Overview
All,
Our focus this week is innovation and organizational development. Management's analysis of any planned innovation will need to consider financial, technical, personnel, and HR factors in contemplating or implementing innovations. In many respects, adding innovation can be viewed through the lens of organizational change. Consider the failure rate of change initiatives. Over the past 15 years, the consensus is that 40-60% of change initiatives fail to deliver the desired results. Much of the reasons for failure have to do with newness, doing things in ways not common or usual within the company. On the most part, these failures have little to do with the external operating arena, but are focused on internal change management. When factoring in the external operating environment, such as marketing dynamics, the challenge is considerably more significant.
When considering tech innovations, by definition, the change will involve newness as innovations are unusual to the standard operating procedures. So, on one hand, there is the internal change management of the innovation, and on the other, market receptiveness on how the innovation catches on with customers. Management must analyze how the company's standard method of operations (SOP) adapts to the innovation.
In this regard, managers who contemplate innovations should consider the firm's operating culture. Are people considerate of change or innovation? What is the change fatigue quotient (dealing with many changes over short periods of time)? I have a client in the financial services industry who implemented in short order a takeover, and then a major shift in the technology that affected the entire system. These initiatives were back-to-back, and the people tasked with leading and completing the effort were over-tasked. Even a year later, when asked to implement a minor change, they were skeptical of the need and questioned the effort required.
Some industries are adept at implementing change or innovation, and that may be how they define their corporate culture. Other sectors may be more conservative in operations and reluctant to accept change. A vital lesson from the change management literature is to gauge the company's agility and acceptance of innovation. Human factors have much to do with making the operational environment conducive to accepting, greeting, and ensuring the innovation works as planned.
All: Have you experienced innovation in your firm or business?
How did it go?
Do you have any lessons to share?
Please add peer reviewed references