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An idiot's guide to Innovation (63)

Innovation golden age ... without the gold

Sociologists say that we live in the 4th industrial revolution. An age where digital means are used to their max extent to enable new exciting ways to leverage data and automate everything. Where every company scrambles to find a way to incorporate AI into its strategy. It is only natural then, to expect that innovation will be very high on the agenda of all organizations, public or private.

Yet an observant reader might notice that our actual daily life appears to be even more static than before and no breakthrough innovations are around. Of course, the aforementioned AI trend and Electrical Vehicles (EVs) have entered our lives, but did not dramatically shift our day to day experience like electrification, the gene theory or pasteurization. It looks like our innovative era isn't as innovative as it claims to be.

Thought stall

The main causes of the lack of earth-shattering innovations are related to broad macroscopic trends. The last decades are characterized by consolidation at a grand scale. Big technology companies, who feel threatened by younger competition, acquire start-ups that might threaten them later. The incentives are to keep systems as they are (like e-commerce, internet search and others) not to risk a disruption to the business model. Novel ideas are thus often bullied out of the competition and left unexplored.

Furthermore, this atmosphere of consolidation breeds a culture of relative complacency. A culture that is very much driven by professional managers that care for optimizing existing supply chains and securing a career and not risking the opening to a new market. Add to that a poorly motivated workforce with lots of tasks outsourced and we have all the ingredients for innovation dough that fails to rise. 

What can be controlled: culture and strategy

But alas, we cannot directly change our external environment. So let's focus on what we can do internally in our organizations to foster innovation. And here I believe the magic words are culture and strategy.

Culture in the sense that a safe space must be provided at all costs. Failure should be welcomed and not frowned upon. Forward thinking organizations realize that their size makes it hard to innovate and to address this, they give employees freedom to use part of their time to work on their own ideas (like the famous Google 20% rule). And while we are at it, it might also be a good idea to connect with other like minded organizations such as universities and research institutes to have spillover effects and stay at the forefront of research.

Strategy might be even more important than culture. Operating at a tight budget, most organizations have limited resources, so they need to make it count. And research is full of risks, so picking areas of investment is paramount. Typically, an appropriate mix is selected where most resources are invested on low hanging fruit and incremental improvements while a significant amount of funds is put to potential game-changers. And of course, picking areas that have synergies with the current capabilities and goals is extra points.

All in all, innovation doesn’t need to be flashy. Rather, it needs to be intentional, supported, and above all, possible within the systems we build.


Comments

  1. HipthiAugust 3, 2025 at 1:01 AM

    Fair enough and loyal to your beliefs in general..

    ReplyDelete

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