Strategic Innovation Management: Managing Creativity And Talent Pool In Organisations

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, strategic innovation management has become a critical driver to maintain the desired growth momentum. Yesterday’s success mantra is not going to be the success mantra for tomorrow. New technologies are replacing incumbent technologies, so an asset today can be a liability tomorrow. The rules of the game are changing and evolving at a pace much faster than it used to be in yesteryears. For instance, digital platforms have literally erased the geographical boundaries of companies and consequently, consumers are spoiled with choices and are becoming more demanding.

In this context, managing creativity and the talent pool within the organisation is the only way to survive, even if we ignore the prospect of prosperity. However, this is not only a challenging task for newer companies but also a Herculean task for established organisations. While newer companies face resource constraints and lack the experience to navigate these turbulent times, established companies face the tyranny of success. Established companies, especially the successful ones, have well-defined ways of doing things, also known as organisational routines. The rigidity to change these established routines might lead to the downfall of successful companies. For instance, successful companies like Nokia or Kodak failed to successfully adapt to their respective changing business environments and their dominance of yesteryear faded away.

To effectively manage creativity and the talent pool, we suggest that organisations can adopt the CREATE framework, which stands for: Culture of Creativity (C), Recognise Outliers and Change Agents (R), Embrace Technology (E), Align with Market Expectations (A), Team Collaboration (T) and Efficient Execution (E).

Culture of Creativity (C): Fostering a culture of creativity, where failures are celebrated, is essential for encouraging out-of-the-box thinking within the organisation. When you take the road less travelled, you are bound to get lost or make mistakes, but treasure hunts cannot happen by walking safely on the well-defined path where hundreds of your competitors have already ventured. Out of ten attempts, nine might be failures, but the successful one may give you the jackpot. The best example is the innovative drug industry known for low success rates.

Recognise Outliers and Change Agents (R): Identifying and supporting outliers—individuals who ask unconventional questions and challenge the status quo constructively—is crucial to identifying the path less travelled. Most efficient employees are conventional and they are the most valuable employees when the business environment is stable. However, in turbulent environments, unconventional ideas (which may often get labelled as absurd) can lead to breakthrough innovations. Organisations should recognise and support these change agents by providing the resources and infrastructure needed to nurture their ideas.

Embrace Technology (E): Leveraging technology, ranging from adopting new software to utilising AI-based data analytics, is not a choice anymore for organisations but a need of the time. Many times, new or emerging technology may fail to match the performance parameters of established technology, but they emerge, catch up fast and disrupt the old technology. Thus, it is important to keep an open mind to newer technologies. For instance, decades ago, when crash simulation software was evolving, some leading automobile companies were reluctant to adapt, but eventually, all automobile players had to adopt it. In short, old and established routines might bring bureaucracy and slow down the pace of adaptation.

Aligning with Market Expectations (A): Innovation for the sake of innovation may not create value. Thus, aligning innovative pursuits with market expectations is essential for gaining a competitive advantage. Organisations need to consider explicit (and implicit) customer needs and market trends. Organisations need to innovate or create solutions that are not only creative but also commercially viable.

Team Collaboration (T): Innovation is not only the responsibility of the R&D department in today’s context. It is important to break down silos and harness the collective strengths of diverse functional teams. For a diversified company, this collaboration can also happen across different business verticals. To facilitate this collaboration, organisations should encourage open communication and sharing of ideas, where employees who may not be formally part of the core team of a particular project feel motivated to contribute. Relevant criticisms or contributions may not always come from people who are deeply involved in a project but can come from a distant and neutral observer with a bird’s eye view.

Efficient Execution (E): In continuation of the above point, before going to the market with a new product or idea, a neutral and impartial evaluation of the concept is crucial where a distant observer can play the role of the devil’s advocate. Emotional involvement with an idea or concept often leads to wishful thinking. Effective execution of potential ideas is critical for translating innovative ideas into successful commercial outcomes.

To sum up, managing the process of innovation is a challenging task, but failure to do so is a journey towards stagnation, if not death. Thus, successfully managing innovation, encouraging creativity and retaining the talent pool is the only way to enjoy sustainable competitive advantage. By taking the above-mentioned CREATE framework into consideration, organisations can become resilient in a rapidly changing business environment.

Apalak Khatua

Guest Author The author is Assistant Professor of Strategy at XLRI. He is an alumnus of IIM Calcutta