How do you Keep Innovation Alive in a Company?

Innovation is to transform novel ideas to achieve its business value. It is very important to recognize that innovation is an essential factor for a company’s long term success. However, becoming a truly innovative company is difficult, some might complain it has distracted them from their strategic focus, the fact is that innovation is an important element of your business strategy, the problem is how you can keep innovation alive in your organization?

Innovation is all around - the main problem is from the top accepting these ideas and respecting peoples innovation. How would you assess profitability if you do not make a wholesome effort to innovate. There are nervous leaders in some organizations refusing to innovate, use the same line of "profitable innovation" as excuse. Eventually abandoning the effort to follow convention. To keep innovation alive in organizations, it is necessary first, assure your think tank that you are willing to make investment with calculated risk.

Develop your employee entrepreneurially. Let them doing things and problems solving in their own way to meet good results. Though the guide is needed at that crucial times, you will see the innovations in your company’ pipeline. Management should direct work flow, support the health of the team, create an environment where people want to work, encourage brainstorming. If management is successful, innovation will follow. Stop and re-model the company around the passions of the people within it; find the new stars and let them drive. Business innovation is bravery - it may take you to a whole other place.

The gap between the discovery, driving, and delivery driven management are critical and often leads to conflicts, deluding the transfer. When innovative skills and capabilities an organization needs always depends on the circumstances the business are in. Many companies form and grow on the basis of "idea creation" but then get bogged down when trying to "commercial" those ideas--which requires a different skill set, focus and even a needed passion. And, if a company's focus swings too far to the commercialization side of the equation, then innovation suffers and vice-versa. Companies form around a great technology, product or service concept, but when that initial innovation reaches end-of-life, there may not be an aptitude or capability present to continue generating a needed innovation cycle. If you could create a culture that nurtures creativity and innovation, you might be on to something, people will dare to be innovative  as long as they know they won't get penalized for a bad idea, and may get rewarded for a good one. priority, process and resource framework can be a tool to manage innovation more effectively. If a company would like to stay ahead, it needs to preserve a commitment to the discovery-driven (Disruptive Innovation) path to ensure that they are pursuing blue ocean, do not end up in the red-ocean and gets too paralyzed (self-sustained) in its perfection of a business that have to wrong foothold/business model.

Innovation comes with a risk of failure, usually not well tolerated in a market governed by risk-allergic mindset. Due to the nature of job duty, some work is more creative, the other types of job is perhaps more compliant or calculative (“bean-counters”). We are what we think. Some mindsets are only concerned with quarterly ROIs and protecting passive shareholder equity to satisfy the preoccupations of investment capital. Innovation comes with a risk of failure, usually not well tolerated in a market governed by risk-allergic mindset. Still, when business leaders, regardless what type of mind you have, goes beyond short term gain, take calculated risk and make long term investment, organizations have better opportunity to shift from surviving to thriving mode.

Innovation is about moving forward. In any business, if you are not moving forward, you are moving backwards. There is no standing still. Companies have to be prepared to lose some to gain more. That’s the mantra for you to keep innovation alive and thrive in your organization. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu