It’s amazing to me how the same thoughts and concepts seem to circle through the management world over and over again. Take innovation. There is so much buzz and hype about how innovation is the panacea of any company’s growth problems. If only every company could start behaving like Apple.
But innovation is not a new concept. It’s been around in the management world since the times of Peter Drucker…..in his early years. Why then do companies still struggle with it?
Just today I was just in a conversation with a Fortune 100 company, well renowned for its innovation strengths, and found that they were struggling with some of the most foundational innovation processes. Both the client and I found that some basic but well-executed processes on funnel management of innovation ideas that we had used 20 years ago in another industry would have a pretty substantial impact on the company.
This tells me a couple of things:
- Often times we are in the search of the next new thing – which is better, faster and usually more complex. Perhaps we should tend towards consolidating existing ideas and making things simpler.
- Perhaps business impact comes less from the elegance and brilliance of the idea and more from the disciplined execution of simple yet proven ideas.
I raise my toast, or at least my pen, to a simpler world.
