Innovation Blog

“We Need LESS Innovation, Not MORE!”

By Shlomo Maital

“Businesses need most of their workers to carry out their primary duties with enthusiasm and consistency”.  We thus  need less innovation, not more. [1] This is what Pat Lencioni argues, in the latest issue of Bloomberg Business Week.

Here is Lencioni’s case, as he states it:

“The problem isn’t so much that we’re overstating the importance of innovation; it’s more about what so many leaders are doing with it. Too many of them are exhorting all of their employees to be more innovative, providing classes and workshops designed to teach everyone how to think outside the box. They’re also doing their best to include innovation on a list of core values, emblazoning the word on annual reports and hallway posters, hoping that this will inspire people to come up with new ideas that will revolutionize the long-term strategic and financial prospects of the company.

Even well-intentioned and dedicated employees are bound to respond cynically to these efforts, frustrated by what they see as hypocrisy. They just don’t perceive a genuine eagerness among leaders to embrace the new ideas of rank-and-file employees, and they’re mostly accurate in that perception. For all the talk about innovation, most executives don’t really like the prospect of their people generating new ways to do things, hoping instead that they’ll simply do what they’re being asked to do in the most enthusiastic, professional way possible. And so it is no surprise when they get pounded for preaching innovation without really valuing it”.

I think that what Lencioni means is this:   Not that we need less innovation, but rather, we need less hypocrisy on the part of business leaders who on one side of their mouths preach creativity and innovation, and on the other,  find it a pain in the neck to have to listen to crackbrained schemes proposed by employees, most of which are worthless.

If you truly and honestly believe you can get   both BHAI [2] breakthrough ideas,   and hundreds of hairless small  0.1-per-cent-gain ideas, from your employees, then implement an innovation process in your organization, including giving regular feedback to those who propose ideas and a systematic method for giving each proposal or idea a fair hearing.

But if you are not ready to walk your innovation talk, better not to do anything.  You will simply create frustration and unhappiness.   In order for someone to speak up, they have to know that there is someone who is truly listening.  If you’re not ready to listen to potential innovators, don’t ask them to speak in the first place.

Recall, too, that if you don’t listen to an employee’s idea, your competitor might.  Robert Noyce left Fairchild, where he pioneered semiconductor integrated circuits, and went on to co-found Intel, where he led the invention and  development of microprocessors (with Ted Huff).  Fairchild is long gone,  Intel is a global giant.

[1] Bloomberg Business Week,  “Organizational Life”,  August 27, 2010,   “Why Companies Need Less Innovation”. by Pat Lencioni.

[2] Big Hairy Audacious Idea