Blog Post

Managing creativity is key to competitive advantage because the successful generation and exploitation of ideas are essential for sustained success in the marketplace.

DEFINITIONS

It is probably best to start with an understanding of exactly what is innovation and a definition of creativity as the two are often used interchangeably, however, there is a clear distinction.

Creativity is the thinking that puts forward different understandings of a situation whereas innovation is the actual implementation of creative ideas, which often results in a new product, service, or process.

SOURCES OF CREATIVE IDEAS

When managing creativity you need to be aware of where creative ideas can originate…

Employees – Your employees work closely with your processes, day-to-day issues/problems, and with your customers. They will no doubt have very detailed knowledge of such and be in a position to recognize threats, opportunities and suggest ways that things could be improved.
Customers – Your customers are an important source of information. Customers usually purchase a product or service to assist then with some task, job, or requirement. Understanding that requirement and in particular how well you are meeting that requirement can be key. Listen, understand, and think about complaints, feedback and praise that you receive from your customers.
Suppliers – Relationships with suppliers can be used to your advantage. Look out for ideas and processes used by your supplier that could be translated over to your organization.
External environment – Ideas can come from many sources and therefore being aware of the environment beyond your organization is key. Read widely, newspapers, journal articles, trade / professional papers.
Chance – Creativity can often stem simply from some unplanned circumstances. For example, it is said that 3M’s Scotchgard product was developed after an employee spilled some chemicals on her running shoes and noticed that the area affected by the spill kept cleaner longer than the rest of her shoe.
Competitors – Actively seeking intelligence on your competitors can alert you to new developments, which in turn can lead to new ideas on how best to compete.

YOU SHOULD ALSO CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT OPEN FOR CREATIVITY

When managing creativity you should also allow your team to set aside time for being creative – for example, at Google staff are encouraged to set aside 20% of their time to work on projects unrelated to their main job.

Also…

Have a staff room or cafeteria where employees can chat with each other.
Have reading areas where employees can have quiet thinking time or can research a particular topic of interest.
Put in place web-based chat and knowledge management tools to enable employees to share ideas on projects or offer subject matter expert type information to other project teams.
Encourage a climate of creativity where people have respect for one another and where energy and enthusiasm rule the day. Limit rules and bureaucracy.
Set aside meeting times where ideas can be discussed in an open forum. Include all ideas, not just the ones that you think are good.
Encourage people to put forward ideas. Provide incentives and an idea submission box or a web-based tool for the submission of ideas.
Try and replace the tried and tested with the new and imaginative

PROMOTING CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

Creative, value-driven ideas can form the basis of strong competitive advantage and are therefore advantageous to yourself and the organization that you work for. For this reason, when managing creativity it is also important to promote creativity and innovation within your team.

Welcome all ideas however ridiculous they may seem at first and praise people for coming forward with ideas. Use tact to graciously put aside any ideas that are unworkable. Don’t judge too quickly though… many great ideas are rejected prematurely due to not enough time been taken to make an informed decision. Please see how to judge creativity for a full article on this interesting topic.

Also consider that ideas that at first seem unusable could become useful in a different context, time period, or when combined with other ideas. For further details please visit promoting creativity.

USE TECHNIQUES FOR CREATIVITY

Creativity techniques can greatly assist the idea generation process an essential element of managing creativity…

Consider using such techniques as:

Brainstorming where you usually meet as a group and have an open-ended discussion related to generating new ideas. The key to this process is the logging of ideas i.e. no idea should be dismissed regardless of how crazy it may sound. Evaluation is kept for a later meeting.
Lateral thinking – pioneered by Edward De Bono is a method that encourages different ways of thinking by changing concepts and pre-conceptions
Mind mapping – developed by Tony Buzan is a tool that mirrors the way we map, link together, and retrieve facts in the brain. It uses pictures, images, and colors to further emphasize ideas.

CREATIVITY PROFILE

Visit the creativity profile page for information on undertaking a profile of your creative abilities.

KNOWLEDGE DEFINITION

To better understand the connections between innovation and knowledge management first let’s define knowledge:

“Knowing, familiarity gained by experience” – Concise Oxford Dictionary

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT DEFINITION

Next, we should consider a definition of knowledge management:

“The process of creating value from an organization’s intangible assets, that is how to best leverage knowledge internally and externally.” – J Liebowitz

SCIENCE

You may be thinking what has science got to do with the connection between knowledge management and innovation? But science is a strong input source to innovation.

science lab

The Oxford English Dictionary has the following definition for science:

“The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.”

