The blurred lines of innovation

Where does the brand end and the product begin? where does sales end and marketing begin? How does finance intersect with operations? How do you delineate the company and the culture? Where does business development crossover into innovation strategy?

In truth, it’s all part of the same thing. The lines are blurred, and the divisions are undivided. The trees are the forest, and the forest is the trees.

Businesses have to run and manage themselves as a componentised system. And as with any system, when one component is failing, the system is failing.

But, as we all know, we humans never address a problem until it is staring us in the face. And usually, at that point, it’s too late.

It’s the ostrich bias. Bury your head in the sand and hope it either goes away or fixes itself. A bias that is most prevalent with those that are busy and have multiple responsibilities. Y’know, leadership types.

But let’s go back to the forest analogy, because as we know, when you’re in it, you can’t see the forest for the trees. And this is another problem for leadership types. It’s not always easy to identify the problem. And often, the obvious problem, is caused by the real, less obvious problem.

Applied innovation is the overall, systematic solution to this issue, one that faces almost every business. It’s rarely seen as a critical component to business, but when it sits centrally, strategically influencing continuous improvement of the component parts of the system, it not only identifies and solves problems before they arise, but it sees and exploits opportunities that deliver an overall competitive advantage to the business.

A very essential advantage that can ensure the survival of your business, along with commercial growth.

It’s important here to explain the term applied innovation. Because no business I know has an applied innovation team.

‘Innovation’ itself is the improvement of the component parts of a system, which as a process is about abstract connective thinking, it requires skills that are considered ‘creative’, but are actually better explained as implicit, right-brain activities. ?

The ‘applied’ aspect of the term involves more explicit, left-brain activities. Here we use principles of systems theory and its components (which are broad and deep), to analyse and interrogate the business system to understand how and why it works, and where problems and opportunities can emerge.

Applied innovation, the combination of these two terms, offers a dynamic, controlled, strategic, transformative pathway to business survival, and accelerated growth.

If you consider your business as a brain, applied innovation offers complete, or holistic thinking capacity. From a neuroscience perspective, it connects explicit and implicit thinking (Left and right hemispheres) along with the ‘betweeness’ (Corpus Callossum) required to be alert and responsive in real-time.

In short, the brain is life’s adaptive survival mechanism. Applied innovation gives your business a better brain.

Using an applied innovation strategy, like a brain, any kind of business can evaluate its own system, identify where the need for innovation sits, see problems before they arise, find pre-emptive solutions (that are actually opportunities), and help to apply them successfully.

Simple, right? Actually no, it’s very complex and difficult, much like the brain itself, which is why it scares most businesses. But once you get over the scary fact that change is inevitable, and filled with potential, you can invite innovation in.

And when you have innovation at the core of your business, you do what I call EVAC. You ensure victory and avoid catastrophe!