Innovation Isn’t About Ideas

It’s about solving problems and doing hard things first

Every enterprise needs to innovate. It doesn’t matter whether you’re are a profit-seeking business, a nonprofit organization, or a government entity. The simple truth is that every business model fails eventually, because conditions change over time. We have to manage not for stability, but for disruption — that, or face irrelevance.

There is no shortage of advice on how to go about it. In fact, there is far too much advice. Design thinkers will tell you to focus on the end user, but Harvard’s Clayton Christensen says that listening to customers too much is how good businesses fail. Then there’s open innovation, lean startups, and on and on it goes.

The truth is that there is no one path to innovation. Everybody has to find their own way. Just because someone had success with one strategy doesn’t mean it’s right for the problem you need to solve. So the best advice is to gather as many tools for your toolbox as you can.

Here are four facts about innovation that you’ll rarely hear, though they’re critically important.

1. Your Success Often Works Against You

For the most part, managers aren’t responsible for innovation. As the title implies, they’re responsible for managing operations. That involves hiring and empowering strong employees, optimizing practices and processes, and reducing errors and mistakes. Managers aren’t generally trying to build a better mousetrap; they’re trying to run things smoothly and efficiently.

It’s easy for someone to stand up on stage at a conference and paint operational managers as dimwits with their heads in the sand. But managing a quality operation is a tough job that requires talent, dedication, and skill. So unless you’ve actually done the job, don’t be too quick to judge.

However, managers do need to realize that there is a fundamental trade-off between innovating and optimizing operations. Running efficient operations requires standardization and control to yield predictable outcomes. Innovation, on the other hand requires experimentation. It means trying a lot of new things, most of which are going to fail.