September 2003

Innovation Tips

…for thriving on collaborative innovation

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Building Innovation into the DNA of the Organization

Collaborative innovation must be built into the very DNA of the organization. Every aspect of the social architecture ought to be arranged with collaborative innovation in mind. Innovation occurs perpetually only when catalytic systems are in place to promote it.

3M is one of the better examples from industry that illustrates how this can occur. Their scientists allocate time to do independent work on whatever happens to interest them; at least 30% of their revenues, as a corporate target, come from new product sales; an internal venture capital fund supports promising new ventures arising from within the company. 3M doesn’t just talk about innovating, they have structured opportunities and rewards for being innovative.

Most organizations discourage collaborative innovation simply in the way they draw their organizational charts. Departmental silos, overbearing control and restricted roles are often implicit in the structure itself. Or they may discourage collaborative thinking in the way people are rewarded for their work. If compensation structures do not have incentives based on group results, they can hardly expect people to go the extra mile of collaboration.

Every organization that truly wants to build collaborative innovation into its core culture must find systematic ways of removing the structural obstacles that keep innovation suppressed.

At all levels of the organization, people must engage in perpetual innovation. Management control may need to be one of the first obstacles addressed in this process. Too much control suppresses creative effort. It is not control that breeds innovation—it is freedom to think creatively and collaboratively.

New practices and catalysts for change must take the place of old command and control mechanisms. Do you value collaborative innovation in your organization? If so, how does the social architecture support it? Do people meet regularly, from all sectors of the company, to talk about what needs to change? Is innovation acknowledged and rewarded systematically? Is there a simple means for people to offer ideas for change AND for those ideas to get swiftly developed and implemented? Are incentives in place to reward collaboration?

Successfully addressing these questions will build collaborative innovation into the very DNA of the social architecture and will generate renewed vitality throughout the organization.

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