Perspiration Not Inspiration Delivers Innovation

Innovation. It’s a word that crops up everywhere these days and plays its part in the formation of  the most toe curling of corporate slogans - BOC’s `Delivering Innovative Solutions` plastered across the side of their trucks being one of my favourite examples of pseudo-marketing nonsense.

There is so much guff talked about innovation.  So often it is presumed to be the preserve of the maverick obsessed with something that others fail to see. That may make for a good story but the reality is that it’s cultures that innovate – not individuals. To paraphrase Thomas Edison, innovation is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

Innovation is a team game and consistent innovation results, after all but the earliest of start-up phases, in companies where it’s embedded in their DNA - day-in, day-out. But in the digital age as the awareness of the ability of new firms to quickly disrupt existing economic ecosystems increases, the idea of being innovative has come to the fore as a business school mantra and something to which boards have to genuflect publicly.

All mouth and no trousers

Such is the need to conform that 6 out of 10 CEOs recently stated in a PwC survey that innovation is their primary focus or - at least, `one of their priorities`. As it’s cultures that also slow and stop innovation, you might be right in suspecting that in many organisations such pronouncements are just window dressing designed to protect leadership’s careers and prop up share value. No wonder, then, that struggling UK High Street chain Marks and Spencer's new brand values are , `in touch`, `integrity` and, you guessed it, `inspiration` and  `innovation`.

For instance, a 2013 study of US corporate employees revealed a huge gap between leaders and those they were charged with leading. Staff appeared eager to be entrepreneurial - more than half of those surveyed (52 per cent) claimed to have actually pursued an entrepreneurial idea within their company. But what they lacked was support from their all-mouth-and-no trousers management who talk a good game but are found wanting when it comes to innovative action.

Thus a culture gap was revealed. Nearly half the employees said management support is very important to the generation of entrepreneurial ideas, but only one in five believed their company delivered it. Whilst although 42 per cent consider tolerance of failure from management is very important, only one in every eight employees think their company actually delivers on the promise.

So on the one hand innovation and entrepreneurial leadership is touted as a top priority and on the other hand only one in five employees feel supported by their management to be entrepreneurial, and, crucially, many less trusted their company’s response to risk-taking.

This is a big frustration for most innovative employees, particularly when innovation is imported - as M&A becomes the new R&D - in an effort to stay competitive. The associated risk of this strategy is that employees become disruptive within the company, move employers to find a more entrepreneurial organisation or leave to found a start-up. Any one of these is a loss to a business.

Protecting the status quo

If leaders are reluctant to support innovation often it is result of wanting to protect the status quo and their power base or from a fear of being seen to fail. The problem, of course, is that if you are the first leader to knowingly risk failure it could kill your career or ultimately cost you your job. This is why large corporates slowly die – eventually reaching their Kodak moment - as the pace of development in the market is faster that the pace of corporate cultural change.

Start to embrace failure and you start to innovate is routinely trotted out as the answer.  This homily is supported in the UK, at least, with apocryphal stories about business disasters being treated as a valuable experience in the US whereas it is believed to be the death knell to reputation and investment here in Blighty.

A whole lot of learning or a mountain of waste

The fact remains that some large UK companies continue to be highly innovative – one only has to think of Rolls Royce aero engines and the re-born car manufacturing industry in the UK. Yet research shows that currently only one out of seven official innovation projects successfully reach the market. What really amazes me is that a lot of managers and researchers seem to think that a one out of seven effectiveness rate is somehow good. That’s a whole lot of learning or a mountain of waste, depending on your perspective.

Perhaps we are simply looking down the wrong end of the telescope.  Rather than embracing failure as a way of moving forward, we should consider how often we are effective at innovating – how often we make the big breakthroughs or even how many small innovations eventually result in a step change.

After all, Darwin did not say it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.