Dysfunctional Innovation

It seems that I mis-typed the address for Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge Ezine. Here is the correct one: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/

I recently read a very interesting blog posting by Jim Carroll. Carroll is a furturist and innovation expert. His post highlighted 10 indicators of innovation disfunction. I read through all of them, thought about them, and then picked my top five based on my experiences in different organizations and groups. Here are my five indicators of dysfunctional innovation:

1. People laugh at new ideas: I am always amazed at how often this really happens. Some people seem so tentative that any change scares them and they do anything to remain in their comfort zone.

2. Someone who identifies a problem is shunned: I've worked at a couple organizations that had bright, creative people at the forefront. Unfortunately, they never seemed interested in finding solutions to problems within the organization. Eventually no one would speak up because they knew nothing would happen.

3. Innovation is the privileged practice of a special group: It seems to me that only the leaders of the organization could have creative ideas. Everyone else had to listen.

4. The phrase, "you can't do that because we've always done it this way" is used for every new idea: This one phrase has slowed down many businesses. Change is usually difficult, but necessary.

5. No one can remember the last time anyone did anything really cool: I love the use of word cool...I love working with clients that are cool. In this case it means "creative" and has nothing to do with Happy Days!

You can read Jim's posting at http://www.jimcarroll.com/weblog/archives/000692.html