What is innovation, how is it different from invention, and can organizations actually inspire more of it in their culture and across their teams?

In 1948, Manufacturing giant 3M did something different, risky. They made the decision to give their employees a 15% time allowance every day for constructive daydreaming. This choice led to the discovery of one of their most innovative and iconic products - the Post-It Note. Arthur Fry dreamed up a bookmark that would actually stick to the pages of the hymnal during his “15 percent time.” 

Later on, Google followed suit with their 20% Time initiative, encouraging employees to spend 20% of their time working on whatever they think will most benefit Google. This has led to innovations such as Google Earth, Ad Sense, Gmail, and Google News.

Large companies are often stereo-typed as slow-moving, lacking creativity and stuck in the status-quo, yet here are two that broke the trend. How? By valuing innovation enough to take a risk and create space for it.

Unfortunately, when trying to understand a principle as vast as innovation, we’re usually left with more questions than answers.

• Where do innovative ideas come from?

• Can innovative skills be learned or are you born with them?

• We all want to be innovative, but what does that actually mean, and can an organization actually inspire more of it across their teams?

This leaves the majority of us in a passive state when it comes to innovation - either believing innovation just strikes certain people at random, like a lightning strike, or that certain people are born creative geniuses while the rest of us are left to muck along, following their innovative visions. 

Innovation can realistically lead to improvements across all of your core business functions and key metrics: Retention and hiring top talent, revenue, productivity, customer satisfaction, competitive advantage, adaptability, diversity, and internal processes and efficiency. But is this kind of transformational innovation even attainable?

Before we get any further, I wanted to give a quick intro. This post is the first in my #plainperspectives series.

The goal will be to showcase a "way in which I view the world." You may agree, you may disagree, either way, I hope you are provoked to respond and share your perspective in return. There are several ways to participate:

• Take to Twitter and use the hashtag #plainperspectives (clicking this link will open a new tweet for you). Once you tweet, it will automatically appear on this page for others to see and hopefully be provoked.

• Hop over to Medium and highlight a section of text that especially provoked you. Leave your comment right inline and I’ll respond.

• Or, if all else fails, leave a good ol’ fashioned comment at the bottom of this post

For this post, I’ll be sharing my perspective on innovation - how it’s different from invention and whether or not it’s possible to actually inspire more of it in your teams. You may agree, you may disagree, either way, I hope you are provoked.

What is innovation?

In the book, “Building a Culture of Innovation” by Beswick, Bishop & Geraghty, they describe innovation as, “the successful implementation of something new or different that is affordable, accessible, adds value to the customer by solving a real problem and drives growth for the creator.”

They go on to explain there is a distinction between invention and innovation. Whereas invention looks primarily at the what, innovation looks to, “involve everyone in a drive to improve on products, processes, services or experiences or to create solutions to genuine problems.”

This holistic viewpoint helps lead to real innovation rather than simply novel invention. “No matter how superior the quality, no matter how technologically advanced the product, if it doesn’t resonate with customers, if it doesn’t solve a genuine problem or need, articulated or not, it won’t succeed.”

I spoke with Cris Beswick directly before publishing this article, and he was kind enough to share an update with me on how his thinking has evolved since writing the book in 2015.

Cris went on to explain, “We’re guilty of this in our book but have spent the past few years trying to rectify it. We need to re-position the word innovation as an outcome, something that is the case at the end of a process, i.e. we’re not ‘innovative’ until we’ve done something innovative.

So, innovation is an outcome not a thing in itself.

It’s difficult to reposition as the word is now so commonplace and used widely for everything but here’s a phrase I use with my clients to try and get them to understand how to position and talk about innovation in an attempt to help stop companies attaching the word to everything, ‘Innovation is a badge that can only be bestowed upon us by our customers.’”

His humble comments helped me to better understand how to think about innovation and I agree 100% with his assessment - the word has become so commonplace that it is now hard to know how to spot it or what to aim for as a company or leader that wants to be truly innovative.

In summary, then, innovation requires two components:

1. The existence of a genuine problem, articulated or not

2. A solution that provides definite improvement as recognized by the people we’ve delivered it for (not determined by ourselves or even awards agencies or industry peers)

If one or both of these components do not exist, you may have invented something, but you have not innovated.

What do you think? Agree, disagree, provoked?? Share your perspective on Twitter or on the Medium post.

Where does innovation come from?

Since innovation requires the existence of a problem, your most innovative ideas will come from those who are connected to the pains of the process, customer, team or organization. 

This means that every single one of your employees, and especially those on the front lines, should be regularly tapped for their genius, innovative ideas. As the team leader, it’s your job to instill this vision into your employees, encouraging them to look and share. 

Not all innovative ideas are made equal either. Since innovation touches every area of the business, some of your ideas will be around people, others product, process, customer, etc. Each employee sees a unique part of the business, and they also bring a unique set of strengths:

• Ideation & Strategic thinking

• Visionary & Future planning

• Empathy & Understanding

• Systematic thinking

• Communication and persuasion 

• Documentation

While some of your team members may possess several of these characteristics, others will shine in a single area. As the leader, it’s your job to bring a diverse team together, recognizing the individual strengths and putting them to best use. When employees are encouraged to share ideas for improvement and put in positions that utilize their unique strengths, innovation flourishes. 

