Innovation and Invention

innovation is mostly about incremental ("doing what we do better") rather than radical change, even the most basic ideas can be worth considering.

Innovation is often seen as simply coming up with a bright idea. The idea is certainly important, but by itself it is not sufficient. As an innovation manager you need to be able both to encourage new concepts and find ways to help make them happen.

If innovation is about applied ideas, then you need to make sure that you have a plentiful supply of ideas to draw upon. Many organizations make the mistake of thinking that only certain people are capable of producing innovative ideas, and place the development of innovation in an area far away form the rest of the workforce. In fact, anyone involved in a process at any level is likely to have ideas about how it can be changed and improved. And since innovation is mostly about incremental ("doing what we do better") rather than radical change, even the most basic ideas can be worth considering. You should not attempt to limit innovation to research labs or in marketing meetings -- it should be something to which everyone can contribute. Moreover, since innovation is is a long process of making ideas work, you can make use of this creativity at every stage of the journey.

ACTION POINT: Look in every corner of the organization for ideas on improvement.