By Dr. David Weiss
Bridging the innovation gap.
A decade's worth of executive surveys on innovation highlights a significant gap between what leaders say they want and what their organizations deliver. According to research, over 80 per cent of leaders surveyed believe innovation is important for their future success, but less than 30 per cent are satisfied with their current level of innovation. A recent survey found the same pattern for HR professionals, whereby 82 per cent indicate that innovation is “important” for HR, but they rank it as priority number 12. So why, despite all the talking, have executives and HR professionals not given innovation the attention it requires? The short answer is that they have not had sustainable solutions – practical and reliable approaches that deliver long-term, predictable results. Instead, they have had an endless array of partial answers. They are left with an alarming innovation gap.
HR must be a driver of innovation in order for the organization to overcome its innovation gap. Some may be surprised by that statement if they perceive innovation as only transformational products such as exciting handheld smartphones. What role does HR have in developing transformational products other than hiring the talent to generate those kinds innovations? In actuality, innovation delivers value in organizations in more ways than transformational products do. Most innovations occur through adjacent areas, meaning diverse employees, teams, departments and organizations that combine perspectives, resulting in new ways of thinking and operating.
Those adjacencies are essential to generate innovative ideas. In addition, innovation is far more than products; it includes services, processes, business model innovation and even societal and policy innovations. Most importantly, innovation is built on developing leaders of innovation rather than spending time trying to develop more innovative leaders. Leaders need to be individuals who can draw out the innovative capacities of diverse teams and employees to gain insight and discover innovative solutions. The role of HR in each of these areas is important to drive the creation of organizational methodologies, leadership capacities and cultures that allow innovation to flourish and thereby overcome the gap.
The five areas of focus for HR as a driver of innovation are as follows:
1. HR builds leaders of innovation
The efforts to try to create innovative leaders have failed. People have developed their ways of thinking that are likely to be the methods they will use throughout much of their careers as well as their lives. The idea that through training courses people will alter their cognitive processes and become innovative thinkers is very unlikely. However, what HR can do very effectively is to develop leaders of innovation. Leaders of innovation do not necessarily generate the innovative ideas themselves.
Instead, they recognize innovation when they see it and work with the innovative ideas to generate meaningful outcomes for the organization. HR needs to build leaders of innovation by hiring individuals who are inherently capable of being leaders of innovation, promoting them and developing that capability. They also need to build succession plans to ensure that future leaders are able to be leaders of innovation as well.
HR must be a driver of innovation in order for the organization to overcome its innovation gap.
2. HR ensures diverse teams can work together on innovation
Innovative insights and discoveries emerge from diverse employees, teams, departments and even diverse organizations that share their perspectives and combine them in constructive ways. These adjacencies require openness to diversity and cross functionality to generate the kinds of innovative insights and discoveries that are required.
Typically, organizations that have “silos” are unable to generate innovative outcomes. The isolated parts of the business may work well, but each is an insular group with similar ideas that will likely not generate diverse opinions. The homogeneity will limit their capability to gain insight and discover innovative solutions through the combination of diverse ideas. Organizations that eliminate silos are able to leverage adjacencies to generate innovative outcomes. HR has a fundamental role to maximize diversity, cross-functionality and the elimination of silos.
For example, HR should extend the role of its HR business partners (the various HR professionals assigned to partner with department leaders in the organization) to ensure they receive and hand off work to other departments effectively so that silos are removed. HR must ensure diverse teams can work together on innovation in order to drive innovation throughout the organization.
3. HR needs to drive a culture of innovation
Culture is what people do and say when no one is looking. It is a self-sustaining force that makes people work the way they do even without being given policies or procedures that tell them how to operate. Culture develops in groups when they solve challenging collective problems and then teach their assumptions and solutions to future generations of employees as the way that work is done in that organization.
A culture of innovation is characterized by six factors, according to Innovative Intelligence: The Art and Practice of Leading Sustainable Innovation in Your Organization:
i. Innovation is required as a business priority
ii. Executive team models innovative thinking and innovative practices
iii. Open and honest communications and trusting relationships
iv. Effective cross-functional teams that service diverse viewpoints
v. Leaders that engage in risk-taking focused on delivering external customer value
vi. Balance of innovative thinking with the discipline to implement solutions
HR needs to reinforce the elements in an organization that are consistent with a culture of innovation. HR should also take a laser-beam approach to the few areas that are inconsistent with the culture of innovation and modify those behaviours and assumptions. By migrating the organization to exemplify the six factors of a culture of innovation, HR becomes a driver of innovation.
4. HR needs to drive change management of the new innovative ideas
Innovation needs an implementation track record so that people will believe innovative work is meaningful and not a waste of time. Implementing innovative ideas also reinforces a culture of innovation, which will help sustain the focus on innovation. HR should ensure that the leaders follow best practices in change management in order that employees and teams effectively and rapidly adopt innovate solutions that become the new business as usual.
5. HR targets and removes organizational practices that make innovation more difficult
HR needs to drive innovation by developing practices and programs that motivate employees and teams to be more innovative and leaders to become leaders of innovation. HR should also review its current practices and programs to ensure they are not inadvertently making innovation more difficult. HR should ask questions such as: Are the job descriptions creating rigid job definitions that prohibit employees from working on diverse teams? Do the leadership development and succession processes encourage or inhibit the development of leaders of innovation? Subsequently, HR needs to look at other parts of the organization and champion the removal or modification of various organizational practices that inadvertently make innovation more difficult. For example, if finance has a budgeting process that only allows innovative ideas to be implemented at the beginning of a budget cycle, then that will limit the willingness of employees to generate innovative solutions within the year.
If parts of the organization require four or five signatures for approvals to proceed with innovative initiatives, then HR needs to remove those barriers because they slow down the implementation of innovative ideas.
Overall, HR has a fundamental role as a driver of innovation in organizations to help overcome the innovation gap. HR should develop leaders of innovation, create an openness to diverse thought, build a culture of innovation and ensure that innovative ideas are implemented effectively. HR also needs to remove or modify the organizational practices that are barriers to innovation and that make innovation more difficult. As a driver of innovation, HR becomes a core asset for an organization to overcome its innovation gap.
Dr. David S. Weiss, FCTDP, ICD.D is president and CEO of Weiss International Ltd., a firm specializing in innovation, leadership, and HR consulting