What do you think? Agree, disagree, provoked?? Share your perspective on Twitter or on the Medium post.

What stands in the way of innovation? 

It’s easy to say we value innovation, but unfortunately, the lack of a clear formula, unpromising and unproven paths, and long-standing habits and beliefs create major obstacles that need to be overcome.

According to a 2017 Robert Half survey, companies may be their own worst enemy when it comes to new ideas, products, methods and breakthroughs. CFOs cited these obstacles to innovation: too much bureaucracy (30 percent), being bogged down by daily tasks and putting out fires (27 percent), lack of new ideas (25 percent) and ineffective leadership (16 percent). 

Peter Thiel, in his book, ‘Zero to One,’ talks about the hardship of innovation this way, “There’s no straightforward formula for innovation. It’s much easier to do horizontal progress, which I describe as globalization, copying things that work going from one to n, versus vertical progress, technology, doing new things, going from zero to one.”

Paul Graham paints an even grimmer picture, “The paths that lead to new ideas tend to look unpromising. If they looked promising, other people would already have explored them.” (source)

On top of all that, our long-standing cultural habits unknowingly stifle innovation. Many of these beliefs are never articulated or talked about openly, but they nonetheless drive behavior that inhibits the pursuit of innovation. Some of the more commonly held beliefs sound like this, “We want innovation, but…”

• We are obsessed with copying what already exists. Let’s just take the best practice, use the templates, copy the competitor’s features, etc.

• We can’t afford to take any risks. 

• We can’t spare any downtime for creative thought. It’s all hands on deck right now.

• We punish those who don’t hit every target. (This stifles innovation because if stretching comes at a high cost for failure, why risk it?)

• All our best ideas come from the top down (as demonstrated by the ideas we say yes to).

• We only promote and recognize those who look, sound and think like us.

• We need to spend time executing not coming up with new ideas. Ideas are easy, execution is hard. Right now we need focus, not innovation. 

This list is a sad commentary on the non-innovative culture most organizations operate with. I’ve dramatized the items a bit, just to make them punchier, but the fact remains, long-standing habits unknowingly stifle innovation.

What do you think? Agree, disagree, provoked?? Share your perspective on Twitter or on the Medium post.

What are the attributes of an innovative culture?

If the above list describes a stagnant culture, what are the attributes of an innovative culture? Six, in particular, are worth calling attention to.

• Transparent flow of information. The default position here is openness rather than need-to-know.

• Multi-disciplinary collaboration. There are no silos and as each team participates in planning and brainstorming, a mutual buy-in begins to occur. 

• Independence and autonomy. This is all about empowering employees to, “make day-to-day-decisions, challenge established practices, contribute ideas, and be heard at the most senior levels.” - Workplace Innovation Europe 

• Freedom to take risks. Innovation is risky because by definition, it’s not been done before. It’s new, unproven. Yet just off the fringes of the known lie some of the best discoveries. Do you allow your teams to explore around the edges?

• Recognition of strengths in action. A culture that not only understands each person brings a unique strength but also takes the time to notice and recognize people using these strengths in action. 

• Make room for play. This advice comes from Tim Brown, CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO who believes there is a strong correlation between play and innovative thinking. His TED Talk on the topic (linked above), has been viewed over 2 million times. 

All hope is not lost. Innovation is possible, but a few changes are in order. Are you willing to lead the change?

What do you think? Agree, disagree, provoked?? Share your perspective on Twitter or on the Medium post.

How do I become more innovative at work?

Ready to begin to implement innovation into your culture? I’ve given several habits to avoid and then six attributes to pursue. Start with those and then, once your cultural foundation has been set, begin to focus on strengthening each of the below components:

• Empathy for Understanding the Customer - We know this is a real problem that needs to be solved and we feel the pain it is causing. 

• Belief - We can actually solve it... 

• Resilience - Regardless of the cost or time required...

• Risk - Even if it costs us everything...

• Collaboration - But we can’t do it alone...

• Diversity - And it will require a new or different way, so we must look at the situation with a variety of perspectives. 

Let’s take a look at that sentence all put together because I think it casts a powerful vision.

We know this is a real problem that needs to be solved and we feel the pain it is causing. And you know what, we can and will actually solve it, regardless of the cost or time required, even if it costs us everything. But we can’t do it alone, and it will require a new or different way, so we must look at the situation with a variety of perspectives. 

A final encouragement, you may have the next Post-It note trapped at the edges of your organization, or the next Arthur Fry scanning job boards as one of the 87% of workers who consider a company’s reputation for being innovative as an important consideration when evaluating potential employers. (Robert Half)

For these reasons, and many others, pursue innovation. It’s worth the risk.

What do you think? Agree, disagree, provoked?? Share your perspective on Twitter or on the Medium post.

This Perspective on Innovation Brought to You by Plain Writing

My name is Derek and I’m a freelance writer and brand strategist who is on a mission to write in an uncommon way for my clients - simple, persuasive and exact. I call it Plain Writing.

Browse my library of past writing and strategy samples.

Also on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WritingPlain

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