Climate change!

Giving innovators a chance

Who in the company should innovate? Every employee or only those who are passionate about innovation? I’m making the case here for the latter. This means creating “a climate that stimulates innovation”, in contrast to creating “an innovation culture”. Let me explain.

A corporate culture means that every employee should believe and behave in alignment with it.

• Think e.g. of a company with a strong ethical culture that successfully creates trust with customers and stakeholders: all employees, without exception, demonstrate this ethical behavior – and likely the company wants to keep it this way. 

A corporate “innovation” culture thus implies that every employee should innovate, be measured against it, be recognized for it.  If innovation is currently not the corporate culture, it needs to be created. Not only is changing the culture of an organization one of the hardest things to do, successful corporations often do not want to change it.

To increase innovation in such a company, it may not be necessary to create a new culture of “innovation”, i.e. that every employee now needs to innovate. That could even be risky, as it may dilute the existing culture. It also may not be necessary, as there are groups of critical employees who may not need to be innovative.

• Like in the example company above, take those employees ensuring site security or taking a customer order with flawless execution. They need to be ethical to create trust, but may not need to be innovative. If they would, there even may be a risk that it would dilute the current corporate culture.

On the other hand, by “creating a climate that stimulates innovation”, the existing culture stays intact, while innovative employees are encouraged to pursue their ideas. Those employees should know how they can experiment, how to get support and be rewarded for being innovative.

I have experienced significant business and customer impact from the creation of such a “climate that stimulates innovation”, without changing the existing corporate culture. This can be done in several ways:

• through facilitation, e.g. by creating networks to connect innovators across different geographic areas or divisions; by removing barriers for innovation, like learning how to experiment cheaply or how to engage with legal/compliance
• through inspiration, e.g. by providing recognition and awards for successes and failures; by communicating broadly across the company with TED-like webcasts and leadership town halls
• through measurement, e.g. by tracking how the innovation mindset perceptions change; by managing an innovation portfolio

One risk of focusing on climate change (vs. culture change) is that if the catalyst (e.g. the leadership sponsor or innovation leader) leaves, sustained innovation may dry up. If this happens on purpose, this may imply that innovation was not or is no longer a critical need.

To change a “corporate culture” is like a fire drill, a massive, disruptive top down effort (think creating a digital culture). Creating a “climate that stimulates innovation” is more like lighting many small flames, bottom up across the company, which then, together, create a big fire. In both cases though, all employees need to be aware that innovation is important and that they should support innovators. 

As Marcus Buckingham said:

“Innovation and best practices can be sawn throughout an organization – but only when they fall on fertile ground”

So, as Innovation Leader, I worked in a company that already had a good, deeply ingrained culture. Therefor, I focused my energy on creating a climate that stimulates innovation within that culture, through facilitation, inspiration and measurements.

More reading: 10 influencing factors to creating a climate for innovation

What are your thoughts? Please share below!