Page 215 - 100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

THE POLITICS OF I'9NO LLDV N I 3D CI 3 3 AIIVAON NI3 H 1

INNOVATION

For all their vows to reform, somehow managers
keep coming up with ways to stifle new ideas.

See the top executives. See them sit in a circle, on
the moonlit sands of Lyford Cay, in the bosky groves
of the Greenbrier, whispering to one another. See
them beat their naked chests, their hands still dripping with the
gore of restructuring. Hear their guttural chant: in-no-va-tion, in-
no-va-tion.

Yes, connoisseurs of trendy corporate-speak, a new buzzword is
emerging. By now just about everybody has restructured, paring
down to those so-called core businesses. Nasty surprise: Many of
these residual enterprises are growing at a mere 1 percent or 2
percent a year. Acquisitions, anyone? No, no, no, the experts in-
veigh, that's how you got in trouble last time around. So how is a
self-respecting company supposed to grow? The increasingly
popular answer: new products, new services, new ways to achieve
higher quality at lower cost. In short, innovation.

"Most people give it lip service," says Glenda Keller, a consultant
with Synectics, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, firm that helps com-
panies tackle the problem of innovation. Indeed, Keller argues, "it
would be suicide these days not to." The stock market is watch-
ing. But to go beyond uttering the latest pieties, to actually do
something, ah, there the going gets rough.

Deep thinkers on the subject distinguish invention, coming up with
a new idea, from innovation, shepherding that idea through the
toils of the organization so that it eventually emerges as a new
product or procedure. Invention, at least commercial grade, is
surprisingly easy, the experts find. Consultant Thomas D.
Kuczmarski, author of Managing New Products, asserts that "if you
and I sat down and brainstormed about a business for a couple of
hours, we could come up with maybe twenty ideas for new prod-
ucts." A few would probably be worth pursuing. But just try it at
your average organization.

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