Top 3 Roadblocks to Business Innovation

Last year, the buzz word has been innovation, and that will surely continue this year. Shiny tech start-ups are paving the way for new business cultures, where the traditional corporate structure is cast away for a more collaborative and creative environment that breeds innovation. There are plenty of articles to tell you how to innovate, but what about the challenges that you need to face?

Here are the three main roadblocks to innovation:

The Business Culture

Businesses are primarily focused on productivity, which demands rational processes in place. Creativity, on the other hand, can't simply be produced in a one-hour brainstorming meeting or a three-hour deadline. The best ideas come when the mind is left to wander.

This is where the problem comes in. Enabling your employees to run wild with their ideas and understanding that they may not produce any value at all, is impractical. The balance between letting go and “doing business” is very challenging to achieve. 

But companies such as Intuit and Github have proven that it isn't impossible.

Intuit implements “idea jams” where new employees are placed in rotation programs so they can interact with old employees. They're given four hours of unstructured time to work on their own projects.

Github uses an open source collaboration, wherein people work on an open allocation basis. Githubbers can tackle whatever projects they want.

Now, these are not guaranteed solutions. Non-tech companies operate differently in their own way and have to come up with their own strategy. The goal is to ensure that they're aligned with business objectives.

The “Old Guard”

There are managers and executives who may not be comfortable with this idea. The typical age-old working environment is clock in, do your job, deliver expected results, and punch out. This ensures predictable and measurable efficiency, which is everything that creativity isn't.

But when it comes to company culture, there's a “trickle down” effect. If a business wants to innovate, there should be activities in place to support it.

Letting Go

However, the old guards do have a point. There's a risk of creating a bullpen and time is wasted on aimless meanderings.

The solution is hiring the right people. Find people who don't just have the right skills. Hire candidates who can identify patterns and see new solutions from a different angle. That's what creativity is really about, finding better ways to solve problems. Any experienced writer will tell you that it’s not about what you write, but how you can refresh the same old tales. All the stories have already been written.

Innovation, one that demands creative solutions for sustainable strategies, is a big challenge for organisations, whether for or non-profit. But it can lead to transformational changes, even if they're not conventional business practices.

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