Brian Ing

Innovation

and its Repression

Often repeated meeting

Senior Minister tells me Our Country is nth in the table of GDP/head We will improve by:-

Improved Infrastructure Especially IT, such as super fast broadband

Improved education Fostering SMEs Progress on our “Green” agenda Innovation

“Well done, you should maintain your position as your competitors are doing the same”

Innovation

Thoughts from scientists and technology A critical mindset change The BPR experience The watch joke and Management Consultancy This is not new So what do we do

Scientists/inventors of repute

Michael Faraday

Benjamin Franklin

George Stephenson

Isamblad Kingdom Brunel

Robert Watson-Watt

Some features in common

Self taught Expertise in something else Now revered

So is education a handicap? China’s educational system emphasizes rote

learning rather than creative problem solving. As Lee Kai-Fu noted: “The Chinese education system makes people hardworking, teaches people strong fundamentals, and makes them very good at rote learning. It doesn’t make them creative, original thinkers.” Iconoclastic minds either are channelled into conventional thinking or “become outcasts and their parents would think they’d gone crazy.”

Personal Experience

My privilege was to be part of a thirty strong research group

Since then three have been awarded Nobel Prizes, another nominated and others have very senior research posts worldwide

Many Nobel prize winners visited the group and we worked with Stephen Hawkin, amongst others

Observed traits(not all with everybody)

Very challenging Socially awkward Intolerant of lesser intellects Combative Etc.

Just the characteristics that would alienate them from today's corporate world

Commercial Secrecy

In the UK grants for industrial R&D from the government name the firm but the topic is “secret”

Rationale: “if a competitor knows that a particular topic has been evaluated as worthy of grant aid by the government – they can start immediately without needing to do a feasibility study”

And if the topic fails to deliver, it is never heard of again – even it was a good idea and it was the research approach that was wrong

Mindset

Too often We need new products, world beaters such as the

Apple range of products In a post industrial age it is services not products that

offer bigger scope (even for the product space) What we do, and how we do it are determinants of

success

In thinking of the innovation of “things”

Do not forget the innovation of “doing”

The BPR experience

This was entirely about innovation of “doing” Radical change Business Process Re-engineering Michael Hammer “If you do not achieve a 40%

performance improvement this is not BPR” Several initial successes Followed by gradual strangulation of the idea

and its eventual demotion to “tinkering”

Why

Fear of job losses Business press refered to 40% loss of workforce In practice much higher percentage in the

boardroom Investor behaviour

40% one year great but where is the 4% next and subsequent years?

Major consulting firms and IT suppliers Cut down much “safer” Business Process

Improvement services

But, two Michael Hammer truths for today

A detailed documentation of the current process with every procedure, process step and detail is as useful as the “Egyptian Book of the Dead” - 12 pages is the most that you should prepare

The ideal BPR analyst is female, 23 years old, recent graduate in anything but business, with a high IQ

In effect, the closer you know what is done now, the less likely you are to see a better alternative

The watch “joke”

“Management consultants take your watch to tell you the time”

But this is so useful

Direct Client may not realise that they have the solution

Direct client may want their ideas confirming Much more common:

Someone, unknown to the direct client, in the organisation knows the answer and has either not said (maybe out of fear) or has been ignored

Indicates that innovation ideas are ignored or repressed in many organisations

Natural reluctance

Radical aero engine concept But unsolved (by me) engineering/safety issue

Fear of rejection by colleagues/superiors Uncertainty of any return to self

IPR issues and certainty of recognition in the company (may be excluded by contract)

Working up the idea may take own time Power of

“We have already tried that” “We have always done it that way”

The flow choke points

IdeasIdeas

IdeasIdeas

IdeasCO

R EP DO IR TATE

SELF

EDIT

LOCAL

EDIt

But which were the ideas worth pursuing?

Ignoring valid innovation is not new

Queen Elizabeth and the “stocking machine” Austria Hungary Empire and railways Russian Empire and industrialisation “Congo” and the plough UAE and Skype

What to do

Diversity, diversity, diversity To combat growing homogeneity, globalised

uniformity Reward originators Allow people to propose without fear of ridicule Build SME sector Base your present on the future, not your future

on your past (Richard Pascale)

Finally

Research has shown only one personality trait that is strongly correlated with the ability to innovate:-

A personal belief that one is innovative!