“Innovation” has become so much of a buzzword that the talk within the innovation community has turned to whether innovation is passe.
But I am not that concerned with what is or is not in fashion. And I am not that concerned with buzzwords. I am concerned with helping people innovate (either as individuals or within the organizations they create). I care about this because I really believe that engaging in innovation is the naturally desired state of the human soul. I believe that by facilitating these natural desires, we maximize human productivity and all sorts of wonderful benefits rain down upon us. It makes people happy. It is spiritually “productive.” It is economically productive. And it leads to tasty new ice cream flavors which I love.
So how do we get there?
That’s a big question and I will focus on only one facet of the issue in this post. Specifically, I want to take up the issue of innovation as a organizational function. What do I mean? Well, we have marketing departments, sales departments, legal departments, manufacturing departments, finance departments, and so on. Each of these functions requires certain expertise, offers certain training, has a specified career advancement model, etc. Most people who work in one of these functions do not believe that just anyone could do their job. The finance department would not randomly select a marketer for a finance job and vice versa. Most companies do not say things like “sales is everyone’s job” as a rationale for not having a sales department and sort of leaving sales up to everyone (and no one).
Yet many companies do precisely this for innovation. They will say things like “innovation is everyone’s job” which usually means they do not intend to spend resources on innovation but, rather, hope that a lukewarm endorsement will inspire breakthrough innovation results from their people who will, ostensibly, carry the innovation flag forward on their own time.
I do not believe this makes any more sense for innovation than it does for legal. Your lawyers need specific training and expertise. You would not think of taking someone who isn’t a lawyer (no matter how smart) and having them write and review contracts. Yet you are probably OK with putting your innovation future in the hands of someone who does not have specific innovation expertise. You shouldn’t be.
Over the past 5 years there has been a lot of growth in the number of innovation departments and dedicated innovation positions at large companies. I think this is a positive trend though many companies still have not figured out how to use their innovation resources. I believe it is critical to have dedicated innovation departments to insure the most professional and robust approach to innovation.
Over the coming few posts, I will talk more about the details of what this should look like, but here is an overview: The Innovation Department should be treated with the same seriousness and respect as any other department. Wait, scratch that. It should be treated as a department. The respect and seriousness should be a function of the strategic importance of innovation to the success of the company. If you believe that innovation is one of your top three imperatives then you had better insure that your innovation department reflects this emphasis.
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