The Run Off Effect in Innovation

Pierre Hurstel, CEO of Matière à Réflexion, former Global CHRO and then CCO for EY, tells us about the run off effect in innovation.

Innovation is not a technological transformation before all.

The Run Off Effect in Innovation

In 2016, companies that are not yet digitalized are all reconsidering their objectives. Forgotten those anni horribiles when the motto was Do more with less! Given the landscape, everyone is focusing on investing in and laying out new oceans. Innovating is the new motto.

True leaders are asking for transformation and inviting to go ahead. No speech without the new magic words: Big Data, Digitalization, Collaboration, Bottom up, Trust and Agility.
Here is the pitfall: don’t think a sec those words are easily reachable. Sure they are absolutely necessary for any transformation but they are outputs. If WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) was the the old acronym when internet was born, now we might say WYGIWYD (What You Get Is What You Deserve).

The brake is not about technology, it is about human beings.

If you manage your People without any respect, any caring, without any empowerment, don’t be surprised they are not ready to collaborate, to lose their control on teams, to stop cascading from the top and to trust the new strategy. The more you address agility as the flavor of success the more teams resist and immunize themselves. I call it the run off effect. When it rains a lot after long period of dryness, water does not irrigate, it runs off.

They are far from being ready to step up and embrace change. The current mood is about lack of engagement. So please deal with this first before hoping they join the club. Talking about the obvious Client Experience, the brand will induce without checking there is a Worker Experience first, may block Innovation and the winner might not be the faster in cracking data, but the more congruent between human factor inside and human emotion outside.