But interestingly it has the following origin:

“Middle English (denoting knowledge): from Old French, from Latin scientia, from scire ‘know’”

So basically science is a body of knowledge that keeps on increasing – many new scientific discoveries and breakthroughs are being made each and every year. These breakthroughs contribute to the ever-increasing body of scientific knowledge.

These breakthroughs and discoveries often additionally result in new or improved products which are innovations… For some quick examples think of solar panels, electric cars, led flat panel tv and monitor screens, etc. etc.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT CLOSELY LINKED TO INNOVATION

So knowledge management and innovation are closely linked.

Knowledge management tools enable the innovation management process to move along much more quickly. They do this predominantly by making knowledge more readily available by enabling more and more knowledge to be codified or made explicit, which in turn assists with the problem-solving process.

Improved innovation can be dependent on companies developing effective internal knowledge management systems, tools, and techniques and additionally on them improving their ability to interact with sources external to their organizational domain.

Having quick, easy and up-to-the-minute access to knowledge experts or to documents detailing solutions to previously solved problems can be extremely valuable in terms of enabling teams to quickly move beyond problem obstacles that could delay the innovation project.

Knowledge is used in order to create value. Innovations provide that value as they keep customers engaged and competitors at bay.

LOCAL AND REGIONAL GOVERNMENT BUSINESS AGENCIES

In many countries, there are government-run business agencies that are set up to assist with business start-ups and business development or growth.

New business and business growth are great for the economy. For example in the United Kingdom, for businesses established or about to set themselves up in Wales there is the Business Wales site which as well as assisting with new business development also provides innovation support for existing businesses who require help.

In Scotland in the United Kingdom, there is the Scottish Enterprise which works as a partner with the Scottish government to provide support for innovation.

Support from such organizations can come in the form of government grants or other forms of access to funding, training courses, tax relief, and networking.

SUPPORT FROM UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES

Universities, colleges, and other academic institutions can often be a great source for support on innovation-related projects.

Many universities teach innovation as part of the syllabus on graduate and postgraduate business courses and therefore they often have a wealth of expert knowledge.

It can be beneficial to contact your local academic institution to ask if there is any way that they can support you or partner with your initiatives.

Universities can often provide:

Courses for your employees to attend
Students that can spend time working on your projects as part of a placement year or other work experience type initiative
Assistance with research. For example, is there a market for your intended product?
Subject matter experts for consultancy or specialist services.
Assistance and guidance on how to develop your product.

Academic institutions often have a wealth of knowledge and they often deal with many local business establishments on a consultancy or research basis. They may be able to suggest other businesses that you might want to contact in terms of working on your project as a joint venture.

OTHER STAKEHOLDERS OR THE GENERAL PUBLIC

You may also want to consider reaching out for innovation support from your customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.

Customers are a great source of knowledge when it comes to product improvements and suppliers may have innovation experience and knowledge that they can share with you – after all, it’s often in their best interest to do so. Your growth will often assist theirs.

Finally, you might want to reach out to the public at large either by running a competition or by making requests via your company web site or blog. Read about open market innovation for more ideas on this concept.

IN HOUSE ENCOURAGEMENT AND SUPPORT

Managers can support their teams and their ideas with simple words of encouragement and subtle guidance.

Support of this nature prevents ideas from dying before an employee has any chance to prove the worthiness or value of an idea.

Along with positive words of encouragement, support your team member’s ideas in other ways such as…

Ensuring that they have enough time away from their day-to-day activities and enough space to conduct their experiments.
Protect your team from the obstacles that could derail the project. Such as the resulting revenue from this project would be far too small for our multi-billion dollar business or that idea is not relevant to our customer base complaint. Small revenue-creating ideas can grow into big revenue streams and new ideas can result in new customers or the generation of entirely new markets.
Making all equipment, tools, and materials that support their initiative available where reasonably possible.

A warm welcome to the innovation software section of the site.

With innovation being at the forefront of most company agendas many companies offer software to help drive this initiative forward.

Such tools often promote and assist in collaboration and knowledge sharing. Enabling employees to share ideas and connect with other like-minded individuals to collectively bring ideas to fruition and to resolve obstacles that might inhibit progress.

