The Project Book

CHAPTER 71 INNOVATION NEEDS MINDSET and time

For many organisations innovation is still something they strive for, something they feel they don’t have, something that will help them achieve the success they know they are capable of. They’ve seen the new kids on the block — Uber, Airbnb, Netflix and the like — come up with ideas that have disrupted entire industries and they want to do the same.

‘We need to think and act like entrepreneurs.’ ‘We need to think outside the square.’ ‘We should buy a table tennis table, because all the most innovative companies have one.’ ‘Now, I need that four-page report in PowerPoint by Friday …’ And they wonder why their people don’t come up with ideas that challenge the organisation to be different and to unlock potential revenue streams and savings not previously thought of.

Innovation will never naturally occur in these organisations for two reasons:

• They don’t give people time to work on different ideas.
• They don’t have the growth mindset necessary to think that anything is possible.

Uber, Airbnb and Netflix have been successful because they had time to work on those ideas, got them to market quickly rather than waiting to achieve perfection, and — most importantly — are staffed by people who aren’t held back by ‘the way we do things around here’.

Some have interpreted this as ‘going agile’, and while agile approaches can change the speed at which organisations get products delivered, they still require a change of mindset from all involved ...