Many organisations will fashionably list innovation, continuous improvement and creativity among their values but are they just words?
How is it possible to bring them to life; to find the room to unleash creativity and foster innovation within the confines of the high pressure, fast-paced environment that is today’s business world?
In a recent survey, only 48% of respondents said they believed their organisation was innovative, suggesting that the reasons many businesses struggle in this area are that they are stifled by risk-aversion, fear of failure and an over-reliance on process.
The challenge for our business leaders is to establish the conditions for creativity and innovation to thrive, without damaging or disrupting the day-to-day running and management of the business.
A study undertaken by the Chamber during North East Business Week revealed that 27% of business start-ups happened because the founder had an idea for a new product or service.
What the statistics don’t tell us is whether leaving their current role was the only route for them to develop it.
Some businesses do encourage enterprising behaviour among their employees but in many cases this is afforded only lip service with managers simply wanting people to “just do their jobs” and not creating the conditions for staff to act in an intrapreneurial manner – allowing them to think differently, challenge norms and try stuff without fear of reproach.
In the US, many organisations keep their best entrepreneurial talent by spinning out equity share businesses to enable them to develop their ideas without having to leave.
The best case studies show that success is not usually about individual genius or specialist teams of development boffins, but instead about networks of ordinary people in tune with their customers, markets and competitive environment, working in concert to improve what they already do or to evolve this to satisfy changing user demands.
The good news is that Aberdeen is already rated the second most innovative place in the UK (out of 63) for the number of patents granted per head of population and Aberdeen city & shire also has more entrepreneurs per capita and is the best place for business start-ups in Scotland.
The City Region Deal has at its heart the theme of innovation, with major investments being made in the Oil & Gas Technology Centre and the establishment of Innovation Hubs to further develop our current strengths in biopharmaceuticals and food & drink.
So clearly our enterprising spirit is alive and well but we need to do even more to establish this as a clear point of differentiation to drive the diversification of our economy.
At the Chamber, we are working hard at practising what we preach.
Our board was “treated” to a very different style of strategy away day in July; a number of our managers recently attended a session with Ken Russell at RGU, looking at how the Business Model Canvass approach can transform our thinking on service provision and the whole Chamber team will be taking part in Micro-Tyco, the award-winning leadership development programme run by the WildHearts Group later this year.
