We need to think about a choice-cascade integrative model for innovation. Often we fail to understand our role in contributing to innovation; we need a cascading effect. Here I want to explain my thinking behind this and provide the visual cascading steps I feel help us succeed in innovation.
For me, the “cascading effect” for innovation is “a sequence of events in which each produces the circumstances necessary for the initiation of the next”.
It presents an idea, a concept, a prototype, a piece of knowledge that provides the catalyst to be exploited in a broader community as the next step and so on. It cascades. It is where we fit understanding and fresh knowledge within the innovation web.
Getting innovation through any process of understanding is hard. Knowing what is required to generate innovation throughout an entire organization is even more so.
We need to deploy the cascading effect on innovation to support this supporting “effect.”
Innovation does need structures and systems. It is complex. As we get increasingly involved in innovation activity, we meet more of the unforeseen uncertainties of working on something new where there is a need to decide, often on a limited set of factors than the ideal. We need to reach out for help, for understanding, for assistance.
So ‘the cascade effect for innovation’ often does have to deal with many unforeseen chains of events that need working through, as they can be negative on the system by taking away vital resources from other more valuable, commercially viable projects, or they can be breakthrough or transformational in pursuing.
Passing through different stages of innovation development
Innovation often has to go through a set of stage gates or cross thresholds, set by others or judged to be the essential cross over points. When you achieve these cross over points, you induce more resources, more attention and momentum. The more it successfully progresses, it eventually gains a higher resilience, and then the innovation picks up more for this “cascading effect”.
The more thresholds you cross, the gain space, time, increasing attention within the organization and an increasing identity of what the innovation can achieve. The more it creates a ‘reaction’ or achieves ‘growing interactions’ then, the more it ‘cascades’ for producing a cumulative effect moving through the successive stages. We gain increasing identity and strength the more we get involved in the cascading effect.
Any “cascading effect for innovation” has to have a two-way flow.
We need to encourage bottom-up innovation, those close to markets, the raw ideas and who can make more connections than those far removed. We also need the overarching innovation framework driven by the leadership of innovation, so everyone has a growing understanding of where, how, with whom and why innovation needs to head in a ‘given’ set of directions and what are the critical components that enable this to ‘connect and happen’ and provides the ‘how’ it can work.
The components of this “cascading effect needed for innovation” generates the thinking about the flow both ways and, in my view, moves closer to a well-aligned organization that marks a successful business.
We have the need to cascade innovation from the top down
The majority of people within the organization who work alongside it would appreciate a greater understanding of the core concepts, principles, and direction of their innovation activity. Understanding what is valued, essential to defend, promote and improve. To clarify what is highly strategic to describe and ‘form’ around helps innovation perform its required task of delivering new growth that aligns with the strategic needs.
Equally, many within organizations where innovation is left more ‘open’ do run the risk that there is an over-emphasis on idea generation; by placing the emphasis point further along the innovation value chain that we must remember that it is exploring the benefits that flow from ideas, not the ideas alone. This shift in emphasis can significantly improve the quality of innovation and reduce the belief that quantity was the important aspect.
Then we also have to cascade innovation from the bottom up.
The richness of innovation lies not just in the well planned, but in the sudden discovery, the pursuit of a game-changing innovation concept often stumbled upon. Many of these come from the bottom up. In research labs across the globe, the researcher should have permission, an open endorsement from above, to investigate and explore innovation, not just in their field of ability but equally encouraged in a broader sense, as well.
There are many benefits in building into our daily activities valuable time to explore, to allow employees to investigate ‘something’ that initially may not seem to fit with any prescribed plan of predetermined concepts but from this “free time” emerges something that can evolve and fits perfectly within a good corporate strategy.
We appreciate and see countless innovations that emerged from nowhere, that had no relationship with the strategic directions, yet have been successful. They provided a different perspective of what would add more value. Are these wrong? Should they be ignored, killed off or just simply allowed to happen? Usually, some survive and thrive against all odds, starved of resources, yet somehow ‘emerge’ and become outstanding contributors to an organisation’s business.
Organizations need to stay totally alert to these. The issue is the way you approach this. If you insist on innovation that only ‘maps’ back to the innovation strategy, you drive out an awful lot of entrepreneurial energy, you miss many a potential innovation that might have been your next blockbuster. We need to find a balance here, but it needs visibility and curiosity and allows for time for emerging, unexpected innovations to permeate before they are finally judged.
Let me describe my THREE VISUAL CASCADING steps.
We need to achieve alignment, all sorts of alignment. We need to convey throughout the organization and encourage a closer alignment on not just what to do but also to support the how to do it and where to do it.
VISUAL 1. The Choice-Cascade Integrative Model overarching cascading flow
We need to leverage across the entire ecosystem that makes up the organizations place where we consciously work on immediate impact points in this year’s innovation outcomes and what will give us this longer-term transformational effect. This requires a huge emphasis on collaborative efforts, promoting behaviours and matching understanding within a greater transparent organization climate and culture.
We need to find more fluid and flexible organizations that respond through searching for innovation consistency. They need to have a ‘flow’ of knowledge, clarity, and a sense of scale in their learning and dialogues that promote greater successful innovation outcomes as the sense of ongoing mission.
Organizations need an integrated innovation strategic framework that can deliver commonality in understanding, purpose, and language. We need to align, offer a clear vision and purpose, and orchestrate from the top of the organization to the bottom. We need to cascade.
VISUAL2 The Choice-Cascade throughout the Organizations Environment
We are looking for a cascade of better choices to achieve the desired innovation outcomes that only an integrated innovation design can achieve. This is where the engagement from the top of the organization becomes pivotal. They ‘frame’ the design; they offer the alignment and integrated approach having an established methodology can provide.
VISUAL 3 A choice-cascade of better choices to achieve the desired set of innovation outcomes
The aim here is to engage the top of our organizations to lay out the conditions and result impact they expected from innovation. Then it needs to be cascaded throughout the organization.
Achieving better choices and desired outcomes
Through this cascading effect, you move closer to better choices that can get closer to the desired innovation outcomes all involved want to seek out. A performance that reflects a team’s or organizations best efforts to be best at what they do; the outstanding innovation performance consistent to the needs and growth expectations demanded in today’s constantly changing world. Consistency needs to be fluid, flexible, aligned and being agile in innovation – that’s the new target performance standard needed.
The combination effect of wanting to innovate and being able to always has to be the desired result
Innovation provides organizations with the very concepts that drive growth, contribute to profits in new ways, and allow individuals to identify with success.
If we don’t offer a sound innovation framework, innovation remains haphazard, left to chance. If we build into people’s work time to explore the innovation that ‘fits’ the overarching strategy, we combine the best of both aspects. Having a model that connects and cascades up and down organizations provides a more connected fit.
Cascading what we know gives everyone else the chance to build on this knowledge even further.
*Part of the Executive Work Mat Methodology.
