-What are you building there? I asked him with the lego pieces at hand.
-I don’t know yet, he replied. Can you help me find the pieces I need?
Could you think of a better analogy for innovation? Allowing individuals to come together in a creative environment where they can explore different routes and hopefully come up with something truly unique.
Only a handful of companies probably allow for such conditions of free exploration (I have yet to come across one).
In most cases, the lego pieces come prepacked, with a complete step by step building manual, a price tag and a tight deadline.
On top of that, there is usually a bunch of mostly personal opinions shared along the way.
I was leading a global launch project. The R&D team had worked on some really great prototypes and we submitted a pretty solid 3 year business case.
It was questioned as not being financially ambitious enough. We had done a very thorough market investigation and were very confident about our numbers.
I asked what the expectation was. Top management wanted to hear that the launch would break even in 18 months, with x% margin and x mil € over 3 years (all of which was unrealistic).
As long as teams explore innovative solutions with a financial goal in mind, the solution will never live up to its full potential.
Maybe the innovation will be a major boost of the bottom line, or the sales, or build the brand perception as a leader/expert in a category. Maybe it won’t. And management need to allow for failure, reflection, assessment and redefinition.
Management needs to define what innovation means for the company and set clear expectations so that teams know where to spend their resources.
Great innovation cannot be achieved by dictating top down. It needs to be built across teams.
So true! And management needs to have *realistic* expectations. Too often, they don’t and then blame a lack of innovation and creativity on the teams below them rather than looking at themselves in the mirror and asking what they did to help facilitate (or hinder) the innovation and creativity they claim to want.