I work in a massive great big organisation that is one complicated, tangled, struggling mess as it tries to become more efficient and to change as money flows alter and adjust in the current market. The solution that is being bandied about by the powers that be is Innovation. Honestly, it is being muttered in corridors, meetings rooms and lecture theaters as if just the very utterance of the word and subsequent development of a special unit will make everything change for the better.
And while I believe innovation is important, successful innovation is not really a mass phenomena. And I work in an organisation with 1.5million people on its books, it is hardly likely that there will be a mass outbreak of innovation! And in fact the focus on the shiny and new is the greatest flaw of this organisation. Just in the time that I have spent in this organisation there have been millions and billions of great new programs, catch phrases and rebrandings – piloted in pockets, but that have never been successfully propagated.
So here is my novel proposition.
Rather than focus on developing innovation teams, institutions and targets for innovation (can you imagine the target – ‘every 3 months you must demonstrate extreme innovation’ don’t laugh it could happen), why not just work on copying the innovation that has already happened. Just take one of the millions and billions of projects that have been done by other people who have the same core business as you and just get on and do whatever it is, just like them! So while I acknowledge that copying and plagiarism are not often espoused as things people should be doing I think there is a good case for it at the moment. Let innovation and better yet invention happen in an organic way but let the majority of the organisation get set to copy its neighbours!
But sadly I am sure that the next lecture I go to is not going to be on copying good practice it will be on the new team that is going to support me and others to innovate. hmmmmm……….
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