Most of us that have travelled on the undergrounds around the world are well used to the announcement as a train pulls into the station of “mind the gap” between stepping off the train and the platform.

The reminder is to make us aware there is a gap and we need to be ready for this. We need to be consciously aware.

Innovation nearly always suffers some form of “mind the gap” and yet we tend to ignore the obvious and stumble into these gaps or fail to recognize them completely. These ‘gaps’ comes in so many different ways and guises.

We are in a need to constantly “mind the innovation gaps”, these are everywhere.

Firstly innovation is meant to bridge the growth gap found in organizations, it needs to have clear plans to manage the core, seek out new adjacencies and investigate the white space opportunities for making up the growth plans, so as to meet the strategic goals and aspirations of the organization. Often the resources are not allocated to all three of these, it is often left to the same team to bridge the gaps and more often than not, they fail. We also fail to think across different innovation horizons and not allocated dedicated resources and the time to each of these.

Our leaders have within themselves a real innovation gap as well. They spend less of their time on being involved with facilitating and guiding innovation than is ideal in many organizations, and this is often why we get such disjointed, underwhelming innovation results. Our leaders want innovation but fail to recognize they contribute significantly to having this innovation gap on required performance because they are not as engaged as they should be. They fail to put in their personal legwork and leave it to others. I am a real advocate for having in place a clear well-articulated innovation framework from the leadership of the organization

We have gaps in the current enabling innovation practice, these are either not integrated into the organizations or piecemeal, rather held in silo’s and pockets of knowledge, that don’t achieve the organization connection needed to get the ‘full force’ of momentum from the innovation efforts.

We lack gaps in how we reinforce innovation, in how we integrate it into our organizations and alongside all the other systems. We have gaps in the way we construct our cultures and environments for innovation to thrive. Far too often it simply struggles to survive. It stumbles from one innovation event to another, lacking a sustaining approach.

We have generation gaps in understanding and practices. Far too often the middle managers within organizations fail to bridge the gaps of understanding. How we can create a better common affinity as it would help to close some of the knowledge and communication gaps if it was consistently recognized and worked upon. Diversity of opinion or approach should be valued.

We have such an innovation gap as we often lack a common language within organizations to reduce misunderstandings, to extract all the necessary synergies that innovation does require. This lack of a common language is for me one of the biggest gaps to why innovation does not achieve its true potential. Far too often innovation is pulled in multiple directions and used for personal agendas. We mix up these personal ambitions and so ‘mess up’ the true potential of the innovation. We need a more transparent environment where a common goal can be seen and all can collectively work upon.

Then we have the performance gaps,where the impact of the innovation efforts are less than initially stated, the impact expected falls short or the execution was lacking. All can be serious gaps often understated or understood. Metrics often have yawning gaps that fail to capture the true value of innovation.

My last one is the gap of simply just knowing. What does actually happen? Innovation is often argued as a mystery, it needs to be left to chance, it is full of serendipity, and it is constantly dealing with the unknowns and untested. Yet there are so many gaps in this view in my opinion to be challenged and challenged hard. We need to consistently work at understanding the mechanisms, often the combination of random events and pursuing knowledge that matters that collide and give us breakthroughs, and the events that suddenly come together to give us advancement on the existing.

There are so many innovation gaps that we fail to resolve and just leave unresolved.

We have to work at it. The amount of training, of repeating routines, of practice, of incremental improvements often makes the difference between a good sports-person and a great one. We need to be well aware of our performance. Innovation needs constantly working upon, improving, in striving to understand what actually happens. The more we work on improving the performance and reducing the gaps the better.

Innovation relies often on interactions between a wide diversity of interested parties. It is structuring these interactions and exchanges of knowledge that gives us not just the new production of products but into the value adding areas of new services and new business models. We can extend our thinking beyond immediate challenges into broader social and economic challenges to bring more meaning into our innovation activities.

We need to bridge the gaps of what is truly important in our lives.

We actually do have the biggest innovation gap here. There is incredible room for organizations to bridge the social challenges of our time in health and welfare with innovative treatments, preventative solutions and diagnostics.

We also need to reduce the gaps in our existing education shortfalls, we need to protect our environment more, help in stress relief, age related solutions, working conditions, poverty reduction, in disease prevention and making basic essentials available to everyone (water and electricity).

Our business organizations need to connect far more to the social challenges all around us to help in reducing the inequalities or advance the solutions needed.

The innovation gaps are everywhere if we care to look.

Striving to introduce truly life-changing innovation that is needed may not be so possible for many of us but we do need to address the many innovative gaps we find in our everyday lives. Those that will support our collective capacity to initiate, absorb, support, organize, manage and exploit innovation in its many forms.

Often innovation is hidden in plain sight. We need to reorganize the DNA genetic code of the organization. We need to identify all the innovation impediments and gaps we can and work to minimise them.

We need to firstly stimulate innovation action – each of us needs to identify the gaps.

Hal Gregersen of Innovators DNA fame, suggests we can all build personal intent around the following: provoking questions, making observations, connecting and talking to a diverse range of people, being involved in experimenting to find better fits and finally connecting the unconnected. Just starting with consciously working on these would reduce many of the gaps that are simply around us.

As we are about to step off the underground train and hear the message “mind the gap” perhaps you should ask yourself “how can I lessen our innovation gap today?” Just keep calm and well-focused, determined to reduce those innovation gaps that are all around us.

The post Mind the Gaps in Innovation. first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.

I gather in the months of May, June, July and August- the northern hemospheres (usually) warmer months- there is higher potential where algal blooms and also in European climate, some shellfish are less palatable as oysters, for example, are spawning at this time. This raises the risk that can spread toxins and lead to a possible poisoning.

Now you might be wondering what this has got to do with innovation? Well, I’m off to Singapore for ten days in early May and I certainly will be ‘hitting’ the shellfish buffet but really innovation is top of my agenda for this visit and one thing that I will remind people about is to focus on the “R” in innovation.

What do I mean by focusing on the “R” in innovation?
My three “R’s” are Revitalise, Renovate and Regenerate, all often ignored within innovation. How often do we push on regardless, ignoring a number of warning signs and don’t take the time to stop and take stock to see what we can shed and simply get rid of.

I wrote a piece early last year (http://bit.ly/eOuO82) about “Writing off legacy within your innovation systems” as we tend to layer on to existing systems and processes instead of taking the chance to step back and see things from the current or future perspective, we stay locked in our past learning and approaches.

Well I certainly feel we all need to re-think that for shedding legacy. We also need to find those three “R’s” hidden within innovation.

Revitalise
Firstly you need to challenge your vision and where innovation is required to fit. Often by simply resetting the vision and how innovation fits within your (evolving) strategy does make a difference to everyone’s understanding of the purpose and direct from their innovation efforts. We do need to constantly change, to challenge and to revitalise on a regular basis.

We need to redefine what we are wanting out of innovation and then take that fresh look at systems, processes, cultures and capabilities. We need to produce a revitalisation ‘action plan’ that restores and refreshes the ‘impact’ points that innovation can offer. Restoring the value of innovation needs to be constantly rethought at corporate and operational level.

Renovate
Organizations are constantly searching for continuous improvement; it often comes in many different guises. Innovation should equally have a clear renovation programme, no different from all the other organization activities that need improving. Putting in place a consistent industry or even cross-industry benchmarking programme, or focusing on more material enhancement, knowledge learning and seeking out changes makes significant difference in your performance, should all be part of this.

We often get ‘stuck’ in our own ways of doing things and often it is only when a crisis ‘hits’ we suddenly seek difference positions but that can often be too little, too late. I think there is a need to be constant on improving innovation, we need to renovate innovation continually or we risk the case of often missing out or letting our competitors slip away and move ahead in the lead.

The other part of the renovation is to review the ‘content and context’ of innovation. We need to update, modify, change, drop and merge these and that is an essential part of the renovation programme, to evaluate the content and the context constantly.

Regenerate
There are always design considerations within innovation. We need to constantly seek simplicity, motivation, involvement and improving the existing culture. We need to regenerate ourselves. Our people need to constantly upgrade their competencies and skills, they need to engage within teams, seek out diversity of opinion to stretch their own thinking and they need to form or generate new connections and deepen external relationships to learn more of what is going on in the world.

Those that stop learning are the losers and those around them feel the frustration of this. To regenerate constantly makes for a learning organization. We need to undergo spiritual, moral and physical renewal for improving our culture and climate to innovation so much more than we do, we often leave this to chance and not thoughtful design.

Innovation and Impunity

Each of the above “R’s” is vital to build into your innovation plans. So you need to make sure there is always an “R” in your innovation, not only will it be ensuring innovation remains fresher but it will also help rid you of those harmful toxins that can poison your best efforts if you did chose to ignore the “R” in innovation.

I loved one comment about eating shellfish “whether it is January or June, you can eat these plump beauties with impunity”.

So let’s hope the combination of (hopefully) fresh seafood in Singapore and my worries that so many organizations  may  have forgotten to heed the “R” in innovation, does get heard by everybody who cares to listen, and I don’t suffer any punishment or unpleasant set of consequences from this.

Believe me your innovation efforts do benefit by recognizing that these three “R’s” do need to be constantly at the forefront of your innovation eating thinking.

By the way, innovation with impunity sounds very intriguing.

The post Putting the “R” into Innovation to shed legacy first appeared on Building Your Innovation & Ecosystem Intelligence.