Acknowledging the difference between the communities and teams that deliver Big Innovations
A majority of people now know that innovation is a journey that most companies embark on as part of a programme of renewal, change or just learning. For many, this is a journey from insight inspired concept to new market, new product or new process, the exploitation of ideas or technologies to ultimately increase wealth. It is my contention that in this context, the whole journey should be represented by the word Innovation with a capital “I”, otherwise known as Big Innovation and that Big Innovation comprises two sub-activities, one of value creation and another of creativity; the former as Realisation and the later as Invention. For Big Innovation to be successful, it is essential that both these components must be present and that the balance between the two is dependent on the nature of the business being supported.
Big Innovation = Invention + Realisation
Invention and realisation, what is the difference and what should the relationship between the two be, and why should it be important to distinguish between the two?
Creativity is seeing what everyone sees and thinking what no one else has thought, Invention is transforming these new thoughts into tangible ideas and Realisation is introducing these ideas as products and processes to end-user markets to create wealth.
Thus Invention plus Realisation are the process of developing ideas and concepts to a state where they can be successfully exploited to increase wealth.
There has to be a point to this – why should the difference and the relationship be important? Well, the hypothesis is that, within the confines of the above definitions, except in very rare situations, the people that invent are invariably are not the people who facilitate realisation.
In short, the teams involved in Realisation tend to be populated by people who are more ‘left brain’ than ‘right brain’, innovative than inventive. Whereas, the community involved in Invention tend to be more ‘right brain’ than ‘left brain’, inventive than innovative. What this boils down to is that we have two groups of people who are very different and in many ways totally incompatible but the harmonious output of both groups is essential if new products and processes are to be successfully developed. More importantly, the people involved in Realisation are extrinsically driven and those involved in Invention are intrinsically motivated. That is to say, we can reward Realisation teams financially but for Inventive communities, the motivation is to have peer group acclaim.
For the future we must accept this difference and furthermore, we must design our organisations such that these communities and teams can demonstrate and deliver value at all times, even when the chips are down in a recession. Survival mechanisms must be developed and put in place such that our inventive communities are protected at the same level as our innovation delivery teams. This will require considerable thought about how to reward the different groups without creating unwieldy social and business structures.
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