When speaking with the sales director of a big company recently, I was a little surprised when he said: "Innovation is not my responsibility." It was quite a telling remark and hinted at a bigger question about whose responsibility innovation should really be. "Not all the smart people work for you," according to Bill Joy, founder of Sun Microsystems, so how can a company tap into great ideas or great people wherever they may be and whose responsibility is it to engage them and innovate with them?
However, the responsibility for innovation is shifting rapidly which means you have to compulsively connect, act very differently and begin trading collaboration currencies.
Compulsively connect
Innovation seldom results from a top-down, strategic initiative. It is much more likely to spread virally from team to team, one conversation at a time. Therefore, while you need buy-in from the top, the worst thing you can do is lump responsibility for innovation solely in research and development (R&D) or marketing departments and expect them to innovate in isolation.
The best innovation strategies are the ones that have buy-in and engagement from right across the business, from human resources to brand management and public relations, marketing, product development, mergers and acquisitions, customer service and logistics.
This is because innovation is increasingly a contact sport. External partners will not see, or be very interested, in your internal structures, but will see and follow you as a person or a brand and what it represents.
We all like to work with people and organisations who are straightforward and likeable and so there will be everincreasing demands for a simpler ways to engage with you. Therefore, for innovation to thrive, it is crucial that everybody takes responsibility for compulsively connecting people and ideas both internally and externally.
Act your way into a new way of thinking
Everybody wants innovation but nobody seems to quite agree what it is. For example, we recently asked people at a client workshop, and also on Twitter, to name their favourite innovations. The responses were diverse, and if there is little consensus as to what innovation actually is, how can we organise ourselves to deliver it?
So you need to build some consensus as to what innovation actually means for your organisation and that requires a conversation that involves the whole business as well as your customers and partners.
The old model of centralised R&D departments being the source of all innovation has long been replaced with innovation departments that are generally smaller, distributed and light in resources. This builds on open innovation, where you innovate with partners by sharing risk and reward.
However, a critical error some organisations make when embarking on open innovation is thinking that it means getting something for nothing. It is instead about getting something for doing things rather differently, and thinking in a new way.
Build and trade currencies of collaboration
Innovation requires leadership that inspires a movement, rather than dictates a strategy. You can no longer simply resort to the hierarchy to get stuff done and make decisions.
Progress happens much more organically though building trust with loose coalitions of partners. This requires a mindset and a culture that is much more collaborative.
Yet most conversations about innovation tend to start with "what" questions, such as "what is the problem or need that I have or that you can solve?". And these "what" questions typically quickly result in a discussion around ownership of intellectual property (IP).
While this is crucial, it is access to IP that is becoming more important than ownership and it is what you can do with them that really counts. Instead of starting with "what" questions it is often more productive to start with "who" questions, for example, "who do we want to collaborate with and what motivates them?".
IP, combined with a good reputation, are increasingly becoming the collaboration currencies that drive innovation. And the best way to build up these currencies is to start trading.
So start small, increase the number of conversations you are having and build your network, from which new relationships and ultimately collaborations will flow.