Spark Innovation Through Collaboration
“How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization”
Michael Arena, Rob Cross, Jonathan Sims & Mary Uhl-Bien (2017)
What are the researchers interested in?
According to research, 90% of executives believe that organizational success is largely dependent on developing and implementing novel ideas (Smith & Mindrum, 2008). Authors of this original article argue that organic, also called emergent growth can be more profitable and effective compared to growth driven by acquisition.
“[Emergent innovation] occurs when entrepreneurial individuals within an organization incubate new ideas for addressing customer needs and dynamically change market conditions.”
However, many innovation programs in organisations fail to reach their expectations. Even when acquisitions bring in new expertise and novel thinking, they still underperform due to the lack of understanding of integration amongst company networks. The authors argue that, executives should play a role in creating collaborative work contexts; where innovation is likely to emerge naturally and organically. As such, authors decided to look into organisations and their leaders who were successful in creating innovative environments and also at the opposite end of the spectrum (organisations who were not successful).
What method did they use?
Arena and colleagues (2017) conducted a qualitative research focusing on understanding successful/unsuccessful innovations spanning across organisations. They were able to conduct 400 interviews to understand the network (organisation teams) utilised in these successful and unsuccessful innovations. Afterwards, conducting interviews with high-performing executives across 20 well known organisations in the financial services, software, consumer product and manufacturing sectors.
These interviews captured intimate stories on how leaders were able to successfully utilise company networks to successfully innovate. This allowed the authors to understand the many antecedents in bringing a novel idea to implementation whilst working and collaborating across internal company networks.
Before diving into the findings, the original paper provided notable insight on successful innovation activities that previous organisations have used.
Innovation Drivers Examples
Noblis An NGO organisation provided an environment called an Internal Crowdsourcing Initiative. This initiative was able to tap into company networks which allowed employees who were excited about their innovative ideas to share it with anyone in the firm. Since individuals were asked to submit ideas of interest, they became even more energized to engage in the process of sharing. This process was able to generate hundreds more project idea and at least 100 ideas were selected and approved for incubation (Arena et al., 2017).
General Motors hosted a 24 hr intensive company-wide challenge. Individuals across different functions of the organisation competed and formed small teams to pitch ideas to executives. Challenges stemmed from customer service, product design and employee engagement.
Pixar Animation Studios Everyday, creators at the company are reinforced to present their project ideas, and to gain in-progress reviews from employees around the organisation. Reviews often are in the form of constructive feedbacks.
What did they end up finding?
The authors found a common theme around successful innovations . The executives were adept at creating an Adaptive Space. Organisations are able to create an adaptive space, through opening up information channels, reinforce idea discovery and most importantly, utilize company networks by reinforcing collaboration with individuals outside your immediate function or team. They found that it was important to identify and position innovators within an organisation. The authors found three crucial roles for innovation to appear in an organisation:
Brokers
Build bridges between multiple groups
Utilize their social connections to introduce and discover novel ideas
Actively connect beyond local subgroups, to explore new possibilities
Central Connectors
Driver for group cohesion
Essential to the development and implementation of ideas
Build trust through engaging individuals repeatedly
Energizers
Push individuals to think outside the box
Trigger interest and enlighten passion in individuals
Network energy, enthusiasm and reinforce co-creation
In large organisations, brokers tend to introduce novel ideas by communicating and reaching out to multiple individuals. Central connectors are responsible for developing these ideas by bringing groups of people together. Energizers on the other hand, will inspire employees to want to voice new ideas. Together, author suggests to build an environment or an adaptive space that centres around these three key characteristics to build and drive innovation.
Additionally, researchers provided 5 key principles for innovators to follow, we have adapted their insight into a infographic for an easy visualization.
Why does this matter for organisations?
For any organisation, innovation is cardinal but increasingly difficult to tackle. The question lies in how do leaders empower those with innovative ideas? To also provide them with resources that allow those ideas to be effectively implemented. Research shows that at least 50% of all U.S. annual GDP growth can be attributed to innovation itself (U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, 2015). To this end, Arena and colleagues (2017) argue that emergent innovation needs to be tackled by understanding company networks; more importantly, to develop an adaptive space where individuals are cross collaborating despite strong bureaucracy.
References
Arena, M., Cross, R., Sims, J., & Uhl-Bien, M. (2017). How to catalyze innovation in your organization. MIT Sloan Management Review, 58(4), 38-48.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, “Enterprising States 2015: States Innovate” (Washington, DC: 2015).
Smith, D., & Mindrum, C. (2008). How to capture the essence of innovation. Accenture Outlook Journal–The Journal of High-Performance Business, 1, 1-10.