Deifying innovation
It was inevitable, I guess. The backlash against innovation is in full swing, and it’s not really a surprise. Every business trend starts as a fringe concept, builds momentum, grows into a phenomenon, then faces a storm of criticism from naysayers, latecomers and those who are just cranky in general. Of course, in most cases, those critics are right, because by the time the backlash is in full swing, whatever “it” is has been watered-down, misused, repurposed and twisted into all sorts of different shapes. This appears to be the case with the latest buzzword, Innovation, (capital ‘I’ intentional), at least according to two separate articles from BusinessWeek (the folks who brought us IN, a quarterly pub focused entirely on innovation, for goodness sakes).
Here’s Kevin McCullagh in “The Innovation Backlash,” (February 12, 2007): “The term has been over-used and abused of much of its meaning, with every lame brand-tweak and extension hailed as ‘innovation.’”
Or this, from Dan Saffer in “The Cult of Innovation,” (March 5, 2007): “It’s not hard to see where this deification may lead: innovation for innovation’s sake…What it gets us, in other words, is purple ketchup and Crystal Pepsi – products that no one needs and few actually desire.”
They’re both right of course. And I would add this observation. When innovation is hailed, there are almost always two examples cited: the iPod (our pet innovation beacon) and TiVo. If there are only two examples of true innovation that have emerged in the last few years, can this really be a trend?
Of course, innovation is real – it’s the use of Innovation as a driving mantra from the press or business leaders that’s false. The “Innovation Backlash” article starts by noting that in a recent 30-second TV spot, former Ford Motor Chairman and CEO Bill Ford used the word “innovation” almost once every eight seconds, claiming, “If you look at the Ford Motor Company, innovation has driven everything we’ve done.” Really? I thought bleeding money and market share pretty much reflects everything you’ve done.
It helps to keep in mind what true innovation is, or at least the definition we like to cite that was posited by the legendary Peter Drucker, who said innovation is “change that creates a new dimension of performance.” The key phrases here are “new dimension,” meaning a fundamentally different way of doing things (not incremental, fundamental), and “performance,” which means fundamentally improved results (not just ideas, but results).
Innovation is still a path to competitive differentiation for healthcare providers, particularly innovations focused on service delivery. Just make sure it’s innovation, and not Innovation.
August 28th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Fantastic observation. It would be humorous, the number of people that bandy about the latest business buzz-word as part of their advertising slogan - kind of like jumping on the bandwagon of the latest popular cause, whether it has any relevance to your business or not (see Roger Martin’s article on ‘The Virtue Matrix’) - except that it can damage what is in essence a fundamentally necessary feature of successful business. By the way, Mystic Tan, Inc., owns the US Trademark on the term ‘Innovation’ - I wonder how innovative they are?
August 29th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
[…] This blog from GeigerBevolo is a fantastic review of what has happened to Innovation since becoming the big thing in business over the past couple of years — both the word and the concept. There are many companies who have failed entirely to adopt the concept and yet have endorsed the word profoundly — at least as an advertising slogan. Have a read. […]