6 stereotypes that kill innovation

The key insight for me about last year is that innovation fails where the wrong people are given a role. In our blog 5 learnings from an innovation team, we have already elaborated on the 5 lessons to take away when innovating. Innovation simply requires different qualities and characters than the normal day-to-day business we are used to working in. Especially in innovation, it is important to know who to give a role and who not to. This is especially true when you are at the beginning of your innovation movement.

6 STEREOTYPES THAT KILL INNOVATION

My view after almost 7 years of innovating and mentoring teams: there are some stereotypes you should try to leave out of (the start of) your innovation movement because, often more by accident than intention, they kill innovation. Especially in a corporate context (but also if you work as a startup), something to watch out for. Do you recognise them?

THE OPPORTUNIST
Innovation has something cool, something cool, something you want to be part of. Right? For instance, there are always plenty of people who do want to be part of your innovation team for a while. Just a nice change from work. This often does not contain the right motivation to really do what is necessary to innovate successfully. Then, when the less fun jobs come along, these are often the first dropouts.

THE FALSE PLAYER
Well, sometimes it is tempting to use only the data that supports your idea and dismiss that which disappoints. Often this behaviour is linked to a culture where failure is not seen as a valuable element to grow. This makes efficient innovation difficult. Risks seem to be dismissed. Assumptions validated. However, this is half the truth. Pulling a Diederik Stack because it suits yourself. Shame on you!

THE RELATED
A bit of an extension of this is the Traitor. Someone who often has another 'normal' job alongside the innovation job. He sits enthusiastically on your innovation team. Until things suddenly get busy and the agenda comes under pressure. That normal job then takes precedence over the temporary innovation job. Indeed, they are judged on that at the end of the year too. Point in time, their loyalty lies elsewhere during busy times, and you want to feel precisely as a team that you are all putting in the same amount of energy.

THE PROFITEUR
We all know this type. Choices are based on self-interest. Wanting to do only the fun jobs. Only wanting to be on stage during positive messages. Being part of the team only when things are going well. This does not work in a team and also not in the context of innovation where customer and business value should primarily be the motivator of choices.

THE KNEUS
More than once, I have been faced with teammates who happened to have time on their hands. Because they were in between jobs, reintegrating or because another project had just finished. They were put into an innovation team because people were needed and the business wanted to minimise this pain for itself. Result: a kind of B-Team destined to fail.

THE UNQUALIFIED
But above all, let me not forget the people who just don't have a innovation DNA have. Who cannot stand the uncertainty that innovation brings. Who are not comfortable with the iterative approach or who don't even see the point of validation with customers. This can involve the best specialists and the top bosses. It is not a bad thing if someone cannot do something, but it is a bad thing if you know that and make them part of a team or the innovation movement anyway. So empower people.

BUILDING A DREAM-TEAM!

So how do you put together a top team? That is immediately the difficult part because some stereotypes only manifest themselves when you are already on the road. In addition, the context and innovation maturity of your organisation is also important and whether these are full-time teams or not. Still, a few tips you can take into account in any situation:

1. Choose people who really want to participate and make them immediately aware of the less fun aspects of innovating. Fail? Count on it! Two steps forward, one back? Yes! Resistance from the rest of the organisation? Unfortunately, often yes! Unclear where we end up? Uhhu! Still enthusiastic? Welcome on board!

Give these people time to innovate too. Remove other tasks and responsibilities. Avoid multiple agendas that all demand attention and multiple managers who all think themselves the most important thing. Without exception, it's a killer for speed if you don't take care of this.

Make innovation part of their assessment. Make it as important as their other tasks. Make sure you also choose and measure the right things as personal KPIs.

Select on attitudes and behaviours needed for innovation. These are things you can test beforehand, with different tools. For example, Myers Briggs has a characterisation that fits innovators: ENTP. Of course, that test is not sacred and sometimes the outcome is not quite right, but always better than not looking at it and hoping you make correct choices.

As everywhere and always, people determine the outcome. And yet you see that relatively little time is put into building really good innovation teams. This is a shame because again, preparation is half the battle. If you choose to innovate, that includes investing in the quality of people.

Do you have any tips on selecting the right people for innovation, or do you know any other stereotypes yourself? If so, let us know.

Pieter van der Boog
pieter.vanderboog@elementalstrategy.com