On Innovation: Dreaming or Planning?
January 28, 2013
Can the importance of innovation be overstated? Perhaps, if your source is heavily invested in the concept. Innovation Excellence asks (and answers), “What is the Missing Cost of Not Innovating?” We thought that doing a good job with what you have was important, too. Can everyone or every company be an innovator? We don’t think so.
The crux of the article lies in justifying innovation costs when the benefits can seem nebulous. At times, writer Paul Hobcraft can sound downright defensive:
“Often the person asking the ‘what is the ROI on innovation’ has never been involved in creating, designing or managing innovation. They can often be the ‘bean counter’, the hard-nosed CFO out to drive up the short-term performance, imposing short-term deadlines on getting the innovation launched within a given calendar year to meet much of his performance measures. They also often do not really appreciate that there are real disparities on time, investments and resources for managing an incremental project against one that leads to discovery or disruptive innovation and why these are dramatically different.”
He does have one point. It is important to keep the long term in sight, even if details are a little vague, while struggling with the short-term needs that concern those “bean counters.” Being able to clearly communicate such needs to the higher-ups is important for those charged with forging a path to future success; see the article for Hobcraft’s tips in this area.
However, it is also important to maintain a realistic perspective when dreaming of the future. It is tough to arrive at the next best thing if you’re struggling to make payroll each month. In the end, it is a matter of balance.
Cynthia Murrell, January 28, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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