ॐ Companies Frustrate Innovative Employees

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. This wonderful quote of Leon C. Megginson is still so relevant.

6 out of 10 CEOs state in a survey of PWC that innovation is their primary focus or one of their priorities. But an Accenture study of over 500 companies in the US, France and the UK revealed a risk-averse approach to innovation that results in incremental improvements rather than the creation of really new products and services. This is confirmed by another study in 2013 among US companies on their corporate cultures. Employees of corporations are eager to be entrepreneurial: more than half of those surveyed (52 percent) have pursued an entrepreneurial idea within their company. But what they lack, is support from their management:

"While nearly half the employees (49 percent) say management support is very important to the generation of entrepreneurial ideas, only one in five (20 percent) believe their company delivers it. And although 42 percent consider tolerance of failure from management is very important, only one in every eight employees thinks their company is good at that".

So on the one hand innovation is a top priority and on the other hand only one in five employees feels supported by their management to be entrepreneurial. This is a big frustration for most innovative employees. They will change companies looking for more entrepreneurial organizations or found a start-up.

Senior management is reluctant to support innovation. A lot of innovation consultants say that you should start to embrace failure to start a culture of innovation. Rationally they are right. But the problem is that if I as a senior vice-president start embracing failure as the first one on senior level, it probably will cost me both my bonus and my job in the longer term. And if you have to wait until all managers in a big corporation will embrace failure it will take ages.

I do not think that we should embrace failure. I think we should focus on improving the innovation effectiveness rate!
Research shows that only one out of seven official innovation projects successfully reach the market. What really amazes me is that a lot of managers, practitioners and researchers seem to accept a one out of seven effectiveness rate. Wake up! It all starts by not accepting that this is normal. My personal effort in the last 10 years has been to structure the chaotic start of innovation in an effective methodology. My hypothesis is that if you start innovation better, the results at the end of the innovation pipeline will improve.

After 30+ successful implementations in Europe, I like to share with you five practical tips that might get you more company support for innovative ideas and improve the innovation effectiveness at the same time.

1. Dogs bark at what they don't know. So beware of this. Ask in advance your senior management what kind of innovations they expect: (evolutionary improvements or revolutionary new to the world) ideas. Deliver them.

2. Make clear "what's in it for us". So don't bring back 'post-its'. Present your innovative ideas with a concrete new business case showing estimates of sales and profit potential.

3. Make the feasibility clear. Can we make it? What will it cost?

4. Make clear there's a market out there. Lead users and small scale experiments are perfect ways to prove there's a potential market.

5. Invite top managers on your innovation expedition. In this way they can get new insights themselves and they will gain trust in your revolutionary concepts. You can invite them on a structured innovation expedition called FORTH. Download the map.

It all starts with accepting that it is normal that your top managers fear innovation. Don't let this frustrate you. Let it motivate you. So be clever and think outside the box and present inside the box. Think innovative and act conservative.

ps. Ten cases of the FORTH methodology are scientifically researched in Europe now, to check if the methodology leads both to better ideas and more successful implementations.

Source:- http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140113094448-206580-companies-frustrate-innovative-employees?trk=object-title