2023-05-31 13:16:05
When a company starts a new project, the result largely depends on the balance that is established in the innovation ecosystem. That is, it is necessary that the five pillars of systemic management support for innovation are acting in synchrony. They are: leadership, strategy, culture, management and processes. It is up to the manager to identify blockers, analyzing each of the pillars, to verify if any of them are effectively impeding the progress and successful result of the ecosystem.
The biggest risk involved in neglecting this thorough analysis and not resolving this blocker in time is wasting any investment that goes into developing dynamic capabilities. Hence the importance of ensuring that there is perfect alignment between the innovation strategy and the company’s competitive strategy. Study published in Journal of General Management (Sage) reveals that managers need to exercise transformational leadership in order to motivate their employees to engage in open innovation processes.
According to Durval Garcia, director of innovation at the multinational consultancy GAC Brazil, contrary to the failure rates in launching new products or services – which oscillate between 70% and 80% – companies that act and innovate in a sustainable way, accumulating one success following another, are more careful with transformational leadership and attentive key success factors to align innovation and competitive performance. “Even before establishing an innovation system within a company, it is necessary to draw up an innovation diagnosis, a holistic analysis of the company’s innovation capabilities. This makes it possible to sustain the value creation process.”
Garcia says that investing in structuring for innovation is the first step towards achieving the desired goals. “The internal alignment of the various sectors of the company and the engagement of employees are fundamental in the structure for innovation, but they are not the only preponderant factors. In all, it is necessary to act on four central axes: offering innovation, understanding the user/client, internal organization and openness to the external market/ecosystem”.
“It is in the organization stage that the most appropriate operating model is established for innovating within the context of the organization and how the organization’s learning capacity will be developed. In this environment, it is necessary to establish how changes will be managed, so that employees can adapt to the company’s new moment and everyone can assume their roles and responsibilities within the team”, says Garcia. “The identification of internal talent to carry out the new processes is followed by the training of leaders. That’s why it’s so important that everyone is tuned into the same channel, with the same goal in mind.”
From this structuring, it is possible to use techniques for generating ideas, such as brainstorming. According to the innovation specialist, one of the most recommended practices is the creation of an internal program of ideas oriented to the needs and open to the contributions of all those who have suggestions for innovations, whether for improvements or development of products, services, processes and even of the company’s business model.
Given the importance of engagement for the success of the innovation ecosystem, the GAC Brasil executive reveals five tips to encourage the contribution of employees with new ideas:
- Establish an open, transparent and collaborative process. “It is necessary to create a pleasant, respectful environment, in which people are encouraged to expose their ideas, as well as to present suggestions and contributions in relation to other people’s ideas. The objective is not to judge someone’s idea, but to expand and complement it, so that it gains body and scope. If an idea is contested, no one should feel personally offended or criticized. When conflicts are fruitfully settled, everyone wins.”
- Encourage professionals to be flexible. “One of the main characteristics of an efficient manager is to use negotiation and communication to transform critical situations, with a high potential for losing all effort, into episodes of internal growth. It is important to know how to moderate discussions and encourage employees to defend their ideas without it being necessary to disqualify the work or ideas of their peers”.
- Attracting positive people to the team makes all the difference. “A lot is said regarding emotional intelligence. Relying on people with the so-called ‘soft skills’, focused on solutions, flexible, who value teamwork and know how to listen carefully without making any judgments regarding the interlocutor adds a lot of value to any project and makes day-to-day work lighter and stimulating”.
- Avoid the loss of energy that follows each failure. “People in innovative companies cannot see dead ends, nor think that mistakes and failures are reasons to give up. Every failure brings some learning. Anyone involved in an activity with a high degree of uncertainty needs to be more than just optimistic; need to be able to learn. Entrepreneurs who cling to their chances of success, even if they seem small, usually make more effort and convince other professionals to collaborate until they reach the desired result”.
- Investing in education for the entire company is a competitive advantage. “For the best innovation practices to spread throughout an organization, it is important to teach how to develop ideas and how to transform good ideas so that they reach the market. These lessons must be passed on both to future leaders within the company and to the grassroots who will ultimately play a significant role in the success of the innovation. The positive element of creating a broad innovation ecosystem is that groups involved in innovative projects will engage with each other directly to resolve issues – creating a culture of innovation rather than top-down governance. This way it is more certain that innovative ideas are elaborated, prosper and grow”.
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