Continuous Improvement vs. Breakthrough Innovation
“I am done with creativity, man. I don’t need any more ideas - I just need my employees to do their job.”
A business owner said this to me the other day. We were talking about the great value of creativity and imagination in the workplace. And in my mind, few things are more important for a creative leader and their team.
At first, I was surprised to hear this successful business owner express negativity about new ideas. But then I remembered – I have been there! (maybe, I still am at times).
I can remember moments when I have hesitated to ask my team for new ideas – because I was totally maxed. I was struggling to manage and maintain our status quo. So, when they did make suggestions for a new initiative, solution, or process it felt like a friend suddenly handing me the leash to their dog… as they drove away for the weekend.
I am sure my team sensed my hesitancy to accept their exciting ideas, but it wasn’t about them - it was about the system we were in. There was no space in my brain or my calendar for innovation. But the problem was two-fold. 1) As the leader (in this system), I was expected to take on the responsibility for the idea and make it happen. 2) And the team was only expected to offer ideas, not to implement. It was a tiring, unsustainable system and that was a problem.
But here is the real danger: this type of system can only foster incremental change. And that will not be enough.
If we think about our organization or team as a vehicle moving us forward, then incremental change (or continuous improvement) keeps the wheels turning. We can make minor course corrections by moving the steering wheel a few degrees and stay in the middle of the road. This helps us stay on course and maintain our speed, but the road conditions and other vehicles are constantly changing around us. The industry, the technology, the customer - it all changes. And if we don’t have room to accept new ideas or a system to implement them, we will get left behind.
When we see the need for real innovation or want to please other stakeholders, we might be tempted to label the incremental changes in our organizations as “innovations.” But deep down we know that continuous improvement is not really innovative, it’s just necessary to keep up.
If you need to take your team to someplace new, you will need to step back and fire up your innovation engine. Get out your travel map and make a plan! Seeing and planning to take a new road (that is still miles away) requires vision, openness, and creative leadership.
As creative leaders who are not satisfied with incremental change, we will need a clear strategy to move our group closer to our collective vision.
We suggest Design Thinking.
Design Thinking is a strategy and process that encourages us to move to the back seat, observe what is happening, consider how something is designed - and then design a new vehicle to take us where we want to go. It guides us to empathize with and prioritize the needs of our real “drivers.” (i.e. students, employees, clients, etc.)
Tim Brown explains that a design thinking project is a “…vehicle that carries the idea from concept to reality.” It moves our team through clearly defined phases, including information gathering, ideation, testing, and finally implementation.
Design thinking is a project-based approach to innovation that works well for business because it can have a beginning, end, and defined timeline in between. It allows people to step to the side and work on the problem in a dedicated way – instead of trying to address the issues sporadically when they happen to get brought up.
As a creative leader, your job is to:
Call for a design thinking project as needed
Craft the project brief and define the timeline
Take other items away so that your team can embrace this creative work
Give your team resources and space to work
Look for and anticipate roadblocks along the way to innovation
Celebrate all your team’s efforts, even false starts or “wrong” turns.
With an organized team, a clearly defined project brief, and a step-by-step approach – the true innovation you seek can become more than something written in your mission statement – it can become a reality.