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The right organisational culture needed for Business Innovation – Part 2

The right organisational culture needed for Business Innovation – Part 2

By Rikus Grobler – I am still on the topic of creating a nurturing culture for innovation. In the previous article I laid the table with the argument that an organisation has to drive the “run the business” activities AND the “change the business activities”. Change in the sense of change for the better – for the sake of surviving and beating the competition.

Established organisations are by definition designed to drive efficiencies and does not take disruption of the status quo well. A significant part of establishing the right culture is acknowledging this fact and creating the climate, systems, processes and behaviours that can deal with these conflicting objectives.

In essence, this means that leaders have to figure out how to manage two distinct operating systems: one that minimizes mistakes and maximizes productivity in today’s business versus one that encourages experimentation and maximizes learning for tomorrow’s business.

A culture of trust

In an efficiency-driven, operationally-minded world, organisations often try to eliminate as many potential business risks as possible. But if you want to innovate, risks are inevitable. Risks take a certain level of trust because if people get penalized for their failure, they are going to quickly move towards higher and “safer” ground.

Innovative cultures are set-up to cultivate engagement and enthusiasm. Your company culture should challenge people to take risks within a safe environment. You should be finding ways to foster employee’s continual education and independent thinking and you should always drive fear out of the workplace. Fear is “Public Enemy #1” of an innovative culture.

In order for innovation to flourish in your organisation, a culture of trust and openness must be established. Not just lip service to these values, but it needs to be reflected in compensation structures, the ways in which mistakes are handled and how openly ideas are shared. So how is trust established? Trust is built or destroyed by what we do, so ask yourself these questions: How are mistakes treated? How much experimenting do we personally model and encourage in others?

Who gets rewarded and recognized for what behaviour? What management support systems and processes are in place? How much and what type of skills are developed and for whom? What information is shared, by whom and with whom? Do we keep our promises? Do we truly live according to our values? How clear and consistent are our goals and priorities?

These are just some of the trust issues. But as we contemplate our answers to these questions, the most important question of all is how do we know? We need to ask those people whose trust we need to build how they would answer these questions. To get their truthful responses and lay the foundation for trust building let them answer anonymously.

I recently had a discussion about innovation with a high-profile leader of a large organisation in Namibia. I like the way he stated his take on this matter: “calculated tolerance for risk and failure”. So it is not about blindly taking risks and jumping in without testing the water first, it is acknowledging that there are risks and how these risks will be dealt with or mitigated. Obviously, this included the possibility of failure, but taking the lessons from the failure, the general disposition should be one of doing it better with the next attempt.

Next Time

I hope my point has come across that there is a direct and strong correlation between organisational trust and innovation. I have dedicated many articles to the more “high-level” issues regarding innovation, i.e. strategy, culture, maturity, etc.

So next time, I want to focus on one of the practical issues – and probably one of the most fun parts of innovation, namely generating ideas.

Ideation is where it all starts and every organisation wants the “big breakthrough” ideas, but guess what, it does not drop out of the sky with a light bulb being switched on, you have to work at it and there are ways to get better at developing great ideas.

I conclude with a quote from Edward de Bono: “As competition intensifies, the need for creative thinking increases. It is no longer enough to do the same thing better . . . no longer enough to be efficient and solve problems”.

Sources:
Fermin, J. 2014. Company Culture: A driving force for innovation. Online: http://www.innovationmanagement.se/

About the author Rikus Grobler

After a career of over a decade in the manufacturing and IT industries, Rikus established a specialist business and management consulting firm, Namibia Innovation Solutions, in Windhoek in 2010. He has an MBA and also holds degrees in Engineering and Law. He is also a certified Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) and he is currently pursuing a Ph D degree on innovation. His passion is corporate innovation, a field in which he has consulted for some of the major organisations in Namibia.
You can e-mail him at [email protected] or visit his website at www.nis.com.na.

About The Author

Rikus Grobler

Dr Rikus Grobler is a Namibian academic, inventor, entrepreneur, public speaker, and business consultant who specializes in the development of the innovation capability of companies and individuals. He holds degrees in Engineering and Law and has an MBA and a Ph.D. in Business Administration. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) of the Project Management Institute (PMI), and he has also completed studies in design thinking and intellectual property management. An experienced professional with a background in manufacturing, information technology, tertiary education, research, consulting, and financial services, Dr. Grobler has been involved in innovation management for the past ten years and currently holds the position of Manager: Innovation for the Capricorn Group in Namibia. He is particularly interested in creativity, innovation, and invention.