TL;DR: Overcoming Innovation Inertia
Let's make that an agenda item for another meeting...
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Overcoming Innovation Inertia
As part of the introduction to The Cycles of Discovery and Innovation we discussed “Innovation Inertia”; which is the problem that businesses will continue doing what they do until something makes them change.
TSir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion highlights the problem pretty succinctly:
Newton’s First Law of Motion
A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, except insofar as it is acted upon by a force.
Sir Isaac Newton - Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)
Or to paraphrase it: An object at rest stays at rest until an external force is applied.
This is the case with businesses; people within a business will continue doing what they do (Standard Operating Practice) unless they are incentivised or made to do otherwise – This is the state of Innovation Inertia.
The sources of innovation move businesses out of Innovation Inertia and onto the Cycles of Discovery and Innovation; the two main sources of innovation are Externally or Internally driven and examples of them are:
Externally Driven
Responding to situations: Innovation in order to respond effectively to a situation.
Forced by the market: Innovation driven by market forces to either remain compliant or competitive in the market.
Internally Driven
Efficiency Improvements: Innovation to increase efficiency and effectiveness.
New employees bringing new ideas: Innovation as a result of new ways of thinking or points of view coming into the business.
Existing employees wanting to grow: Innovation as a result of allowing and encouraging your employees to grow and develop.
As we know from Newton’s First Law, without an external force businesses will continue on the same path; and the sources of innovation are this external force.
Getting started is just the first step, innovation is a disruptive process that is a source of change; this can introduce fear and uncertainty into the business and you need to manage this for innovation to be successful in a business. Some may be concerned about it negatively affecting their ability to do their jobs, their team, or their responsibilities.
As a business leader or a driver of innovation, part of ensuring the smooth adoption of new methodologies, technology, or strategies is handling this change effectively; this can be effectively done with Change Management techniques which we are going to discuss, if we have not done already, in a future post and series of TL;DRs.
GTFYT
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