The Future of Innovation: Innovation Management Systems
By Brett Trusko, Skytop Contributor / January 25th, 2023
Brett Trusko is a speaker, writer, consultant and educator. He has appeared at hundreds of conferences, radio and TV as well as written extensively and helped fortune 500 companies as well as local and national governments prepare for an innovation-oriented future.
Innovation Before COVID
At first blush, one would simply say that innovation is here to stay and why would anyone even ask about the future. At the same time, many organizations have drastically reduced their innovation departments during COVID. I have seen a significant drop in the number of people showing explicit interest in innovation, with the number of people in LinkedIn listing innovation in their job title dropping roughly in half. These numbers and anecdotal evidence seem to indicate that innovation is a corporate initiative that has passed and maybe needs to be replaced by something newer and sexier. For readers of my work, you will know that this would be the last thing I would recommend. So, should you jump right back into innovation as it was before COVID or try something else?
Simply Wrong
Before COVID, a trend was developing in innovation with companies starting to give up on the initiative, indicating that it was too expensive, and the results were not supportive of the amount invested in an innovation infrastructure. The problem is that many, if not most companies pursuing innovation initiatives were simply doing it wrong in the first place. There are several reasons for this, and I discuss some of them below.
Resentment
First, executives had incorrect assumptions about innovation. As I like to point out, buying a foosball table and new furniture does not create innovation. In fact, in my experience, creating a beautifully appointed innovation center separate from the rest of the company is more likely to create resentment for the special treatment that the employees of the innovation department receive. Business history is replete with examples of privileged employees receiving special treatment and the resentment of those groups by the rest of the employees. Since innovation seeks to tease out ideas from the rank and file, resentment likely decreases the submission of ideas that are submitted to the innovation teams.
Controlled Innovation
Second, very few companies have an innovation management system (IMS). It has always been fascinating to me that the same companies that went all in for the controls afforded by Six Sigma were the same ones that essentially abandoned all control when it comes to innovation. To be fair to those executives who were sold the “Wild West” version of innovation, it seemed like all the most successful companies had a free-wheeling, undisciplined version of innovation, but mostly this was a façade. Yes, there were companies that allowed their innovation departments to run wild, but many of these also shuttered the function during or immediately after COVID. After all, it is easy to waste money when things are good, as they have been for almost ten years, but completely different when the purse strings are tightened. Implementation of an IMS is the key to controlled innovation with the benefit of controlled cost and better thought-out ideas.
Innovation Needed More Than Ever
Third, ISO 56000 (ISO TC 279, Innovation Management) has been developed to the point that companies can begin to use the guidance documents to build interoperable systems consistent with their partner companies and even encourage local colleges and universities to train professionals who can run programs not only within the company, but across global supply chains. If we learned anything from COVID, it is that innovation was needed more than ever, and for all intents and purposes we failed to innovate ourselves through the crisis due to “crisis thinking” and corporate policies and procedures. With ISO 56002, we now have a guidance document that will allow us to do innovation right. Prior to COVID, interest in innovation was already waning because so many companies, buoyed by “innovation consultants” who had no training or experience with innovation, were failing in their efforts. ISO 279, when widely adopted, should create an ecosystem that serves the company and not the ego of the innovation department.
Polymaths
Finally, innovators tend to be polymaths, or at least tend toward behavior you would expect from a polymath. Unfortunately for most companies, corporate America has been trending toward hyper-specialization to the point that most universities, while still touting their liberal arts education, have dropped much of the course work in the humanities. Additionally, inside the company, working with, understanding, or otherwise giving employees the opportunity to cross train or acquire additional skills is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Opportunities for employees to attend conferences or acquire skills outside their company have essentially driven average tenure of employees from “lifetime employment” to only 4.3 years, with people staying longer than that being seen as otherwise not desirable. To save you the trouble of looking up what a polymath is, consider it the politically correct term for “Renaissance Man”. When one thinks of a Renaissance Man, one usually thinks first of Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo was active as a painter, draftsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. When was the last time you hired someone with that combination of skills?
More Than a Single Thing
A problem with Leonardo that most people do not understand was that at the time of his death, most of his work remained incomplete. In my experience with innovators, they tend to start a lot of things, but tend towards distractions as the next shiny object comes along. I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2021 Santa Fe was named the world’s best city for galleries and museums. In 2005, Santa Fe made US history by becoming a UNESCO Creative City. One in 10 jobs in Santa Fe are connected to the arts, and the “The City Different” has a vast creative scene spanning several districts and neighborhoods, beloved by locals and tourists alike. Meaning that living in Santa Fe has given me the opportunity to get to know some of the most creative people in the world, and almost all of them do more than just a single thing. Artists specialize in painting for example, but also do sculpture, architecture, etc. Creative people tend toward polymathy, but they generally have no idea what the term even means.
Creative People and Corporate Environments
The good and bad news for innovation is that creative people are everywhere but can be difficult to attract to standard corporate environments. Creating an IMS allows businesspeople who may not be as creative to manage the innovation process while freeing up the creatives to do what they do best; learn the business, talk to people and come up with innovative ideas.
Agile and Innovative
In conclusion, innovation isn’t dead yet. Perhaps in the way we did it prior to COVID, but a new model will develop as more people learn and adapt systems to free up creative polymaths to practice innovation and not push paper. In fact, with the changing world, and especially given Gen Z employees who are slowly taking over, there is a new attitude toward work that appreciates different skill sets and an ability to be agile and innovative before it becomes a crisis.