What are the qualities that enable individuals to drive innovation successfully? How would you change things right now if you could find those magic levers that can draw people into the innovation process without a fight - regardless of where they work in your organization?
Edison not only had a knack for hiring innovation-minded people (see this month's Out-of-the-Box), he understood how to expand the creative capabilities of people everywhere in his organization. Today, gaining insight into "how we think" when it comes to tackling challenges is crucial to structuring successful innovation teams, allocating company resources, and planning career decisions. All these areas are receiving special scrutiny right now as budgets tighten.
Here are a few ways you can take a fresh look at your roster of employees, and determine which ones can be most effective at driving innovation.
ADAPTER VERSUS INNOVATOR - WHICH ARE YOU?
Thomas Edison was gifted with an extraordinary ability to "make things different," including conceiving of entirely new industries like recorded sound, motion pictures, and electrical power. He also enjoyed conducting basic research aimed at "discovery."
But his genius mind was wired to "make things better" as well by adapting them, improving them, or incrementally changing them in some way. This knack for adaptation allowed Edison to take existing products and make them even more profitable. (After inventing the phonograph, Edison worked on improving it for 52 years…)
Wouldn't you love to find someone like Edison in your organization?
British researcher Michael Kirton - in his development of the Kirton Adaption-Innovation inventory (KAI) - offers us clues on how to do this. Kirton discovered that people like to approach the world in one of three ways:
- "I like to make things different." (Innovators)
- "I like to make things better." (Adapters)
- "I like to follow best practices." (Everyone else)
Where do you fall?
MOST ORGANIZATIONS HAVE FEW INNOVATORS
If we were to take Kirton's findings and map them using a traditional bell curve, the three camps he discovered would look something like the drawing below.
Ten percent of the workforce, shown on the left tail of the curve, would fall into the Innovator camp ("I like to make things different"). These are the folks who can help you "jump the curve," and develop next-generation concepts. Ten percent would fall on the right tail, in the Adapter camp ("I like to make things better"), and 80% would fall in the middle ("I like to follow Best Practices").
| KIRTON ADAPTION-INNOVATION CURVE |
|
Best Practices |
Adapters |
10% |
80% |
10% |
|
What does this tell us? Well, it tells us that the typical percentage of individuals in an organization who are "wired for innovation" is low. It also tells us that most people in an organization are focused on Best Practices, and not encouraged to take risks or think outside the proverbial box.
As well, as my colleague and fellow innovation author (Jack's Notebook) Gregg Fraley states, "Generally, the larger an organization is, the more their individual and group scores tend to skew to Adaptive. This is one of the reasons why it is hard for larger organizations to do breakthrough innovation - most of their people are thinking 'better' like an Adaptor and not 'different' like an Innovator."
What is the silver lining?
ADAPTERS AND INNOVATORS CAN READILY TALK TO EACH OTHER
If we believe the KAI index, only a small percentage of individuals in any given organization are innovators. So, it's no wonder that innovation initiatives engender so much internal conflict! Most of the weight of a company is centered in Best Practices! The knee jerk reaction of the Best Practices camp is to squash anything that won't fit under that umbrella.
Kirton, Fraley, and KAI experts at 3M all say there is a silver lining to this communications challenge: Innovators and the Adapters can talk to each other with minimal difficulty. They are able to translate each other's thoughts readily, and listen with open minds to the new initiatives each has underway. This means faster project implementation, and more internal selling power for important new initiatives involving these employees.
So if you are in need of revenue generation right now, look to your Innovators as a resource to spur your Adapters. As 3M has done periodically, incentivize the Innovators to flip over to being Adapters for a period of time, just as Edison did during his career when he needed to generate profits from existing product lines - like the phonograph, records, and his recording studios.
As well, consider taking the following steps to juice up the innovation-orientation of your Best Practices employees.
CONSIDER ADDITIONAL ROLES FOR BEST PRACTICES EMPLOYEES
Gregg Fraley points out that, identifying the creative qualities of Best Practices employees in your organization can help spur change more effectively. Best Practices employees are often wired to fulfill at least one of the following core roles as initiatives move from the "idea stage" to the "completion stage."
| Role
| Description |
|
| Clarifiers |
Framing problems quickly and clearly, advancing the agenda for change or innovation. |
| Ideators |
Generating new approaches to challenges by bringing raw knowledge or key insight to a project. |
| Developers |
Taking concepts and preparing them for exposure to customers. |
| Implementers |
Launching and selling an initiative. |
By realizing that your Best Practices employees - which typically include Finance, IT, Operations, and sometimes staff roles like Human Resources - are most resistant to change, you can begin to offer them incentives by asking them which "thinking mode" fits best with their style. Peer feedback can assist in determining whether individuals in the Best Practices camp can serve as Clarifiers, Ideators, Developers, or Implementers.
By taking these steps, the mass of folks who are afraid to step outside the box can be encouraged through new objectives and annual incentives to make behavioral shifts they otherwise might not consider.
In The Next Issue: "The Makings of Innovation Excellence"
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