9/8/2010
10 Reasons Why Companies Resist Innovation
Several online conversations over the past few weeks started me thinking about why organizations resist innovation. Whether it’s social media, mobile technology, manufacturing processes, sustainable business practices or something else, there are always early adapters and late adapters. Why?
Here are 10 reasons I came up with. What can you add to the list?
- Fear of failure. I suppose this requires no elaboration. There’s a little of this in all of us, otherwise we wouldn’t be human.
- Fear of success. It happens that people or entire companies push right to the edge of success … and then pull back. It’s a psychology I don’t fully understand, but have you ever experienced it or seen it? I have.
- Fear of looking foolish. Most of us have a strong aversion to being an unwitting clown – especially if we’re in a position of authority.
- Fear of being first. This is one I understand very well. I don’t even like being the first person to go up to a buffet line for a second helping.
- Inertia. Comfort zones are extremely … comfortable. Trying something new requires a lot of energy – and that means work.
- Complacency. Not exactly the same as inertia. Some organizations have a hard time imagining other methods might produce better results. Self satisfaction and smugness don’t play nice with innovation.
- Unwillingness to act on intuition. Perhaps more than individuals, organizations prefer to base decisions on measurable facts. Innovative approaches are usually characterized by a lack of them.
- Stereotyping. In contrast to the above, a lack of information can be devastating to innovation. Twitter is a prime example, where some people insist on characterizing it as purely a medium to tell strangers what you ate for dinner.
- Not enough energy to sell it internally. Every innovation needs a champion. Sometimes, the perceived battle is too tough: not many are willing to fight bureaucracy and personalities on a daily basis to move an idea forward an inch at a time.
- Too busy. The corporate catch-all for inaction, the perfect excuse for working in the business rather than on the business.
8 Responses to 10 Reasons Why Companies Resist Innovation
I’d add another, although it might be counter-intuitive: Too Focused – Existing business, existing tasks, existing challenges. Sometimes it’s tough to see the forest for the trees. Having a willingness to come up for air, look around and re-assess priorities can leave some room for outside the box innovation.
Fred, That’s a good one – it kind of falls into my last point about being too busy. You have articulated the problem much better. There’s a comfortable feeling about being so busy on the details of operating a business that you don’t have time to reassess, etc. Why is that?
Beyond what you mentioned about simply being too busy – I think it often has to do with the reward structure baked into an enterprise. At many levels you are clearly rewarded for getting done what has been done before, new things throw you into a different category. At the enterprise level the biggest short term rewards almost always come from reducing costs and upping revenue. Things that don’t immediately impact those two lines also through a project into a different category. While the thinking is often recognized inside an organization as short sighted it doesn’t change the rules of the road. That’s why management consultants are often called in when big change is necessary. Political cover, expectations management, different reward time-frames…
This is a great list of factors that hold businesses — and individuals — back (or perhaps I should say, hold them hostage), preventing them from reaching their full potential. I would add immobilization, or paralysis, caused by feeling overwhelmed by the challenges innovation would bring. While immobilization is, in one sense, similar to inertia, it’s much more powerful than simply feeling comfortable in one’s present situation, which is why I believe it’s even more difficult to overcome. It definitely contains a fear component — a sense that one would be unable to maintain control in this unknown territory due to the many challenges one would face and the fear that one might not have what it takes to overcome them.
Jeanne, That makes sense – you see this in social media sometimes, because the sheer volume of “newness” is understandably overwhelming to people who are not internet junkies (like us). I’m tempted to say this phenomenon is a function of age, but then again I wonder. Do you think older people are more prone to being overwhelmed, or do younger people fall into the same condition?
Great question, Brad! I’d say it would probably depend on the specific area in which the innovation challenge presents itself (as well as the personality of the individual). If it’s an area in which we have a great interest, we’ll probably do better with it regardless of age. For example, while digital natives (aka, people born into the Internet age, who happen to be college age or younger) tend to be far more comfortable dealing with digital devices/social media than digital immigrants (who are much older) do, many digital immigrants have embarked on the exciting journey into these areas through sheer interest, learning as they went.
Perhaps it has more to do with personality, desire, and passion, than age. Flexibility is an important part of it, as well. Without flexibility, innovation is impossible. While most members of the older generation haven’t been raised to believe that innovation is particularly valuable and thus many may not overcome that mindset, many others will because they can be flexible and because they have a high level of creativity.
Brad,
I think comfort zones play a bit part here.
One of the ways in which individual business owners or managers (and indeed, individual employees at any level) can help to stimulate creative thinking and innovation is to apply it first at a simple level to our personal lives. I am not talking about anything too drastic – I am talking about simple things: meeting new people, reading a book or magazine on a topic we wouldn’t normally read; trying out a new sport, tuning in to a different radio station, trying a different way to drive to work, taking up a new hobby, trying out some new foods, taking a different route way to work, visiting a different coffee shop, shopping at a different shopping centre, etc, etc.
By varying up routines in our personal lives, we stimulate creative thought patterns in our mind. This, I believe, flows through to our professional lives, helping us to maintain an attitude which is open to exploring new possibilities and methodologies.
That’s at an individual level. At a corporate level, companies need to stop punishing failure. Indeed, within reasonable limitations, companies should actually encourage creative failure. Employees should be encouraged to take initiative, try out new methods and learn from any mistakes made in the process. Only firms which allow room for mistakes and growth can develop the creative culture which is necessary for the company to reach its full potential.
Andrew, I really like your idea about bringing innovation down to the personal level. We easily fall into the trap of thinking business can be separated from personal life, but in reality it’s all interwoven. As far as punishing failure – I’m not sure which is worse: that, or benign neglect. Companies that demonstrate no outright hostility to innovation, but maintain an apathetic stance with regard to it, are unlikely to achieve significant innovation.