Five Innovation Principles

After reviewing the basic differences and similarities of Innovation and Creativity, I decided to dive a bit deeper into the Innovation Realm. What I have learned through visiting a host of websites and periodicals has been summarized below into 5 basic principles - obtained courtesy of www.studymarketing.org.

I. Must Be Approached as a Discipline
II. Must Be Approached Comprehensively
III. Includes an Organized, Systematic, and Continual Search for New Opportunities
IV. Involves Everyone in the Organization
V. Must Be Customer Centered

Granted, these 5 Principles are NOT the only means that prospective readers can enhance their innovation strategy; however, embracing the following five innovation principles into your own unique styles and various approaches will make you better-rounded.

Let’s first understand the difference between creativity (coming up with ideas) and innovation (using those ideas to promote top-and-bottom line results for a business or personal success).

I have been privy to instances when my employer will try to implement creativity by sending a group of individuals into a ‘think tank’ brainstorming sessions. Granted, our session did unveil several new opportunities and areas of improvement; however, not a single idea was authorized and moved into the implementation phase. Similar to any large corporation and firms with outdated organizational structure and management bases, I soon realized that any unnecessary changes that did not promote growth and/or additional revenue streams would be rejected. What was this whole process supposed to accomplish??

In this instance, nothing happened because innovation was not a discipline, and our newly thought up ideas, no matter how optimistic, were pummeled by the present necessities.

I do not have specific facts to reference; however, I would assume that most organizations today have new ideas that are directed in a top-down fashion. This severely limits the potential innovation and creative means of the ‘workers’ of a company. Furthermore, these established and iconic organizations do not even allow their best assets, employees, to innovate new ideas to actions and activities that they complete on a daily process! I feel that this process has caused the backup and lack thereof of new technology, business process improvements, and the initiative to propose new inventions in the marketplace.