Managing Innovation

The question inevitably comes up: can something that is supposed to be creative, free flowing, unbound be managed?

The answer to this question is: NO. What can be done is that an atmosphere that promoted innovation can be created and sustained by a management team.

How? The following core abilities are essential in a management team when creating an innovative environment:

Recognising: Searching the environment for technical and economic clues to trigger the process of change

Aligning: Ensuring a good fit between the overall business strategy and the proposed change – not innovating because it is fashionable or as a knee-jerk response to a competitor

Acquiring: Recognising the limitations of the company’s own technology base and being able to connect to external sources of knowledge, information, equipment, etc. Transferring technology from various outside sources and connecting it to the relevant internal points in the organisation

Generating: Having the ability to create some aspects of technology in-house – through R&D, internal engineering groups, etc.

Choosing: Exploring and selecting the most suitable response to the environmental triggers which fit the strategy and the internal resource base/external technology network

Executing: Managing development projects for new products or processes from initial idea through to final launch. Monitoring and controlling such projects

Implementing: Managing the introduction to change – technical and otherwise – in the organisation to ensure acceptance and effective use of innovation

Learning: Having the ability to evaluate and reflect upon the innovation process and identify lessons for improvement in the management routines

Developing the organisation: Embedding effective routines in place – structures, processes, underlying behaviours etc.

Click here to view a video that explains creating an innovative team.

Although the management behaviors above are a picture of the ideal innovative management behaviours, they could at some point turn into a point where they create a negative atmosphere for innovation. When the routines become so entrenched that they become rigid, the organisation could be so committed to the ‘way we do things’ that these very behaviours become counterproductive to innovation.

So…. It is imperative for innovation to not only build routines, but also to recognise when and how to destroy them and allow new ones to emerge.