Five Common Mistakes in Innovation

Every company knows how to get more innovative, but few are willing to make the cultural changes necessary to get results

by Dev Patnaik

There's a growing consensus around what it takes to be truly innovative. Launch some great new products and services. Encourage your people to take risks. Get started on the long, hard work of creating metrics and processes that help employees engage with new ideas. That's what the world's most innovative companies are doing. But just because you know how to do something doesn't mean you will do it.

We all know what kind of exercise and diet it takes to develop rock-hard, six-pack abs. While many of us would like to look lean and muscular, a regimen of constant crunches and low-calorie meals is hard to maintain over the course of years. Innovation works the same way. Everybody knows how to get more innovative, but they are rarely willing to undertake the kinds of cultural changes necessary to yield significant results. Without more actionable advice, too many companies proceed to make the same mistakes when trying to spark innovation.

• Over-reliance on pilot initiatives

"We'll be more innovative if we do more brainstorming sessions."

In an attempt to take action quickly, some companies initiate projects that focus on a single product idea or a promising near-term opportunity. Alternatively, they latch on to a single technique, such as ethnographies or brainstorming. Yet, for most companies, the scale of impact required is too massive to depend on a single approach.

Recognizing this, successful companies such as Procter & Gamble (PG) are taking a portfolio approach to innovation, working with multiple consultants and using multiple methods so the process of innovation becomes a series of multiple experiments. They then come away with a better understanding of not only which methods and partners work, but which ones work best with their existing organizational culture.

• Unhealthy fascination with unique charismatic examples

"Steve Jobs is so cool: We need to be more like him."

It's difficult to have a discussion on innovation without invoking the names of charismatic visionaries such as Steve Jobs or Richard Branson. Apple (AAPL) and Virgin, along with Nike (NKE), Starbucks (SBUX), and other media darlings, certainly make for great storytelling. Unfortunately, they also serve as lousy models for the rest of us.

Enticing as they are, such cases too often depend on a kind of business leader who is, for better or worse, nonexistent in most companies. If you work for Steve Jobs, innovation seems like second nature. If you don't, the only useful lesson seems to be to quit your job and go work for Apple.

• Misapplication of other companies' approaches

"P&G is using a 'Connect and Develop' strategy, so we should, too."

It can be more enlightening but equally dangerous to emulate the approaches of other companies. Of late, P&G has received much attention for its "Connect and Develop" strategy, whereby the company reaches out to promising entrepreneurs, scientists, and consumers in the hopes of mainstreaming the ideas they present. IBM (IBM) has received similar praise for its experiments with "Open Innovation." Such strategies are far more useful than those that rely on charismatic individuals.

At the same time, these approaches work because they're tailored to the conditions of the companies in question.