Making innovation and creativity work in your organisation

Executives must foster proactiveness, risk taking and an innovation orientation to benefit from greater creativity among employees. PHOTO | FILE 

By SCOTT BELLOWS

In Summary

• You can predict future innovation success by your employee’s perception of proactiveness and risk taking.

Jepkemoi launched an innovative marketing and public relations firm in 2009. She focused on providing creative solutions to client needs and quickly gained a solid foothold in the Nairobi, and later Mombasa, market.

Her top line revenues tripled each year between 2010 and 2012 and doubled afterwards until sales took a nosedive in 2014.

Halfway through 2015, Jepkemoi decided to send out online surveys to her existing, former and prospective clients. Much to her dismay, questionnaire results indicated a market perception that her firm’s once coveted creativity had dissipated and would-be clients viewed the company as decidedly not innovative.

Puzzled, Jepkemoi attempted to think through what underpinned the dismal feedback. Initially tempted to blame increased competition, she decided to take a closer look. The only major change in her business involved hiring of a new chief marketing officer (CMO) in February 2014.

However, Jepkemoi thought it unlikely that the CMO change could have led to the demise of the firm’s innovation. She viewed the CMO as a go-getter, organised and much in control of all external aspects of the marketing and public relations business.

Jepkemoi decided to set up a breakfast meeting with a former MBA colleague who always seemed to know strategy and organisational development matters. Between sips of coffee, her friend explained the delicate balance of maintaining creativity and innovation in a company.

She recommended that Jepkemoi use an internal survey of her staff to gauge their capacity and willingness towards innovation. The friend pointed out how researchers like Scott Helm and Fredrik Andersson employ the innovation tool in socially conscious businesses like hers.

Eager to diagnose any issues and save her firm, Jepkemoi quickly downloaded the survey tool and obtained responses from her entire team.

Afterwards, not only did the results surprise her, but so did the research framework’s implications for what leads to an innovative and creative business.

Jepkemoi, like most executives, did not grasp the root internal antecedents that foster employee creativity and innovation.

Research by Robert DeVellis shows that managers can predict future innovation success by the degree to which their employees perceive the following three creative drivers: proactiveness, risk taking and innovation orientation.

Executives must foster these three causes of innovation to benefit from greater creativity.

First, do employees feel that proactiveness is valued or frowned upon? Most executives prefer proactive employees. However, the rigidity, jealousy and competitive nature within offices often overrules the executive’s desire for a proactive workforce. So one must examine how employees truly feel.

Further, the executive must look at his or her past performance with regards to proactiveness. Is your firm seldom or often the first organisation to introduce new products, services, administrative techniques or operating processes?

Does your company exploit or lag changes in the field? Also, do you provide the lead for similar service providers or you follow other industry leaders?

The tough introspective questions continue when assessing your employees’ and organisation’s tolerance and history of risk taking.

If you harshly punish errant outcomes despite careful pre-planning, then you squash risk taking. Employees who feel exposed to castigation for taking chances become drastically less creative in their workplace.

Additionally, does your company specifically conduct itself in line with the behavioural norms of your industry or do you break outside the box of normal workplace reporting times, manners of dress, employee team reporting or staff rewards?

Do you stay in safe territory by acquiring new projects that fit with your public image or allow your firm to take on new projects that will alter its public image?

Next, do your decisions maintain or create changes in staff stability?

The answer to these questions point to the amount of organisational risk you take.

Finally, look into innovation orientation itself. Do you reward new ways of accomplishing tasks? Do you hold internal competitions for the most creative solutions? When was the last time you held an innovation and creativity workshop for your employees?

Organisationally, does your firm retain a history of strong emphasis on the development of new products or services or maintain tried-and-true products or services? Can your firm boast a record of solid development of new internal processes or the use of established methods?

Have you introduced multiple new processes, products, services and policies in the past or introduced few or none?

Were most modifications in internal processes, services, products and policies major changes or minor changes? These will reveal your aptitude for company-wide creativity.

In summary, Jepkemoi must remove or coach her CMO to foster proactiveness, risk taking and innovation orientation in order to reap the profitable rewards that greater innovation and creativity brings to an organisation.

How does your company fall within the above measures? Share your ideas on how to foster the antecedents of innovation in your firm with other Business Daily readers through #InnovationForum on Twitter.

Professor Scott serves as the director of the New Economy Venture Accelerator at USIU’s Chandaria School of Business, www.ScottProfessor.com, and may be reached on: info@scottprofessor.com or on Twitter: @ScottProfessor