Barriers to Building a High Performance Innovation Culture

Based on the results of our last informal innovation survey, it seems that how to build a healthy innovation culture that supports sustainable innovation and drives corporate value is a question worthy of discussion.  I’d like to begin that discussion with some comments on what factors often get in the way of building a strong innovation culture.

There are of course many roadblocks in the way of any large cultural change, but in my conversations with people that have innovation or product delivery responsibility in various Global 2000 firms, there are a few that show up consistently.  The top four innovation culture inhibitors are: insufficient enfranchisement, institution inertia, lack of executive support, and lack of investment.  Here is what I mean by each of these items.

Insufficient Enfranchisement
This is a very important but sometimes difficult to diagnose malady.  It can be hard to spot because it doesn’t necessarily manifest itself as overt resistance to cultural change.  Rather, individuals don’t feel connected to the organizational goal, and thus don’t pursue the goal with the desired alacrity.  In the nascent stages of building a new culture, this can be an initiative killer.  This is why any program to build a strong and sustainable innovation culture must consider how to strongly enfranchise all constituencies.

Institutional Inertia
We have all heard the expression “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  This maxim is anathema to anyone trying to build an innovation culture.  Organizations have many systems in place.  These systems are usually deeply rooted, and from the perspective of current practitioners, they are not broken at all.  Yet, these same systems often stand in the way of the new order because they do not embrace the demands of the new objectives of sustainable innovation.

Lack of Executive Support
Here is a great paradox of innovation.  We consistently see innovation at or near the top of the C-exec agenda.  Yet time and time again, we hear from innovation workers that they don’t feel the support of management.  How can this be?  The answer can be one of many situations.  Here are a few of them.

• It is felt that innovation is this messy thing that can be managed.  So, managers resort to a “if you ask for it, it will happen” style of innovation promotion.  Of course, this rarely works.


• Management delegates the responsibility for establishing an innovation culture to someone else.  This approach is doomed to fail.  You can delegate the authority to drive the innovation culture, but you must not delegate the responsibility.  Only when top management takes ownership can such efforts achieve true success.


• It is felt that adoption of innovation practices and building a strong culture must come from grass root demand.  Unfortunately, if the on-the-ground innovation worker doesn’t feel that management is truly behind the innovation initiative, the groundswell rarely materializes.

Lack of Investment
Establishing a new culture takes both diligence and investment.   Whether it is investment of people, time, or treasure, the initiative cannot success if it is starved of resources.

It is easy to see that all of these issues can hamper the establishment of an innovation culture.  Are these the issues you have seen?  What others are in your way?

Comments

[Tatyana]

Good post. Thanks a lot.
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[rubyoxy]

I agree that people need time for innovation. I also think that managers are responsible for making it happen.