Video Transcript (Roots of Innovation Capability: Findings from CENTRIM’s research)

Roots of Innovation Capability: Findings from CENTRIM’s research

Dr. Dave Francis  0:09

I had the good fortune between 1995 and 2002 to undertake a research program into the roots of innovation capability. And this actually took me to a large number of fascinating organizations, including such places as the New York Police Department to find out what it was that enabled them to innovate successfully. And we found that there were six areas which came through as being particularly important. Let me just outline these to you now, and you’ll have the opportunity to think about it as you work on your own situation. The first is to do with leadership, we call it focusing leadership. What this means is that the boss’s they need to take innovation seriously. They need to try to say yes, they need to shine a light as it were focused on where innovation is needed, and they need to play an active role in actually making it happen. This actually goes a step further forward. Innovation needs to be incorporated in business plans, and the leaders need to be prepared to change things radically if that is needed. Because sometimes, in order to make space for innovation, we need to clear away things that we’ve done in the past, so that the new can come through. The second area is to do with competencies we need deep competencies. Why? Because ideas and a commitment to those ideas, unless it’s backed by competencies tends not to get done. You don’t find the people running a poodle parlor for example, being able to put a couple of astronauts on Mars they just don’t have the capabilities. So, we need to build the capabilities alongside and in parallel with the ideas of where we want to go. What goes into this area? Well, we need bright and talented people in innovation intensive tasks we can’t do without great people. We need a portfolio of appropriate capabilities, and we need to get things done. We need a momentum, a success, a philosophy of actually delivering. The third area is to do with culture. I call it a facilitative culture enables; it makes it easier. That’s what the word facilitate actually means. We need able people to be empowered and if they are aligned, given their heads, except in the very tiniest of organizations innovation can’t be managed from the top. We need an expectation that people will contribute to innovation. It’s the way we do things around here, not just from the bosses, but also from peers from coworkers. They need to feel this too. Interestingly, it’s not just from the management. That’s part of the way in which people talk to each other. They take pride in being innovative. Forcefully, we need learning. Learning is the nourishment the food, it energizes innovation. We need to learn about what could be not just bring everyone up to the current standard of what is good practice. We need to listen to multiple people, to the employees, to the customers, to the potential customers, to technology leaders to lead users to many people. Innovation requires a lot of listening. And we need, where it’s appropriate to build bridges with other organizations, so we’re getting the advantage of two sets of capabilities coming together, making new intersections enabling us to get new things done. Fifthly we need an enabling organization. We need a structure, which is flexible and dynamic. Innovative organizations are often reorganizing they’re never absolutely organized. It’s a dynamic form of organization that we’re looking for. We need champions people with passion and enthusiasm, who are prepared to pick up an idea and really run with it and drive it through. And we also require the right kinds of structured processes, so that where it’s appropriate, there is space for exploration and searching and development. And then there are these very tight decision-making procedures which intersperse the appropriate amount of formalization does help innovation to proceed. And lastly,

we need intelligent decision making. By this I mean, we need decisions to be taken within the scope of a map, which indicates where we might be moving in the future, not just one-off decisions. Oh, this is a good idea. Now we need a more coherent picture if you’d like a scenario of where we’re going. We need that competent, decisive decision making even though there will be unknowns and uncertainties and lastly, we need persistence. Persistence is necessary because in most innovation journeys, you come across hard times, you get into difficulties, and you need to keep up. So those are the six competency areas which we found, through our research, really build strong innovation capability.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai