More often than not when we talk within business of capital we tend to default to the financial kind. Of course providing the financial capital into innovation is vital; it provides the potential ‘burn’ but what is often understated and certainly under-appreciated is the other capitals.
These capitals when combined ‘fire’ innovation, they make it combustible and change our thinking from the known into the preferred from this ‘set of reactions’ that form new and better innovation solutions
What we need is to recognize is the real “nesting effect” of all our capitals. They make innovation dynamic!
Each of our capitals performs a particular function and the overhaul make-up of their understanding becomes our eventual code to perform innovation. Each organizations uses it mix of capitals to accomplish and generate innovation. It is in this mixture of combinations brought together constantly in different ways, then this ‘nested effect’ for innovation occurs.
The capital you ‘bring to bare’ will generate the potential new innovation outcomes, or by recognizing certain capitals are missing, will highlight the gaps and gives real clues on where and why innovation is repeatedly falling down and that is the value of knowing the total make-up of all your intellectual capitals. They can make or break innovation.
Organizations miss the power to consistently tap into all the potential that ‘resides’ or could be added to make innovation happen. This comes from the unique set of capitals that offers the real potential to set each organization apart from others, it gives them the wealth-generating potential, their uniqueness and ‘chance’ to be seen as future valued.
We need to know where our value creation resides – it is nested in our organizations.
By recognizing our ‘stock’ and knowledge flows through exploring and investing in our group of capitals we have that greater chance of value-creation. We need to move away from the bias of one capital, financial, it is not the dominating one in today’s world, it is our knowledge generating capital, those that ‘capture’ the true story of appreciating if one organization has future investment value or not, by the outcomes they generate.
So what makes up our capitals?
Firstly let me offer my definition of what is innovation capital
“Innovation capital is the sum of all that promotes the development and changes required for achieving innovation outcomes, within one organization or its broader networked environment for market place advantage. These are made up of the resources, processes, and capabilities to develop a constantly evolving capacity to innovate.”
Most of our capitals are learning capitals. So how are you ‘firing’ up your capitals today?
