Innovation: The Path to the Prize

As a Strategic Planning Consultant, I am definitely a “trend watcher”, and one of the reasons is to make sure clients are considering any relevance of what I call the “Strategy du Jour” to their Mission, Vision, and Goals.  It seems that there is always at least one strategy (sometimes more than one) that is getting a lot of attention in leadership and management literature.  Back in the first half of the 2010s, one such strategy was innovation.  The idea of becoming “an innovative organization” and making “increased innovation” one of their Goals was becoming very popular.

The Innovation Learning Curve  So as a trend watcher, I was reading a lot about innovation during those years, and some of what I learned was surprising.  I found that there is a lot more involved than one might think with becoming an innovative organization.  Certainly, true innovation can have significant rewards, but the innovation rarely, if ever, comes without significant investment.  The subject of innovation had become so popular, that I assembled what I had learned from the literature and some clients into a presentation, “Innovation: From Start to Sustainability”, that I was honored to make at the Spring, 2017 Conference of the Michigan Society for Healthcare Planning & Marketing.

It’s about the Process  One of the most important things I've found out is that a successful innovation involves much more than the initial spark of an idea.  Moving from idea to a market ready change that will be readily adopted  is a process with four distinct stages (see diagram at right).  Each of these stages has to be consciously and actively managed, or the overall process will be less effective…producing fewer or no real innovations.

Once organizations understand all that is involved in the process of innovation, they also need to be prepared to support the process by meeting three other requirements, each with some important nuances.  These three requirements are:

• The Right Motive
• The Right Organization
• The Right Resources

Back on Top?  I’ve been fascinated by how many people have talked with me about one silver lining in the Covid19 Pandemic.  They described how when they and others from different organizations came together to respond to the crisis, it led to a number of innovations.  Necessity is the mother of invention, as they used to say.   To a person, their hope was that this collaboration, often leading to innovation, might continue in some way.  Indeed, the topic of innovation seems to be very popular again.  Maybe it’s time for a refresh on how to create the best pathway for innovation.  Let me know if I can help with a quick discussion or a full presentation on the topic.

Jeff