Harvesting service-innovation-intelligence depends upon building an “Innovation Zone”. Fashioning this Zone may mean improving our philosophy, culture and even our business model. A business model is nothing other than our method, formula, or way that we make money. Southwest Airlines changed from its industry business model by inventing unrestricted, everyday low-cost, one-way seat sales for use by everyone, not just the affluent or the compelled. They set the industry on its ear. Cultural change is often thought as difficult because while most people like change, they don’t want to be changed. When a business culture elevates to create a greater sense of appreciation, respect and empowerment, amazing things happen. Philosophical conversion about how the customer is embraced can also have dramatic impact.
“Innovation” (and creativity) is nothing other than simple, commonsense processes that a business puts in place and makes into a continuous orderly discipline, an easily understood system. Innovation is not so much about the superhuman hero-inventor as it is about the collective wisdom and processes of free-wheeling teams. Yet innovation is driven by leaders with passion, curiosity and undeniable hope. Social networks, intentional collaboration and structured idea-recombining interactions (& activities) is where leadership thrives, shifts, and rotates; as teams are nurtured, encouraged and challenged, they inevitably create unforeseen insight and extraordinary commercial value.
The “Zone” is a place where people can move ideas from concept to reality. The Zone thrives amidst uncertainty, constraint and scarcity. It is the resourcefulness by which we rethink how we create value. It’s the place where risk is carefully managed and experiments are made with small amounts of money. The zone can be a physical place in a building or it can be the building of a new open-minded passion led culture.
The Innovation Zone is a “reward” place. People find meaning there. They find individual and collective significance. They discover a new sense of identity. They expect recognition. They get feedback of a special sort. People in the innovation zone function at higher levels. They are also willing to become subservient to an important idea or those leading that idea. Some special few take on the role of Intrapreneur – - a dedicated worker on a specific project either as a volunteer of their free time and weekends, or as a laser-focused full-time employee of their initiative. Such intrapreneurs are the ones who earn bonuses and or royalties. However, most people in the zone prefer nonmonetary incentives to keep the motivational pump gushing.
The Innovation Zone requires careful structuring. It must not interfere with our company’s source of profits, “The Performance Engine”. This engine can be thought of as the every-day means by which our business makes most of its money and fuels all of its operations and plans (including our Innovation System). Most of the budget goes to improving the Performance Engine; funds for the Innovation System are relatively tiny and rightly so. However these two vehicles must be in balance, with both receiving more than sufficient time, attention and resources; the Innovation System is critical for survival in our fast-changing tomorrow.
Executive compensation needs to be tied to developing a robust Innovation System Portfolio – - but not of course to the individual initiatives within the portfolio. In other words, unless the senior executives’ and critical managers’ compensation structure is tied to developing the future, when push comes to shove, innovating the next Performance Engine for subsequent product cycles doesn’t happen, not really. Further, unless a reward system (mainly non-financial) for all stakeholders and employees is carefully created, innovative efforts eventually languish and die on the vine. The best organizations have all staff working on innovation continuously: some rotate people through on a full-time basis; others have it as a part-time responsibility in their job description; in other cases, innovating is simply made a top-of-mind-awareness in everything that is done by each and every stakeholder.
Creating an Innovation Zone is not that difficult. However, it will be unique to every company; there is no single formula or cookie-cutter that can be written out on a prescription pad. It’s a fun and critical activity. For a case study illustrating how to do this, go to http://worksystemscanada.com/WRLA
These days our Innovation Zone must be bound up in the experiences of the users, in the Customer-Adventure-Cycle. If that is not front and center in our Zone, then we might as well be doing our work off in a cave in the nether regions of the Canadian Shield. When we come out, we will be connected to nothing, know nothing, and no one will know us or even care who we are. Our Innovation Zone will work because we have critical insights into what makes our customers tick and what will satisfy their deepest urges. Then we will strike Innovation GoLD!
SUGGESTED INNOVATION PROJECT: Begin by jotting ideas down about how to create an innovation zone in your company. Just brainstorm; stay away from evaluation or feasibility. Deal with the emotions of what would make your best people, your average people and your underperforming people, happier and more excited about their work. Think about what you could do to get your suppliers and customers talking more intimately to you. Don’t kill your ideas by figuring them out. Go for flow. Emotions are not intellectual neither are they subject to logic and reality testing. The goal here is to get you to be gut level connected with all the stakeholders inside and outside of your company. Compile a list of how they can become more creative and open-hearted. More on what to do with that list will be explored later.