As discussed in a previously published article on this site entitled “Roadblocks to Innovation Implementation: Why Do So Many Great Ideas Fail to Get Implemented?”, the predominant reason even the most promising innovative ideas fail is due to the organizational failure to implement the innovation plans. To briefly recap: organizations cower away implementing great ideas for a variety of reasons including the power of maintaining the status quo, a deep-seeded culture of fear, insecurity due to the residual effects of the Great Recession of the late 2000s, organizational/office politics, and deeply-ingrained culture cues.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom. It may often be an uphill battle, but innovation implementation is possible. But to turn great ideas into profitable realities, you must vigorously fight back against an organized work culture of fear and innovation assassination. Don’t take the cowardly route and accept the same old, same old; rather, mercilessly fight for change, disrupt the status quo, and stop debilitating innovation assassins in straight in their tracks. Create a trusted company culture of innovation rather than a paralyzing culture of fear. The following strategies are some powerful weapons to keep in your arsenal in the fight against a culture of fear and innovation assassination:
Encourage “creative errors”
One practical step an organization can take to promote risk-taking among their employees is to encourage “creative errors.” Different types of workplace errors fall along a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, you have errors arising due to sabotage or intentional concealment of errors made or noticed by employees; with such errors, leadership reaction must be on of strong disapproval and zero tolerance. At the middle of the error spectrum, are errors due to issues such as inadequate capabilities, unwillingness to learn, and carelessness. With these types of errors, you will see some organizations build up a healthy tolerance to them, despite not actively sanctioning them. Finally, at the other end of the error spectrum, is a type of error known as “creative errors.”
Creative errors happen due to changing market circumstances, calculated risks and rewards, and bad timing. Attention innovators: these are the type of errors you want to spot and encourage in your organization! There is a right and wrong type of failure; these creative errors fall into the “right type of failure” category. Spotting and encouraging the right errors can catalyze the elusive spirit of risk-taking that organizations should strive for and can be an effective shield against a culture of fear and innovation assassination. A great example of an organization that encourages creative errors is the Tata Group Innovation Forum, a company whose brand portfolio most notably includes Land Rover and Jaguar. The Tata Group gives out an award called “Dare to Try”; for this award, employees are encouraged to send in entries for innovations that were attempted, but didn’t get implemented into the marketplace for whatever reason.[1] There are way too many instances where the rewards and awards go to those employees who adopt the typical, safe, and trusted methods to deliver fault-free work. By turning this paradigm on its back and instead rewarding creative errors, the Tata Group is encouraging a culture of innovation and risk-taking throughout its company.
Winning the battle of innovation vs. operations
Within many organizations, there is a dichotomy between innovation and operations. Whereas innovation is all about shaking up the status quo, disrupting the norm, and moving processes forward and into the future; operations thrive when every activity and process is repeatable, predictable, and smooth. So what’s the opposite of predictability and repeatability? Innovation. After all, innovation is about walking that tightrope of uncertainty and the unknown. If you’re a savvy, innovation-minded leader at an organization, you must understand the inherent dichotomy between innovation and operations. Innovation thought leaders and executives must be able to identify (and then defuse) potential innovation assassins within their organization by helping such employees accept (or at the very least, learn to deal with) their aversion to innovation. It’s no easy feat to defuse these potential assassins—they can be sneaky, as they often work under the pretenses of being constructive. However, they’re always actively looking for flaws in anything new and untested and the battle can be won by steadfastly reinforcing a work culture that accepts and furthermore encourages disruption of the status quo.
Analysis paralysis: Don’t let the quest for perfectionism become an innovation assassin
While analysis, reasoning, research, care, and intelligence are vital parts of innovation and running a successful organization, these actions can become a crutch and ultimately turn into innovation assassins. In an attempt to achieve perfection, leaders often insist on revisiting over and over again things that have already been determined. This need for perfection causes leaders to have difficultly “hatching the egg” and ultimately causes them to miss significant market opportunities. Perfectionism can assassinate innovation, keeping the best and brightest innovations from being successfully implemented. How can an organization avoid this analysis paralysis? Let the Pixar (an uber-successful and innovative animation film studio responsible for box office hits such as “Finding Nemo” and “Toy Story”) example show you the way. At Pixar, they start each new movie idea with rough storyboards and no scripts. Then the storyboards painstakingly refined until problems are resolved and the movie eventually evolves from “suck to nonsuck”, which is how Pixar’s president and co-founder describes his studio’s creative process philosophy.[2] What makes Pixar’s organizational culture so impressive is the studio’s lack of cultural self-consciousness around failure; after all, even the boss readily admits it that the first iteration is going to suck. Accordingly, the entire team understands that by remaining less emotionally invested in initial failure, they are freer to put the early failures behind them and work, together, toward the common goal: another fabulous hit, another milestone in cinematic entertainment.
It is also important to note that one way Pixar cultivates ideation rather than immediate perfection and keeps itself from getting irrevocably lost in the endless quest for perfection is by setting firm release dates for their films. These irreversible deadlines help them avoid analysis paralysis and “hatch the egg” as opposed to endlessly sitting on the egg until it metaphorically rots.
Build trust within your organization
An organization-wide climate of innovation can only thrive when every aspect of the organization promotes the creativity, engagement, and acceptance of change that is required. This climate must be reinforced in governance, function, metrics, rewards, and more. Trust must be earned. Once it is, the stage is set for increased commitment to a culture of innovation, where failure does not mean dismissal. If your team views your innovation drive as this month’s fleeting fad, the naysayers and the cynics will immediately catch on, and innovation assassins, like cockroaches, will once again infiltrate your organization. To ensure true trust within the organization, leadership must create the processes that reward contributors and open the doors to participations. Once objectives and reward systems are in alignment, conflicts are mitigated and output is optimized. Such a scenario makes it impossible for assassins to work their counterproductive black arts with impunity.
[1] http://summit.ispim.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/Narvekar.pdf
[2] http://www.fastcompany.com/1742431/pixars-motto-going-suck-nonsuck
