energy, says my colleague Uday (@letsmeditate). Use that energy to build meaningful solutions which improve human condition. Your company should exist for people you want to help, not in spite of them. I believe if serving people becomes the ultimate goal, innovation happens almost automatically and drives meaningful success.
I’ll get back to this idea later. First let’s talk about a few fundamental misunderstandings around the notion of innovation.
Innovation is not a business goal
It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey, man.
Identifying innovation as a set of processes which aim to solve specific business problems creates a pressure to meet quantitative goals, which leads to an environment averse to risk, where innovation cannot thrive.
The way I see it, innovation is pretty much synonymous with proactivity and critical thinking. As long as you continuously work on understanding the world around you, try to be objective and conscious of your bias, are willing to fight your ego and see things from different perspectives, you’re perpetually dissatisfied with the status quo — ideas and opportunities will reveal themselves. Innovation is no rocket science, it’s really just about being aware and intellectually curious. That’s what makes you creative. It’s not about anxiously waiting for the Eureka moment. You can be innovative if you simply observe with intent, try to make sense of the chaos and have a genuine desire to improve that chaos for others.
Can you attach a monetary goal to your behavioral transformation?
Innovation is not a “practice”
Many speakers at the conference described “Innovation Centers”, “R&D Practices”, “Innovation Labs”, “Innovation Ecosystems” etc. Innovation as a part of corporate strategy. Innovation as an expensive, scary item on your yearly P&L projection.
You see, it doesn't make any sense to hire a bunch of academics or otherwise smart people, who come from a completely different world than yours, lock them up in a basement below your corporate HQ so you can’t hear them, give them a challenge and hope for the best. Bird watching works only when you’re in the cage with them, or—better yet— if there is no cage at all. You can’t hire random people to drag you back into the race to the future. It can’t be about “you” expecting results from “them”.
Just like with anything else in life, the change needs to start within. A desire for active participation in innovation should come from leadership and transform how leadership operates. It’s not one of those things you can delegate. If innovation is about proactivity and critical thinking, it is essentially a set of practically applicable values. Innovation is a culture.
You don’t need fancy terms to define it either. Your employees should be proactive and curious anyway. And as a leader, you need to lead by example: be genuinely intellectually curious, be unhappy about status quo, search for new ways to serve your audience better. Your values become a guiding light your employees yearn to follow, and the culture of innovation spontaneously penetrates your company. You can’t artificially install innovation on the sidelines of what you do, you need to live these principles.
Learning through angst
It turns out that in my mind, innovation is simply intellectual curiosity, which should be the foundation of corporate culture. It needs to come from the top and propagate naturally within. It can’t be outsourced. It is also colored by a genuine care for improving human condition with technology, which I believe should be the end game for every business.
How do you define innovation?
I’m thankful for the angst and frustration caused by the conference. I’m glad I sat through my stupidity and eventually got to understand the other side’s perspective. It will certainly make my job easier from now on.
Next up: how corporate America wrestles with the idea of failure.
