Beware of books and articles that profess to give insights into the management of innovation. The further I dig into the field of innovation, the more I become convinced that innovation management is an oxymoron.
The term management is all pervasive in industry. We have managers everywhere. We see management as an integral part of doing business, as if it were the very oxygen we breathe.
Yet it is a very poor metaphor in the field of innovation. Whilst we can bore ourselves silly debating the definition of innovation, there's no denying that a large part of innovation relates to hope. We can set up all manner of initiatives and processes to facilitate innovation and to create an innovation capability, but we still hope that something good emerges from the innovation resources deployed. This is so evident in so many corporate vision statements and top-down management signals that are, when stripped of their jargon, empty slogans begging for meaning, waiting for some brave imaginative soul to fill the void.
And if our future boils down to hope, then we need to do everything possible to feel hopeful. If we feel hopeless, as many employees do in their jobs - or at least resigned to an outcome beyond their control - then how can we expect anything much to emerge from our resources?
Hope is connected to enthusiasm and optimism. These are two ingredients of innovation that cannot be managed. The word manage has that awful industrial-age feeling of "to cope with," which is hardly a mindset that applies to innovation and creativity.
When I get requests for "sync up" and "co-ordination" and " alignment" and all those other management "control" phrases, I know that the plot has wandered far from where it needs to be, far away from innovation as a force of creation, dragging it back towards the stronger force, tendency and habit of "management." BIG MISTAKE.
Innovation should be allowed to flourish wherever it can find oxygen to breathe. It should be nourished, nurtured, encouraged and given legs of hope. Above all else, innovation requires enthusiasm - trucks loads of enthusiasm.
Do whatever you can do to muster every last grain of enthusiasm from yourself and those around you. Turn yourself into an enthusiasm virus and go infect everyone with it. Go one step further! In a recent whiteboard session with my associate Lars Stalling, ex-Ideo designer and all round interesting person, he suggested that we go further than virus, creating an innovation/enthusiasm retro-virus.
So forget innovation management. It's the wrong starting point. We need to let innovation emerge. We need to spread the virus of enthusiasm. This human dimension is so often missing from the theory books of innovation, all of which seem to start with an industrial-age view of the organisation. Meanwhile, young start-ups out there, totally fuelled by enthusiasm, grow up into large organisations with the enthusiasm virus baked in, but in a way where mutation (innovation) is welcomed, not managed. That's the future of competition. We're not competing with organisations, or even organisms - we're competing with viruses, or retro viruses. The competition is more likely to look like swine flu than bricks and mortar.
So, thrown out the innovation management books! Issue all employees with iPods and a subscription to the most upbeat music they can get their hands on. ENTHUSIASM!