Mistaken Beliefs Leaders Have About Innovation

On the premise that the world is changing and innovation is a necessity just to survive, many organisations pose the question, “how” can we innovate? In particular, organisations might look to their leaders to achieve innovation. Breaking silos, bringing people together, sponsoring and effecting change, nurturing creativity, developing talent and leveraging diversity are all things that you might expect from a leader which might also contribute to innovation. But is there a direct link between leadership and innovation?

To answer that, it can be seen from a slightly different perspective that if leadership is not done well, innovation might “suffer” as a consequence. This angle was elaborated on in article by F. Vermeulen in the latest Business Strategy Review (London Business School, 2011, Vol 22, No 4) which highlighted “Five Mistaken Beliefs Business Leaders Have about Innovation”.  The case in point is that even though innovation has been looked at from “every conceivable” angle, the same leadership mistakes are often repeated which “hamper rather than induce” innovation.

Here’s a summary followed by further implications (“et alors”).

Mistaken Beliefs Leaders Have About Innovation

Believing the numbers

·         The mistake is to insist on the “numbers” (e.g. market size, NPV etc)

·         If something is truly innovative, it is impossible to reliably produce numbers

Believing success has been attained

·         The mistake is the “success trap” – believing success is permanent and ignoring innovation

·         The business context also changes and continuing adaptation is needed to survive

Believing they know the competition

·         The mistake is to think that similar companies are the most important competitors

·         The most “threatening” innovation often comes from an “adjacent” angle

Believing that because it’s always been done this way, then “this” is the best way

·         The mistake it to keep doing things as before even when circumstances change

·         The greatest innovations often come from challenging industry conventions

Believing the customer

·         The mistake is to think that consumer research is useful for truly innovative ideas

·         If you want to be really innovative, you have to be leading the customers

Et alors?

It appears that the leaders can do a lot to “kill” innovation just by resorting to classic “management” behaviours. The first point to note regarding leadership and innovation is that leaders should be well connected with the outside world and not just focused on their product, their business and their organisation. Imagine doing a simple “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats” analysis with only an internal perspective – it is likely that the result would focus mainly on the strengths! Secondly, by looking outside the organisation, leaders can make sure the organisation is at least adaptive. Finally, there has to be a corporate culture which “permits” innovation. One of the companies best known for innovation, 3M, allows employees to spend 15% of their time just exploring ideas which they think might be important. In other companies where innovation has been a “success”, there is a culture of tolerating failure.

I recently came across a business innovation which must have come from an organisational culture which does not make the above mistakes regarding innovation. Despite email, there is still the need to send (usually formal) letters; but typing it, printing it, signing it, then putting it in an envelope, addressing and stamping it and delivering the said letter to the post box is all a cost to the user. The innovation is that the post office now proposes an online service: upload your letter and digital signature and the post office will print it, put it in an envelope, address it and deliver it by the next morning! This innovation was probably “ahead” of customer expectations and must have been approved without too much reference to numbers – it is experimental! It could be argued that the post office has to innovate to survive, but then don’t all organisations?