Working for a big company I have had exposure to some of the roadblocks to innovation, from my experience I have seen groups struggle with the following.
1) Daily workload. The company can set up all the initiatives they want if employees aren’t given the time and/or resources to do their brainstorming and initial development work it will be not be successful.
2) Appetite for Risk. It can often come down to the management team or even individual managers, if they are not willing to take risks on new idea and have historically not given them the attention they need to move forward, then employees may not feel empowered to work and present these ideas to the business team.
3) Culture and Attitude. This is very important and some aspects of it ties to #s 1 and 2. But to add another dimension to it, this can be driven by the team members themselves. If you have ever known a true inventor you will know how critical the attitude of the individual is – they must be creative, driven, and willing to fail before they can succeed. Having members of your group that have this kind of attitude can inspire others to think outside the box. Where if the group is burdened with the opposite - check the box, do my work and go home type, especially when those individuals are senior members it can stifle the creativity level of the group.
Talking about Culture and Attitude, it's dangerous that in big companies if one leader is come up with strong domination. I heard a lot of criticism about Apple recently. A senior Apple fan even wrote a letter to Timothy Cook to express how disappointed he felt after the launching of iPhone 5.Employees now tell Cook is more like a manager than a leader in Apple. The success of Apple was almost rely on Steve Jobs' personal leadership and vision.
ReplyDeleteGood examples. I think one of the critical aspects is individual drive. Entrepreneurs have it...why else would they be crazy enough to launch their own companies? Lol. It's hard to have that same level of commitment when you're doing the work for someone else.
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