2006-11-07T22:32:00.000-08:00

“Innovate or die” OR “innovate to die” ?

When more than 750* of the world’s top CEOs and business leaders are putting innovation as their top agenda to drive organizational change and business growth in the next two years, the one and half year old innovation centre I am in turns out to be the first casualty in the recent corporate restructuring exercise.
Watching my team to shrink from the original 15 people to 13 in the first round, then to 8 in the second round, then being dissolved into other organization, then being torn apart and refocused, I start to ponder all the assurance and words of praise that have been said on innovation. Is it just a decorative term and punch line used in the speech to make the speaker looked good and to portray his organization as forward-thinking ? or is there something we had missed that caused us to end up in this state ?

I came across an article in the Business Week that can answer some but not all of my doubts :

1. Avoid the innovation title
Calling a new team the “innovation department” is a good way to get everyone else in your company to hate you.

~ How I wish my boss and my boss’s boss read this before they named our organization. One of our missions is to cultivate innovation culture and innovative thinking in the company. Calling ourselves “innovation centre” didn’t make our job any easier. It attracted a lot of hostile attention. I am not surprise that our centre became the target in any cost cutting exercise. Our name has volunteered us. ~

*Based on the recent CEO survey by IBM.

Next: [2. Set the metrics in advance]

innovation recipe