Fifty years on from when Professor Knut Holt brought together innovation professionals in Norway to discuss innovation best practice, the subject remains one of debate - and often confusion - in boardrooms and strategy meetings.
Companies often talk about the need to innovate, to transform, to change. But when it comes to actually doing it, the way forward remains unclear and somewhat daunting.
I often talk of the need for ‘managed’ innovation, and for systematic approaches to innovation to make it sticky and sustainable, but at the heart of innovation sits the process of taking novel ideas right through to the generation of tangible value. That is where we must start if we’re going to address board room aspirations.
The first step is arguably the most critical one, but also one that is often overlooked or bypassed. Successful innovation requires us to truly understand the problem we’re trying to solve, or the opportunity to be exploited.
Douglas Adams put it in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”:
“Forty-two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?”
“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”
If we don’t have a clear understanding of the challenge to be addressed, then the solutions are unlikely to have a long term impact. We run the risk of spending time and resource looking for a silver bullet – one solution that will magically address a broad spectrum of challenges.
If such a solution did exist, then it’s likely we would have already implemented it. But they don’t; and we haven’t!
There are a range of tools and techniques to dive into challenges to find an individual challenge that sits at the root of the challenge being faced. If we can identify and address that underlying challenge, well, then we really can change things.
These techniques range from questioning techniques, and the development of empathy and insights through the creation of persona and user journeys, as outlined in the popular ‘Design Thinking’ approach.
One effective tool that generates surprising insights quickly and effectively is “Innovation Lenses” which forces us to look at the problem through the perspectives of different stakeholders, including customers and competitors.
Interestingly, it also requires us to consider “orthodoxies”, which are the commonly held beliefs that we feel we just must adhere to – but that nobody can quite remember why! As I’ve also said before, if you want something new, then you have to do something new.
Once we’ve identified a challenge “worthy” of innovation – one that we can’t resolve by simply trying harder – we need to verify the challenge by challenging all and any assumptions we’ve identified thus far.
Only now should we move on to the fun part of innovation – the idea generation. Everyone has ideas, sometimes walking the dog, taking a shower, or watching the latest TV show.
If we get stuck, there are literally hundreds of methods that can be applied to generate, short list, and then verify ideas that can 100% solve the challenge we’re looking to address.
Diversity of thought is a powerful driver of innovation, and involving people with different backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints from inside, or outside, the organisation will almost certainly generate a broader range of ideas and solutions that will be achieved by getting the usual people in the room.
Moving from talking about innovation to making innovation part of ‘business as usual’ requires a deliberate, structured, and managed approach, but it’s possible to get going with innovation by simply identify a challenge and then stopping, taking a step back (and a breath), and then considering the challenge from a different perspective.
Talking about innovation will change nothing, so let’s start thinking differently, find new ideas to address real challenges, and create real value.
- Charlie Tuxworth is chief executive at Celsio (www.celsiogroup.com), an innovation consultancy which works with businesses across Ireland, Britain and the US to streamline their processes, create new approaches and drive innovation.
