Who is better then Bank to determine the ROI of a given investment, project or a new venture? When it comes to the Finances, no one. What comes in the way of leveraging innovation is the culture, organizational tools & processes, role models in senior leadership and reward system. 'nuf said, whats new here. We have been hearing this over an over. I will attemp to elaborate further from my own experiences and perception.
Firstlly, Innovation is not about a buzz-word as of a cow-boy act in middle of of process heavy big old enterprise which reminds of a big elephant. Heard of "my team is innovative" , "centralized innovative teams", "Innovation week". In one firm these can be marketting stunts to create awareness and hoping to influence anybody and everybody who can bring this change. In another firm, these can be the end result reflective of the way fabric of the DNA has been there. There are great articles on all the things a firm should do to instill such much-desired outcomes. Following are some of things which should be stopped or addressed immediately
1. Are you thinking about innovation without considering you may have to play a different game altogether? In another words, innovation of the business model itself. Companies who worked on for century to build the market share and create immense barrier to entry have lost half the market share to new entrant within half a decade. Market itself is exanded to double and new segments are created that were not even considered by the imcumbents. Uber, AirBnB, Facebook, Google, Amazon the list goes on and on. You will have to think about how how following technologies at the minimum can be used to extend or disrupt your current business model. Mobile - the way users are interacting via new channales; Data - how you can efficiently and effectively derive information and use if in your decision making; Automation - how you can distill your business process leaf by leaf and question why you need human hand or even brain to perform a task. Mobile is ubiquitous, Data is new oil and Machines are more smarter - these three aspects have started a revolution half a decade back. You will have to continously reinvent yourself, even if you are at the top.
2. Are you centralizing innovation as one big team who will take you to next level? Every centralized function has failed unless its well governed, well mandated, and balanced with providing every team, every member autonomy and authority to make a ground level impact while contributing to the top agenda. Innovation should not just be a top down mandate with set targets and measures. It should be a ground level shakeup and build up of concrete steps by the folks working at groud level in quest of making every day life of thier customers, users, them selves better. They should be able to touch, feel, get proud of, feel accomplished, see the positive impact to society. Thats the reward which goes a long way. Rather then a new tool which is developed by a team which have not worked at the ground level and employees are either influenced or forced to use such tool. In some cases, it may work just fine. But if you want innovation to be in DNA of your organization, you will have to create catalyst and have it germinate through the works who are close to the work thats been done. Some may agrue, new innovation is more likely to come from someone from outside. True, at the same time idea is 1% and execution is 99%. Idea is to make the employees at ground level part of the process, involve them, let them make small decision and fail, have them skin in this game, make them stand on the final post when its time to celebrate. Why will they not adopt what they were part of? It rubs of across teams quickly. Norms are formed. New role models are set. Marketting kicks in . Company experts becomes industry experts. Customers get engaged in. Its like a long good train. May take some time to kick start but once it hits a point , inertia kicks in and its hard to make abrupt stop.
3. Do you have long standing sticy leaders? What I mean is do you have leaders in the same position for more then 3-4 years? Do they exude the innovation streak that you expect every employee to embrace. Leaders should keep reinventing themselves. They should keep moving up, or laterally or just make the way for the fresh blood. Will it make the environment stressfull, over competetive? Well, its a fine balance. If you don't do that, will high performances under a stangnant leader may hit the sealing and get frustated. You will have to put the business hat on and be very candid all across. Leaderhip rotation program should be adopted. Talent hoarding should be avoided. Internal mobility of employees should be encouraged. If leader does not show innovation or a support for it in day to day action, you stay for sure team will roll themselves down in a shell where they will put a wall around them and won't be even aware whats limiting thier growth.
4. Do you stick with employee only engagememt when it comes to innovation? Big mistake, usually several bank seems to be doing that. I do not mean to say engagement with the product vendors. I mean to say that SME and Management consultants who work along with team and in some cases independently to give a perspective through the lens of thier experience across industries, competetetors and potential partners.
