Innovation

Where I work, the latest management buzzphrase is "Have you had an innovative idea today?" So, innovation has become the latest cool, necessary thing.

Let's think about that, a moment. "Innovation" is defined as "The creation or introduction of something new, especially a new product or a new way of producing something." (Google define:innovation if you want to see more.) The newness aspect is plain. Innovation is doing something new, or in a new way. However (and I have not found a definition that mentions it specifically), I believe inherent in any innovation is an element of risk. Doing something new or in a new way involves the risk that it won't work, or won't work in the way you intend.

Sometimes you simply cannot know beforehand whether a new idea will work. Change is never one-dimensional. The universe is not a tube where, if you push something in one place, you know exactly where something else will be pushed out. The full impact of change cannot be known without trying something out and seeing if it will be successful. And sometimes even the best-sounding ideas fall flat on their face.

At this juncture, and before I make my point, I want to mention anecdotally an experience I had at my previous employer. Back in the mid-90's they embarked on a "quality" initiative, specifically CQI. CQI is centered around manufacturing, and involves various teams identifying how they can make their processes more efficient, resulting in fewer mistakes and ultimately--better quality. But, we were a software company with a reputation for providing superior service to our customers. No one said our software was the best quality, but everyone said our service was great.

I thought that teams should be identifying their customers, and finding out what their customers thought of the quality of their output, rather than just jumping right to processes and attempting to make them more efficient. Service does not improve by mucking around with how you interact with your customer, unless you have first asked your customer what changes would make your service better. Your customer is the arbiter of quality--always.

My anecdote on "quality" ends with a blurb I saw in the company house rag some 2 years after the quality initiative was introduced. Someone asked whatever happened to the quality movement, and they replied: "The quality movement is alive and well. We saved over $8 million [in costs] last year." So, it becomes apparent that it was never about quality, but all about saving money.

So, this brings me back (if you are still reading) to my discussion of innovation.

My company is saying that we should be innovative, but just try to introduce something new! There are multiple levels of approval committees and management just waiting around to tell you why we can't do what you propose because 1) we don't know how to do it, or 2) there's a risk that your idea won't work, or 3) it costs money.

The first objection might have validity, on the face of it. After all, companies should strive to stick to what they know. Not all innovations need to be large, but even small ones probably involve something that's not been done before. "New" sort of implies something not done yet, methinks.

The second objection simply sounds ludicrous (ask me about that word, sometime!), because intuitively everyone understands that you can't predict the future with perfect precision, so innovation most definitely implies risk. So, tell me how we can innovate without involving risk?

I'll come back to #3 in a moment, but first ...

I work in IT--information technology. It used to be called data processing, but we've graduated to a higher plane in the 21st century. I develop software for a living, and I very definitely want to be highly innovative. I don't innovate simply to try something new, I innovate to solve serious business problems, and if it happens to involve doing something new, then so be it. But, in order to innovate I have to navigate up the salmon streams of our management in order to get my ideas/innovations accepted. It's been quite frustrating, indeed.

This is where I link these 2 stories together. I suspect that the current innovation initiative is only about saving money, and not about being truly innovative. Their objections to change and/or doing something new seem to suggest that they're only interested in innovations with obvious an immediate payback. That way, even if those "innovations" fail--at least they can say we saved money. But of course it isn't about that.

It doesn't take much pushback against one before one decides being innovative isn't quite worth the effort. After all, we are not but wage slaves to "the man", so innovation is really his problem solve. But yet, they are all asking us to be innovative. Since I work in software development and not software maintenance, I can hardly think of a way that I can be innovative that doesn't involve spending money as opposed to saving money. I'm always suggesting that we spend money now so we can both grow and save money, later. The only way I (acting in the role in which they hired me) can actually save money is to not do anything. That is, make no changes, develop no new software, not upset the current operating environment.

So I ponder this question, and wonder how I can innovate without creating risk or spending money. I'll let you know if I figure it out.