Innovation skills – are they a thing?

Are you innovative? Wait, before you answer, what does that mean? For some sense of clarity let’s consider what innovation is

What is innovation?

Put simply innovation can be defined as.

Bringing in new methods, ideas etc (1)

How do we approach the word innovation?

From our definition we should be fairly confident that we can all achieve innovation to a lesser extent. But we seemed to be swayed by 2 important conventions. Firstly, that innovation should involve a whole research centre with highly paid egg heads constantly creating amazing ideas and secondly it is seen as some magical force, that we have to be blessed with.

Addressing the first point, as the definition clearly says it is about bringing in new methods, so this could be a new process, which is a better way of working. It can of course be a whole new product, the point is though it does not need to be. So, whether that is an entire department looking at a breakthrough or some bloke called Jeff in his garage in Tamworth, it makes no difference. The key thing being effecting a change.

The second point is really interesting. Innovation likely many other areas is a skill. And as such it can be developed like any other skill. A simple way of looking at it is if you have curiosity and imagination you can be innovative.

So why does this matter?

It is important because it means in theory we can all improve our innovation skills. There is a rich stream of untapped talent, people with innovation skills, which are highly valuable to a business.

Why is innovation important?

Innovation is vital to all businesses for the following reasons

·??????New revenue streams – New ideas create opportunities for future income

·??????Growth – With new ideas, markets and revenues innovation is the lifeblood of growth

·??????Efficiency – Considering better ways of doing things supports a culture of continuous improvement

·??????Competition – Introducing better methods or products keeps a company ahead of the competition

·??????Disruption – New ideas and solutions ensures one step ahead of inevitable disruption

Recent studies show that when disruption hits, companies that invest in innovation outperform the market by up to 30%. (2). Innovation should not be seen as a nice to have or something for the big corporations, constantly improving and creating new ideas is essential to all businesses. ?

Can we develop innovation skills?

Well, yes and that is the point. As we said innovation like any other skill can be learnt, developed and practiced. The key is we can all be better by practicing and refining those skills. Think of an elite athlete, they compete at the highest level, but they train to be better. A tenth of a second can make all the difference, but they have to work at it.

How can we develop our innovation skills?

Innovation skills can be developed by breaking down what is required into manageable steps and then applying these to a daily job role.

·??????Curiosity - By asking questions, becoming engaged in a subject, wanted to learn more. This prepares us to think about how something works and can be improved

·??????Imagination - By imagining and visualising an idea or a concept we are literally seeing it in our minds eye, determining what something might look, feel or sound like.

·??????Creativity - Creativity is a unique human experience, which frees us up from convention. It allows us to discover and use our senses. Embracing creativity removes boundaries and opens us up to new methods and ideas, it is also good fun.

·??????Experimentation - If we can safely try things out we can learn what works, what does not and what needs improvement. In doing so there is a sense of play and endless possibilities.

·??????Lateral thinking - Thinking the unthinkable, stepping outside of our comfort zone. This means taking an unconventional approach to a challenge or problem and looking at it differently. Lateral thinking is a technique and a different way of thinking is so often required to inspire innovation.

·??????Critical thinking - Once the creativity and experimentation is completed we need to organise it into what is valuable, and what is not. Critical thinking skills allow us to identify the value in ideas.

Why should we develop innovation skills?

A wider take up of innovation skills in a business helps in a number of ways

·??????Removes conditioning – By recognising that we can all be innovative we remove unhelpful silos in the business, which affect thinking and engagement.

·??????Scale up – By encouraging and developing skills wider innovation skills we are able to increase the capacity across the whole business and support growth.

·??????Higher productivity – If people are skilled at seeing how do to things better quality and output improves.

·??????Best people to know – The current staff know the business well, why would you not want to encourage their innovation skills?

·??????Lower recruitment – If you increase the innovation skills from the existing business you can reduce the requirements for new recruits.

·??????Better retention – By engaging the workforce through a commitment to develop their skills you are far more likely to retain staff.

·??????Value added manufacturing – All the talk of closing the productivity gap and a higher wage/higher skills economy can only be supported by better innovation skills.

What are the barriers?

The late Ken Robinson gave a notable TED talk in 2007 rather provocatively entitled ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ - Do schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson - YouTube Now this statement carries many different meanings and is subject to passionate debate. However, it does spark an interesting thought. Do we somewhere in the transition from child to adulthood become conditioned to think we are either creative, or we are not creative (we are innovative or we are not innovative)? If so this is a considerable barrier to overcome to boast innovation in businesses as it involves a change of thinking.

We already do innovation so why do we need to learn innovation skills? This is a very good point and yes lots of companies do innovation. But they can be better and broader. Why would an innovative company not want to improve what it does by boasting its innovation skills? As 80% of organisations consider that their creativity and innovation training needs are not fully fulfilled (3), yet 73% of manufacturers rated innovation as the number one skill they require (4), something does not stack up here.

Innovation skills are obvious and common sense. That may be true but is common sense common practice? Just because we assume they are obvious, it does not mean we that they are. What is the old adage to assume makes an ass out of you and me.

The key thing about develop innovation skills is to practice learn by doing. When we consider ‘How can we develop our innovation skills?’ this theme is central. We need to develop the practical skills that make up innovation, which is one of the reasons why creativity is a vital part of developing innovation skills as it facilitates so many of these steps.

?In conclusion

Developing better innovation skills not only is a thing and can be broken down into individual activities, which can be measured and applied it also has a considerable impact on a business’s performance and ultimately future prospects. Companies that recognise can receive an improvement on their bottom line, so it is worth investing in innovation skills. ?

?References

?1) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English

?2) McKinsey & Company, “Innovation in a crisis: Why it is more critical than ever,” June 17, 2020

?3) Creative Engine Project - 2021

?4) Make UK/Enginuity

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