Managing Innovation

MBA 6103Unit 8Continuous Improvement and Effective Change

Seeking Awareness

Essential Points on Innovation• Uncertainty drives a need for organizational learning

and adaptation – resulting in the “Innovation Imperative.”

• We often generalize the innovation process – rather than formalize it.

• Some firms are more successful implementing a formal innovation plan than others.

• Routine processes become engrained and may or may not become a component of a firm’s core competencies. Such routines might not be easily replicable.

• Innovation Management is about finding and exploiting effective routines.

Essential Points on Innovation – Cont’d

• Successful innovation is strategy-based

• Depends upon strong internal and external linkages• Think Value Chain

• Requires mechanisms to enable change

• Requires a supporting organizational context

Overcoming Resistance to Change

• Address the human side systematically

• Start at the top

• Involve every layer

• Make a formal case

Overcoming Resistance to Change• Create ownership

• Communicate the message

• Assess the cultural landscape

• Address culture explicitly

• Prepare for the unexpected

• Speak to the individual

Strategies for successful implementationStrategy 1 – Expand involvement and influence

Strategy 2 – Explore possibilities

Strategy 3 – Select and align leadership

Strategy 4 – Explain the “business case/need”

Strategy 5 – Envision the future

Intrapreneur’s Ten Commandments*• Ask for forgiveness not permission• Do any job needed to make the project succeed• Come to work each day willing to be fired• Recruit a strong team• Ask for advice before resources• Forget pride of authorship• When bending rules – respect the waterline• Honor sponsors• Under-promise and over-deliver• Stay true to goals, but be realistic

* Source: Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation – Gifford Pinchot & Ron Pellman