Change Agents and Innovation
March 24, 2006
The concept of innovation came up many times in our discussions during the creation of the change agent paper. This blog will look closely at the concept of "innovation in government" as we continue to focus a conversation around change agents in government.
During our interview with Jerry Hultin, former Under Secretary of the Navy discussed how change agents, especially Transformational Leaders, must chose where they will innovate within an agency. Hultin's advice in the change agent paper was very wise:
"You have to remember where you are in the system and you have to know your range of innovation," he explained. "Change agents focus on what should be done and figure out how to be innovative in accomplishing that goal. But pick your targets. You don’t want to be innovative in everything. Apply the 80/20 rule; 20 percent should be focused on innovation."
Change agents must be very careful as they define scope for the areas of a bureaucracy that will be innovated upon. In my experience, how much innovation an agency or program takes on over what time period, can and will lead to scope creep, mission creep and if too much, it will likely result in failure to innovate on anything. The logic and flow of what to innovate on first should take the form of a roadmap, and answers the question: What should I innovate on first, and why? These questions are hard to answer when facing an agency transformation. When there is so much may change to be made, the inclination is to innovate on everything. Failure to clearly define "innovation scope," and align leadership around the rationale for doing so, can give rise to organizational resistance to change. And that is something change agents try very hard to avoid.
Like many companies, IBM has been looking at the idea of innovation, and now offers an "innovation diagnostic quiz" featured within their Executive Technology Report. The advice from the introduction of the white paper is sage, and tested change agents will likely agree:
Innovation has come to mean anything from saving the world to doing things a little better. That's okay. In fact, for any organization of a reasonable size, there should be a range of innovation projects in progress that have a range of risks, possible results and business objectives. The problems come in when people working on the same project or collaborating to drive innovation for an organization are not clear about what innovation means to them. Different kinds of innovation require different capabilities, environments and measures. If these get confused, failure is inevitable.
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