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Definitions of Innovation |
- Creating value with implemented new ideas
- Applied creativity to achieve the organization's objectives. Innovation means change.
- Innovation is only an enabler, like accounting or marketing. Innovation is not a goal or a value; it can only enable the implementation of a goal.
- Innovation is better problem solving; it is about better ideas for improving everything we do and how we do it, all the time. Innovation is not about a single brilliant action. It is an on-going effort to improve systematically.
- Only people can innovate. Organizations, management, cultures, processes do not innovate but they have the power to enable or stifle all innovation.
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Innovation and Innovative Thinking |
- Innovative thinking is combining existing and new knowledge to solve a real problem or opportunity within real boundaries.
- The easiest way to improve white collar productivity, and the one with the most leverage, is to improve thinking skills. By improving how people think, you leverage everything they do.
- Innovation happens when individuals and small teams are enabled by the organization to use innovative thinking AND to implement their ideas.
- Innovative thinking is not an art for the chosen few, it is a process that can be learned by anyone. Individuals can be more or less comfortable with innovative thinking, they can have different styles, from incremental to revolutionary, but everyone can learn to be innovative.
- Innovative thinking is not a free-for-all, it is a rigorous process that uses creativity as one of its components. Innovative thinking is hard work.
- Innovative thinking happens when individuals are empowered and have enough time and the combination of skills and knowledge necessary to create the best possible solutions.
- The biggest obstacle to our individual innovation is "School thinking." School has given our brains an operating system that doesn't include an innovative thinking option.
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Innovation and the Innovative Organization |
- Organizations cannot innovate. They can only support individuals and small teams who want to innovate and create positive change to improve the organization.
- An innovative organization innovates in everything it does, not just in R&D. For example, 3M is not always an innovative organization, even if their R&D is spectacularly innovative.
- An organization supports systematic innovation when:
- Employees understand where the organization is going and how it wants to get there (Purpose and Strategies)
- The executive team is committed to innovation in actions, not only in words
- The environment is supportive in terms of:
- Trust
- Leadership at all levels
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Risk-taking ability
- Culture
- Structure
- The employees have the right professional skills and are motivated to use them
The mid-level managers are supportive and understand how to manage the innovative process with innovative people |
- Service innovation is the application of innovation in the service sector, in service offerings of manufacturers and in the service activities of every organization (HR, Finance, Sales, Marketing, IT, etc.)
- Service Innovation is focused on the Customer experience.
- Service Innovation demands an excellent understanding of customers’ expressed and non-expressed needs, flawless delivery from the front-line people, support from technology, and the alignment of all internal departments and processes
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