The Other Side of Innovation: Solving the Execution Challenge by Vijay Govindarajan and Christ Trimble was published by the Harvard Business Review Press and contains a wealth of research based insights on how to successfully execute innovation projects in a company. Because they study such a large variety of innovation endeavors in a variety of contexts, because of support for the Center for Global Leadership and the Tuck School of Business, they are able to generalize from the case studies and proscribe general laws in situations based on the elements of the dynamics at play. The authors’ case studies include an extended explanation of lessons garnered from Thompson Corporation and News Corporation’s (publisher of the Wall Street Journal) addition of computer software-based services to their organization which is exactly the sort of innovation initiatives I’m researching in detail for my PhD thesis at UPB in Medellin! Needless to say that plus the wealth of psychological considerations for successful project management and development makes this an ideal book for leaders.
The two sides of innovation are ideation and execution, and in this instance, the other side of innovation in the title means execution. Brainstorming ideas can be real fun, they say, but ideas are only the beginning. Without implementation, action, follow-through, execution, whatever you want to call it – then this means nothing. The true innovation challenge lies in the idea’s transition from imagination to impact in the workplace.
If the book could be said to have a single main takeaway, it’s that each innovation initiative requires a team with a custom organizational model and a plan this is revised only through a rigorous learning process. Because of this there must be much conscientious social engineering on the part of the innovation leader – which I will explain more about further in this book review.
Within companies their primary activities can be generally categorized under the concept of “The Performance Engine”. This is the dedicated team of full time workers that is in charge of ongoing operations. While they are able to engage in small scale continuous process improvements and initiatives in product development that are similar to previous activities – there is little scope for innovation to be achieved within the organization. Too much is needed so a new team must be developed to help implements it. This dynamic can be easily put in the following logic:
Project team = dedicated team + shared staff
As the names suggest given the groups thus defined, the shared staff is are those that work primarily on the Performance Engine but also have Innovation Team Duties. The Dedicated Team are those that are full time workers on the initiative.
The partnership, not just either team, executes the project plan. Because the focus of each group is very different – one is in repeating established work rhythms and the other determining the optimum means of establishing an innovation initiative – there are several principles that must be considered when deciding how to assemble a dedicated team. Not only do you need to identify the skills needed and hire the best people that can be found – even if their pay scale is above normal operations – and then you match the organizational model to the dedicated teams job. In the manner that the authors describe it, it almost reminds me of lesson plans for the first day of school – bring all of the individuals that will work on the innovation project together then start to transform them into a team by defining new roles and responsibilities; decorating and starting to fill in the new, separate space wherein the work activity will transpire; and even doing some role playing as a team in order to make charts of who will do what. After this a guided conversation needs to be headed by the innovation leader on how the usual performance based metrics for work are not going to be applicable in this work situation. This is important because the dedicated team and the performance engines need to know that even though they will share some existing processes and personnel, that they have different objectives and should have a different culture.
Defaulting to “insider knowledge” can be a trap the needs to be escaped from, and cautionary advice is provided on hiring within the organization. Not only can organizational memory eclipse the work at hand, but successful past performance aren’t reliable indicators in an innovation initiative setting as the processes are so different.
Because the key difference between typical planning processes for the performance engine and the best practices for innovation are so different, the human skills required for such an undertaking are significant. Hence the book is as much instructions for proper processes and principles as it is a guide to dealing with persons. Conflict between teams, within teams, and between executives, management and innovation leader all can have a degenerative effect on successfully execution. Dissipating a number of the myths associated with innovation – such as it being necessarily disruptive or distracting from the Performance Engine – is one of the key factors for maintaining successful control of the project.
The authors recurrent emphasis on the importance of documenting and sharing this information and be aware of the learning process reminds me of the frequent imbrecations that I heard as a teacher to ensure that my testing of students was part and parcel of a larger educational journey that I was leading them on. By ensuring that, excuse the pun, no child was left behind I ensured that I wouldn’t find myself in a situation where some students not making the appropriate learning gains. Since learning cannot be left to intuition – it’s important to have a rigorous learning process in place that is based on the scientific method. As such it becomes easier to refine speculative predictions into reliable predictions. With everyone involved being on the same page as to historical, current, and projected status of the initiative – from former operational hypothesis to what custom metrics metrics are being used to cost categories – it makes it easier to discuss assumptions and determine the means for best keeping the program on the correct trajectory.
Each chapter of the book ends with a series of proscriptive lessons garnered from analysis of the business cases presented– such as “Never assume that the metrics and standards used to evaluate the existing business have relevance to the innovation initiative” as the depth, power balance and operating rhythm of the two organizations are so different. This was an appreciated way of consolidating the lessons in and fast matter that I appreciated. This and the general style and concise definitions throughout made me appreciate the authors greatly. I look forward to reading Vijay Govindarajan and Christ Trimble’s other book 10 Rules for Strategic Innovators.
Those interested in seeing a SlideShare summary of the book can look here.
