Has Innovation Run It's Course?

By Les Mottosky

Is innovation dying? Nope. Tech will march-on and continue blowing our minds. But many leaders – even notable ones – are assessing and adjusting their strategies and investments around innovation.

Is it time for the rest of us to re-assess the innovation of the last quarter century, instead of pushing it further?

Maybe...

Example? One of the world's most famous innovators.

Nike appears to have temporarily stepped away from innovating. Five years after re-defining the running category with the first ever 'supershoe' in 2016, their stock price began tanking and they've struggled since. Business experts suggested the Swoosh re-establish their innovation mojo. How did they respond? By adapting instead.

Most of the shoes Nike is currently releasing –and hyping-up with their gargantuan marketing budgets– are not ground-breaking. While positioned as innovative, these "new" products rely on reconfigurations or new applications of the same tech they've leaned on for decades.

According to recent sales data, their strategy is working.

If one of the world's foremost industrial inventors is letting-off the innovation gas-pedal, what's the insight for today's leader?

There are two: a) our organizations may already have the resources to thrive, and b) we can grow by being more creative in our application of them.

This is good news; adaptation is what humans do.

And we do it better than any species on the planet.

As an old saying (now proven by quantum physics) states: "Where focus goes, energy flows." This is true for individuals and organizations. So if we want a more adaptive culture, we create an organizational focus on adaptation.

Like innovation, adaptation can be systematized.

Depending on the urgency for change, this can be done in a few ways: "water cooler" conversations, as a quick add-on discussion to every meeting, or a dedicated focus with monthly time allotted to assess the efforts.

Most impactful of all approaches is a system designed, supported and run by the team. Why? Because we're tapping into the their creativity. Furthermore, it's incentivized; that creativity is designing a system intended to unleash even more creativity.

Through this collaborative design, the team becomes deeply invested because they all contribute. They have ownership. Their process produces the constraints, structure and goals for transformational creativity to flourish. And who doesn't want to have ownership and flourish at work? (Especially creatively?)

Innovation wowed us. Adaptation will save us.

Successful teams aren’t chasing the next big thing.

They’re getting skilled at optimizing what they've already got.

TAGS: #Adaptation > Innovation #Audacious Strategies #Collaborative Leadership #Creativity Cures #Change Is Our Nature

Les Mottosky

Adaptation Strategist // I help organizations turn creativity into their competitive advantage by aligning leadership, culture and strategy to unlock adaptive innovations.

Ask about the Clarity Engine Process.

lesmottosky@mac.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/les-mottosky-9b94527/