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What to Avoid – to make Innovation more Rewarding

Business Innovation can be very rewarding and challenging because there are many variables that affect success and outcomes – with PEOPLE being the biggest factor.

To understand what’s needed to Innovate for Impact, it’s important for people to have certain qualities to improve the probability of achieving the desired objectives and avoid new initiatives being undermined.  With many pro-active insights indicated in various Innovation articles by CAIL and others, if people have the following traits they should be excluded from innovation initiatives –

  • Lack of awareness / poor observation skills / very limited understanding of situations
  • Are “ Learning Challenged “   ….    ie: Don’t learn much over time / learn very slow
  • Insecurity of indifference from limited experiences and insights
  • Tend not to ask questions
  • Challenged by change / unknowns
  • Think if they don’t know, it’s not knowable – or – don’t know what they don’t know
  • Dismissive of many things
  • Myopic thinking / self-centric perspective
  • Inability to distinguish fact and fiction / opinion
  • NIA  (Naive , Ignorance , Arrogance)
  • Doesn’t like being challenged
  • Under appreciate the importance of strategic thinking, being accountable, learning fast, knowledge, etc.
  • Don’t have the – aptitude, attitude, competencies, discipline needed to be successful, the drive to create wealth, etc. – to realize potential (theirs and others / personally and professionally)
  • Can’t see the different or new forms of value
  • Poor Look Ahead
  • Big Ego
  • Usually don’t act on good advice / idea / opportunity
  • Doesn’t think much about things that matter

 

Knowing who shouldn’t be involved in innovation initiatives is important to improve the odds of success be reducing the impediments to –

  1. creating the future with new products and services
  2. evolving the business and the business model
  3. expanding opportunities
  4. attracting top talent
  5. providing rewarding experiences
  6. delivering new value
  7. having a better future – for the people and the organization

While we all have some of the above elements, it becomes an issue when a person has many of these attributes and/or a high degree of the deficiency in certain areas.

Because of this, be very careful of who has a hand in creating the future !

 

Oct 5, 2021                       CAIL Innovation commentary                       info@cail.com