“Innovation is not just a nice-to-do, but also a real priority. Great technology is the only thing that allows you to protect profit margins. We’ve got a great management team; I’m trying to add a culture based on innovation and technology. We’re investing in technologies that are going to differentiate us in years to come. “ – Jeffery Immelt (2002) Chief Executive Officer of General Electric.

Innovation software tools often incorporate such features as:

A database for recording and tracking ideas
An ability to record decisions or action items that have been made as a result of an idea
A voting facility to enable users to rate the validity and or value of an idea.
An ability to set up a community or portal for a particularly innovative project. Users can often subscribe as team members, subject matter experts or simply subscribe to keep informed or to learn from the project.
Enabling documents to be uploaded to the project repositories.
Allowing subscribers of portals or communities to post questions, announcements or problems
Chat rooms

Knowledge management is a key aspect of most of these software tools.

3M has effectively used knowledge management tools to assist with transferring employee knowledge and experience with other employees. Knowledge management tools assist in motivating the employees to share information, an essential ingredient for innovation to flourish.

“Effective Knowledge Management has parallels with effective innovation. For innovation to take place, a company needs caring people who are willing to share for the greater good of the company and creative people who have the ability to turn ideas into practical products and services.” – Brand A (1998) Knowledge Management and Innovation at 3M, Journal of knowledge management.

The most effective tools enable individuals to operate within communities. Sharing / transferring knowledge within communities enables a strategic focus for the development of knowledge and ideas in pursuit of common goals.

Communities promote intrinsic motivation (intrinsic means innate or within; intrinsic motivation is, therefore, one’s internal motivation to keep going; it is the form of motivation that drives us to help others), which is a necessity for creativity and innovation to flourish.

Generally, tools should simulate environments that were previously conducive to innovation. Key elements to simulate include accessibility to experts in individual fields, cross-department / division networking and providing the means to enable the sharing of ideas and practices.

It is important to recognize that knowledge production is a social process. Prior to knowledge management tools knowledge sharing was often face-to-face interaction (e.g. at the coffee machine, during cigarette breaks, by the water cooler, working lunches and scheduled meetings).

Innovation software tools simulate this form of interaction via specialized communities, news based emails of user problems, community events, discussion forums, and chat sessions.

A warm welcome to the innovation phases page.

According to Kanter Harvard Business Review Jul-Aug 2004, Innovation goes through three phases:

Project Definition
Coalition Building
Action

1. PROJECT DEFINITION

Prior to defining a project, the problem needs to be identified.

This often involves collecting technical and political information in order to translate the ambiguous into a concrete project definition.

Having lots of facts and information enables you to better handle the critics when presenting the project definition.

2. BUILDING A COALITION

Next resources and support need to be acquired to make the project work.

Doing this phase prior to extensive project activity enables you to ensure that you have enough supporters to keep the kind of momentum going that is required for a successful implementation.

Comments, criticisms, and objectives from supporters help shape the project into one that is more likely to succeed.

3. MOVING INTO ACTION

This involves mobilizing the key players into action. The people need to be brought together into a team with a common purpose. The team should be briefed and then assignments should be given out.

The team should also be consulted for their ideas and suggestions in order to further refine the project.

The team should be sold rather than told.

Full commitment is required in order for the project to succeed. The manager must handle quickly and effectively any interference or opposition that may jeopardize the project.

A manager must also maintain momentum and continuity of the project. Delivering on promises is key, deadlines must be met, supporters should be supplied with information and benefits should be delivered early.

Innovative accomplishments represent a new way to use or expand resources and include affecting a new policy, finding new opportunities, devising fresh methods or designing new structures.

An innovation partnership is usually formed in order to share the inherent risks associated with innovation.

The global marketplace that many companies operate in these days has resulted in much fiercer competition.

LEAN

In response to this competition, companies must attempt to gain competitive advantage by introducing more and more innovative solutions in terms of products, technologies, and practices and they must simultaneously reduce lead time and costs.

In many organizations, the lean practices of the automotive industries are used as an approach to reduce lead times and costs.

Lean focuses on reducing unnecessary waste of resources and materials and on providing just-in-time deliveries.

(Diagram Credit: Dave Gray)

RADICAL INNOVATION

Creating innovative solutions, however, requires much more than simply adopting practices or methodologies of other industries or competitors.

To gain competitive advantage you ideally need to introduce radically new products into the market; sometimes referred to as radical innovation but also referred to as breakthrough, discontinuous or disruptive innovation.

