5 Innovation Traps in Organization Culture

“Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.”
- Oscar Wilde

Organizations can be such powerful forces for change. Sometimes they can get in their own way and the value they could bring to life becomes trapped. A little experience of the ways in which an organization’s culture can trap innovation might help others avoid these same mistakes. Do you see yourself or your organization in these five traps?

1. Preparation is everything – Actually, it’s become the only thing. We’re not ready, yet. Or Ever.

The very notion of choosing which innovation to pursue cripples many an organization. One of the primary reasons for this behavior is the chronic lack of clear decision-making criteria against which any of the usually many options may be assessed. And without clear criteria, there is never enough data. Because without a decision making framework all data is open for consideration.

Brache and Bodley-Scott, in their book Implementation make it abundantly clear that the criteria for selecting any portfolio (be it strategic projects or innovation prospects) must be tied directly into your organization’s strategy. These criteria should express how the alternatives might, for example:

• implement the organization strategy,
• increase sales,
• establish or widen a competitive advantage,
• reduce costs, and,
• increase customer satisfaction and lifetime value.

In Good to Great, Collins took this concept even further. His Hedghog Concept said that it is not enough to simply select the priority of investment alternatives you actually need to choose between life and death. You must choose which innovation efforts get funding and live and which do not, and therefore die so as to not draw away from your best efforts.

Getting out of the trap of analysis paralysis means keeping clear parameters for performance and success top of mind. This results in clear objectives driving your decisions. It also is most profoundly demonstrated in the courage of a company like Kimberly Clark to completely transform it’s business from a paper product company to a consumer products company. You don’t make those kinds of choices without being very clear of your intent. Focus first.

2. When we looked there, the cupboard was bare – Not enough stuff – people, resources, systems, data

In the current economic climate everyone is doing more with less. Fewer human resources, fewer capital reserves, fewer supplies. Resource scarcity has become the operational order of the day. This pervasive sense of limitation influences the choices we make about when and how to innovate.

Where this philosophy becomes a trap is when it is synonymous with keeping the lights on. Keeping the lights on as a mindset is the business equivalent of survival mode. No investments are being made. Current expenses are being severely limited. The concept of adding new investments for the purposes of innovation are not only avoided at all costs, they might be completely foreign because resource hoarding is so ingrained.

Cost-cutting procedures are of paramount virtue in this context. The person who saves the penny is a hero. But this organization trap means that we may be being penny wise and dollar (or pound, or euro, or renminbi) foolish.

How do you address this trap? One of my earlier posts focused on the counterpoint to resource scarcity – making do with what you have. Innovation as practiced in many organization does exactly that; the subversive nature of innovation means that it can survive even in the most hostile environments. An organization such as 3M used time as the primary investment of it’s employees in order to break this cycle. They instructed employees to use a percentage of every work week and devote it to exploring new ideas. 3M’s innovation success subsequently relied on long-term, individually directed exploratory research projects rather than large, well-funded, corporate sponsored efforts.

The key is to make do with what you have.

“The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other.”
- Orison Swett Marden

3. Sound and fury signifying nothing – we act without thinking and we talk about it (a lot)

“Have you heard about Twitter? What about The Facebook? Or Digg? Or Yelp? Well we are a little like all of them, but with a viral marketing element based on Mafia Wars.”

Stop it. Now.

An idea magically appearing in someone’s head does not mean it must be given voice. Innovation in this organization is trapped like so much debris in a Bowerbird’s nest. It’s bright and shiny and we’re going to collect as much of as we possibly can. Because surely when we collect enough of it we’ll attract more eyeballs and something is bound to happen, right? Please…

To paraphrase a famous Texan this organization is “all hat – no cattle”. They can talk a good game about innovation and probably have a mountain of “innovation” initiatives underway but little to show for it. They lack a cohesive strategy that might link all their efforts. In the absence of critical thinking about what innovation means they are intent on latching on to the next big thing, because if they pick the right one they think they will win. Don’t follow fads.

“Life is a tale told by an idiot — full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
- William Shakespeare (Macbeth: Act 5, scenes 1–11)

4. Perfect is the enemy of good – not ready to release (okay, never ready to release)

This innovation trap is one studiously avoided by most plastic surgeons. It was this field that coined the phrase that, “the enemy of good is perfect.” In this one line they landed the fact that there really can be too much of a good thing. (No link provided for the sake of everyone’s sanity but if you really must know, feel free to Google “plastic surgery disasters” for a sample of the pursuit of perfection) [shudder].

Organizations struggling in this innovation trap are intently focused on refining and polishing their innovations before taking them to market. The internal decision making and approval processes lock the innovation into a perpetual state of design and development, in endless pursuit of a hope for perfection. And where are the customers in this process? Nowhere to be seen. Giving rise to explanation like, “We can’t show them this? If we do, they might not like it and might go to our competitor.”

What’s that sound?

That’s the sound of your customer base being leeched away due to inattention and inactivity. Just because you’re busy innovating doesn’t mean they’ll stick around. This one innovation trap has actually given rise to equally important innovation practices, open innovation and rapid prototyping. Both of which offer ways out of over-reaching for perfection innovation.

“A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.”
- James Joyce

5. It’s business as usual day after day – (Business as usual just grindin’ away) predictability means dinner at home each night

The final trap into which the desire for innovation may fall is that represented by the economics of scarcity. Many organizations sacrifice their need to innovate to their desire to perpetuate BAU (Business As Usual). Which is not to say that a philosophy that reinforces business continuity is a bad thing. Far from it.

That said, a workman-like focus on BAU may actually be a self-deception.

Business as usual is safe. It is a known quantity. It doesn’t demand the unthinkable, the unknowable, or the unbelievable. It means we can get our job done, meet our objectives, and deliver anticipated value. It means we can work nine to five, punch the clock, pay the bills, and make it: home for dinner / to the game / for drinks with friends. It demands little. And people rise to the limited expectations of BAU because to think of being any other way is…just…too…hard.

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”
- William Shedd

And this is perhaps the most appalling trap into which innovation can fall. This represents an organizational failure to embrace the excitement and passion of the creative pursuit of the new, the wild, the different. This trap is created within an organization that has lost its way. The vision has long since dried up. The mission is already accomplished. The path this organization treads is the path of the zombie - a single-minded focus on immediate, simple survival needs and little else.

Unfortunately, often the only hope for the trap in which this organization finds itself is brutal. It either requires new leadership or a stake to the heart. But what if all it requires is something as simple as showing up and making an effort. To not do so would be criminal.

“A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort.”
- Sydney Smith

Avoiding the five traps in organization culture means: finding focus; making do; avoiding fads; accepting the acceptable; and having a go. Simple admonishments for powerful gains.