The (Shockingly Popular) Top Five Myths of Innovation

Some of them are patently ridiculous and yet we may believe in them.

[Disclaimer: The article below is intended as a commentary on our current corporate culture, and is not aimed at any specific firm or organisation, nor do the explanations or examples refer to any company specifically. In other words, lighten up and don't take any of this personally.] 

I’m not against innovation. Who would be? There are at least five items I can spot without even turning my head, that are the result of innovative ideas. Clever people, or maybe just lucky ones, thought of new ways of doing things, and cumulatively here we are, in a world that is, on the whole, better than it has ever been.

My issue is with corporate honchos using the idea of innovation like a punctuation mark. For the last few years, innovation has been deemed as the cure-all for everything that ails a firm. Never mind how incompetent the management is or how much their customers hate them, all they need is to innovate and all problems will be magically solved.

Losing customers in an existing market? Let’s use innovation to win back their hearts and wallets. Employee morale issues? Let’s apply innovation to resolve this persistent problem for good. Cockroaches in the canteen food? We can use innovation to think of new ways to not have cockroaches in our food.

I still vividly recall an occasion when some of us Managers were summoned to a meeting with a high lord of the firm. He spoke about the “awesome” targets we had that year and how we were going to beat all our competition. He kept referring repeatedly with clapping hands and animated gestures to the need for us “to innovate as much as possible”.

He clearly seemed to think that there was a switch for innovation under our desks that we had not activated as yet, and judging by his excitement he may have thought that the switch was voice-activated. The sweat on his brow and phoney smile however were telling us that he just needed a promotion badly.

In other words, from simple problems to really complex ones, suddenly innovation is the only solution for the vast armies of mediocre managers, the sum-total of whose careers’ contributions is expressed best by their impressively growing midsection.

Which means that we have descended to the point where mistaken beliefs are considered facts. Given below is a list of the most popular myths on innovation. These may come in handy the next time you have a presentation to the bosses, and for some reason you would rather that they pay more attention to you than to the cookies.

Myth #1 — Innovations will produce benefits instantly.

Managers expect that innovation is like magic. The girl on stage disappears in an instant. In the same way a good innovation is supposed to magically bring down your costs or increase your quality by the time you return from lunch. In reality, there are usually trials and iterations needed, and in some cases the innovation projects yield tangible gains, if at all, months later. It’s usually worth the wait, but try telling that to the chap who has a presentation next week to a boss who in turn has a presentation the week after that to his boss.

Myth #2 — Innovations are generated by putting people in a room for long enough.

Often seen as the only way to “kick-start” the culture of innovation, to use that abused term, in a team. Put them all in a too-small meeting room and just ask them to start generating ideas. Maybe there are problems identified beforehand, or maybe they just start shooting in all directions. Either way, a shockingly large proportion of managers think this is the only way to fire up the innovation engine. They somehow can’t see that the only results are slightly improved old ideas or unworkable new ones, and a team exhausted for the rest of the day from breathing in so much carbon dioxide and fart gases.

Myth #3 — Innovations should benefit our team first.

The purpose of innovation is often unfortunately seen as something to brag about and get credit for. It is also leveraged in bonus and promotion discussions. A more enlightened perspective is that we all work for the same firm and so even if an idea benefits some other team, our company still wins. But let’s also be honest, the middle manager reviewing the idea is desperate for a success. They have three loans and two spoilt children to worry about. They are not going to consider any “innovation” unless it keeps them personally afloat a little longer.

Myth #4 — Innovations are cool, radical, and fascinating.

The iPhone is a rare example of an incredibly cool innovation. But even Apple can’t keep producing such innovations all the time. Sometimes the innovations are boring ones like a code improvement that uses less battery, or a glass tempering that makes the colours on the screen a little bit truer. All innovations are not going to be super-exciting glamorous ones that will start a cultural revolution. Sometimes, a successful innovation is just a simple, clever, and plain improvement. That’s it.

Myth #5 — Innovations should cost nothing.

True, some innovations came from a pauper’s purse and sometimes the point of the innovation is to slash costs. But zero budget can’t be a standard rule for funding innovation. In fact, after your people, this is the most important investment you can make. Calculate your estimated gains, and then decide how much to spend. It’s a logical business move, but managers behave like the whole company was just robbed at gunpoint and there’s no money left anywhere.

Bloody cheapskates! You do have the money. Learn to use it smartly. Innovate, a***holes!

Hope you liked the piece. Do share your thoughts and your own laws of innovation in the comments below.

As I always like to say, stay cool and keep building a better life. Cheers!

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