Innovation has been a hot topic for the past few decades. Companies all over the world have integrated innovation into their overall strategies and marketing campaigns. Nations and regions have launched innovation initiatives in an attempt to attract such companies and their accompanying well-paying jobs. But, as I have learned over my long career, managing innovation initiatives is actually quite hard, much harder than it may at first appear.
I was reminded of this point as I read The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures, an article in a recent issue of the Harvard Business Review (HBR) by Harvard professor Gary Pisano. “A culture conducive to innovation is not only good for a company’s bottom line,” writes Pisano. “It also is something that both leaders and employees value in their organizations.”
Most everyone agrees that such a culture entails five key behaviors: tolerance for failure, willingness to experiment, psychological safety, collaborative, and non-hierarchical. “But despite the fact that innovative cultures are desirable and that most leaders claim to understand what they entail, they are hard to create and sustain. This is puzzling. How can practices apparently so universally loved - even fun - be so tricky to implement?”
The reason, answers Pisano, is that these much-liked behaviors are only one side of the coin, which must be counterbalanced with some tougher behaviors. People love solving problems that seem impossible to everyone else and creating something qualitatively different from anything that came before. But they will rarely perform at the necessary levels if they’re relaxed and happy. True innovation is, in fact, not all that much fun. In order to reach inside yourself and find that something extra needed for true innovation, you have to feel the stress that comes when you know that what you’re doing is absolutely crucial. In the end, necessity is the mother of true innovation.
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