8 Steps To Building Innovating Organizations

Citation

Walz, J.T.(J). (2007), "8 Steps To Building Innovating Organizations", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 28 No. 8, pp. 785-786. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730710835498

In the speed of life, today's organizations are under constant pressure to change, adapt, create, and innovate. Organizations that neglect to innovate find themselves back in the pack, unable to compete effectively; paving a quick path to the graveyard of commercial ventures. Many see innovation as serendipitous events, bordering on the calamitous exchange of related ideas taken from an ocean of knowledge, born from homogeneous minds. Those who are truly innovative thinkers would be quick to disagree, and say that innovation is a process; calculated, manipulated, and involving heterogeneous minds and often apparently unrelated pools of knowledge. As Manu Parashar points out in his new book, 8 Steps To Building Innovating Organizations, “ … innovation is all about combining various kinds of knowledge in a unique manner.” The outcome of this process is new knowledge. The degrees of innovation however, may be only marginally discernable at one end of the spectrum to creating breakthrough innovations at the other. Marginal innovations usually involve a high degree of overlap in knowledge however; breakthrough innovations involve a low degree of overlap. Sometimes, elements of otherwise unrelated knowledge can have a multiplicative effect when combined to form new knowledge resulting in breakthrough innovations. However, in order for an organization to think and act innovatively, it must develop creative capabilities, through linking pools of knowledge.

Mr. Parashar does not leave the reader hanging with mere anecdotal accounts of innovative global organizations like IBM, Dupont, and 3M, and regional Indian innovators like Infosys, Tata Motors and Biocon. He takes the reader through a series of “how to's” that begins with attitude. The proper attitude to foster innovation in an organization involves an openness to allow free exchange of ideas through creating awareness, developing openness, building curiosity, and encouraging playfulness. This must be done in an environment of trust. Of particular note is Parashar's discussion of online communities and effective use of blogs and forums to create thinking places.

He also mentions three ways to ignite innovative thinking; random insertion, reversal, and metaphors. “Random insertion” is the notion of taking a random object as a starting point to begin combining knowledge which can point to novel ways of looking at things. “Reversal” is taking a concept and reversing one's perspective so as to discover different ways to approach the issue. Parashar uses the example of cooking oils that are typically unhealthy when used in excess. However, by combining health knowledge and knowledge derived from various vegetable oils, Saffola, Indian cooking oil, was developed which does not negatively impact health. Finally, he reminds us of the use of metaphors that prompt innovative thinking when applied to other dissimilar processes, events, or products.

Parashar includes chapters on the importance of individuals and teams, as well as, vision, goals, and feedback. Much of this is review but he did well to include it in this book on innovating organizations. In the end, I found the book interesting but not overly innovative. He brought to light a few process related concepts that were of value but these could have been included in a much shorter manuscript. Overall, this is a good, quick, how‐to book on fostering and developing innovative thinking and new knowledge. It is a fast read and could be a good reference book when planning staff retreats or as a primer for building a truly innovative organization.