Obama Needs a Secretary of Innovation

Federal relief alone won't sustain the economy. A new Cabinet position would help to sharpen the focus on the innovation needed in the U.S.—and worldwide

By Thomas D. Kuczmarski

We are experiencing more than an economic setback. In effect, it's an economic reset. This requires a reexamination of government, too. As President Barack Obama begins the hard work of running his new Administration and the country, I suggest that he include a new position in his Cabinet designed to sharpen the focus on changes needed to stabilize and revive the nation's economy—a Secretary of Innovation.

I often debate with chief executives about the importance of hiring a chief innovation officer. They often don't see the need. They argue that innovation is everybody's job. Or they confuse it with research and development and say it already is being done. My point—and it applies to economic recovery as much as it does to product development—is that innovation is a multidisciplinary and disciplined process that needs to be managed and led. If everybody is in charge, then nobody is, and little gets accomplished, if anything at all. Or worse—and this may sound familiar to anyone who has followed Washington—there is a lot of action based only on guesswork, not on a careful exploration of what really is needed.

Now, in the midst of recession, companies need to innovate more than ever. Yet too many are choosing instead to hunker down, postpone investments in R&D, and avoid risk-taking until the market has stabilized. The companies that continue to build an innovation culture and make modest investments to keep the innovation pipeline full will be the ones that enjoy a big competitive advantage a few years from now.

Two Main Objectives

But the overall health of innovation in the private sector is ailing, and a good push from Washington to help get it going again will be tantamount to our future economic success. A recovering economy does not come from "relief packages" but rather from the creation of businesses, products, and services that, in turn, create jobs and fuel growth.

The Secretary of Innovation should be responsible for two major tasks. The first is to lead a systematic national innovation process, bringing this powerful strategy to bear on the government's role in unclenching the lockjaw of this economic crisis. The second is to create a national innovation mindset, reinvigorating innovation in the private sector.

Innovation is one of the most abused buzzwords of the past decade. It is a term with enormous appeal, suggesting (without having to deliver) breakthrough thinking and new ways of approaching problems. It implies action where, as we have seen time and again, none exists. How many times have you seen a reference in corporate advertising to "innovation" or heard an embattled CEO talk about his company's innovations as if you could buy them by the dozen?

Leveraging Capabilities

Innovation is not invention, nor is it the result of a eureka moment. The innovation process, properly done, begins with research to identify needs, wants, and problems and then addresses them in a way that draws upon many different disciplines and functions. Innovation breaks through a business-as-usual mindset, revealing an array of opportunities with a high probability of success.

The process of innovation can have just as much to do with rebuilding a devastated economy as it does with rebuilding a product line. It needs someone responsible for leveraging the talents, skills, technologies, and capabilities that we have as a country.

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