Kudos to Chris DeRose and Noel Tichy for their article discussing why companies stop innovation. This is a very well written article, I invite everyone to read it.

It has always been curious to me why and for what rational reason would companies not encourage more innovation by all their staff. Here is the thought: We aggressively hire very talented people. We fight to get them to join us. A short while later, instead of saluting their brilliance and ideas, we stifle innovation and immediately put command & controls around their creativity. We so fear a decline in delivery and so overvalue focus on minor tasks that we slow-down, stifle, intimidate and at times kill innovation. These are the same drivers and frustrations that encouraged me to write ProVoke. I am pleased that today via articles like this by Chris and Noel, and by people like me going deep into companies as disruptors, we talking about the consequences of killing the spirit of innovation.

In addition, I hugely echo with the writers regrading the fact that more than often, innovation and the strategy is determined by one or two people in the company, instead of a company effort. I am baffled: We rejoice in the fact that we hire extremely talented people and for the brain power of our company. But, when it comes time to determine new markets, products and services, we often do so in a pure top-down (non-inclusive manner). I firmly believe and hopefully you feel this as well when you read ProVoke that, the potential for innovation is massive, if we involve more people. I am furious to see engineers not participate in client meetings, product managers excluded from ‘product’ discussions and 99% of the company ‘uninvolved’ in the direction of the company. What a missed opportunity! Surely if you are reading this article, it means this topic is of interest to you. There are many flaws with the uni-strategy development, but in the interest of time I will focus on just a few major drawbacks:

1. Huge level of knowledge and wisdom is missed when we don’t include larger groups in the innovation strategy discussion. Why not benefit from this experience and wisdom?

2. Huge level of collaborative progress is missed when people are uninvolved. So, why not include your talented assets in making critical future decisions?

3. Exclusive Top-Down approaches (non-collaborative) tend to be highly demoralizing. So, why intentionally demoralize the staff? Why not inspire instead?

4. Game of risk: why not mediate risk by having more ideas at the table, vs 1-2 people’s sole opinion about what the company strategy needs to be?

5. How do we capture the brilliant ideas which we will loose when we don’t listen?

6. Effect on the corporate culture?

7. Impact on hiring new talent?

So, the real question is: Why don’t we inspire our employees to be part of the innovation process, rather than constantly push them to the edges and a make them feel like non-game players and non-essential? Some confuse the need to make major decisions in a vacuum with ‘focus’! Yes, we need focus to deliver and be exquisite in what we do, but, not at the expense of excluding the majority in the innovation journey. Many of the reasons for such behavior is due to the insecurities which create resistances. When we work through the 5 stages of resistance do we get to a much higher place and truly innovate, and inspire everyone. In the ProVoke Methodology (released 2012) we systematically focus on the necessary top-down, bottom-up and cohesive methodologies to progress in innovation.

Yes, this is all disruptive. Without disruption change will not happen. I would love to share the tagline for ProVoke with you: ProVoke: Why the global Culture of Disruption is the only hope for innovation. You are members of the culture of disruption , CofD. Here are the immediate 1st steps you can take the change the dialog:

1. We can innovate at a much higher level if we are more involved in the conversations, let’s start talking!

2. Would love to talk to you about some ideas I have and want to hear yours… let’s start talking about innovation!

3. Start each meeting with the word: What-if!?

As technologists we are born to think about ‘what-if’s and experimentation. Yes, there needs to be a vision in a company and one which hopefully will inspire everyone. But to make the vision meaningful individuals in the company need to feel inspired, involved and energized. That is the journey of innovation. I don’t think Jobs and Bezos wrote the code for ALL their products! Behind their vision are thousands of brilliant minds, who were hugely involved in defining what is possible, in innovation and in enabling these guys to march on the podium and dazzle us.

Bottomline: You cannot dazzle or meaningfully innovate by one person setting the pace and strategy of innovation in the company. Innovation is a collective cultural effort. So, let’s change the game, one person at a time, shall we?