How to tackle the Innovation Immune System of your company
If you ever worked with innovation in a large company you for sure got to meet and greet the Innovation Immune System of your company.
What is the Innovation Immune System?
For me the Innovation Immune System is the company legacy the “old” ways of working the “proven” processes, the “experienced” colleagues and the organisation that works in silos which don’t or don’t want to embrace innovation and change in your organisation.
As soon as you try to do something new, something that has not been done before, people will tell you that it is not possible to do that, that it is not your job to take care of that, or better that it is not allowed to do that according to the company guidelines.
In the famous TED Talk “How do we fix civilisation” Salim Ismail tells great stories on how you face the Innovation Immune System .
Why is it always present?
As a coach and innovator you meet and greet the Innovation Immune System with your coachees every day.
As more successful the company gets and older it is as stronger the immune system gets and limits exploration towards trying things in different ways.
The Immune System is always there and protects the company from evil. This is not necessarily a bad thing, because every organism needs a system that protects it from external influences that can be a threat to it.
It only gets tricky when the immune system response takes action to keep the people inside the organisation in the “comfort zone”. This is where it is time for leaders to take action and look how to build a system to overcome it.
3 ways to tackle the Innovation Immune System
Innovation Leadership
Innovation Culture
Innovation Leadership GPS
1. Innovation leadership:
The leadership plays a significant role to keep the innovation immune system in check. Leaders need to act as soon as they see the immune system responding in ways that limits innovation and change in the organisation.
Leading by example is key and will be seen by all employees in the company. A leader taking action to show that this behaviour or process is limiting will empower the people driving change.
Read more about Innovation Leadership here
2. Innovation Culture:
Employees that are truly empowered to drive change will make it happen. Processes and proven examples need to be allowed to get questioned, silos need to be able to get broken down. Failures need to be celebrated and all that backed up by the leaders.
Read more on Innovation Culture here
3. Innovation Leadership GPS
The key is not making all the changes at once rather have the understanding of which changes to do when and how. And especially how to measure the right things and translate what you measure to success metrics your company understands.
Read more about Innovation Leadership GPS here
All this is an ongoing “battle” as soon as the immune system gets used to the new way it will react in the same way again when you come around the corner with another new idea to threaten it.
The vaccine
The only proven vaccine against the innovation immune system response is staying on your toes, change your perspective, empower your teams and use your personal leadership day in day out to be the best example you can be.