Why innovation matters and how to harness it effectively
By: Edward Garrett
Tags: Sdgs, Innovation, Millenials, Esg, Corporate Culture

Innovate: to make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas or products

In other words, innovation is about managing progress.

As we face up to the looming challenges of monumental technological, ecological and social disruption, our collective ability to embrace change and harness our innate creative adaptability will determine our future chances of success.

What does success look like?

The first and most important step in any project is to identify the particular problem it is aiming to resolve, for only with clarity of purpose is it possible to define the metrics by which success can be measured.

If modern secular society is a project, the most fundamental measure of success is the maintenance of civility — our tacit social contract by which individuals live alongside one another without resorting to the use of physical force for the resolution of disputes.

Institutions are the vehicles in which we, as individuals, place our trust to regulate our interactions with others and so it is upon our institutions that we rely for the delivery of the innovation which will maintain social order in an era of disruption.

So, society’s highest priority goal must be to ensure the predominance of institutions which hold innovation at their core.

Institutions come in many guises but trading corporations are of increasing importance. Up to the end of the 20th century only a handful of companies achieved scale, wealth and influence to rival nations. The 21st century has seen the meteoric rise of many more in just a few years.

This radical change has been brought about by extreme technological shifts that have impacted all areas of life. However, with the trend of power vesting in trading corporations set to continue, they and the work we do for them will be the most important seat of innovation in future — corporations will scale the ideas to help us meet the known and as yet unknown challenges ahead.

Within those corporations, the rate of development required to remain competitive in the 21st century requires the adoption of new approaches to managing change — embracing uncertainty, cross-pollinating ideas and shedding the shackles of hierarchical decision making.

Success is ensuring survival. Survival depends on a system which is resilient in the face of inevitable change. Innovation is the method of ensuring change is progressive rather than regressive.

How can companies harness innovation?

Technology can scale exponentially, people cannot. People can think creatively, technology cannot.

Traditionally people have been regarded as just another asset to squeeze with an absolute focus on shareholder value maximisation. This over simplified approach has manifested in dramatically reduced engagement at work, increased stress and anxiety, reduced productivity and wavering confidence in the future amongst the largest part of the workforce (the ‘millennial effect’).

The challenge of organisations in the 21st century is therefore to create a culture which stimulates bold thinking, motivates human productivity and harnesses the scalable power of technology.

Leaders must focus on creating long-term value for all stakeholders by adopting an approach which respects the organisation’s position within a wider ecosystem — systems thinking. By providing meaningful work for employees, valuable relationships for partners and useful products for customers businesses will become more robust in an ever changing, technology driven landscape.

Of course, culture and people are separate but symbiotic elements. One cannot exist without the other and first having good people in place is essential in designing, creating and maintaining an organisation’s culture.

Examples of a whole system approach and its benefits

The encouraging thing is that systems thinking is gaining traction and we can expect it to become common parlance in board and meeting rooms. The following are just a few examples of organisations and ideas leading the way and which I will be exploring in more detail in future posts: