Innovation is messy, let’s get over it.

By Gabriela Mueller Mendoza

In a world during and post-Corona, innovation becomes the oxygen of companies and teams. Innovate and create or expire. In the old playbook, in many companies, innovation has been framed in processes, plans, expected times, and often expected results. Though in 2020, the name of the game has changed. In Corona times, innovation and fast experimentation are the new game. It is often said Innovation often emerges where there's the greatest need.

I often coach companies that are at the cutting edge of creating solutions, and from time to time, they launch ground-breaking technology or products. Most companies tend to celebrate the kick-offs and successful completion of big projects and accomplishments. But the real success factors actually happen in the middle, the messy middle. That is where innovation happens.

Innovation is a messy process that is often crazy, and even frustrating. If we want good ideas and true innovation to happen, we need human interaction, conflict, debate, argument, and resilience. It also needs a culture that allows this messiness in a risk-free environment. Corporate cultures that have problems giving/receive feedback among their teams, for example, do not see true innovation, especially during a crisis.

The Paradox of Innovation

The present paradox of innovation is that as leaders strive for more and more innovation in their organizations, they apply more of the same old ingredients. The class “A” innovation teams I’ve coached, have a true diversity of thinking and background, and are not restricted by limited playgrounds to innovate.

More meetings, focus groups, management idea boards, typical brain-storming sessions don’t generate different results. I often hear how managers instruct their teams “go ahead, go for it, innovate” and then expect everything to go “according to plan”. That is the paradox. Why? innovation doesn’t work that way. Because what they are attempting to achieve has never been done before. Innovation calls for teams to generate a change that unlocks new value, not more of the same. 

In 2020, what got you here, won’t get you there, where you want to go after COVID19. To seriously innovate, forget order and predictability—and fully embrace the mess.

Innovation is a process that generates failure. No failure = no innovation. It is about trying ideas, “the best ideas”, and then be ready to see what happens. It is worth noticing that the pyramidal management hierarchy is not the best to decide which are the best ideas, but the teams who are immersed in the messy innovation process, and see feasibility or not.

When failure and learning happen, then adaptation must happen, and finally, add speed to the process. Then go for the next attempt. The only steady variable is unpredictability. It will be spiced up by disappointment, patience, frustration.

Expecting the unexpected is not enough, if you and your teams can embrace the messiness, then innovation might just happen. The problem is that most leaders fail to recognize that innovation includes twists and turns, no straight lines. Many of them are often blindsided by the hot mess that comes along with innovation and disruption.

When messiness hits, what you and your team will need is endurance. Endurance is patience concentrated, it is the skill needed to survive late nights, numerous trials and errors, and working without reward and no great endings for some time, sometimes a long time. You can picture it as energy and a source of renewable energy and tolerance that is not innate. A team that is innovating, that sees no new customers or evidence of progress can feel empty after a while. The leader must be the source of optimism, which is not positivity. Optimism is the ability to see the light at the end of the tunnel and the talent to inspire others in tough times.

Don’t expect your team to keep trying and attempting to innovate without encouragement and endurance. Avoid putting them under pressure to comply with certain procedures and old playbooks. The key is to learn to embrace the middle part of a successful innovative effort, the hardship as the experiential education that it is.

Interested in more? I recommend reading Scott Belsky’s book The Messy Middle Chief, he’s Product Officer at Adobe.

The sooner you embrace the messiness of innovation, the sooner you get over it, the closer you are to making it happen.

Gabriela Mueller Mendoza

Coach Speaker Catalyst Diversity Inclusion and Leadership. www.gabrielamueller.com