This kind of innovation is inherently risky due to the time and cost to develop, the uncertainty of whether or not it will be adopted by the market and the complexities of the innovation process. The failure rate for new product introductions is very high.

PARTNERSHIPS

For the above reason companies often form innovation partnerships in order to share both the risk and the competitive advantage that can be gained from a successful radical innovation. They also share the influence over the outcome of the project and any resulting revenue.

Partnerships also enable increased creative capacity – shared resources result in a diversity of opinions and perspectives which create contradictions that can play an important role as a source of change and as a means to bring new development ideas to the table.

OPEN MARKET INNOVATION

You may also want to read about open market innovation which is a form of partnership where you reach beyond your internal organisation for innovation collaboration. This can be achieved via licensing, joint venture, strategic alliances or simply by requesting stakeholders or the public at large for assistance.

Many innovations of today are a result of collaborating with a number of different partners using technologies that are both licensed or freely available within the public domain.

A good example of this is many of the innovative websites and applications that are available today. Many modern websites/web applications plug already proven pieces of technology together so as to create something entirely new.

In fact, there is a special name for the creation of something by combining other things from one or more sources. It’s known as a ‘mashup’.

A warm welcome to some ideas for your innovation lecture notes.

I got hooked on innovation whilst undertaking my MBA and I’m guessing that’s in part to do with a great lecturer and great lecture notes.

To help you get started, here are some lecture notes that I put together for an introductory lecture on the topic of innovation.

Lecture Title:

An Introduction to Innovation

Lecture Objective:

To understand the concept of innovation, its importance, and how to foster innovative thinking.

Duration:

1 hour

Materials Needed:

Pen, paper, and a laptop or tablet for research.

Lesson Plan:

Introduction (10 minutes)

To begin, discuss the general topic of innovation and why it is important.

Discuss how innovation has helped to change the world that we live in today and how it contributes to both progress and growth.

Get participation by asking your students to share their understanding of innovation and what they might hope to learn from a lecture on innovation.

Understanding Innovation (20 minutes)

Explain some of the different types of innovation with some emphasis on the difference between incremental and radical innovations.

Give some examples of companies that have been successful due to innovation. For example 3M, Apple, Google and Tesla.

Discuss with examples, how innovation is not limited to just technology, but that it can also be applied to other fields like healthcare, education, and social issues.

Techniques to Foster Innovative Thinking (20 minutes)

Discuss techniques such as brainstorming, brainwriting, mind mapping, and lateral thinking.

Set a problem or challenge for your students to solve, and get them to use the techniques that you discussed to help them come up with new and innovative solutions.

Encourage them to think outside the box and be creative in their approach.

Overcoming Barriers to Innovation (10 minutes)

Discuss common barriers to creativity and innovation such as fear of failure, resistance to change, and lack of resources, with strategies to overcome these barriers such as taking calculated risks, embracing failure as a way of actually learning, and seeking collaboration and support from others.

Conclusion and Reflection (10 minutes)

Review the key points you have discussed in your lecture. Ask your students to reflect on what they have learned.

Try an encourage them to apply the techniques and strategies discussed to other areas of their personal and student lives.

It’s always a good idea to additionally ask how your lecture could be improved. What might they want to learn more about? What was really interesting and informative? What not so?

By the end of the lecture, your students should have a basic understanding of innovation along with a knowledge of how to foster creative thinking and strategies to overcome any barriers to creativity/innovation.

The lecture may also serve to reinforce your own understanding of the topic of innovation and may identify areas for improvement in your own knowledge and delivery of the topic. It may have highlighted areas that you may want to delve into further with your own research.

Additional topics

Other things you might want to consider including in your lecture or might want to discuss in follow-up lectures include:

Providing a reading list in the form of a handout. List all the books that inspired you as you developed your knowledge for innovation.

I also think it’s important to accompany lectures with a set of printed journal articles or web links to further material that the student should reference.

Understand exactly what innovation is and how it differs from creativity. See a definition of innovation and also a definition of creativity.

A successful innovation must meet four criteria: It must be 1) important, 2) unique, 3) sustainable and 4) marketable

It is key for your students to understand the whys of innovation – why it is so important to innovate to remain competitive and stay ahead of the game.

It is also important to demonstrate how an innovation spreads across a social network in terms of people adopting or accepting the innovation for information on that please refer to diffusion of innovation and for further details, you can explain how the natural rate of adoption follows an ‘S’ curve for details see adoption curve or diffusion curve.