Innovation Trend 6 - Organizations will create clear processes for innovation

Innovation doesn’t just happen. It must be everyone’s responsibility. There has to be no constraints. There are so many models of great organizations that reached this level and continue to evolve. Think of W.L. Gore, Google, Honda, and Apple to name a few.
Many of the world’s most successful innovators, from Thomas Edison to choreographer Twyla Tharp, concede that innovation cannot be forced, but it can be developed. That is, we can enhance our capacity to generate ideas, innovations, and adopt what Tharp calls the “creative habit.” Developing the understanding and practice of these creative habits is the foundation for a contemporary process that fosters innovation in the workplace.

Organizations are beginning to recognize the innovation is a collaborative process where people from various disciplines within the organizations come together to generate innovations and to take these from vision to reality. The innovation process will be taught and incorporated into everything that everyone does. Many organizations will begin to set aside time for their staff to innovation. Google and Microsoft do this. It is part of their culture. It is expected that everyone spends time not only on their job, but that they devote time to innovate.

The process that organizations will be implementing ensure that everyone knows how to work in a diverse team, accept conflicts as mere differences of opinion, understand how to capture innovations, generate alternatives, research possibilities and create the actions needed to bring them these to reality. It doesn’t just happen. It is a process.

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Innovation Trend 5 - Organizations will re-shape their values and principles to ensure they support a culture of innovation

Many organizations have clearly articulated values and principles. They sit on posters and on employee’s desks. But these organizations don’t really know whether or not these are the “right” values and principles. Nor are they certain whether or not their leaders and staff act and behave in a manner which embodies these values and principles.

As organizations re-shape their cultures to support innovation they will also re-examine their values and principles to ensure these are the “right” values and principles that correctly reflect the ‘new” culture. They will take these off the walls. They add to each value and principles clear behavioural descriptions. These will identify the actions and disciplines everyone will demonstrate to show their on-going understanding and embodiment of these values and principles. Then everyone will know whether or not their communications, reactions, actions, etc. are in keeping with or contrary to the values and principles.

Organizations in the future will alter their hiring practices to ensure that they hire the type of staff who can live these values and principles because they align with their own principles. Through these efforts they will know their values and principles are contributing to the fostering of a culture of innovation.

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Innovation Trend 4 - Organizations will focus on longer-term strategies required to support a culture of innovation

Organizations often struggle with the on-going trade-off debate between growth and earnings, short and long-term goals, etc. They spend too much time discussing how to cut costs in order to meet monthly revenue targets and too little time talking about the longer-term opportunities and how the short-term decisions are likely to impact these.

Organizations that are focused on the strategy of innovation are starting to realize that their growth will be better met if they focus on the longer term objectives of innovation and customer focus.

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Innovation Trend 2 - Organizations will create a Strategic Innovation Plan to ensure Innovation becomes a strategic imperative

If you get the environment right, a culture of innovation will easily fall into place and the business side of your operations will be that much easier. Many organizations spend time on strategic planning and business planning but rarely spend time on building their culture, the development of values and principles and the type of reporting relationships that will support the new culture.

Organizations will now start to create strategic plans that include Innovation as one of their key strategic imperatives. This is the requirement to get the innovation engine started. They will develop the actions required to successfully implement the strategic imperative and they will gain organization support through their communications of this important initiative.

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Innovation Trend 1 - Organizations will define what Innovation means in their environment

Most individuals have read about innovation, heard about innovation and maybe even tried to be innovative. But few understand what exactly innovation is. Organizations are beginning to recognize that Innovation is not the result of a lone genius; rather it is a collaborative process where people from many different parts of the organization contribute to the creation and implementation of new ideas.

The first trend for organizations is that they will define what Innovation means in their own environment. Is it about products or services or processes or customers or all of these things? Once they are clear on what is Innovation they will be ready to implement the second trend, building the strategy for innovation.

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http://www.bia.ca/articles/7KeyTrendsinInnovation.htm